mechtopia

The dowse-o-matic 1000

Recent visitors to my blog may have read the post about the busk-o-matic 3000. buoyed with enthusiasm for constructing computer controlled mechanical devices, I have been pondering the creation of a dowsing device.

The aim is to allow people to test their dowsing skill in an automated fashion. My preliminary thoughts are to have a pair of reservoirs linked by a pair of tubes. A computer will randomly select one of of two solenoids that will allow water to flow from the upper to lower reservoir via one of two paths, and the dowser will press a button to indicate which of the two tubes contain the flowing water.

This process will be repeated until a statistically significant number of tests have been performed.

I don't for one moment think that this apparatus will fulfill every dowsers requirements for a test... I see it more as a fun device to make scientific testing more accesible to the masses.

So.... what do you think? Do you have any suggestions?

Posted at 11:40AM Nov 02, 2009 by ohp in Projects  |  Comments[0]

The Busk-o-matic 3000

Ever since attending my first karaoke night, I've wondered if I can harness the power of the wailing and catterwalling masses for the good of mankind.

So I created a device, which I have called the busk-o-matic 3000

Here's how you use it:

• Each singer is given an RFID chip that uniquely identifies tham as a singer.
• The singer places an RFID chip on the back of the unit at the beginning of the song.
• As the song progresses, the audience puts money in one of two slots, depending on their positive, or negative reaction to the act.
• A running balance of positive and negative contributions is indicated by the arrow.
• If the arrow should move into the red zone before the end of the song, it will be ended prematurely.
• At the end of the night, prizes can be awarded to the best singer, the singer that raised the most money etc..

Here's how it works:

Coin counting is done by a pair of Mars Electronics Cashflow 126 coin mechanisms. These are nice mechs in that they have a nice simple parallel interface mechanism, which is pretty cheap and easy to interface with. I've used a phidgets USB 16/16/0 interface board to interface with the computer.

The RFID reader is a phidgets USB RFID board, which reads the unique 125khz em4102 tags

The arrow is moved by a standard rc servo, via a usb phidgets servo controller.

The brains of the operation is a java program that maintains an internal database of all of the deposits made. This can be queried for winner reports.

The unit has been tested in a real environment. In an hour and a half, 11 singers raised 67 pounds for charity.

First Test Run

Here are some charts generated by the Busk-o-matic's internal database after the first test run.

Improvements to be made:

• Improve coin validation. About 30% of the coins were rejected. Some coin path modifications would address this.
• An audible and alarm when the singer has reached the low threshold
• Make better use of the coin sorting mechanism offered by the mechs.
• The unit could be made more visible in dark lighting enviroments
• Nicer looking case
• Enclosed arrow, so that people don't try to break it off!
• An embedded motherboard. I have plenty of spare ITX boards on which I can run Linux

Watch this space... coming soon, the busk-o-matic 4000!

Posted at 10:57PM Oct 06, 2009 by ohp in Projects  |  Comments[0]