DIY electronics

PROGRAMMABLE LED ILLUMINATION OF A PRIVATE HOUSE
Christmas illumination
This Christmas, our house in Novato is decorated with huge, shining, white space invaders and bright green Christmas trees. The phrases "Merry Christmas!" and "Happy New Year!" are displayed as a scrolling text. In terms of technology, our house has the most sophisticated Christmas decorations.

This illumination cost about $400. It consists of 16 16.5 feet long LED strips. An Arduino Mega processor controls 4800 lights via 8500 resistors.

Additional components are three 5 V power supplies, connectors of the LED strips, wires and three voltage stabilizers that protect LEDs against voltage drops.
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This device sends us 160 years back, to the beginning of widespread electronic communications
A Blueetooth telegraph
The device consists of:
  • SG-90 servo motor
  • Step motor
  • Switch
  • Arduino Sketch
  • HC-06 Bluetooth module
  • Android application that picks up and duplicates all mobile push-up messages via a Bluetooth channel (including SMS, reminders of the calendar and other applications)
  • Arduino Nano
  • 3D printer (to make the casing)
  • axles, screws, board fixtures and other off-the-shelf assembly parts

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At a glance, it resembles a gaming console from the past. However, it makes it possible to not only play games, but also browse Web sites, watch YouTube videos.
It even has a touch screen!
Self-made micro-notebook
Total cost of the components: $171, including:
  • Raspberry Pi III — $35
  • Pi TFT Display Touch screen — 40
  • KBD — $50
  • Battery — $12
  • Amplifier — $7
  • Speeker — $2
  • PowerBoost 1000c — $20
  • Mic — $5
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Inspired by the Soviet electronic game "Just You Wait!", which was extremely popular in the 1970s and was a perfect copy of the Nintendo EG-26-EGG console
A gaming console printed on a 3D printer
This work should be performed in several standard steps:
  1. Choose the game that will be the core of the gaming gadget. We used the source code of the Flappy Bird game, which was written and published by enthusiastic Themistokle Benetatos, and is available on GitHub. In our case, the game required a few modifications to fit the format of the display of our console. Additionally, we rewrote the fragment of the code that determined the game rendering rate.
  2. Prepare a prototype of the casing and print it out on a 3D printer. We needed the SketchUp software for 3D modeling, Arduino Nano, a display, a battery, a charging device, an input connector, and two switches.
  3. Assemble the ready console.
  4. Market it! My son Savva brought the first version of the console to school, where it was stolen smoothly due to a great interest in the unique self-made gaming device. This situation inspired us to create a modified version of the console, where the location of the main control was more conveniently and the casing color, more pleasing visually.
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Main Project
WOWCUBE, the first-ever rotating gaming console invented to spur on the human evolution by twisting and shaking