Build Your Own Electric Etch-A-Sketch

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Build Your Own Electric Etch-A-Sketch

Posted by michael on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:37AM 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."

7 of 104 comments (clear)

Reminds me of those EtchASketch tech support calls by AliasTheRoot · 2004-07-17 00:39 · Score: 4, Funny

User: My Etch A Sketch has crashed what should I do?
Support: Shake it.
Has been done before by GarbanzoBean · 2004-07-17 00:43 · Score: 5, Funny

It is called photoshop.
wow... by nuggetman · 2004-07-17 00:44 · Score: 5, Funny

maybe now i could actually draw a circle on the freaking thing

i always saw kids in the commercials w/ these elaborate trucks drawn, i couldn't even make a damn circle

not that im bitter...

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...and that's all there is to it.
1. Re:wow... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-17 01:50 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  "i couldn't even make a damn circle"
  
  It's quite easy. You simply rotate the knobs either clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on whether the sine wave sample is above the x axis or below it and at a speed indicated by the value of the y axis. Obviously, the x axis represents time.
  
  The only tricky part is remembering that the left and right knobs aren't ever at the same point in the sine wave so you have to remember that your left hand and right hand might be moving in different directions and at different speeds. At first I founnd that it helped to use a precalculated lookup table but now I can just do the trig calculations on the fly.
  
  Hope that helps!
Fractals are where its at... by frostbane · 2004-07-17 00:44 · 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.
Wouldn't it be cool by LeahofRivendell · 2004-07-17 00:55 · 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
Forget the etch a sketch. STM project by mpn14tech · 2004-07-17 01:04 · 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