MindKits News and Blog

Gaming event Auckmageddon is back once again, and thanks to Orcon with Vector fibre, connected to the Internet at ridiculously fast speeds.

Auckmageddon 6 is actually the seventh event of a series that has been running since 1997, and will see up to 400 gamers compete at the North Harbour Stadium for over 48 hours in February.

Event organizer Richard Patterson says: “We had such a fantastic response from the previous events that we’re back with even more prizes, bigger network, and even faster internet.” Read More...

Ever wished you had your own workshop? Well, Tangleball off Auckland’s Newton Road are happy to lend you theirs. This friendly community of makers, crafters, brewers, geeks, cyclists, artists - and even some ordinary people - has taken over a basement workshop and opened it up.  Read More...

Here's a nice simple demonstration of ingenuity and efficiency. MindKits customer Frits Schouten modified his outdoor light to use LED lighting. Pretty awesome to see the results. Lots more light at less than half the power.
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Secret door knocks need to get a new look, here's a Arduino project that gives it a new version. This project uses suction cups to the door, so you don't need to make holes on a door, and if you want, move it to another door.
Guest Blogger: William George
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This years' project by Jamie Maloway spurred from every engineering student's basic need for caffeine combined with the outrageous price of on-campus coffee, both coupled with the perpetual need for convenience and a high level of geekiness.
The ultimate project goal was to take a ordinary, off-the-shelf automatic drip coffee maker and hook it up to the Internet with a nice little web interface that you could easily get at with a mobile phone or from a PC.
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The Camera Axe is a tool for photographers to trigger cameras or flashes based signals from various sensors. It is useful for catching phenomena that happen too quickly for human reflexes, like photographing a popping balloon or a milk droplet splash. Other uses can be to catch things photographers don't want to wait around for like birds flying to a bird feeder or surveillance of people walking down a hallway. The possibilities are endless.
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Wondering about how to control anything in your house with a simple remote control? It's pretty simple and cheap.
Here is what you will need:

- Arduino (I use UNO)
- Solderless breadboard
- An infrared receiver
- Solderless wires
- Any kind of remote control
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Scientists and inventors have been working overtime recently to come up with brilliant ways to improve the lives of the visually impaired. The most recent development would allow the blind to navigate city streets with the help of haptic device embedded in a pair of shoes.  Read More...

If you're like me and spent hours and hours in front of a TV as a youth with blobs and sprites racing across the screen to approximate things in real life - often note very well - then you'll remember the accompanying tunes blairing out as you race, jump or weaved across levels. They're a cross between a cricket on LSD and a guitar in a blender but they're happily burned into my brain. 
Well these fine Arduino folk have created a chip tune demo on an Arduino and all you'll need is an arduino, a speaker and some power. Check it out.
Source Link Here
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It brings me endless entertainment to see how just the little touches can breath personality and life into what would otherwise be a void of character and bring a smile to our faces as a result. This little yellow robot just brightens my day and I hope it brightens yours too. 
If you'd like to build one you can check out some code and instructions here. Read More...

Phwoar, 'Blinky' the all purpose 'must do' project for anyone beginning with Arduino just had a dose of Christmas cheer. This festive beginners project injects arduino knowledge into unsuspecting beginners while they have fun building a Blinky Christmas tree. Source Link Here 

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Possibly not the future of DJing but a very way to experience music in a new way. Play a vinal 'record' disc in one of four locations to induce the aural delight. Source Link Here
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You know this is a CLOCK, right. New age clock that looks cool at home or work.
How many timepieces can you program at your leisure, unfortunately you can't make the real world of time to go backwards, but get mesmerised from the LEDs!
Watch the video if you're not sure what clock to buy, or just because your interested!
(Guest Blogger: William George)  
Click 'Read More' for a video of it in action
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Lets use a old fridge for something! Putting together some hardware, we can get a flash Web Interface that can check the temperatures in- and outside of your fridge where your home-brew fermentation is going. The video gives you more detail about this project and that it can be used for more than just making beer!
(Guest Blogger: William George)  
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This is to help kids of all ages explore electronics with play dough. It can show you how electricity works in a more simple way, and too make things more safer, the dough that you make can use gluten-free flour. We have the colored (Conductive) dough above that helps the flow of electricity from the batteries through the dough to the LED and going back to the battery lighting it. We do have to make sure the coloured dough in this circuit do not touch each other, thats where the white (Insulating) dough comes in, electricity does not past through this, as you see the image with all the dough packed, just makes this tidier. Videos can be found here  from making the dough to making a squishy circuits, even using Arduino to make Squishy sounds!
(Guest Blogger: William George) 
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This CoolCircuits project can help a lot of people, even the handicapped/disabled. We all would like some new cool age device to do things for us, the keyboard hasn't changed for agos! This wearable glove connected to an Arduino, has many ways to work for the person, one is that it can work as a mobile keypad (having multiple points/switches on the palm) so you can type a letter. There is lots more you can do with this, follow the video link to see more about this great invention.
(Guest Blogger: William George) 
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Exerpt from LifeHacker:
"If you're looking for a good Arduino starter project and you have the tools and time to get the job done, here's a great seasonal activity that will help you build your skills and join your house's holiday light display to a global network of lights, all synchronized and controlled by Twitter."  Read More...

Quote from Geek.Com
"Before you throw out those old floppy drives you had stored in a box in the garage, you may want to take a look at a code project that breathes new life into those doorstops. How so you ask? By making sweet, sweet music for gaming geeks across the world. Introducing Moppy, a musical floppy controller that was written to run on an Arduino Uno."
Original post here Read More...

Here's a nice Instructable's project using an Arduino to sense a signal from a PIR sensor (the sensors you see in homes with alarms) and triggers a mini spy cam that you can get from ebay/Trademe for a few bucks. Fins out which of your cats likes peeing on your keyboard when you're out of build a home alarm system.
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In the first part of the video, the destination points are selected ahead of time and collision-free trajectories are pre-computed. All the trajectories are stored before execution. In the second part of the video, however, the next set of destination points is picked at random while the vehicles are still en-route, demonstrating that the algorithm is fast enough to be used in real-time.
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