We’re always searching for the coolest biohacking projects all over the web, so imagine our excitement when we ran across [marcvila333’s] wearable biometric monitor on Instructables. This was a combined effort between [Marc Vila], [Guillermo Stauffacher], and [Pau Carcellé] as they were wrapping up the semester at their university. Their goal was to develop an integrated device that could modulate the wearer’s heart, and subsequently their mood and stress levels, using music.

Their device includes an LCD screen for user feedback, buttons for user input, an MP3 module, and a heart rate sensor module. The user can measure their heart rate and use the buttons to select the type of music they desire based on whether they would like to decrease or increase their heart rate. The science behind this phenomenon is still unknown, but the general sense is that different music can trigger different chemical signals in your brain, subsequently affecting your mood and other subtle physiological effects. I guess you can say that we tend to jive to the beat of our music.

It would be really cool to see their device automatically change the song to either lower or raise the user’s heart rate, making them calmer or more engaged. Maybe connect it to your tv? Currently, the user has to manually adjust the music, which might be a bit more inconvenient and could possibly lead to the placebo effect.

Either way; Cool project, team. Thanks for sharing!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/a-wearable-that-jives-to-the-beat-of-your-heart/

Working on embedded systems used to be easier. You had a microcontroller and maybe a few pieces of analog or digital I/O, and perhaps communications might be a serial port. Today, you have systems with networks and cameras and a host of I/O. Cameras are strange because sometimes you just want an image and sometimes you want to understand the image in some way. If understanding the image involves reading text in the picture, you will want to check out EasyOCR.

The Python library leverages other open source libraries and supports 42 different languages. As the name implies, using it is pretty easy. Here’s the setup:

import easyocr
reader = easyocr.Reader(['th','en'])
reader.readtext('test.jpg')

The results include four points that define the bounding box of each piece of text, the text, and a confidence level. The code takes advantage of the GPU, but you can run it in a CPU-only mode if you prefer.
There are a few other options, including setting the algorithm’s scanning behavior, how it handles multiple processors, and how it converts the image to grayscale. The results look impressive.

According to the project’s repository, they incorporated several existing neural network algorithms and conventional algorithms, so if you want to dig into details, there are links provided to both code and white papers.

If you need some inspiration for what to do with OCR, maybe this past project will give you some ideas. Or you could cheat at games.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/easyocr-makes-ocr-well-easy/

Building a macro pad inside of a 3D printed enclosure is hardly news these days. Neither is adding 3D printed keycaps to the mix. But if you go as far as [James Stanley] has, and actually print the switches themselves, we’ve got to admit that’s another story entirely.

Now you might be wondering how [James] managed to print a mechanical keyboard switch that’s the size of your garden variety Cherry. Well, the simple answer is that he didn’t. While his printed switches have the same footprint as traditional switches, they are twice as tall.

The could probably made much smaller if it wasn’t for the printed spring, but using a “real” one would defeat the purpose. Though we do wonder if the mechanical design could be simplified by making it an optical switch.

But can printed switches really stand up to daily use? [James] wondered the same thing, so he built a testing rig that would hit the switches and count how many iterations before they stopped working. This testing seems to indicate that the keys will either fail quickly due to some mechanical defect, or last for hundreds of thousands of presses. So assuming you weed out the duds early, you should be in pretty good shape.

Naturally, there are a few bits of copper inside each printed switch to act as the actual contacts. But beyond that, all you need to build one of these printable pads yourself is a USB-HID capable microcontroller like the Arduino Pro Micro. If you used the ESP32, you could even make it Bluetooth.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/3d-printing-a-macro-pad-switches-and-all/

There’s a reason why bowling lanes have bumpers and golf games have mulligans. Whether you’re learning a new game or sport, or have known for years how to play but still stink at it, everyone can use some help chasing that win. You’ve heard of the can’t-miss dart board and no-brick basketball goal. Well, here comes the robot-assisted game for the rest of us: cornhole.

The game itself deceptively simple-looking — just underhand throw a square wrist rest into a hole near the top of a slightly angled box. You even get a point for landing anywhere on the box! Three points if you make it in the cornhole. In practice, the game not that easy, though, especially if you’ve been drinking (and drinking is encouraged). But hey, it’s safer than horseshoes or lawn darts.

[Michael Rechtin] loves the game but isn’t all that great at it, so he built a robotic version that tracks the incoming bag and moves the hole to help catch it. A web cam mounted just behind the hole takes a ton of pictures and analyzes the frames for changes.

The web cam sends the bag positions it sees along with its predictions to an Arduino, which decides how it will move a pair of motors in response. Down in the cornhole there’s a pair of drawer sliders that act as the lid’s x/y gantry.

We love how low-tech this is compared to some of the other ways it could be done, even though it occasionally messes up. That’s okay — it makes the game more interesting that way. We think you should get 2 points if it lands halfway in the hole. Aim past the break to check out the build video.

Seems like there’s a robotic-assisted piece of sporting equipment for everything these days. If cornhole ain’t your thing, how’d you like to take a couple strokes off your golf game?

Thanks for the tip, [Itay]!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/robotic-cornhole-board-does-the-electric-slide/

There’s a reason why bowling lanes have bumpers and golf games have mulligans. Whether you’re learning a new game or sport, or have known for years how to play but still stink at it, everyone can use some help chasing that win. You’ve heard of the can’t-miss dart board and no-brick basketball goal. Well, here comes the robot-assisted game for the rest of us: cornhole.

The game itself deceptively simple-looking — just underhand throw a square wrist rest into a hole near the top of a slightly angled box. You even get a point for landing anywhere on the box! Three points if you make it in the cornhole. In practice, the game not that easy, though, especially if you’ve been drinking (and drinking is encouraged). But hey, it’s safer than horseshoes or lawn darts.

[Michael Rechtin] loves the game but isn’t all that great at it, so he built a robotic version that tracks the incoming bag and moves the hole to help catch it. A web cam mounted just behind the hole takes a ton of pictures and analyzes the frames for changes.

The web cam sends the bag positions it sees along with its predictions to an Arduino, which decides how it will move a pair of motors in response. Down in the cornhole there’s a pair of drawer sliders that act as the lid’s x/y gantry.

We love how low-tech this is compared to some of the other ways it could be done, even though it occasionally messes up. That’s okay — it makes the game more interesting that way. We think you should get 2 points if it lands halfway in the hole. Aim past the break to check out the build video.

Seems like there’s a robotic-assisted piece of sporting equipment for everything these days. If cornhole ain’t your thing, how’d you like to take a couple strokes off your golf game?

Thanks for the tip, [Itay]!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/robotic-cornhole-board-does-the-electric-slide/

There’s a reason why bowling lanes have bumpers and golf games have mulligans. Whether you’re learning a new game or sport, or have known for years how to play but still stink at it, everyone can use some help chasing that win. You’ve heard of the can’t-miss dart board and no-brick basketball goal. Well, here comes the robot-assisted game for the rest of us: cornhole.

The game itself deceptively simple-looking — just underhand throw a square wrist rest into a hole near the top of a slightly angled box. You even get a point for landing anywhere on the box! Three points if you make it in the cornhole. In practice, the game not that easy, though, especially if you’ve been drinking (and drinking is encouraged). But hey, it’s safer than horseshoes or lawn darts.

[Michael Rechtin] loves the game but isn’t all that great at it, so he built a robotic version that tracks the incoming bag and moves the hole to help catch it. A web cam mounted just behind the hole takes a ton of pictures and analyzes the frames for changes.

The web cam sends the bag positions it sees along with its predictions to an Arduino, which decides how it will move a pair of motors in response. Down in the cornhole there’s a pair of drawer sliders that act as the lid’s x/y gantry.

We love how low-tech this is compared to some of the other ways it could be done, even though it occasionally messes up. That’s okay — it makes the game more interesting that way. We think you should get 2 points if it lands halfway in the hole. Aim past the break to check out the build video.

Seems like there’s a robotic-assisted piece of sporting equipment for everything these days. If cornhole ain’t your thing, how’d you like to take a couple strokes off your golf game?

Thanks for the tip, [Itay]!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/robotic-cornhole-board-does-the-electric-slide/

[LearnElectronics] grabbed a FNIRSI tablet oscilloscope from a vendor from China. The device has a seven-inch touchscreen and claims to be a two-channel 100 MHz scope. But is it? Watch the video below and you’ll see.

Spoiler alert: [LearnElectronics] was skeptical of the 100 MHz claim and it looks like it is more like a 30 MHz analog bandwidth. Despite that, it does seem like a pretty capable 30 MHz scope in a very handy form factor and a very cheap price: as little as $120 or so, depending on where you shop.

The test setup was a bunch of can oscillators and up to about 30 MHz, the scope did OK. After that, the results were less than stellar. However, we aren’t sure that the test setup — on a solderless breadboard — wasn’t part of the problem and we’d have liked to see the test done with some known good quality probes as that can also contribute to bad readings even if the scope’s circuitry is up to par. We’ve seen reviews of these cheap probes that suggest they aren’t bad, but they aren’t actually all they claim, either.

The verdict? [LearnElectronics] likes it for a 30 MHz cheap scope. Of course, cheap is a relative term here. You can get a much better scope, but it will probably cost more than this one. For most of what you are probably doing with a scope, this seems like it would be adequate. On the other hand, throw in a few hundred extra dollars and you could have more channels, a more likely chance of measuring high-frequency signals, and probably enhanced measurement capabilities, too.

We will admit, though, having a portable battery-operated scope can be super handy sometimes, and you don’t always need the highest speed. You probably use your cheap multimeter more than your six and a half digit bench scope, too, right?

While the screen isn’t large, it is more convenient than a tube full of flames. And while it may not quite make 100 MHz, it is cheaper than one that will do 100 GHz.

 

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/09/tablet-oscilloscope-claims-100-mhz-but-is-it/