Posts Tagged ‘screenshot’



Twitter Hack – How to Make an RFID Cat Tracker!

April 11th, 2009

Couple days ago, we saw the cat-tracking Tweeting Cat Door that will let you know when your cat has left the house. (and came back)  Now, we found something even better than that, an RFID cat tracker that will let you track the cat when he/she is within certain boundaries of RFID signals, a much better solution for those of you who either don’t have a cat door or simply want to track your cat within a specified area.

This gadget is called CATaLOG, cat tracking/logging system based on Arduino, RS232 RFID module, and Arduino Ethernet Shield.

rfid-twitter

The author Pete has open sourced the code so if you got some soldering skills, just get the parts, simply put it together, load the code, and you should be set to go so you can track your cat via twitter.  (You can see an example of the device working @BobbinAndTuffin.

bobbin

(screenshot of @BobbinAndTuffin)

The CATaLOG project aims to track our two cats Bobbin and Tuffin as they go in and out of the house so we can see which cat spends more time outside, what their favourite time to go out is, and also get sent SMS messages if a cat goes missing for a certain amount of time.

Great job Pete and make sure to let us know on any future Twitter Hacks via @TweetHacking.

CATaLOG Homepage

via hackedgadgets

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Sonar Distance Twitter Buzzer!

April 8th, 2009

Using an ultrasonic range finder modules from SparkFun and Arduino microcontroller as the controller, Josh over at blog.joshuamcginnis.com has created an awesome DIY sonar distance Twitter buzzer that will tweet the distance he’s sitting/standing from his laptop.

Now, this might look very useless but it can come in handy for security applications or other DIY projects that need status updates via Twitter.

sonar-1

Here’s the screenshot of @hereandaway, which will tell you how far Josh is sitting from the computer:

sonar-2

Great job Josh, let us know on any new updates with your cool sonar project, perhaps you can make a wireless version and stick it on your dog…

arduino & sonar returns your distance away from the computer and it is displayed on the screen. the farther away you are from the computer the larger the text and the greener the screen. the closer you are, the smaller the text and the redder the screen. get within 5 inches and a buzzer alarms. distance is twittered.

via hacks blog

Twitter Hack – DIY Tweeting Washing Machine!

April 8th, 2009

A perfect Twitter application is the one that uses 9 volt power for BS2 (Basic Stamp Microcontroller), connected serially to a server, and also “tweets” when your clothes are done, thus DIY Tweeting Washing Machine is born.

I am sure you can recall countless times waiting helplessly at a laundry room, now there’s a better solution, make yourself one of these tweeting washing machines.

tweeting-washing-machine

tweeting-washing-machine-2

You will need the following and a little hacking will be involved:

BS2 – Basic Stamp 2 or even CUBLOC modules work too. (or Arduino) – These are basically microcontrollers you can program in BASIC language, very easy to program.

BetaBrite – BetaBrite sells these giant LED modules which can easily be hooked up to a Basic Stamp to display messages.  Of course, these might actually have ethernet connectivity too, in which case you can “tweet” the status to Twitter.

Here’s a screenshot of what kinds of tweets you can expect after washing your clothes: (@pimpy3wash)

pimpy

Can you imagine now how helpful this gadget would be for you?

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Tweeting Cat Door!

April 8th, 2009

More and more hackers and engineers are learning the value of  Twitter’s microblogging platform and this Tweeting Cat Door is another such great feat that will update you the status of your cat door.  Whether your cat is leaving town or coming home with his/her friends, you will be sure to be tweeted if they go through the cat door.

cat-door

cat-door-2

Here’s a screenshot of the updates on the Tweeting Cat Door, you can follow @GusAndPenny.

Each cat has a small RFID tag on the collar. When a cat is in the close proximity of the door, a small RFID reader reads the tag and if the cat is authorized, a servo will unlock the cat door. The RFID reader and the servo controller are connected to an old laptop. The software on the laptop is written in Delphi and for each “cat door event” is sending a Twitter message and a picture to twitter.com

via diy blog