Brain dump time

Ok, its that time again. BRAIN DUMP!

Projects:
So my friend and I make this list every major break, like winter and summer break. I have posted our winter break list before, and now the summer list is underway. Here are some of the things that will make the list (I will post the full one when its done)

-web controlled car: My favorite IPTV show, Hak5 (go watch it, hak5.org) is doing a segment on building an r/c car that you can control over the internet. It works by basically using a computer controlled relay (Phidget) that responds to C code. The guys at Hak5 so far have written a crappy version of the C script that controls stuff in tank mode and then linked it to a PHP or AJAX page with a controller built in. So right now you can go to a website and control left, right, forward, back.

I thought this was cool, but a little $15 tank is kinda disappointing to drive around. I thought, how about something bigger? Those relays can handle up to around 100v, lets take advantage of it! Then it hit me: those electric Barbie cars, Power Wheels, that little kids have. I figured that once kids grow up, those cars (if they still work) are either thrown away or sold at yard sales. I have no idea how the motor(s) are attached or anything else, so a lot of it will depend on the specific kind of car we get. Then, we will probably upgrade the motors to drill motors and then just use the rechargeable batteries that they come with to power them. Then all of the motors get run through the Phidget which is connected to a laptop (my old Thinkpad). The Thinkpad has a webserver installed and has 2 network interfaces. The first one always connects to the strongest unprotected wireless signal. The second one is used as a backup when the primary interface is switching networks so that the connection is continous. When it is not serving as backup, it is sniffing WEP encrypted networks and cracking them. Then we can add that network to the list of OK'd networks to attach to and start communicating with. It will probably have to have a large wifi antenna, something like a 19dBi omnidirectional so we can get more networks. Then people can go to a website that is hosted on the laptop, go to the PHP (or Ajax) page, and control it. It will also have a camera (probably UStream'd) so users can see what they are doing. From there, the possibilities are endless. Depending on the amount of money we want to spend, we could add smaller r/c cars to act as scouts so multiple people can drive them. We could also make it sort of like the warcart that was done at MIT. It could have a seperate system of laptops and comm gear to intercept various frequencies. Imagine remote controlling a pink barbie car up to someones driveway and cracking their wifi, then sniffing their traffic and injecting your own http. All from the comfort of your home. Other possible mods include lights, GPS, stereo, whatever.


-cell phone rocket launcher: I tried this project once before but couldn't get it to work. The version I tried had a circuit you had to build, which I never got fully working. Instead, there is a much easier way. You simply connect the speakers on a cheap disposable cell phone to a component called a thyristor. A thyristor is basically a P and N type transistor connected so that it forms a kind of relay or switch. This is used to control the flow of a larger voltage that sets off the rocket fuse. So once you call the disposable phone, the speaker sends a small amount of voltage to the thyristor which then dumps all the voltage from the large battery in to the rocket ignitor, so the rocket launches. I am ordering the thyristor so it will be home in time for spring break. Hopefully I can get this one done then, since it is a pretty simple wiring job.

-laser cutter: This involves getting 2 old scanners from the salvation army. It turns out that scanners use a special kind of motor called a stepper motor, which if you buy them are actually kind of expensive. So instead, we use the motors and the axis from both scanners and interface them to an old win95 box via the parallel port. Then there is a open source software out there that will allow me to have them act as the laser cutter chassis. Then all you need is a laser. I was thinking of getting one from ebay, maybe a 500mW one. At that size, the come in convenient form: the laser is actually directed out a fiber optic cable, so you just fix that to the intercept of the 2 axis bars and turn it on.

-lab power supply: lab power supplies are expensive. There are a couple of tutorials on the web on how to turn an old desktop PSU into one. I will need a power supply for the project above, so hopefully I will be able to get one working.

-office supplies rocket: there is an instructables on this as well, I will put it up later.

All of this stuff will be complimented later with pictures, status, and more detailed descriptions.