This interactive binary ruler does much more than just draw straight lines
Warning: This is not the kind of ruler you used in grade school.
The DigiRule is a 6-inch, open-source, interactive binary ruler that not only allows you to draw straight lines, but comes equipped with a ton of built-in digital functions.
The ruler was developed by maker Bradley Slattery, whose been contributing to the electronics community for almost 10 years now and includes the following extra functions:
- Logic Gates
- NOT Gate (Inverter)
- OR Gate
- AND Gate
- XOR Gate
- NOR Gate
- NAND Gate
- XNOR Gate
- Flip Flops
- SR Flip Flop
- JK Flip Flop
- Toggle Flip Flop
- Data Flip Flop
- Four bit binary up/down counter
Slattery created the DigiRule to be powered by one 3V CR1220 button battery and run on a PIC 18F43K20 microcontroller, “which is a greatly over powered device for such a simple task – but they are cheap” according to Slattery.
The functions listed above are controlled by nine surface mount push buttons and the ruler comes equipped with twenty three surface mount LEDs that show the status of the inputs and outputs.
How it works
The digital functions are controlled by one PIC microcontroller. By pressing the gate select button, you can cycle through the seven logic gates or you can press the flip flop select button to cycle through the flip flops.Then you can toggle the input bits to get a result at the output of the selected gate / flip flop. The up / down counter also has a button to count up and a button to count down.
Slattery has launched a Kickstarter campaign (his fourth ever) to raise funds for the binary ruler. Currently, he has far-exceeded his nearly $3,000 funding goal. If you’d like to play with your own DigiRule, you can pre-order one at an early-bird rate of $15.
