The Rundfunker Team made this really nice looking WiFi Radio. The system is powered by a VIA Epia Mini-ITX board. They chose the M10000E LVDS which has built in LCD support and an onboard CF card reader, which holds the customized Knoppix. The finish quality on this is excellent and there are a lot of pictures in the attached photo album. Also note the link to the Wiki is bad. The correct link for the Wiki.

Radio Data System (RDS) is a method to used to transmit extra data in the VHF/FM frequencies. The extra data is transmitted in a completely separate radio signal that fits within the station’s frequency allocation.

DiNo used an Atmega168 AVR to make an RDS decoder. He pulls the tuned signal from a PCI TV card with FM tuner. The signal then goes to the RDS demodulator which splits it in RDDA (data) and RDCL (clock) signals. The Atmega168 then decodes the RDS data and outputs it as a serial signal.

Marcin and Krzyszto of Poland built a music sequencer that uses the position of beer caps on a table as the input. They call it BeatMachine - Amateur. The only hardware required is an opaque table and a USB webcam. The software handles the rest. Be sure to watch the video on the main page.

Geof Milburn is completing his engineering master’s degree at the Royal Military College of Canada. He was the maker of the homebrew air conditioner from several years and has kept up at his tinkering. He made a couple more neat projects and lucky for us, he documents them quite well. He calls the focus for today “The Ultimate Home Laser Show.” He does away with all the fancy electronics to aim the mirrors and uses a mirror stuck on a speaker. It provides more than enough movement to make the laser dance. Then the beam is shot through a diffractor and you have your light show.

I like LEDs and make no apologies for that. Lights were one of the first electrical elements I played with as a youngster and Light Emitting Diodes are the “Hello World” for many beginner circuits. Here is Daniel’s quick project to make LEDs blink with your music. Readers Brian and Orephik posted their tweaks in the comments. Not a hard project, and all it takes are a few LEDs and a transistor or two.