After calling around to a few places, it became clear that purchasing the hardware, let alone the door was going to be WAY to expensive.  A very basic “barn-door” track system, runs upwards of $500 for one similar pictured above. That doesn’t include the door and all the other items I need.

Only one thing to do, buy the metal and do it myself.  However, I lack the shop and supplies to fabricate what I needed.

I called Metal By The Foot Inc. based in Kansas, and purchased the materials (full material list and cost will be provided below).

I then ran over to Fred’s Automotive to have them bend the metal according to the dimensions I provided.  These guys were awesome, and true hardware hackers.  The shop was full of race cars, motors, fenders, and parts from about everything EVER. It  smelled like cigarettes and car wrecks.  Reminded me of high school shop class.  Including the smoke

Fred simply tack welded the piece of flat metal to a pipe, heated and bent.  Perfectly executed.

Now that I have successfully saved myself $500, its time to add wheels and mount this bad boy up.

My wife didn’t like the 2 inch pulleys that the design called for, we wanted to be able to see the pulley move with the door.   I went to the Tractor Supply Company and grabbed a couple of part 3240235.  Here is the current door hardware.

More updates coming soon, the door has been built, stained and ready to distress.  We are just a few weeks away from hanging the door.  We recently had twin girls and have a (soon to be 5) 4 year old son.  Finishing projects in a timely matter has proved to be a challenge.  :)

Stay tuned!

A couple of test gadgets; iPod touch (Gen2), G1, iPod Shuffle seemed to work just fine.  The tin does get hot, and there is a buzzing and hissing noise that emits from the tin.  Perfectly Normal.
From the F.A.Q

“How many charges/hours of use can I get out of a MintyBoost?”

I would suggest this for anyone needing a quick burst of juice on the go.   This is also a nice beginners soldiering project.

As always, comment with questions or contact me via twitter.

Our son wanted to be an Imagination Mover for Halloween.  He actually wanted to be all of them, but we chose “Mover Scott“.  To re-create mover Scott, we need his famous “Wobble Goggles”.  They are $20 from Disney, AND they don’t have lights and music.   Crazy talk.  I decided to make my own. Additionally, we needed a costume.  Finding a “decent” one was tough.  So my wife decided to make her own.

First off, run “wobble goggles” through your favorite search engine.  Pretty much zero information.

With no one to copy off of, I needed 3 things.

1. Goggles.

I bought 2 pair. This set from eBay and this pair from Amazon. I needed to get have a test set, and a good set.  Plus, I wanted to find the style that was the closest match.  The Amazon pair are the “production” pair.  Props to Tammy for picking them out.

2. Something small that would play Music.

I Decided a recordable greeting card would work. I picked up a Superman Card, but the module was just too big.  A quick google search revealed that there were many options to choose from.  Then I found it!  A recordable device from a picture frame.  It was already enclosed and made a nice “click” when the button was pushed.  Not only that, but I could just Velcro it into the band of the goggles.

3. Lights.

I picked up a set of  blue mini led Christmas lights ( I wanted the module to create the flashing effect), and wired 8 into the conveniently pre-drilled holes. I test fit the lights, to see if i could get away with surface mounting, but it looked terrible. Therefore,  I had to expand the holes to accommodate the lights, but not by much.

I created two of these setups, mashed the lights back into the holes, hot glued everything in place and added tape and other protection measures.

You may be asking yourself at this point, what kind of juice is this going to take.

A single 2032 “Coin” battery.

Time to sew Velcro into the headband to conceal the wires,  hold the battery and cradle the recording device.

Thats it, now to activate, you can re-create the movement just like Mover Scott.

Now on to the costume.

As always, contact me with any questions.

A neighbor gave us a Harley Cruiser power wheels.  The only thing wrong with it? Battery fail.  Well, technically that was the only thing wrong with it.   In my opinion it was missing a few things.  Time to mod this hog.

What are you going to do?

I decided to keep it very simple at first and just add a working headlight and tail lights. That’s right, all show and no go. This is for my Son and he DOES want to actually ride it.   Since he is the boss, I’d better get him on the road as quickly as possible. We’ll give him some power a little later on.  I headed to Walmart (urp) to look for the following.

Taillights    x2    @ 1.75″
Headlight    x1    @ 4.75″

I decided the best thing to use would be flashlights. For the headlight,  I picked up a Brinkmann 6 Volt Krypton Lantern.  It had the size and the power source I needed.  Plus it was $5.00. Score.

For the tails, I chose a 2 pack of Rayovac Brilliant Solutions LED Flashlights.  The top cover was a pretty close match to the style of the bike.

I added a small row of LED’s on the rear fender for some sweet “blue flame” action.

I wired it up,  and was able to cram both the 12V battery and the 6V battery under the seat by flipping the 12V battery so the connection was on the other side.

Is that it?

Next up? Working sounds, a paint job and maybe some sweet handlebars.  Stay tuned.

@hevnsnt from I-Hacked.com told me about http://www.modifiedpowerwheels.com… the possibilities for this are endless.(and scary). Just check out the videos.

Questions?

Please comment, or email me here.

ax0n

This document will reference his article A.LOT. I suggest you stop reading this (for now), and head directly to his article to familiarize yourself with it.

I am simply going to focus on OSX (Snow Leopard – 10.6). I wanted this to be available on my MacBook at the drop of a hat.

“So, uh…other than that, what’s the point of this ‘article’ ?” . Hmmm… great question. I better get started before you leave.

Note: I’m assuming you have met all of the hardware requirements in the h-i-r.net article.

Step 1: Flashing the Fon

Enable redboot! I used this guide. The problem however, is that once I had established the ssh connection to the Fon, I was unable to wget the files. Additionally, I was unable to ping anything external. I’m sure I was doing something wrong, and there is a simple fix (comment if there is). So what should I do now? I mean, stuck at the second step in the instructions? Fail. To correct the issue, Grab the files referenced in the instructions from here and here and while your at it grab this (you’ll need all of these files), launch a tftp server, unpack the files and place them in the tftp server directory. Then start server. (be sure to make note of the IP address ). I placed the files in a root dir called “tftp” this makes it a little easier when typing the path.

Enabling Redboot

Now that we have the files living in the tftp server dir, Launch a terminal, connect to the Fon via ssh and issue the following commands using the following syntax to grab the files (wget http://[ip.add.re.ss]/[dir]/[filename]):

root@OpenWrt:~# cd /tmp
root@OpenWrt:~# wget http://201.37.100.106/tftp/openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma 
root@OpenWrt:~# mtd -e vmlinux.bin.l7 write openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma vmlinux.bin.l7
root@OpenWrt:~# reboot

After the Fon comes back online, ssh back in and follow the remaining steps in the instructions to enable redboot.

root@OpenWrt:~# cd /tmp
root@OpenWrt:~# wget http://201.37.100.106/tftp/out.hex
root@OpenWrt:~# mtd -e "RedBoot config" write out.hex "RedBoot config"
root@OpenWrt:~# reboot

Once you get to the section “now your ready to flash”, you can stop. Those instructions follow a path we aren’t going to.

Installing the Jasager Firmware

Head over to digininja’s site and follow the instructions here “for firmware users”. I skipped the redboot.pl installation, as we already have redboot enabled and working. Download jasegar, unpack it and place it in your tftp dir. (if you didn’t do it earlier) The ONLY tricky part during the flash process is to be SURE you copy and paste the commands or triple check your typing. I mistakenly forgot to load vmlinux.bin.17.  It didn’t brick the Fon, but I was scared to reboot it.

RedBoot> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system - continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x801003ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400
RedBoot> fis create -e 0x80041000 -r 0x80041000 vmlinux.bin.l7
 
< Wait for a while > note: This took about 2 minutes
 
... Erase from 0xa8030000-0xa80f0000: ............
... Program from 0x80040400-0x80100400 at 0xa8030000: ............
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80040400-0x801e03ff, assumed entry at 0x80040400
RedBoot> fis create -l 0x6F0000 rootfs
 
< Wait for a long while > note: This took almost 15 minutes. Don’t panic. It’s working.
 
... Erase from 0xa80f0000-0xa87e0000: ...........
... Program from 0x80040400-0x801e0400 at 0xa80f0000: ..........................
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
 
RedBoot> fconfig
Run script at boot: true
Boot script: 
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load -l vmlinux.bin.l7
>> exec
>> 
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 2 (My default was 10)
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address: 
Local IP address: 192.168.1.1
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.254
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot> reset
 
^]
telnet> Connection closed.
root@desktop ~ # 

Sweet!

The hard part is over. So what happens if you make a mistake in fconfig like
me? Type fconfig -n it will list all of the nicknames of the fields you can
change. The shell doesn’t know what delete is, and there are all sorts of redboot keyboard-fu you can use to control input. I found it easier to type at the reboot> fconfig field_name [input]. So for
example, if you accidentally entered 192.168.1.11 for the IP address. You could fix just that line by typing: fconfig boot_my_ip 192.168.1.1

Let the Fon reboot, make sure you can ping 192.168.1.1 after all the lights
look good, then open your browser and hit http://192.168.1.1:1471 .

The jasager interface *should* open. If it does not after a few minutes… try the following.

1. Make sure you are loading and executing vmlinux.bin.17 in fconfig
2. Reboot the Fon
3. Double and triple check fconfig.

If all else fails, repeat the process. I ended up flashing almost 10 times
due for various reasons, ranging from mistakes I made in the network config, to
the Fon not playing nice with DHCP. If you need to reflash, redboot is only
available for a few seconds while the fon device is booting. I hope your
SMB, 3-1 infinite guy timing is still there. Here is what I had to do to hit
the timing properly.

1. Remove power from Fon
2. Launch a terminal and start pinging 192.168.1.254
3. Launch another terminal and PREP a telnet session to 192.168.1.254 9000
4. The first reply you receive from ping, press enter on your telnet session
5. If it fails. Repeat process until you get it.

Now, head back to

part 1 of the h-i-r instructions and follow along starting with “tinker
time”

Step 2: Install the pWn

This is the easy part. Below are simply notes regarding the process.

Metasploit and Karma

This is the part where I point you back to h-i-r.net’s part 2 for the complete setup of this step. I was able to drop in the framework to my tools directory with no additional steps required. However, you may want to update ruby if you desire. Then Download karma.rc, put it in the root directory with the framework and we are in the home stretch to put this all together.

Head to part 2 of the h-i-r instructions. Follow from “Time to tweak stuff”. You will need to edit karma.rc before you run it.

Hamster and Ferret

Last files we need to grab are hamster and ferret.

I was having some trouble getting hamster and ferret to compile, even after installing xcode. Luckily, the binaries are compiled for us already . Download them and place them in a directory you will remember.

You will need to set your browsers proxy to 127.0.0.1:1234 to view the Hamster interface. Be sure you add an exception for your NIC’s ip address, so you can monitor Jasager as well.

You can now head back to ax0n’s work and button up the rest of the project.

Starting the entire process

Here are the steps I use when booting this rig.

1. Power on the Fon and connect it to your PC with an Ethernet cable.
2. Make sure Jasager is online and Karma is active. I opted to control its state, instead of automatically starting it.
3. Open a terminal and Launch Metasploit and Karma with> sudo ~./msfconsole -r karma.rc
4. Open another terminal and launch hamster with> sudo ~./hamster
5. Enable your proxy. Or use quickproxy for firefox to quickly enable.
6. Open the Jasager (192.168.1.1:1471) and hamster (127.0.0.1:1234) interfaces
7. Gratz ur l33+

Conclusion

While this guide wasn’t meant to be as comprehensive as the article it was based on. I hope you will find a quick reference for installing this on your Mac Box.

All the files referenced, I have zipped up and stashed them here. Comment with questions or hit me up via twitter

Here is the Drawdio I built last year.

This isn’t my video, but this is what this device does and a much better representation of what this device is capable of.

Bottom line is: I wanted to make something cool for my Sons room.  The project had to have 3 requirements.  1. It had to be interactive. 2. It had to be hackable. 3. It has to be neato. Enter: Peggy2

I won’t make this post a full blow how-to on the build process.  If you have questions, or if there are enough comments on how and why then I will create the guide.

Cute. So whats the point of this post?

I wanted to show pics during the build process, and demo videos of what it can do.  I have big plans for this device, so keep watching this post as I will update it with Ardunio sketches, videos and project plans.  With that out of the way, lets dive in.

Wow. That’s a lot of stuff.

I let all the parts sit at my house for months before finally taking the time to put it together. I chose to build this by filling up the LED bank (625 total).  I opted for clear 10mm LED’s, however, this device will accept any size.  I wanted the flexibility of leveraging giant “pixels” (RGBW) later on. This will come in handy with animations and diffusing.  Besides, I did not want a static image, and a solid color seemed so… boring.  I purchased all the LED’s from eBay, and had decent luck with quality.  Out of 625, only about 15 were unusable for various reasons. You may notice a few missing from the board.

Putting it together.

Honestly, the biggest time consumer with this project was spent bending resistors, LED wires, and clipping them all.  I spent a total of about 10 hours (rough estimate) on this project.

Enough already. Where are my Pics and Videos.

Here are various shots and videos through the build process.

TTFN.

This was a really fun and VERY easy project to make.  I am only scratching the surface, the real power of this device lies within the Ardunio platform. If I were to make one change, it would be to Swap the clear LED’s for diffused ones. Email me with any questions, or comment below.