The Project Palace

The magic privacy hat

2009-11-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

...use 10-15 IR LEDS mounted on a hat to create a nice glowing head on all digital cameras.

A similar set-up (but not quite legal) mounted in the windscreen (or around the license plate) would probably work equally well agains speed cameras. The leds can be triggered by a flash, manually or through a GPS receiver.

Augmented reality poker app

2009-09-24T05:14:00.001-07:00

Augmented reality app for (f.e.) iPhone or Android: The application uses some kind of image recognition to determine the visible cards and then presents the most probable outcomes to the user.

Additional estimates can be made by counting the number of cards that is played during the game.

Some might regard this as cheating :)

eF1 - alternate Formula 1

2009-07-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of drama in F1 lately. Most of the teams are fed up with the current state of affairs and want a more team-friendly structure. There's been a lot of talk of a breakaway series with Ferrari, McLaren, Brawn GP, Renault, Toyota, Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

One of the major complaints (apart for the money) is that most of the time is spent circumventing new rules rather than innovating.

What about an environmental series? The rules would be largely similar to the current F1 rules with respect to the dimensions and weight of the car.

Aerodynamics should be without constraints; as long as the car is the minimum width, height and length anything goes. Crash testing is mandatory (as it is today).

Suspension technology is without constraints. Active suspension? No problem. Leaf springs and rubber? Go ahead!

The one big rule should be: No fossil fuels. All energy must be harvested during the weekend. The car should be able to drive at least 100 km between refuels. Energy can be harvested by the car during the race. Race distance is the same as the current (305 km).

Friendy Echelon

2009-06-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, theres' a lot of online community services to keep track of: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Flickr, LinkedIn and forums.

Something similar to the recently announced Google Wave but for friends and relatives would be nice.

I guess most would freak out if they saw all the bits and pieces posted online of and by themselves online aggregated into a huge mashup :-)

Most of the services provides some kind of API for the services and I guess the hardest part would be integrating with all kinds of PHP bulletin boards.

Source Board

2009-06-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

A "Programmer's Smart Board" would be nice. The whole thing acts more or less like a regular Smart Board but the computer has an integrated source code analyzer/visualizer. Plug in a device with source code and the board processes the source code.

Useful bits and pieces: Call graphs, class hierarchies, metrics (in tables), Source City with bookmarks and annotations, code revision tools, code browser.

Could easily be integrated with f.e. Subversion, git, Hudson or CruiseControl.

Mobile phone screensaver

2009-05-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of ads for mobile phone screen savers that doubles as battery meters; furry animals turning to devils turning to little devils when the battery is almost empty and so on.

One of the ads were for a fuel gauge. It was nice but the text should read "benzina" :-)

The whole concept could be taken a few steps further: Benzina gauge for the battery, rev counter (aka "giri x 1000") displaying available memory (or simply data traffic), including a clock, indicator lights (new messages/lost calls).

Now for the really tough question: Dashboard from the 159 Alfetta, 1750 GTV, Montreal, 90, 164, 75, 155m 156, 147/GT, 159/Brera or 8C?

El cheapo Smart Board

2009-05-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

Smart boards are quite expensive. The best ones uses a huge LCD or plasma screen with a touch-sensitive overlay.

Some of the cheaper ones uses a projector mounted above the board. Johnny Lee used the Wiimote to create an even cheaper smart board.

I haven't used a smart board with the same technology but I guess the constant shadow by the operator would be annoying for all involved. Rear projection is a possibility but it requires a lot of extra space and an additional sensor in front of the screen.

Enter Microsoft Surfaces - a similar setup with a frosted glass plate embedded into a table with the projector and a Wiimote under the table makes a lot of sense. It will both save a lot of space and make interaction between meeting participants easier.

Both the Wiimote and the projector is mounted on brackets under the table. The light from the IR pen is strong enough for the Wiimote to detect it with its IR camera.

The most expensive item (apart from the computer) would be the projector.

A full version would probably use some custom hardware rather than a wiimote. Extra environment brownie points for an integrated battery charger for the IR pen are available :-)

Alfa Romeo Laptop

2009-05-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

Pimp an old laptop Alfa style. The Ferrari branded laptop (by Acer?) was't quite up to Ferrari standards quality-wise and wasn't much more than a plastic cover for the lid and a few custom icons on the desktop. I haven't seen the Lamborghini laptop but I guess it is very much the same thing there.

Starting point is an old ThinkPad laptop. Although "good looking" and "ThinkPad" is rarely seen in the same sentence the laptops are incredible sturdy and can take years of use without breaking.

Step 1: Get some Alfa red paint, paint the lid (or the whole casing) - done.
Step 2: Grab an old Alfa badge and glue it on to the lid - done.
Step 3: Create a custom Windows theme using Window Blinds - halfway there
Step 4: Get lots of high-quality pictures of Alfa Romeo cars to use as screen saver and/or desktop background - done
Step 5: Create custom log on/off and shutdown screens
Step 6: Create custom boot screen

...which would make a nice Alfa Romeo-themed laptop to use when mapping the engine, browsing workshop manuals and general car-related things.

Cool golf trolley

2009-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

Most golf trolleys look like crap and handles worse than a run-down shopping trolley.

I'd like to see a nice looking trolley with big wheels with low profile tires and cool rims. Something made from carbon fibre could fit the bill. Oh, and proper tires - real rubber and not crap plastic things.

Must be lightweight (5-10 kg), collapsible (so it will fit into the trunk of a decent car) and with an integrated golf bag.

Car telemetry

2009-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Already done but a nice exercise involving mechanics, electronics and quite some computing: Equip a car with sensors more or less everywhere and implement a (cheap!) telemetry logging system.

Current systems costs tens of thousand dollars, euros and pounds sterling so a cheap system costing less than €1000 would probably be interesting.

Sensors and gadgets to implement:

Position (GPS)
Accelleration (3 axis)
Gyros (2 axis)
Pressure (f.e. brake pedal)
Switches (clutch, gear changes)
Rotation (wheelspin, steering)
Stretch (wheel travel)
Temperature (water, oil, exhaust, tires, brakes)
Integration with OBDII, MegaJolt and TEC ECUs
LCD Display (for timing and so on)
Distance (body roll or ride height)
Video and audio feed
Data transfer to pit lane (WiFi, XBee or similar)

The system must be fairly rugged and simple to use

Pimp My R2

2009-05-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

As there are lots of R2D2 projects circulating teh interwebs a new twist is required.

Plan A is to make a relatively faithful replica of a R2D2 droid and then pimp the whole thing with chrome rims, flames or appropriate vinyls. Chrome exhaust tip, spinners and fake airscoops are a must.

Plan B is a tad more elaborate: Create a steampunk R2, complete with boiler hatch, wood panels, copper trim, lots of moving gears, gauges and steam. Would be kind of cool.