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Build Your Own Electric Etch-A-Sketch

Posted by michael on from the reboot-by-shaking dept.

mhaisley writes "Ok, case mods are cool, monitor mods are nifty... but an Electric Etch-a-Sketch beats either. Students at Cornell University built an electronically controlled etch-a-sketch, controllable by a PC mouse. This was part of a group of class final projects featured by their instructor."

10 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Reminds me of those EtchASketch tech support ca by Kjuib · · Score: 1, Interesting

    After a while the lines start to stick a little, and you get the old faded lines all over the screen. This reminds me of the old monitors that the image got burned in. Do you think they fixed this problem?

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    - Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
  2. Fractals are where its at... by frostbane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think they should just drop the mouse, hook it up to a computer and draw fractals. That would be a really cool project and it would make some pretty cool results.

  3. Wouldn't it be cool by LeahofRivendell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you could use the expandable shapes like the circles and rectangles and stuff in most paint programs and the machine would just make it?

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    I are winner
    1. Re:Wouldn't it be cool by asoko · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or make the stylus continuously oscillate diagonally about the current position, so you could make calligraphy-style brush strokes.

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      The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey
  4. The cheapest item on the BOM would be ... by syrinje · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...the Etch-a-Sketch itself (yeah, yeah, I know they got it for free but you could source one for a dollar). I am impressed with this project as a teaching aid. Combines a whole lot slew of concepts in one fun project! So what if it isnt practical - technlogia gratia artis.

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    See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
  5. Forget the etch a sketch. STM project by mpn14tech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A class a few years earlier built an scanning tunneling microscope. http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/Fin alProjects/s2002/sm242/index.htm

    1. Re:Forget the etch a sketch. STM project by parkanoid · · Score: 2, Interesting

      STMs are commonly built by hobbyists out of commodity parts. Nothing unusual. I have a half-finished one sitting on my desk right now (still missing the piezo elements, mostly due to laziness).

      Then again, the EAS project is pretty simple either, just a pair of stepper motors. Cool, but what michael (why the fuck is that moron still allowed to post anything? seriously) described sounds more like an electron beam magnetizing the screen selectively.

  6. GIF2EAS by ElDuderino44137 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hey There,

    What the needed to do was ...
    supply a image as input ...
    and have the thing ...

    A) Translate it to b&w
    B) Have the EAS automatically draw it

    Kind of like the novelty of ...
    translating an image to ...
    ascii ;)

    Cheers,
    --The Dude

  7. And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... articles about nifty microcontroller projects like the laser-based Iridium flare tracker get rejected. Go figure.

  8. Re:Department of Redundancy Department by anubi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Before we flame the guy too bad, I think its pretty obvious what he's talking about.

    Inside the mouse is a ball driving two optical encoders: one for X, one for Y, mechanically placed 90 degrees apart.

    The optical disks and detector are made in such a manner as to produce a quadrature encoded output.

    With very minimal "glue logic", these signals could be changed to the quadrature encoded drive signals required by a stepper motor.

    This would have eliminated the whole processor.

    But, they used a roundabout way of doing it.

    I'll often do things for my own edification that are not optimal just to see how things work.

    In this case, the students got to experience working with the AVR compiler, programming in machine code, and real-world interface design, so I won't bang on them for not doing it in such a way I would have if I were gonna make a million of 'em.

    Now, if I had found out that they were just drawing lines on the CRT screen, I would have posted a very vile commentary on the state of what is passing for education these days. What I saw looked appropriate to me for a class project for BSEE.

    Just for funsies, my final project in College back in the early 70's was building my own oscilloscope from scratch. I thought I was gonna get really good bandwidth because I was using 45MHz IF tubes from television receivers as my CRT drive. Got my design finished... Surprise! I got 10KHz! Well, so much for my rude awakening to plate resistance and capacitive loads... but the professor gave me full credit anyway because I offered the correct explanation of why I didn't get the response I expected.

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    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]