Hidiot

A Very Hacky Christmas Tree: Part II

Last week we built a set of beautiful Christmas tree lights. You can reprogram, and reuse these all year round. But what’s cooler than beautiful Christmas tree lights? How about Christmas tree lights that change based on what’s happening around the tree? Adding light sensors to your tree lights should take between half an hour and an hour from start to finish. We put together a HIDIOT photoresistor tutorial a while back.

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A Very Hacky Christmas Tree: Part I

This year we made our own Christmas tree lights. They’re really easy to build, and can be reprogrammed to be used all year round. Read on to find out how to make your own! When finished, you should have your own programmable Christmas tree lights! Then you can take it further and make it your own! Our Christmas tree lights are different to the ones you get in the shop.

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Ghost Hunting With The HIDIOT

Ghost hunters use EMF meters as an essential tool. According to the Anomolies Research Society, indicators of paranormal activity include fluctuations in EMF detection readings and background readings that drop or spike for no reason, with no explainable cause. What we’ll build We’re going to build an EMF detector, so we’re building our own analogue sensor from scratch. We’ll also look at how we can use Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques to improve our detector.

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Sensing The World With HIDIOT

Sometimes you want things to only happen when the world around you changes. In electronics, we use sensors to detect these changes. In this post we’re going to look at a couple of sensors, how they work and we’ll show you how to use one with your HIDIOT. This blog post contains all the background info you need with some useful links, but if you just want to get up and running with a light sensor, Steve’s made a video for you to play along with.

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You've Just Ordered A HIDIOT. Now What?

Right After Ordering Firstly, make sure you’re subscribed to our mailing list. We post our (mostly) weekly update email This Week In HIDIOT to our mailing list. If you haven’t already subscribed, use the form below to make sure you get the latest tips, tricks and project ideas. Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

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How To Read A Schematic

An important electronics skill is being able to read an electrical schematic. We thought we’d teach you how to read a schematic by reading ours, and comparing it to some similar circuits. Open this link in a new tab for a full-size copy of the schematic to play along with this blog post. What is that thing? A Schematic is a drawing that explains how the different parts of a circuit are connected together.

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