MalDuino is an Arduino-powered USB device which emulates a keyboard and has keystroke injection capabilities. It’s still in crowdfunding stage, but has already been fully backed, so we anticipate full production soon. In essence, it implements BadUSB attacks much like the widely known, having appeared on Mr. Robot, USB Rubber Ducky.

It’s like an advanced version of HID tricks to drop malicious files which we previously reported. Once plugged in, MalDuino acts as a keyboard, executing previous configured key sequences at very fast speeds. This is mostly used by IT security professionals to hack into local computers, just by plugging in the unsuspicious USB ‘Pen’.

[Seytonic], the maker of MalDuino, says its objective is it to be a cheaper, fully open source alternative with the big advantage that it can be programmed straight from the Arduino IDE. It’s based on ATmega32u4 like the Arduino Leonardo and will come in two flavors, Lite and Elite. The Lite is quite small and it will fit into almost any generic USB case. There is a single switch used to enable/disable the device for programming.

The Elite version is where it gets exciting. In addition to the MicroSD slot that will be used to store scripts, there is an onboard set of dip switches that can be used to select the script to run. Since the whole platform is open sourced and based on Arduino, the MicroSD slot and dip switches are entirely modular, nothing is hardcoded, you can use them for whatever you want. The most skilled wielders of BadUSB attacks have shown feats like setting up a fake wired network connection that allows all web traffic to be siphoned off to an outside server. This should be possible with the microcontroller used here although not native to the MalDuino’s default firmware.

For most users, typical feature hacks might include repurposing the dip switches to modify the settings for a particular script. Instead of storing just scripts on the MicroSD card you could store word lists on it for use in password cracking. It will be interesting to see what people will come up with and the scripts they create since there is a lot of space to tinker and enhanced it. That’s the greatness of open source.

You can watch the prototype in action in the video:

Video resolution is always on the rise. The days of 640×480 video have given way to 720, 1080, and even 4K resolutions. There’s no end in sight. However, you need a lot of horsepower to process that many pixels. What if you have a small robot powered by a microcontroller (perhaps an Arduino) and you want it to have vision? You can’t realistically process HD video, or even low-grade video with a small processor. CORTEX systems has an open source solution: a 7 pixel camera with an I2C interface.

The files for SNAIL Vision include a bill of materials and the PCB layout. There’s software for the Vishay sensors used and provisions for mounting a lens holder to the PCB using glue. The design is fairly simple. In addition to the array of sensors, there’s an I2C multiplexer which also acts as a level shifter and a handful of resistors and connectors.

Is seven pixels enough to be useful? We don’t know, but we’d love to see some examples of using the SNAIL Vision board, or other low-resolution optical sensors with low-end microcontrollers. This seems like a cheaper mechanism than Pixy. If seven pixels are too much, you could always try one.

Thanks [Paul] for the tip.

We aren’t sure this technically qualifies as music synthesis, but what else do you call a computer playing music? In this case, the computer is a Teensy, and the music comes from a common classroom instrument: a plastic recorder. The mistaken “flute” label comes from the original project. The contraption uses solenoids to operate 3D printed “fingers” and an air pump — this is much easier with a recorder since (unlike a flue) it just needs reasonable air pressure to generate sound.

A Teensy 3.2 programmed using the Teensyduino IDE drives the solenoids. The board reads MIDI command sent over USB from a PC and translates them into the commands for this excellent driver board. It connects TIP31C transistors, along with flyback diodes, to the solenoids via a terminal strip.

On the PC, a program called Ableton sends the MIDI messages to the Teensy. MIDI message have three parts: one sets the message type and channel, another sets the velocity, and one sets the pitch. The code here only looks at the pitch.

This is one of those projects that would be a lot harder without a 3D printer. There are other ways to actuate the finger holes, but being able to make an exact-fitting bracket is very useful. Alas, we couldn’t find a video demo. If you know of one, please drop the link in the comments below.

We have seen bagpipe robots (in fact, we’ve seen several). We’ve also seen hammering shotguns into flutes, which is certainly more melodious than plowshares.

Desk toys are perfect for when you don’t want to work. There’s a particularly old desk toy called the Newton’s cradle. If you don’t know the name, you’d still recognize the toy. It is some ball bearings suspended in midair on strings. If you pull back, say, two balls and let them swing to impact the other balls, the same number of balls on the other side will fly out. When they return, the same number will move on the other side and this repeats until friction wears it all down.

We think [JimRD] might be carried away on procrastination. You see, he not only has a Newton’s cradle, he has automated it with an Arduino. According to [Jim], this is his third attempt at doing so. You can see the current incarnation in the video, below.

There are two servos. One pulls back the balls and releases them and the other stops the balls in anticipation of the next operation. The servo that pulls the balls back is clearly magnetic. At first, we thought it was an electromagnet and that deenergizing it released the balls. That’s not the case. Instead, the servo arm has a permanent magnet, but foam decouples it from the ball so that if the arm pulls far enough away, the ball can escape.

Because of the differences in magnets, ball bearings, and other factors, if you try to duplicate this, you’ll probably have to experiment a little with the angles and speeds in the code. The ball stop servo is probably unnecessary, as long as you don’t mind waiting for the thing to wind down on its own.

If you don’t have a cradle, you could always make one yourself. We’d probably avoid using light bulbs, though.

Just before the dawn of the PC era, IBM typewriters reached their technical zenith with the Wheelwriter line. A daisy-wheel printer with interchangeable print heads, memory features, and the beginnings of word processing capabilities, the Wheelwriters never got much time to shine before they were eclipsed by PCs. Wheelwriters are available dirt cheap now, and like many IBM products are very hackable, as shown by this simple Arduino interface to make a Wheelwriter into a printer.

[Chris Gregg] likes playing with typewriters – he even got an old Smith Corona to play [Leroy Anderson]’s The Typewriter – and he’s gotten pretty good with these largely obsolete but lovable electromechanical relics. Interfacing a PC to the Wheelwriter could have been as simple as scrounging up an original interface card for the machine, but those are like hen’s teeth, and besides, where’s the sport in that? So [Chris] hooked a logic analyzer to the well-labeled port that would have connected to the interface card and reverse engineered the somewhat odd serial protocol by banging on keys. The interface he came up with for the Wheelwriter is pretty simple – just a Light Blue Bean Plus and a MOSFET to drive the bus high and low for the correct amount of time. The result is what amounts to an alphanumeric printer, but with a little extra code some dot-matrix graphics are possible too.

Having spent a lot of time reverse engineering serial comms, we can appreciate the amount of work this took to accomplish. Looking to do something similar but don’t have the dough for a logic analyzer? Maybe you can free up $22 and get cracking on a similarly impressive hack.

[via r/arduino]

[Aguilera Dario] likes his Casio fx-82ES calculator. However, it was missing a few functions, including complex numbers. A Casio fx-991ES has more functions but, of course, costs more. A quick Google revealed that if you press the right buttons, though, you can transform an fx-82ES into an fx-991ES.

Because it is apparently a buffer overflow exploit, the hack involves a lot of keys and once you cycle the power you have to do it again. [Aguilera] realized this would be a good candidate for automation and added a microcontroller to push his buttons. You can see a video of a breadboard version below. He also has a PCB version in the works that should be better integrated.

The automation hardware patches into the button matrix through test pads on the back of the calculator’s PCB. [Aguilera] soldered ribbon cable directly to these pads, then snaked it out through a slot cut into the back of the calculator case where it is terminated with a 0.1″ pin socket. An Arduino Mini is used in the prototype, the next revision will use an ATmega328P on a custom board. The uC interfaces with the button connections using the venerable 4066 chip which is able to act as an analog switch.

The board layout for the PCB version is shown on the project page. There is no word on whether this is meant to be a permanent addition to the calculator, or just plugged in for the exploit and stored away for use the next time power is cycled. Either way, it’s neat to learn about this exploit and a cool challenge to automate it!

If you don’t want to hack up an off-the-shelf calculator, grab some nixie tubes and make your own. Or, if you are short on tubes, try this one.

There’s no shortage of Arduino-based clocks around. [Mr_fid’s] clock, though, gets a second look because it is very unique looking. Then it gets a third look because it would be very difficult to read for the uninitiated.

The clock uses three Xs made of LEDs. There is one X for the hours (this is a 24-hour clock), another for the minutes, and one for the seconds. The left side of each X represents the tens’ digit of the number, while the right-side is the units.

But wait… even with two segments on each side of the X, that only allows for numbers from 0 to 3 in binary, right? [Mr_fid] uses another dimension–color–to get around that limitation. Although he calls this a binary clock, it is more accurately a binary-coded-decimal (BCD) clock. Red LEDs represent the numbers one to three. Green LEDs are four to six. Two blue segments represent seven to nine. It sounds complicated, but if you watch the video, below, it will make sense.

This isn’t [Mr_fid’s] first clock. He is using a DS1307 real time clock module to make up for the Arduino’s tendency to drift. Even if you aren’t interested in the clock, the mounting of the LEDs with plastic–and the issues he had isolating them from each other–might come in handy in other displays.

We’ve seen a lot of Arduino clocks over the years, including some that talk. We’ve even seen some that qualify as interactive furniture, whatever that is.

[Diego Marino] and his colleagues at the Politecnico di Torino (Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy) designed a prototype that allows for patients with motor deficits, such as spinal cord injury (SCI), to do rehabilitation via Functional Electrical Stimulation. They devised a system that records and interprets muscle signals from the physiotherapist and then stimulates specific muscles, in the patient, via an electro-stimulator.

The acquisition system is based on a BITalino board that records the Surface Electromyography (sEMG) signal from the muscles of the physiotherapist, while they perform a specific exercise designed for the patient’s rehabilitation plan. The BITalino uses Bluetooth to send the data to a PC where the data is properly crunched in Matlab in order to recognize and to isolate the muscular activity patterns.

After that, the signals are ‘replayed’ on the patient using a relay-board connected to a Globus Genesy 600 electro-stimulator. This relay board hack is mostly because the Globus Genesy is not programmable so this was a fast way for them to implement the stimulator. In their video we can see the muscle activation being replayed immediately after the ‘physiotherapist’ performs the movement. It’s clearly a prototype but it does show promising results.

It reminds us of the Myoelectric Hand, with humans instead. We featured an EMG tutorial a while back for those curious about this topic. Without taking the merit out of excellent and needed medical research, we all wait for the day that all our bio-signals can be easy read and translated to, let’s say, a huge avatar robot like METHOD-2. Right? Right?…

WiFi and Bluetooth were never meant to be the radios used by a billion Internet of Things hats, umbrellas, irrigation systems, or any other device that makes a worldwide network of things interesting. The best radio for IoT is something lightweight which operates in the sub-Gigahertz range, doesn’t need a lot of bandwidth, and doesn’t suck down the power like WiFi. For the last few years, a new low-power wireless communication standard has been coming on the scene, and now this protocol — LoRa — will soon be available in an Arduino form factor.

The Primo, and NRF

It’s not LoRa, but the Arduino Primo line is based on the ESP8266 WiFi chip and a Nordic nRF52832 for Bluetooth. The Primo comes in the ever-familiar Arduino form factor, but it isn’t meant to be an ‘Internet of Things’ device. Instead, it’s a microcontroller for devices that need to be on the Internet.

Also on display at CES this year is the Primo Core which we first saw at BAMF back in May. It’s a board barely larger than a US quarter that has a few tricks up its sleeve. The Primo Core is built around the nRF52832, and adds humidity, temperature, 3-axis magnetometer and a 3-axis accelerometer to a square inch of fiberglass.

The Primo Core has a few mechanical tricks up its sleeve. Those castellated pins around the circumference can be soldered to the Alice Pad, a breakout board that adds a USB port and LiPo battery charger.

LoRa

Also on deck at the Arduino suite were two LoRa shields. In collobration with Semtech, Arduino will be releasing the pair of LoRa shields later this year. The first, the Node Shield, is about as simple as it can get — it’s simply a shield with a LoRa radio and a few connectors. The second, the Gateway Shield, does what it says on the tin: it’s designed to be a gateway from other Arduino devices (Ethernet or WiFi, for example) to a Node shield. The boards weren’t completely populated, but from what I could see, the Gateway shield is significantly more capable with support for a GPS chipset and antenna.

A partnership with Cayenne and MyDevices

Of course, the Internet of Things is worthless if you can’t manage it easily. Arduino has struck up a partnership with MyDevices to turn a bunch of low-bandwidth radio and serial connections into something easy to use. Already, we’ve seen a few builds and projects using MyDevices, but the demos I was shown were extremely easy to understand, even if there were far too many devices in the room.

All of this is great news if you’re working on the next great Internet of Things thing. The Primo Core is one of the smallest wireless microcontroller devices I’ve seen, and the addition of LoRa Arduino shields means we may actually see useful low-bandwidth networks in the very near future.

We’ll admit it: we sometimes overcomplicate things. Look at [Peter Weissbrod’s] automated cat feeder, for example. It isn’t anything more than a bottle, a servo, some odds and ends, and an Arduino. However, it lets him sleep in without his cat waking him for service.

We looked at the code and thought, “This thing will just dispense food all the time! That’s not what you want!” Then we looked closer. [Peter] uses a common household timer to just turn the device on in the morning, let it run for a bit, and then turns it off. You can see a video of the mechanism, below.

Honestly, we have mixed feelings. As we are sure someone’s already quit reading to comment: you don’t really need an Arduino for this. If it were doing the timing, that might make it more justifiable. Or perhaps have it sense daylight to feed in the morning. Still, Arduinos are cheap (we just picked up some tiny Pro’s for about $3) and it is a more flexible arrangement than, say, a 555 driving the servo.

We have seen many cat feeders over the years. Some of them use custom components. Others use whatever you have on hand (including another kitchen timer). However you do it, one thing is clear: When the aliens come and observe life on Earth, they will doubtless conclude that the cats are in charge.