It takes a lot of microcontrollers — and a lot of wire — to make a UFO.

Four Atmel ATMEGA328 controllers mounted on Evil Mad Science dev boards handle the LED programs. One for landing lights, one for dome / ring, one for tractor beam, and a master controller. Sound is handled by an Arduino with an Adafruit Wave Shield and a homemade amp. The Atmel mcus control Allegro A6276 LED driver chips, which can control 16 LEDs each. We use three of the A6276 drivers.

One of our window props. Sits about 12 inches high and flashes weird patterns on the front white display. The “rads” meter is back-lit with a blue LED.

Our theme this year is Area 51, so aliens are on the agenda. Here are some photos of the 4 foot wide UFO:

Here are some photos of our newest product, the LED Silhouette light:

The art piece starts with a hand painted reverse silhouette, resulting in translucent white patterns on a glossy black background. The silhouette is then installed in a Ribba shadowbox frame and protected by a glass front.

Inside sits a custom LED lighting assembly, designed and built by Evelyn. The twelve hand-soldered LEDs are driven by a microcontroller, resulting in a series of unique lighting effects. When turned on, the unit can display a variety of different color effects, from random colors, to warm glows and solid colors.

On the back a single button controls the LED lighting. Simply press the button to cycle through the effects. It’s designed to fit your mood or your favorite colors and is very easy to use.

The art piece is ideal for placement on mantels, end tables, bookshelves, or any flat surface near a wall outlet. As the power plug is found in the back, this piece cannot be hung on a wall.

The frame is 10” x 10” square and 1 ¾” deep. The unit requires 2” of clearance toward the back to accommodate the power plug.

While scanning through the blogs today I saw the results of a survey. The survey asked what people would like robots to do for them. People wanted robots which:

• Clean the floors
• Clean the windows
• Clean blah blah blah

In other words, people wanted a maid.

What didn’t they want from a robot?

• Driving
• Helping children
• Keeping one company

If you were designing robots you’d take this and say “well, I guess I better make a robot maid” to which I would say “you’re out of your fucking mind”.

In other words: Ignore the results.

Why? Because a survey tells you what people are thinking about now, and the “now” is just about as useless as you can get. Honestly, how many people do you know — yourself included — who are visionary? Almost nobody.

Ask someone 10 years ago if they needed / wanted a web based video streaming service. Ask them about storing thousands of songs and applications on a phone. Ask then about a way to connect with old friends and play inane games hours on end. Would they want / need this stuff? Probably not.

That’s the point with innovation. If you follow the survey, you’ll develop a bunch of fucking robot vacuums. Instead, you should be developing for markets that don’t yet exist.

It’s not rocket science. Just look around you. What is more important to people — having a clean floor, or having someone to talk to? I’ll wager that most people would like a companion, human or robot, before they want a maid.

Among all those remotes and telephones are a surprising number of receivers.

This guy is my new hero. Thanks for the find, DG.

Update: At first I thought this guy was a Ham, but from a closer observation I see a lot of receivers, but no transceivers. Of course, it’s a little hard to tell for sure, but it looks like mainly listening (in particular, air traffic).

I recently picked up a 5 pack of cheap 2 GB HP USB memory sticks (what I call “fobs”).

My intention was to take the fob and embed it into a steampunk body. It is going to be a gift for my sister and would end up looking something like one of these:

(The above is an example. It’s not mine.)

So, the first thing I needed to do was to crack open the case and see how big of a space I’d need. I figured at worst it would be the same size as the plastic case, but maybe I’d get lucky.

And I started prying. And trimming. And peeking with a flashlight. And look what I discovered:

Yep, most of that plastic is just empty airspace. That metal can thing (half of which gets stuffed into your computer’s USB port) is all it takes to store the 2 GB of data.

This pretty clearly illustrates how memory sizes have come down. A couple of years ago that case would have been stuffed with memory chips. Now the connector takes more space than the memory. Good news for me, who wants to put the memory into a brand new case. (Note that if you have an older fob it might not be so empty — you have been warned. Start by being careful, and then if you see air space, start cutting.)

This got me thinking: ReadyBoost. See, I recently picked up a Toshiba netbook with 1 GB of RAM. I didn’t want to spend more coin on a memory upgrade, so I thought that ReadyBoost would be an option. This Windows 7 (and Vista) feature allows you to use USB memory sticks as additional cache space, effectively giving the machine 3 GB of RAM to work with. And given the sluggish 5400 RPM hard drives in most laptops, more memory is a good thing.

Trouble is, the USB fobs stick out too far, risking me breaking them off. Well, now that’s a lot less likely with a case-less USB memory stick:

It sticks out about 1/2″ — which is certainly better than the 1 3/4″ a regular fob would have stuck out. We’ll see how it helps. (Not that the Netbook is sluggish — Windows 7 runs very well on it.)

Now that I’ve confirmed how small these buggers are, I’ll start crafting a steampunk case for one.

Recently I’ve seen a number of sites discuss the Panavise. Specifically, which is best for the beginner? Here is my executive summary:

If you are starting out with electronics you only need one, and it’s this one: The Panavise Jr.

PanaVise Model 201

It’s cheap (< $20), it opens pretty wide (2.8 inches), it rotates all over the place, and it has slots for holding printed circuit boards. I have yet to meet a basic electronics kit PCB that doesn’t fit into it.

If you need to work with bigger boards on a regular basis, your next purchase would be the 305 Multi-Purpose Center:

PanaVise 350 Multi-Purpose Work Center

It’s about $55 and has a gigantic (9″) opening.

My least useful Panavise? The 301 Standard / 381 Standard With Vac. It’s a good vise, but really crappy for holding circuit boards.

I use the Jr. 80% of the time, the 305 about 10% of the time, and all my others (381, 333) the remaining 10%.

Long story short, if you are doing electronics, get the Jr and then get the 305. You’ll be happy. Toss in a 301/381 is you also need a more traditional vise.