Be the Master of the House with this home automation device.  Use your Android device to remote control four separate 115V appliances.  For this project I am using the bareduino plus kit from virtuabotix, a 4-channel relay board from Sainsmart, an HC-06 bluetooth module and an old power strip.  I am also using an android app and arduino sketch called Ardudroid by TechBitar that can be downloaded from the Google Play store.

After disassembling an old power strip for parts I modified my project box to fit the outlets, power switch, reset button and cord.  With some careful forming of the neutral wires I was able to connect and fit the relay board in place.  Build up the Bareduino so I can have the functionality of an Arduino without giving up my precious.  You can get more info about the build on my Instructable

For this project I started with a micro RC car that had lost its tires and become unusable as a car, but the motors and RC circuit still functioned.  The first step was to extract the electronics from the chasis.  Some pieces were glued in place so care was taken to keep the tiny components intact.  Once free from the chassis it was necessary to change the motor leads solder connections to the board, in order to get the motors to work together forward and reverse and opposite each other to turn left & right.  The balloon was an impulse buy at the supermarket.  I had learned from a previous attempt that the balloon needs to be at least 36" diameter.  It doesn't help that I'm at altitude.

The propellers were stolen from my sons batmobile toy and hot glued to the gear on the motors.  The motors were placed as far apart from each other as I could, using the original wires, and glued to a wooden skewer.  Finally the skewer was taped to the bottom of the balloon with the propellers pointed slightly down, to provide some control of lift.  After dialling in the required ballast, a spring clip and a couple pennies, it was ready for the maiden flight.

The RadioShack LED kit comes with all the LEDs and resistors you need for a 3 x 3 cube.  The kit also has a convenient board to solder everything to including headers to make an Arduino Uno compatible shield.  Support is available including schematics, instructions on forming the LEDs and Arduino code that can be downloaded here. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=22385926 

Above you can see the finished kit stacked on top of my Arduino Uno and below is a video of the cube running the sample code.  Now it's time to expand to a larger cube.