What goes on inside of a Magic 8 Ball when you ask it a question and shake? Sure, as an adult you might guess that it’s some sort of fluid and a geometric shape that floats to the surface; but if you envision it though the mind of a child, there could be an entire colorful word that computes, queries a database, or even magically ascertains the answer.

ASK.ME is an Arduino-controlled installation by Joan Raspo that brings this imaginary world to life as a geodesic dome that you can walk into. As a visitor enters inside, their presence is detected and they are greeted with a holographic image that invites them to ask a question.

After pushing a button, ASK.ME allows you time to inquire whatever you have on your mind, then comes back with the response. The dome itself is lined in mirrors, along with a reflective floor and blue fiber optic lighting, creating an immersive interactive experience.

Once activated, the “ASK.ME” hologram changes and presents the visitor with a hologram, linked to audio, asking the visitor “What is Ur question?” Next, a hologram that says “It’s loading” gives the visitor time to ask their question and in ten seconds a holographic answer and audio appears. This gives the visitor the experience of “talking” to a seer—making it seem very human.

You can find more details on the amazing project here, or watch Raspo’s demo below!

In case you haven’t noticed, our team has just released Arduino IDE 1.8.5! This time the changelog is fairly small, as it mainly solves a (rather important) problem being encountered by macOS users who just updated to High Sierra (10.13).

If you are not using English as system language, any version of Arduino you launch will lack the menu in the system bar. Every Java application is experiencing the same problem, so it will probably be solved by Apple in the near future.

In the meantime, IDE 1.8.5 recognizes when the menu bar is not being displayed and replaces it with a Windows-style one. It may not be the prettiest thing, but at least it works!

If you want to recover the old menu bar while keeping the whole system in your normal language, you can issue a single command on Terminal:

defaults write cc.arduino.Arduino AppleLanguages '(en)'

Thank @AdrianBuza for the workaround. Issuing this command will make Arduino IDE in English, however you can still change the language under “Preferences” without losing the macOS integration.

While playing board games on a computer screen can be entertaining, this experience lacks a certain tangible aspect. YouTuber RoboAvatar decided to take things into the third dimension with a chess machine that uses an XYZ gantry system and gripper to move pieces as needed.

Instead of a vision system, RoboAvatar’s robotic device uses 64 reed switches (one for each square) to tell an Arduino Uno where the magnetized pieces reside. The project also features a Mux Shield and a pair of MCP23017 I/O expander chips, providing a total of 93 available pins.

While the Uno controls the physical motion and sensing of the board, a computer runs a Python program that does the chess game calculations and sends this information to it. You can see the machine demonstrated in the first video below. The second gives an overview of how it was made.

Want to build your own chess-playing robot? More details can be found over on Instructables.

This tiny circuit will annoy friends and family with its piezo buzzer that makes unwanted sounds, and an LED that will blink in the wee hours of the night.

Read more on MAKE

The post Prank Your Friends with This Chirping, Blinking Throwie appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Primary image

Hi Everyone. Its been a long time since I last posted a robot project on here but I wanted to share my latest project with you all. I have always enjoyed making various types of robot but I have a particular soft spot for desktop robots. I like the idea of a little robot pal sat next to me on the desk that I can develop when I get the spare time.

read more

Primary image

Hi Everyone. Its been a long time since I last posted a robot project on here but I wanted to share my latest project with you all. I have always enjoyed making various types of robot but I have a particular soft spot for desktop robots. I like the idea of a little robot pal sat next to me on the desk that I can develop when I get the spare time.

read more

At Maker Faire Milwaukee this past weekend, [basement tech]  was showing off his latest build, a PID controlled charcoal grill. While it hasn’t QUITE been tested yet with real food, it does work in theory.

PID (a feedback loop with some fancy math used to adjust the input to get a consistent output) controlled cooking is commonly used for sous vide, where one heats up a water bath to a controlled temperature to cook food in plastic bags. Maintaining water temperature is fairly easy. Controlling a charcoal barbecue is much more difficult. [basement tech] accomplishes this with controlled venting and fans. With the charcoal hot and the lid on, there are two ways to control temperature; venting to let hot air out, and blowing air on the coals to make them hotter. A thermocouple sensor stuck through the grill gives the reading of the air inside, and an Arduino nearby reads that and adjusts the vents and fans accordingly.

The video goes into extensive detail on the project, and describes some of the challenges he had along the way, such as preventing the electronics and servos from melting.

There’s not a lot of time left in the grilling season, so we hope [basement tech] gets an opportunity to enjoy the meats of his labor. Maybe he can trade food with [Jason] and his PID controlled meat smoker.

What are the implications of our devices exchanging information about our identities, abilities, and actions? They're all quite the gossip.

Read more on MAKE

The post When Things Start to Gossip and Other Computational Matters appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

First unveiled over the weekend at World Maker Faire New York, Arduino has introduced a pair of new IoT boards with embedded LoRa and GSM capabilities.

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300 and MKR GSM 1400 are designed to offer a practical and cost-effective solution for developers, makers and enterprises, enabling them to quickly add connectivity to their projects and ease the development of battery-powered IoT edge applications.

Both of the highly compact boards measure just 67.64 x 25mm, together with low power consumption, making them an ideal choice for emerging battery-powered IoT edge devices in the MKR form factor for applications such as environmental monitoring, tracking, agriculture, energy monitoring and home automation.

Offering 32-bit computational power similar to the Arduino MKR ZERO board, the MKR WAN 1300 is based around the Murata LoRa low-power connectivity module and the Microchip SAM D21 microcontroller, which integrates an ARM Cortex-M0+ processor, 256KB Flash memory and 32KB SRAM. The board’s design includes the ability to be powered by either two 1.5V AA or AAA batteries or an external 5V input via the USB interface – with automatic switching between the two power sources.

In addition, the MKR WAN 1300 offers the usual rich set of I/O interfaces expected with an Arduino board, and ease of use via the Arduino IDE software environment for code development and programming. Other features  include an operating voltage of 3.3V; eight digital I/Os; 12 PWM outputs; and UART, SPI and I2C interfaces.

Like the MKR WAN 1300, the Arduino MKR GSM 1400 is based on the SAM D21, but integrates a u-blox module for global 3G communications. The board features automatic power switching, however, it uses either a 3.7V LiPo battery or an external Vin power source delivering 5V to 12V. While the USB port can also be used to supply 5V to the board, the MKR GSM 1400 is able to run with or without the battery connected.

The MKR GSM 1400 provides a rich set of I/O interfaces including: eight digital I/Os; 12 PWM outputs; UART, SPI and I2C interfaces; analog I/O including seven inputs and one output; and eight external interrupt pins.

Both boards are now available for pre-order on the Arduino Store.

Nikodem Bartnik had a small problem. When soldering, he had to move his light around in order to properly see what he was working on. In order to avoid this constant interruption, he built a 3D-printed lamp capable of manuevering like a small robot arm under voice command.

An Arduino Uno controls the light’s movement directly via three servos, and a relay flips the switch on and off. Instead of adding voice recognition hardware to his robotic light, he cleverly linked it with an Android app over Bluetooth, using his phone to translate spoken words into serial commands.

Although great for soldering, this device can certainly come in handy when reading books or even finding your way to bed at night. Want to create your own? You can find more details on Bartnik’s Instructables page here.