After upgrading my Smart Mirror from a reflective film mirror to a glass two way mirror, I thought it would be interesting to attempt a (semi) scientific comparison between the two types of mirror. This test involves taking a bunch of pictures and rating the mirrors on a few categories....
I recently joined Toronto's SteamLabs, and got access to a laser cutter for the first time. Laser cutters are incredible machines which use a freakin' laser to carve or etch patterns into flat materials like wood or plastic. They are fast too! Over the past few years of 3D printing,...
This is a project I've had on the backburner for almost exactly 1 calendar year. The seed was planted when I toured the Harry Potter Studios last year and saw a fake fireplace effect being used quite extensively. I am also an avid watcher of the "Fireplace for your Home"...
This post is a about vision enhancement platform called The All-Seeing Pi that I have been working on with my friend Dan, who is blind. People who are blind rarely have no vision at all though, and in Dan's case, he still has a little bit of sight in one...
In a previous post, I showed how you can build a smart mirror with an Alexa voice assistant on board. The MagicMirror software and Alexa voice assistant were both hosted on a Raspberry Pi, but unfortunately there was no obvious way to get Alexa to control the smart mirror, or...
This is a fun and very easy project I came up with while trying to build a wireless shutter for an iPhone. I knew selfie sticks could trigger your camera shutter, so I was trying to find out what information they were sending through the 3.5mm aux port (aka headphone...
Materials 1. Computer Monitor. Buy used and look for cable inputs that point down or sideways instead of straight out. 22" recommended (I used Acer AL2216 ) 2. Video cable. Whatever fits your monitor (I used HDMI to DVI adapter) 3. Raspberry Pi 3, 16GB Micro SD Card, 5V Micro...
I want to document this project, as it is one of my favourite projects to date. This took place about 4 years ago while I was working at the Irish Centre for High End Computing (ICHEC). One of ICHEC's projects at the time was creating demonstration for the BT Young...
Amazon did something really cool. They made their Alexa voice assistant code open source and cross platform. That means instead of buying their Amazon Echo to get a home assistant, you can simply install it on any system you want. It's actually a fairly straightforward project, especially if you've setup...
Night Writer About four years ago, I invited some friends over to try to turn a remote control car into something programmable. We had some trouble finding supplies though, so they just brought beer instead. But we were determined to build something. I had recently seen this video, and thought...
Motivation After seeing some beautiful photos of the milky way, I wanted to step up my astrophotography game a little bit. In astrophotography, you are limited to shutter speed = 500 / (focal length) before your stars get blurry from the earth's rotation. To get better photos of the night...
Automated Sports Betting Everyone knows gambling is a great way to make money (/s). I myself formed this conclusion after hearing bookies will sometimes pay out before an event even happens, which planted a betting strategy in my mind that required a bot. This very successfully and slowly lost me...