Monthly Archives: May 2014

Debugging Touchless Technology

Posted on May 29, 2014 by engineerzero

The comment that I added to the previous post was not the full solution to having a row of touchless buttons, but it set me on the way. A second pinger IS necessary to discriminate against anomalous readings. In the … Continue reading →

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Touchless Technology with ultrasonic distance sensors

Posted on May 27, 2014 by engineerzero

The concept behind this circuit design is that you can press buttons without touching them. As your finger lowers to the tabletop, the yellow light will come on, indicating that you are on the correct approach. Farther down, the green … Continue reading →

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Touchless interface using pingers (set-up)

Posted on May 24, 2014 by engineerzero

I’m about midway in building this demo of touchless technology. The idea is that the user will be able to operate buttons without touching them. Confused? It will all make sense when I get this thing running in the next … Continue reading →

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Pingo: Ultrasonic Distance Sensor Game in Development

Posted on May 18, 2014 by engineerzero

This is the hardware for a game I’m developing that uses an ultrasonic distance sensor. The microcontroller (Arduino, natch) randomly generates distances and then commences a ‘random walk’ from Point A to B. You, the player, hold your hand above … Continue reading →

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Touchless Touchscreens: 3D Vision for phones (and computers)

Posted on May 16, 2014 by engineerzero

Imagine a ‘touchless touch screen’ for your smart phone. You hover your hand above the screen, and the phone detects the position and movement of your fingers so that you can ‘click’ and ‘swipe’ without actually having to contact the … Continue reading →

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Attracting Attention on the Moon

Posted on May 15, 2014 by engineerzero

This is the first billboard on the moon Putting a Sports Drink on the Moon Well, not exactly. Japanese soft drink maker Otsuka intends to send a can of ‘sweat powder’ to the Moon via one of Elon Musk’s Falcon … Continue reading →

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Moby Digital now on Amazon

Posted on May 11, 2014 by engineerzero

Moby Digital Moby Digital is a novelette about a group of people who get caught in a VR simulation of the novel, Moby Dick. It’s up to an intrepid free-lance IT troubleshooter to rescue them. It first appeared in the … Continue reading →

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TRIAC/Reed Switch Demo Circuit

Posted on May 7, 2014 by engineerzero

As you recall, I’m working on an electronic nonlethal mouse trap. To avoid wasting battery power, the mouse trap is in standby until the mouse pushes open the one-way door. I needed a circuit that would turn on when a … Continue reading →

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Teleoperated robots on the Moon (and Amazon)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by engineerzero

My science fiction novelette, High Moon, was originally published in the May 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine. Ten years later, I’ve learned how to upload stories to Amazon so that it can be read on Kindle … Continue reading →

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Ultrasonic Pinger Game, Part I

Posted on May 3, 2014 by engineerzero

I’m working on this idea for a game which involves an ultrasonic distance sensor. The set-up is shown above. As you can see, it uses an Arduino for the prototyping but the goal is to transfer the programming over to … Continue reading →

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