Arduinome with many pots

[Aggaz] added 16 potentiometers to his Arduinome.The Arduinome is a monome clone based around the Arduino as a microprocessor. We seen some Arduinome builds in the past but [Aggaz's] work augments the physical interface.

Potentiometers used in circuit bending allow for manipulation of the sounds coming out of the circuits. In this case the pots are connected to the microcontroller instead of the sound generation circuitry which means you can do whatever you want with them depending on how creative you are with the code. So far he’s just starting to get the new set of interfaces to play nicely over the serial connection. This could end up being quite popular as it only requires the addition of a multiplexer IC, the potentiometers, and the knobs.

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Weather clock

[Sean_Carney] build this clock that tells the weather instead of the time. The two hands display the current conditions and the temperature. Forty below zero seems amazingly cold if you’re on the Fahrenheit scale but [Sean's] from Winnipeg so he’s operating on the Celsius side of things.

Two servos move the hands to match the data scraped off of the Internet. An Arduino does the scraping with the help of an Ethernet shield. This reminds us of the Harry Potter clock that tells a persons location.

[via Flickr]

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Spy on your office

[Garagedeveloper] sent us his custom surveillance system, part 1, part 2, and part 3 after needing a way to find out why some cables at work were becoming unplugged (spoiler, the cleaners were messing up the wiring). At the base of the system is a web cam glued to a stepper motor. However, it gets much more in depth with a web front-end that allows the user to stream the feed and control the position of the stepper. We’re not particularly fond of how many different parts the project takes, while it all could be accomplished under C# with ASP.NET and parallel port library instead of including Arduino and excess code, but to each their own and the project turned out a success anyway.

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Max/MSP accelerometer beat control

let us know about his Max/MSP Controller. Inside the device is an ADXL 335 accelerometer and 6 push buttons wired to an Arduino. The input data is sent to Max MSP, a sequencer controlling 5 audio tracks, correlating to 5 of the buttons. The 6th button controls delay. What we really liked was how the accelerometer modified the speed of the beat in the X-axis, and the delay intensity with the Y-axis. Whats next? We think gesture recognition might be something fun to try, but [Ryan] is unsure. We’ll keep you up to date.

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Arduino I/O Speed Breakdown

[Jee Labs] has worked out how long it takes for an Arduino to perform various I/O operations. Predictably, analogRead() takes the longest, followed by analogWrite(). Arduino really falls behind when it comes to digital pin I/O: digitalWrite() takes a whopping fifty times longer than a direct bit write to a port register! This is something to take into consideration when you are looking to do some beefy I/O with an Arduino. Perhaps this I/O performance will be addressed in the future with Arduino 1.0.

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Arduino security with frickin’ laser

[over9k] used his Arduino to set up a laser trip wire. The laser is mounted along side the Arduino, reflects off of a mirror, and shines on a photoresistor that interfaces via a voltage divider. The signal from the voltage divider is monitored for a change when the laser beam is broken. [over9k] set things up so that a webcam snaps a picture of the intruder and Twitters the event for easy notification. Video after the break walks through each of these steps.

This build is a bit rough around the edges but unlike other laser trip wires this keeps all the electronics in one place. The laser interface could be a bit more eloquent, and we’re wondering just how much current it is pulling off of the Arduino pins. But if you’re bored and have this stuff on hand it will be fun to play around with it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Arduino Headed for One Point Oh

In a recent blog post, [Massimo] stated that there will be some stabilizing changes coming for the Arduino platform. The API, IDE, and even the website are targets for the Arduino team’s New Year’s resolutions to bring Arduino to 1.0. This platform is often seen at the core of projects we cover and many that we do not or should not cover. It has come to wide use because it has a better price point to other starter development boards, easy to use with a large user base for support, extensive hardware options with much of the coding already in libraries, and a cross-platform, open source tool-chain that can run just about anywhere. Many people that hate the Arduino, hate it because it is so easy to use. Anyone can get an LED to blink with an Arduino even though there are far more (and far less) elegant solutions. Love it or hate it, Arduino has made a significant impact and the coming changes should help keep it be around for quite some time. Let us look back, how has Arduino affected you?

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Moolodeon electric accordion

[Lee] wanted an electric Melodeon to use with his band. A Melodeon is a chromatic accordion and there are people who already make electric versions but they are a little too expensive for him. Instead, he bought a toy accordion and added electronics to it.

After being thwarted by forgotten PIC skills of yore, he went with an Arduino as the controller. Two pressure sensors are used to detect the squeezing and pulling of the instrument’s bellows. His did some solid work. The video above uses 8-bit sounds like we’re used to from video games and the one after the break sources more traditional accordion sounds.

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MakerBotWatch

If you didn’t get the geeky watch you wanted for Christmas you should consider building yourself a MakerBotWatch. The watch is an Arduino, using an ATmega328 microcontroller running the bootloader. The watch has two concentric circles of LEDs for minutes and hours. A vertical row of four LEDs adds in the additional resolution needed to get 60 minutes on the watch face.

The schematic and board layout are available from an SVN repository so you can make your own board. The device will go into production as a kit but currently the laser-cut bezel will not be part of it.

[via Adafruit]

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(Yet another) Twitter this controlling Arduino that

Christmas may be over, but we still have a couple of cool holiday related hacks for you. One being [Alpay's] Twitter based interactive Christmas tree ornaments.

We tried to dig up some more information, but it thus far appears a laptop running Processing searches Twitter for specific Christmas related words (like 1337, that’s Christmas-y), sends a buffer to one of three Arduinos which in turn light up a specific ornament. You can check out a live stream here.

For those wanting a bit more information on Arduino and controlling holiday lights, check out [Alpay's] GE health care version of Twitter lights, or our previous post on controlling Christmas trees, or you might even try [Michael's] $10 Walmart light controller.

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You’re not seeing double: RGB Christmas trees

[mrpackethead], created this monster of a tree. As shown in the video, it’s capable of showing animations, patterns, and potentially video. The 6m tall creation is studded with 2000 waterproof RGB LED modules. Software for the tree was written in Apple’s own Quartz Composer and integrated into Madrix, a piece of software designed with the purpose of controlling LEDs. The 600W system is 100% Arduino-free and costs less than the equivalent of 0.04USD per hour to run in New Zealand.

[Geoist] opted for the Arduino way to rig up his own smaller RGB Christmas tree. Finding a slightly kitschy fiber-optic model in his local department store, [Geoist] was eager to harness its colour-changing powers. Upon opening it up, it was discovered that it was controlled by nothing more than a light bulb and a spinning disk of coloured light filters. [Geoist] gutted the setup in favour of a breadboard with 3 RGB lights hooked up to an Arduino. The sketch for it is available on his site.

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VFD clock (ends the world)

We honestly thought [Jason's] VFD clock was some form of new terrorist attack when we came across the RSS. Thank goodness our relations with Russia aren’t as MAD as they used to be.

The main components are an IV-18 VFD with a MAX6921 driver, which to an untrained ear do sound surprisingly threatening. However an Arduino settles our hearts down and assures us this only has as much potential as blinking a VFD. While the main code, schematics, and CAD aren’t available (open source coming to a theater near you soon) at the moment – you can check out [Jason's] inspiration, the Ice Tube Clock, which runs many of the same components.

Enjoy a video of it in action after the break. We love the ‘countdown’ feature the most.

[via Make] Read the rest of this entry »

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Open source artillery

Thanks to [Josh, Kyle, and Mike], it is now possible to wage (Nerf) war with an Arduino. The turret designed around it is capable of shooting 6 foam projectiles in close succession, between reloads. The faux weapon interfaces with a computer through the Arduino’s onboard serial link (via USB). Software on the PC sends commands to the Arduino, which then executes functions, such as panning, tilting, firing, and rotating the cylinder. The power for the firing itself comes from a 5 gal, 80 psi air compressor. The Java software on the host PC also does smarter things, like show streaming video from the turret’s webcam and even performs basic object tracking (with mixed success). All the code for building the brute is available on [Josh's] website.

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Laser harp

[Jared] had a bunch of lasers left over from a previous project that he put to use by producing this laser harp. The look of it reminds us of a very small Koto or perhaps an Autoharp (although the chords can’t be changed on this model).

We’re so glad that [Jared] spent the time to produce such a fine looking body for the instrument. The strings that would traditionally produce the sound on a harp have been replaced with laser diodes shining at Cadmium Sulfide photo resistors. When a beam of light is broken, an Arduino detects the change via the CdS cell and plays a sound through an Altec Lansing speaker inside of the case.

Unfortunately there’s no video available but we’re pretty sure it makes a “pew-pew” sound. There is a link to download the source code but it points to the overview page instead of downloadable code. From the fritzing diagram the CdS cells are part of a voltage divider which provides digital logic to the Arduino. That should be pretty easy to replicate even without seeing [Jared's] code and we’re sure you can source other Arduino instrument projects for tips on wave shield or midi functionality.

[Thanks The Cheap Vegetable Gardener]

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Atmolight clone of an Ambilight clone

[Fun3] wasn’t satisfied with current methods for duplicating Philips Ambilight. He wanted a completely plug and play solution without soldering so he could expand upon it in the future. This meant Arduino, ShiftBright, and (it pains us to say this) pre-made cables. Some of you are cringing at the thought of no real ‘work’ being necessary, but remember, now this is much easier for your “I can’t change the VCRs clock” aunt to set up and enjoy. Plus it’s quick, easy, and most importantly – clean, something a lot of hackers have a problem with.

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Fake snow from an Arduino

The team at [Sosolimited] was contracted to create an interesting holiday window dispay for the HBO retail store in NYC. The Times Square display encorporates a board of LEDs and a machine for blowing the artificial snow particles around the enclosure.

The code for controlling the LED array was written on top of the open source C++ toolkit, openFrameworks and the entire setup is interfaced through an Arduino Duelmilanove. Multiple Sharp IR sensors were hooked up to the Arduino in order to detect the movement of observers, which in turn triggers fans to blow the ’snow’ around. A National Control Devices relay board connects the heavy duty fans to the Arduino. This video demo shows just how attractive the project is in motion.

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Capturing that (light field) moment

Yes, your eyes do not lie, that is 12 cameras rigged to take a picture at the exact same moment. The idea is a single camera loses data (namely depth) when it takes a 3D image and transposes it onto a 2D medium. FuturePicture somewhat circumvents this loss by taking several pictures with different focus distances. In short, the camera array allows you to focus on multiple items within a scene. The project’s hardware and software have yet to be released (we do know it’s at least Arduino), but they plan to make it entirely open source so everyone can experiment. Of course, we’ll keep you up to date.
[via Make]

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Light up your limbs

Here’s a Christmas tree project we can get behind. The “tree” itself is made of twisted pairs of insulated copper wire. At the end of each pair a surface mount LED has been soldered between the two conductors. All of the wire limbs converge into a 4×4 matrix. One tree uses a prototyping shield and an Arduino, the other tree is just using an ATtiny2313 microprocessor. Take a look at the twinkling tree in the video after the break.

This artful creation uses one color of LEDs. We’d love to see future improvements that incorporate multiple colors, enhance the fading effects, and perhaps add some interactivity such as pulsing to an inspiring rendition of Chestnuts Roasting on and Open Fire (which, consequently, is called “The Christmas Song“).

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Interactive beer pong table

Do you find that beer pong is too dull on its own to keep your attention? Do you require flashing lights to accentuate your imbibing? Here’s the perfect solution. Make an interactive beer pong table. It didn’t take much to sell us on the idea. We think everything needs a few more lights.

The idea is that as the game progresses, you get different feedback from the lights visible in the picture above. [rohitk] is using an Arduino and some pressure sensors to tell when each cup is removed. Based on this the LEDs change color.

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Social Media HUD

After [Gregg Benjamin] read our story about a simple physical email notifier, he decided to test his skills and add some touches of his own. Rather than limiting his notifier to just email, he has added support for displaying Pandora Radio songs, Facebook notifications, and email all to a LCD. He even has included code for an optional motion detector, as well as support for text message notification. We always love it when our stories inspire our readers to bring their own various solutions to similar problems, so we hope some of you take the code he has supplied (written in python for desktop side, and Arduino sketches for the microcontroller side) and add support for your own interests. Might we suggest RSS feed support, or other social media such as reddit or Google Reader? Let us know if you add something cool, and we might do a follow-up!

[Gregg] doesn’t have a blog of his own, so we have posted the demo video to YouTube, and he has provided all of his related code and images to Megaupload (warning, file is ~115 MB). Sorry to anyone looking for a blog link.

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