Using a Vuzix headset , a laptop, Arduino and a bike sensor, Aki Mimoto was able to rig up his wife’s stationary bike to transport himself through a virtual Google Street View environment. Of course, that means you wouldn’t have to sit staring at a wall or a TV while exercising—you could virtually travel down roads anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the design needs some tinkering to be really usable—but it’s a fantastic concept that’s really worth pursuing. If there was a commercial product that got this right, I would probably be all over it.

Diana Eng , who you might remember as Project Runway ’s premiere nerd designer, took a look at MIT’s Media Lab and found some pretty cool stuff, mostly run off of Arduino microcontrollers. Check it out below. A lot of this stuff is just playful, so some of the clothes don’t need to be too polished—but I love that electronic wallpaper. Down with lightswitches, I say! [ Fairytale Fashion ]

The Arduino board has been the engine of many wild and wacky projects over the years, from bakery tweeting to various musical instruments . For its next trick, our man Steve Hoefer has taken his microcontroller and, along with a piezoelectric speaker, a gear reduction motor, and some PVC pipe, programmed it to listen for a preset sequence of knocks — a secret knock, if you will — and unlock the deadbolt upon hearing the right combination. Although this might not be the security system you want to put in place for your home, this definitely looks like a fun weekend project. Check out the read link for instructions and schematics, but not before you see the video of the thing in action. It’s after the break

Hideouts can’t be protected with a simple lock and key, those jobs require passwords or secret knocks. For the latter, you can go the extra mile and build a knock detector using a few basic pieces of equipment. Steve Hoefer’s secret knock detector is little more than a piezo speaker, a tiny gear reduction motor, an Arduino and some PVC pipe—basically a bunch of stuff he had lying around the lab. It works by keeping track of the time between a pattern of successive knocks. It’s probably not the most secure way to lock a door, but Hoefer notes that there is a lot of room for improvement on this design.

This little homemade robot takes all of those impressive no-look Dragonforce-on-expert Rock Band /Guitar Hero YouTube videos and destroys them with a cold, clockwork efficiency. Here’s how it works in a nutshell: - light sensors read the falling notes (brightness set to max) - light data is sent to an Arduino Mega, which is monitoring for data spikes - The Arduino filters the data, and sets a threshold for “on” and “off” - an “on” means the tiny robot finger presses the screen - the capacitive touchscreen requires a human touch to operate, so a rudimentary Xacto knife/copper wire workaround was created. Simply hold the knife while the robot plays, and the current is enough to trick the iPhone The code is available for download, should you want to help the robots spread their lifeless 100% accuracy music around the globe. [ OhBowz via Boing Boing ]

Why confine your nerdy sloth to your living room, where large robots mime fake guitar and serve you sloppy mixed drinks ? Take that zest for the sedentary life with you on the road by having one of your robot ninjas steal this iPhone Rock Band robot from its ingenious creator, Joe Bowers. The Arduino-based device uses ambient light sensors to detect the falling notes and then taps out the music with some conductive foam attached to some squeaky fake fingers. Joe did a fairly detailed write-up, and even uploaded his code, so there’s presumably nothing stopping you from actually doing something with your life and building one of these with all that free time you’ve saved up by hacking your way through all the console-based guitar games. Video is after the break

We’ll readily admit that most Arduino mods tend to be exercises in creativity ( and eccentricity ) with little real world utility , which is why this one piqued our interest. A wedding present conceived of and built by Mikal Hart, the box you see above is set to only open in one particular geographic location, and the puzzle of it is to find out where that might be. You’re allowed 50 attempts at opening the box by hitting the button next to the LCD screen, which in turn gives you a distance from, but not direction to, your destination. What tickles us about this idea, aside from its ingenuity, is the potential to use it without the helpful hints in securing your own valuables. Check out the read link for a full shopping list of ingredients and the amusing reaction to the quirky gift

This box is a GPS puzzle build as a wedding gift by Mikal Hart. It only opens when it’s in a specific location, and the puzzle involves discovering just where that location is. The box has a button and an LCD display on the lid. When you press the button, the display will show you how far, in kilometers, you are from the goal location.

The humble NES controller has certainly provided plenty of inspiration for mods over the years, and even a little dreaming , but it doesn’t look like the well is showing any signs of drying up just yet. The latest to take a crack at the iconic gadget is one man shop ProtoDojo, which did what many others have done and turned the controller into a flash drive, but went the extra step of adding an ingenious security measure to ensure that only true NES veterans are able to mount the drive. We won’t spell it out here, but let’s just say this drive stands a better chance at Contra than most — all possible thanks to the magic of Arduino , as you might have guessed. Head on past the break for a complete overview on video. Continue reading ProtoDojo turns NES controller into flash drive with Konami-level security Filed under: Gaming , Storage ProtoDojo turns NES controller into flash drive with Konami-level security originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

As you’re no doubt well aware, the government is always looking for new ways to make dissidents feel uncomfortable. In this space alone we’ve seen devices meant to cook folks with microwaves , zap ‘em with electricity , and make ‘em nauseous using light . Taking inspiration from the last one, the open source pranksters at Adafruit Industries have built a contraption of their own called the Bedazzler. It’s powered by an Arduino and, unlike the original, Adafruit’s version doesn’t seem to work for the purpose incapacitating no-goodniks — but that’s probably a good thing. For some background on this extremely less than lethal device, peep the the video after the break.