Throwing Star LAN Tap

The Throwing Star LAN Tap is a passive Ethernet tap, requiring no power for operation. There are active methods of tapping Ethernet connections (e.g., a mirror port on a switch), but none can beat passive taps for portability. To the target network, the Throwing Star LAN Tap looks just like a section of cable, but the wires in the cable extend to the monitoring ports in addition to connecting one target port to the other.

The monitoring ports (J3 and J4) are receive-only; they connect to the receive data lines on the monitoring station but do not connect to the station’s transmit lines. This makes it impossible for the monitoring station to accidentally transmit data packets onto the target network.

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Plex Movie Poster Display

Plex Movie Poster Display is a side project I started a few years ago. I always thought it would be cool to have a display outside my media room that would show the poster of the movie or TV show that was currently playing. I searched the internet and found similar projects, which were all windows programs.  There was just one problem… I wanted to run this project on a Raspberry Pi 3 running Linux. So, unsatisfied with the solutions I found online, I decided to build my own.

This script scrapes http://IP_ADDRESS_OF_PLEX_SERVER>:32400/status/sessions and displays the poster, current progress, and description of the currently playing movie or TV show on a screen. If the client is not playing any media the script shows random movie posters from the Plex Server.

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Building an Arduino-based bipedal bot

If you’d like to build a walking biped robot, this 3D-printed design by Technovation looks like a fantastic place to start. Each leg features three servos that actuate it at the hip, knee, and ankle for a total of six degrees of freedom.

Control is handled by an Arduino Uno board that rides on top of the legs, along with a perfboard to connect to the servos directly.

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Create Home Automation with Arduino IoT Cloud

 was always inspired to live in a smart home where I can automate some of the everyday tasks to make life easier and comfortable. For example, how many times does your TV remote disappear, and you just wish to say a voice command to do the task for you instead? Many Smart TVs do this already, of course, but buying a good one can be a bit expensive. In this project, I describe how easy it is to make some of your home appliances smart with an Arduino board. Besides controlling the TV with voice, I will use a temperature sensor, motion sensor, and an RGB LED to demonstrate the Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 capabilities. I will also connect the Arduino board to an Amazon Alexa device, and then you can set up some routines for your home automation.

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