Steve Hoefer is one of my favorite makers (check out his other projects for MAKE here). He writes: "I built this mini blind minder to open and close [my window blinds] automatically. It's powered by an Arduino microcontroller, which uses a temperature sensor to read the room temperature and then activates a servomotor to open the slats when it's too cool and close them when it's too warm. It has an adjustable thermostat and it can also be operated manually to open or close your blinds with a push of a button."