The $7 DIY Oculus Rift for iPhone & iPod Touch!

If you're anything like me you're kind of extremely psyched about the Oculus Rift. Immersive gaming, FPV RC piloting, and a possible shift in how we use our personal computers all together is a year or two from going mainstream.

Also, if you're anything like me, you didn't have the $300 to spend on the DK1's kickstater. And you also don't have the $350 to plunk down on the DK2 preorder.

So what do we do? DIY if course!

The first stop should be where the rift originated, MTBS3D.com. People have a few different approaches here. Some choose to make their own Rift from scratch, the Nova is a great example. Downsides? It might just so happen to look like plastic, circuit board, and a cheap welder's mask all glued together. Because that's what it is. It's also heavy and will cost around $150 plus hours in construction and tweaking. I could not convince myself to drop $150 that could be put towards the real deal, DK2 or a future Consumer Version. Moving on.

It seems for any technological problem, if you wait long enough, Google will solve it. They did just that by releasing the very DIY Cardboard. This is so DIY they didn't even release a kit. They give detailed instructions and links where to purchase the materials, then you're on your own. Of course, eager entrepreneurs jumped on the opportunity and began releasing full kits for a premium price on Amazon. Still, $20 for a 3D headset is pretty freakin good!

So that's it right? The easiest, cheapest option with no drawbacks or shortcomings whatsoever. Wrong! Google, of course, made the Cardboard Android only. Not a huge deal, an iPhone will squeeze in there. But before my parts even arrived in the mail, I spotted an even better solution on a random shopping trip to Ollie's Bargain Outlet. I give you, the Hasbro MY3D!

Apparently Hasbro tried to pin down the 3D headset market for kids and missed. I have no idea how. The stock app UI is good and even the demo has decent content (games and movie trailers). The MY3D is well built, it feels like it could easily survive a fall but is not too heavy to strap to your head. Retractable pins allow swapping trays to perfectly fit your iPhone/iPod touch. It even has a rubber bumper to prop it at an angle off the table so you can operate it hands-free. Available on Amazon for under $7, this checks all the boxes! Poor marketing is all I can think of for what doomed its fate. Either way, it no longer fits modern devices so it is on clearance just about everywhere. And who doesn't have an older iPhone gathering dust and begging to be useful once again!?

The only question left is what do you do for content? The Cardboard apps are Android-only. MY3D is all but abandoned. There seems to be some iOS apps being cranked out by devs but they are few and far between. Besides, we don't care about mobile apps, we want 3D PC gaming!

Enter Splashtop. I found out about splashtop on Reddit a year or two ago. A Redditor was bragging about his mobile gaming solution that encompassed a desktop, an iPad, a XBOX controller, and Splashtop. Using the controller as input, he claimed he could control the desktop and have the video stream pushed back to the iPad wirelessly. And he claimed it was playable. For science, I downloaded the Splashtop app on my iPad and ran through a few different games to test the latency. I was surprised at how playable the games were, there was minimal delay between my inputs and the game's response. I didn't have a huge need to game from anywhere other than my desk, so I uninstalled the program and filed it under "neat". Until now!

I present my solution to the DIY Rift: MY3D + iPod Touch 3G + Splashtop

Make a Post-Apocalyptic Offline Wikipedia Reader Tablet!

He who holds the knowledge, holds the power!

This thought always echoes in my head when I see natural disaster footage. People (that aren't looting scum-of-the-earth) naturally scramble for food and water as their first priority when SHTF. Second to this, they try to group together with other people in hope that they will have the knowledge (and resources) on how to survive better than themselves. This behavior is amplified as we have learned to depend on technology to the point that we become useless when it goes away. Why spend your life stuffing your brain full of garbage that you can just Google?

These crazed, rambling thoughts made me determined to assure I had all of humanity's knowledge in case of disaster. Knowing how to grow corn, or distill water, or make black powder could save you and your family's life. Sure, you may know some or many of these things, but you don't know everything. And when the pressure is on, you'll want to get it right the first time.

The obvious choice is an offline copy of Wikipedia. The database holds every scrap of human knowledge on practically every subject. It's free, open source, and the archive dumps are easily downloadable.

The more difficult decision is hardware. A laptop would offer flexibility over a tablet but are more expensive. This makes it less likely you can keep it safely stored only to be used during an emergency. A tablet makes more sense if solely for this application.

I made up a short list of requirements before searching for the perfect chassis to build my reader:

• Must be able to run or root to full Android (not some e-reader software front-end crap)
• Must have an e-ink screen
• Must have a very long battery life
• Must accept the common Micro-USB standard charging cable
• Must be cheap cheap cheap!

 Luckily, there are many e-readers that meet the list. However, one caught my eye over the others: Nook Simple Touch. This thing was so cheap it is practically disposable. I found one on sale on Slickdeals for $30 and scooped it up.

Now for the fun part!

I first needed get the Nook off of that horrible Barnes & Noble OS. Luckily, the Nook Simple Touch (NST) is already running Android 2.1, it just has a B&N front-end pasted on top that the user is bound to. So no risky OS flash/change has to happen, it's as easy as rooting!

I searched around for a well-reviewed rooting process for my Nook and found NookManager. I downloaded NookManager and burned it to a small 2GB MicroSD card I had laying around using Win32 Disk Imager. It's an easy process and you should have that utility installed anyway. It is probably the best thing for Win7 when it comes to burning RasPi images or creating backup images from USB/SD storage.

Follow the direction in the NookManager link. Including making that backup!
You're done at Step 8! You could install the Google crapware but it will do nothing but lessen your battery life. You want to keep this tablet lean! So I also opted to remove all B&N apps with NookManager. Do it only if you are sure you don't want to use it as a B&N eReader.

Once you reboot with the MicroSD removed, you should be greeted with an Android-ish screen. It isn't incredibly intuitive but poke around and you'll learn it fast enough. This isn't full blown KitKat, its UI is thin and light, which is good!

Next, we need to get Wikipedia on this eReader that was freed from its bonds!
My first choice was Kiwix. This is very well-reviewed offline Wikipedia reading software for pretty much every platform. There is an issue. It's not running on the NST. If you don't believe me, install the Google crapware, find it on the Play Store, install it, run it. Then, go to Sourceforge and grab it. You too will get the very non-descriptive, very infuriating "Parse Error" while trying to use it. I found other people with the same issue on xda-developers. Turns out it requires Android 3.0 or higher and the NST runs on Android 2.1. That would have been a more helpful error message! Oh well, moving on.

Following their suggestion, I looked into Aard Dictionary. I was very impressed with what I saw and decided to give it a try. Install is easy enough, download the apk onto your MicroSD card. Pop it into the NST. When it recognizes, tap to install it. Done!

The final step is to get the Wikipedia dump onto the tablet. The NST only has 2GB of internal storage. You're going to need a MicroSD for this. I would recommend a 32GB since they're getting uber cheap. I used a 16GB since it's what I already had. I grabbed the Wiki dump from Aard Dictionary's website (scroll to the bottom). You'll have to choose based on what will fit on your card. At the time of writing, "English (without reference lists and info boxes)" clocked in just under 16GB. If you have a 32GB card you can probably torrent the "Simple English" or "English (most popular articles)". Once it's all torrented, copy it over to your MicroSD and pop it in your NST. You're done!

To use, launch Aard Dictionary and it should scan the MicroSD card automatically. Browse away and sleep soundly knowing that you now hold all of humanity's knowledge in your bunker.

Bonus points if you wrap it in aluminum foil before storage!

QU-BD TwoUp 3D Printer Build!

I was one of the lucky ones to snag a QU-BD TwoUp off of their kickstarter last November. Unfortunately it was only a month after throwing my money at the peachy printer kickstarter. But presented with an open source, "production ready," $300 extrusion printer with many features based on my dream RepRap printers, who could say no?

After what has been the second longest wait from a kickstarter, (I'm looking at you HackRF) I am officially a proud owner of a 3D printer! I have been drooling for one for years but even the smallest MakerBot's price tag was way outside of my reach. And this awesome piece of machinery surpasses those early printers in every way. Up to 175mm x 175mm x 125mm at 100mm/s in 50 micron layers, nerdgasm.

Build Guide
<coming soon>

First Prints
Of course the first thing I would print should be a glass to toast the machine. I grabbed the stl for the standard reprap christening mini mug and let Repetier do its thing.

...and the result was not so good. I was still so excited I was physically shaking but I knew the machine was capable of better. With a few tweaks I thought I would give it another try. A glass should at least hold liquid.

Success! The second print came out better than I could have hoped for. The quality approaches what I have seen commercial printers get out of PLA. A comparison between print #1 and print #2:

After that things got a little fuzzy. When I snapped out of my 3D printing hysteria I was greeted with many tiny creations, each with their own lessons learned.

One final print with my final remnants of PLA that shipped with the printer. Had to show off my Jeep pride. You wouldn't download a car?

Overall I am beyond ecstatic about how this all came out. I wish I could have gotten into the movement earlier but even building a RepRap was daunting and expensive. Having a kit turned this from a 6 month build into a 6 hour build. I cannot give enough props to QU-BD for creating this awesome printer to meet the need of people like me.

New Hobby: Google Earth Grassfitti

You have to cut the grass, why not make it interesting? I have been cutting a perfect spiral around my fire pit for a year waiting for Google Earth to update. Finally it happened! AND it is actually visible.

With this small success I will begin planning a more complex designs for the next update. This will keep me busy until get a chance to build my Ardupilot/RC mower!

Doge Mining: to the moon!

Obligatory components-in-boxes pic:

Debugging and getting the system up and running.

 My rig and a friend's running headless and mining away!

A Bitcoin Miner's Journel

Everybody has a bitcoin story, here is mine (wall of text warning):

Early August in 2011, I started seeing the occasional Reddit post about some new currency called Bitcoin. I did my homework and once I started to process how it worked I was immediately in love with the idea that my computer could help create a currency by crunching some algorithm via the GPU. I've contributed to the distributed programs Folding@Home and SETI since High School, but this one would actually make me money! I spec'd out a decent mining rig for around $1000 using other people's hardware as a baseline to hit my goal of 1500 Mhash/s. I let the rig sit in my cart for a week and finally decided against it. Posts kept appearing claiming I missed Bitcoins big boom and mining was no longer economically feasible. Bitcoin was almost a dollar or something ridiculous and the difficulty factor was rising quickly.

The idea was still interesting and fun so I decided to throw together a mining rig with some parts that I already had. I mined from August until January 2012 and made about .6 BTC. During this span BTC doubled from $1 to $2. That would be great for an investor but, for a miner, $1.20 in BTC was hardly worth the 6 months in electricity I was using. I considered the experiment a complete and powered down the miner.

Through the year Bitcoin continued to slowly climb in value. I continually spec'd out new systems but never had the spare cash to actually buy one. It broke $10 around November 2012, which was a big deal. The idea that a digital cryptocurrency with no tangible value and no governments backing it could be worth $10 each was mind blowing. That was enough for me to fire up the mining rig again and see what the current yield was. I didn't stop with the one rig this time though. On and off, every computer in my possession was mining when it was not in use. When the month was over I tallied up the total and discovered I mined .4 BTC. Even with the rise in BTC value, it still was not economical to mine with my current hardware. I shut everything off once that .4 BTC was added to my .6 BTC. Having 1 Bitcoin in my wallet was enough to give me closure on this whole ridiculous thing. Or so I thought.

Bitcoin started exploding in early 2013. By March it was obvious it could actually hit $100 per BTC. I could not handle sitting idle any more! I did not have much but I was able to budget $100 for some new hardware. I snagged a deal for two Radeon HD 6750s for $100 and put them to work immediately. The payout was awesome, at first. I was making about .05 BTC a day! After about a week, .05 BTC every other day. Then once every three days. As the value went absolutely crazy, more and more miners were joining. This causes the difficulty to rise. And it did not take long for my cheap cards to become as obsolete as my original miner. And then the final blow, the ASIC Block Erupter, an FPGA programmed to mine Bitcoins. These were so efficient that one of them could mine as well at both of my cards at a fraction of the Watts. All GPU miners were now becoming obsolete. I shut down the miner July 2013 once I was down to mining .005 BTC a day. To celebrate the end, I ordered Dominos Pizza using Bitcoin which ended up costing me .4 BTC.

My total earnings during this experience was around 2.2 BTC but the fun had and knowledge gained was priceless. I also learned to trust my instincts more. If it weren't for being otherwise dissuaded, I would have built that rig in 2011. Almost everybody who knew about Bitcoin in the beginning has a story about how they were so close to being millionaires. Some were much closer to others and some were actually millionaires that lost their fortunes in different ways. I was somewhere in the middle, I did not come out of it badly but there will always be some regret.

RTL SDR: Running gqrx on OSX

This post is long overdue. Mid-2012, some ubernerds were poking around some cheap Realtek RTL2832U based USB TV tuners and discovered they could use GNU Radio to receive and demodulate a much wider frequency range than the device was designed for. I saw a Reddit post referencing the breakthrough and got really excited over the idea of a Software Defined Radio for the average dude. I subscribed to the new subreddit, /r/RTLSDR, and ordered an ezcap DVB-TFM DAB on DealExtreme.

I received the ezcap and, like many before me, had no clue where to start. I grabbed a Raspberry Pi and installed GNU Radio since I knew that was Step 1. Then I started compiling other people's projects with mixed results. All I wanted (to start) was an easy to use GUI with a few demodulation options and maybe a waterfall. Through searching I found gqrx. This software meets everything I wanted and more. The RPi is not exactly known for being a workhorse; and demodulating a FM signal and showing the waterfall for a 1MHz bandwidth brought it to its knees. If only something existed for OSX, an easy solution to implement on my MacBook. If only...

it does! A hero named Elias Oenal went into an older version of gqrx and ported it to OSX. It doesn't get any easier than this. Download gqrx_8.dmg, install it, plug in the ezcap, enjoy!



Bonus pic: talking to myself.

gqrx on crunchbang on a M6400 receiving an AM signal being broadcast from the Arduino

Christmas Lights 2013

After a year hiatus I finally finished the redesigned light controllers and put on a Christmas light show! Video first. Here is the new song for this year.

Vixen played the show automatically on the half hour. Much better than manually triggering it in the cold! I also added an FM transmitter to allow the audience to enjoy the show from their warm horseless carriages. Also, a bit more neighborly than gigantic speakers blasting TSO all hours of the night.

As I discussed in my 2011 review, the hundreds of extension cords had to go. My best solution was to use the software approach of object orientation to break up the large relay boards into smaller, manageable modules. I knew I wanted 5-6 relays per box, so CAT5 worked perfectly to carry the Arduino signals to the relay boards. Working with my buddy, Josh Arndt, we came up with a plan and he designed some extremely professional relay boards. It simply took two years for me to get the boards made and tested.

But first! I had to put the Arduino in something to protect it. Since I was using CAT5, I figured one of the broken Linksys routers lying around would do nicely. It's not super pretty but it holds the Arduino and the RJ-45 rail.

 
Now time to focus on the relay boards. The boards were soldered and tested.

I harvested most of the parts from the original light controller.

 
I used our CNC machine to mill out the junction boxes and face plates.

Test fitting the 6-gang wall cover.

Time for assembly!

The whole set, collect them all!

Finally, time to set up the show! You can see the extension cords are not gone but this is much, MUCH cleaner than 2011.

The show went extremely well! The entire thing was fully automated and broadcast on 91.1FM. It almost looked professional. (Minus me never putting up a sign to specify the frequency, DOH!)

Here is the entire ~15 minute show.

What are the plans for next year? Well, now that the base 5 boxes (30 channels) are built, all I have to do is add as many boxes as I need to expand the show. When/if I max out my Arduino, Vixen even supports adding multiple Arduinos as COM port controllers. I may even make one of the boxes solid state relays for 6 dimming channels with PWM. So stay tuned for many more updates and changes as this crazy experiment continues to evolve!

I leave you with a couple aerial shots taken with the quad. Yes, it was the X1; the big quad is still in pieces. (Coming soon: my loving wife got me a Y-6 for Christmas! w00tw00tw00t)

CREDITS
Ashley - Motivation and wire debuncher
Evie - Motivation and wire buncher
Josh - Relay board design and part time genius
Peter - Uber debugger and master of solder
Mat - Electron tamer lvl 1
Tyler - Light man (no fear of heights)
Shawn - Audio expert
John - Common sense consultant
This isn't a one-man show. You don't get far trying to do things alone. It pays to have awesome friends willing to share your passions and interests. Thanks everybody!