Learn how to build an incredibly photography rig to take detailed macro photos of insects, water drops, or anything else you desire.  The project was built by (believe it or not) a grandpa who goes by “fotoopa.”  The entire setup is detailed on his Flickr page as well as collections of his insect and waterdrop high-speed photograph collection.

• Don’t Miss: Our entire photography collection

The setup obviously yields incredibly results, but it’s quite complex.  If you’re looking for a more simple solution, check out the Arduino laser triggered camera rig.

Camera Rig Setup:

Insects:

He has literally thousands of photos of all sorts of insects both in flight and still.  A massive collection of superb photography.

Water Droplets:

The classic water drop shots catch stunning visuals of colored droplets which are trigged by the droplet breaking a laser beam.

Popular DIY Photography Projects:

• DIY Macro Photography Kit on the Cheap
• Mindblowing LED, Light and Laser Photography
• Incredible DIY Aerial Kite Photography

While you may think that the glasses shown below would be rather expensive, you can actually make them for less than $15.  It’s as simple as buying two small digital photo frames on eBay for $6 and sacrifice an old pair of glasses.  Of course, you can’t see out of them

The overall idea is pretty absurd and I can’t believe I’m posting something related to Lady Gaga on HacknMod.  Nonetheless, the use of cheap LCDs is still pretty unique. The project is simple enough – the only critical components are the cheap digital photo frames. Just be sure that the digital frames fit into the glasses frames.

The video glasses certainly won’t be a regular fashion accessory but hey, maybe you can wear it around to costume parties or next year’s Halloween.

Related Projects:

• Cheap and Easy DIY Digital Picture Frame
• DIY Heltmet Cam Inside Ski Goggles
• EyeBorg: False Eye Camera Implant

Laser systems work on the principal that if the laser is broken and isn’t received by the photoresistor, the alarm is activated. Tiny mirrors discreetly placed around the rooms to convert a single beam into several beams forming a net which will surely be broken by an intruder. Here is a video of a laser system in action below:

When that beam is broken, there are numerous methods you can use to alert yourself or scare away the intruder. Firstly, you can use your computers parallel port to send yourself a text message via e-mail. This is outlined in this post. or you can set up an alarm system as detailed below.

It’s quite easy to build a laser alarm security system for under $20 using basic items you’ll find lying around your house. These include the IR detector for most remote controls, electrical tape and a magnifying glass. This can easily be accomplished in just a few hours.

Often, setting up the laser system is not the problem for most. The touchy part is getting the laser and mirrors setup properly. So friends, you need not spend thousands of dollars on an expensive security system when you can create your own DIY security traps to accomplish the same job.

Popular Security Posts

• Professional Grade Webcam Security Software
• Remote Surveillance Spy Vehicle/Office Unit
• DIY Motion Sensing Laptop Security Camera

The BlackFin Surveyor is an open source Wireless Mobile Robot comes fully assembled for use in research, education, and exploration at home. For example, it can be a robotic guardian around your house via the internet. Or you could make things more exciting and send it into a nuclear wasteland and search for zombies. Think of it as a robotic webcam recording and archiving all that it sees using its digital sensors.  Awesome!  You can also buy one at ThinkGeek.

• Don’t Miss: Absolutely EPIC Paintball Gun Robot

The palm sized internet-controlled robot is made up of a digital video camera with resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels, laser pointer for optional ultrasonic ranging, and WLAN 802.11b/g networking, all mobile on a tracked base. The Java based console software has a built-in web server making it controllable online from anywhere in the world using a browser. The firmware programming is written in C language under GPL Open Source license.

Surveyor website.  The best thing about this tiny robot is that you can manually control it via the internet or let it roam about on its own. The robot has a bit of artificial intelligence and can be designed for autonomous operation.  If you have an Apple iPhone, try out the Befree4iPhone remote control program. Originally intended to let you remote control your PC using an iPhone or an EDGE enabled device, the freeware can also be directly used to control the SRV-1.

If you don’t have time to build it, you can pick one up fully assembled at ThinkGeek. If you have some programming knowledge, then fiddling around with the source code is half the fun.

Similar Robotics Projects:

• Build a Wifi Enabled Spy Robot
• Absolutely EPIC Paintball Gun Robot
• Autonomous Picture Taking Robot

Wow! This paintball robot is absolutely stunning. While we’ve seen similar DIY paintball robots in the past, this project is far more advanced featuring:

Robot Features:

• Remote Control from 700 feet away
• Night vision camera
• Accuracy up to 150 feet
• Up to 50 mph speeds (this spec is a little hard to believe)
• Red dot scope
• Virtual Reality headset for the driver

Is there anything this beast can’t do?  Full project details can be found on the robotics website.  Obviously it’s not something the average DIYer can do for a weekend project, but it’s so stunning, we’ve posted it for your DIY robot inspiration.

Similar Paintball Gun Projects:

• DIY Paintball Machine Gun Turret
• Weapon and Radar Clad Spy Robot
• The Paintball Machine Gun

Building a WiFi spy robot actually isn’t as difficult as you may have imagined – or at least it isn’t when it can be built in “a couple of hours” according to this guide. These guys show you how to build a WiFi spy-bot using a basic RC car, a wireless router and a camera.  It basically involves stripping the car of it’s plastic covering and mounting the wireless router and camera equipment on top.

• Don’t miss: Make a UAV Spyplane Using the Arduino

The final few steps, which involve changing the IP address of the router and connecting components are quite easy with the level of detail in the instructions.  You can view a video of the build and the robot in action below:

Similar Robotics Articles:

• Make a Remote Controlled Nerf Gun Tank
• Inspiration: Rise of the Scrap Metal Robots
• DIY Solar Powered Beam Robot Mini-Ball

It’s time to stock up for your DIY projects! Our last huge sale of the year begins with 25% off our 5mm LEDs, lasers and LED Light Bulbs. We’re practically giving away our most popular products which were already heavily discounted. The sale will continue onto the end of the day so stock up for all of your DIY projects fast before the sale is over.

Most Popular Sale Items:

• True Green Visible Laser Pointer – $21.99 $14.99
• “Sexy Blue” 5mm LEDs (10 Pack) – $2.99 $1.99
• 48-LED White LED Light Bulb (110v) – $9.99 $6.99

LEDs & Lasers:

• Energy Efficient LED Light Bulbs – 25% off
• All 5mm LEDs – Blue, White, Red, Green, Yellow – $2.99 $1.99 for 10
• True Green Visible Laser Pointer – $21.99 $14.99

Servos:

• Mini Micro Servo with Accessories 9g – $7.50 $5.99
• Dynam 34G Heavy Duty Servo – $9.99 $8.49

  
  

Modding:

• Fan Grills – $2.94 $1.99
• Xbox 360 Case Opening Tool – $4.75 $3.11
• Thermal Paste (10 tubes) – $4.90 $3.75

And even more!

• Digital Calipers of Stainless Steel – $19.49 $15.99
• USB 3.5in Plasma Ball – $17.99 $13.99
• Flexible Digital Camera Tripod – $8.49 $6.59

Don’t miss out! Subscribe to be informed of future sales.  Thank you for supporting HacknMod – Send us your DIY projects to feature on the site.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to take high quality photos of near-space using parts for under $150.  It’s been done by a group of MIT students and hobbists and you can do it too.  Typically this is done by simply lifting a camera as high as possible using a weather balloon until it pops.  If space is a little too high for your tastes, learn the spectacular art of kite photography to capture incredible DIY photography shots.

Typical Supplies:

• Camera or cell phone Cam
• Picture taking mechanism
• Weather balloon
• GPS tracking (to find it when it lands)

How-to Video:

Similar DIY Projects:

• Mindblowing LED, Light and Laser Photography
• X-Ray Photography of Gaming Controllers, Consoles
• DIY Macro Photography Kit on the Cheap

We have dozens of DIY home security projects and here’s another outstanding project to add to the collection.  Learn to build your own DIY Halloween pumpkin with a built in wireless surveillance camera so you can watch for vandals or have advanced notice of unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.  The full tutorials are in step by step instructions as shown below:

Basic Materials:

Basically, this project just combines a consumer product with a pumpkin, making it rather bland.  We suggest you can spice up your version with some inspiration (see our popular security projects at the bottom of the page).

Gut, Install, Finished.

The project tutorial shows you how to do this with two different types of wireless cameras.  Since little hacking is involved, the project is a little bland so check out our far more exciting tutorials below:

Popular DIY Security Projects:

• Remote Surveillance Spy Vehicle/Office Unit
• DIY Rotating Bookshelves, Staircases and Trap Doors
• DIY Motion-Sensing Laptop Security Cam

More details on the project’s background can be found in this video.  Not too much detail of the project such as source code is available, but setting up piezo’s with an Arduino is pretty straightforward.  Check out some of our other Arduino projects below:

• Incredible DIY Aerial Kite Photography
• Arduino Real Time DIY Pan & Tilt Camera
• Twitter Robot makes Popcorn, starts a Movie