Blinky Light Combination Lock Keeps Aliens out of Your Quarters

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:48:16 PDT

When I see scifi flicks from the 1960s and 70s, I always love the blocky, blinky lights on all the computers. Though they were obviously considered "futuristic" at some point before we all started fetishizing miniaturization and gesture-based computers. But now the DiY geeks over at Hackaday have found a way to make those blinky blocks into something useful: a keypad combination lock. Instead of keying a number sequence into it, you can key a color sequence. It's a great home electronics project, and it makes your front door look like it should open with that Star Trek "fffwwp!" noise.

Here's how it works: When you press each key, it cycles through three colors. You press the color you want. When you've got your color pattern set, all the lights flash green and the door opens. Obviously, if you want to be safe, you'll want to figure out a way to shield the keypad while you're unlocking it (this is a good idea with number-based keypads too).

You can go through all the steps to make this lock, from circuit boards to LEDs, or you can buy a pre-made keypad here. You'll still have to program it, though!

How to Make an RGB combination door lock [via Hackaday]

Nanowire Power Shirt Generates Electricity While You Wear It

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:31:51 PDT

Now you can power your cell phone just by wearing a special shirt made of two tiny layers of nanowires that rub against each other as you move. These super-conductive wires are "piezoelectric," generating energy through pressure and movement. The result is a shirt that generates more electricity the more you move around. A few weeks ago, a research team at Georgia Tech announced the first generation power shirt (you can see the two layers of nano wires above), speculating that it could someday power small electronic devices like iPods or mobiles.

According to a release from the National Science Foundation, which partially funded the research:

Zhong Lin Wang and collaborators Xudong Wang and Yong Qin have made more than 200 of the fiber nanogenerators. Each is tested on an apparatus that uses a spring and wheel to move one fiber against the other. The fibers are rubbed together for up to 30 minutes to test their durability and power production.
The researchers have measured current of about four nanoamperes and output voltage of about four millivolts from a nanogenerator that included two fibers that were each one centimeter long. With a much improved design, Wang estimates that a square meter of fabric made from the special fibers could theoretically generate as much as 80 milliwatts of power.

So far, there is only one wrinkle in the fabric, so to speak - washing it. Zinc oxide is sensitive to moisture, so in real shirts or jackets, the nanowires would have to be protected from the effects of the washing machine.

I guess that means no sweating either. So you have to power your shirt up by moving around, but if you sweat on it you'll blow the generator. We might need to rethink this one.

Nanowire Shirt [NSF]

io9: electronics

Blinky Light Combination Lock Keeps Aliens out of Your Quarters

Nanowire Power Shirt Generates Electricity While You Wear It