Hardware overview is in the video with a better description.
Jetson TK1 processes images from the USB webcam and the two Raspberry Pi NoIR cameras then sends commands to the Arduino Mega in order to move autonomously around the environment avoiding obstacles.
The software is custom written and uses OpenCV for image processing. No ROS, no SLAM, no neural nets or whatever.
Hacker “MmmmFloorPie’s” senior project in college, in 1989, was a device based on the venerable Motorola 6800 chip that could record and play back sounds. It could also display these recorded waveforms on a monochrome CRT monitor. The monitor in question was purchased as a bare CRT for $20, and mounted in the cardboard box it was shipped in. Various risks aside, it’s quite an impressive setup.
As with many projects that seemed very cool at the time, this one sat in ‘FloorPie’s garage for many years, until it was finally powered up many years later. Naturally it didn’t work, but instead of giving up, an Arduino Uno shield was made in the form of the 68000 motherboard to send it the required signals.
Though it’s now much slower than the original, the CRT was brought back to life. You can find more about this build on Imgur or on ‘FloorPie’s Reddit post here.
Arduino will once again return to Maker Faire Bay Area, taking place May 19th-21st in San Mateo, CA.
As a sponsor of this year’s event, attendees will be able to meet our team, go hands-on with boards and projects, and even buy kits of their own at our pop-up shop at the Arduino booth. Makers can also learn about all of our recent developments as Massimo Banzi takes Center Stage for his annual ‘State of Arduino’ keynote on Saturday at 12:45pm.
Those who come by our booth (#2522) will have the chance to check out our new MKR family, which include the MKR1000, MKRZero, MKR2Uno Adapter, MKR Relay Proto Shield and MKR Proto Shield, along with some IoT demos created in collaboration with Officine Innesto and Fablab Bologna.
Why wait to get home to purchase your boards? The MKR lineup as well as a few special bundles–the MKR Family Developer Bundle, the UNO to MKR bundle and the Young Maker Bundle–will be on sale all weekend long. These kits will be available at a discounted price on-site and on our online store from Friday, May 19th to Sunday, the 21st.
But that’s not all. We’ll be joining our friends at Intel, where we’ll be showcasing Arduino Education’s CTC 101, a modular STEAM curriculum for schools looking to bring technology and programming into their classrooms. There, you’ll also find a preview of some projects built with the Starter Kit 101, the latest collaboration between Intel and Arduino.
Whether you have a question about Arduino, want to speak with our team of experts, or simply want to take home a board, be sure to swing by our booth and store next weekend! For more information and tickets, check out Maker Faire’s official site!
As YouTuber Evan Kale puts it, his set is was kind of boring. He decided to spruce things up by turning his ordinary door into an “alien portal,” lining it with a strip of RGB LEDs. Though this may not be the first time you’ve seen this type of lighting in action, he directs our attention to a few interesting details about using them in typical Kale style.
One interesting note comes around the 4:50 mark, where he points out his portal is controlled using Hue Saturation Lightness (HSL) via a potentiometer instead of RGB. This keeps the glowing effect consistent, while allowing color adjustment.
For this project, he employed an Arduino Nano, which looks like a great choice since it needs a limited amount of I/O. Using this tiny board, the entire control package can fit into his small 3D-printed enclosure.
You can see a demo of Kale’s “alien portal” below, and check out his channel for more fun Arduino projects!
Pets bring an untold amount of joy into our lives, but unfortunately they aren’t allowed to go everywhere that humans are. Of course this makes sense in many situations, but if you’d like to take your dog with you wherever you go, this means occasionally leaving poochie in the car. Along with leaving the sunroof and windows open, this project’s author also came up with a transmitter and receiver to monitor the temperature inside of the car with a series of LED pulses.
The car unit consists of an Arduino Mega, along with a temperature sensor and LoRa transciever. The receiver takes this wireless information, which can be reliably read at a range of 250 meters (820 feet) in an urban environment, and gives the user a series of blinks to assure Max’s (the dog) human that he’s not overheating!
You can find the entire build’s write-up here, or check out its code on GitHub.
A lot of homebrew CNC machines end up being glorified plotters with a router attached that are good for little more than milling soft materials like wood and plastic. So if you have a burning need to mill harder materials like aluminum and mild steel quickly and quietly, set your sights higher and build a large bed CNC machine with off-the-shelf components.
With a budget of 2000 €, [SörenS7] was not as constrained as a lot of the lower end CNC builds we’ve seen, which almost always rely on 3D-printed parts or even materials sourced from the trash can. And while we certainly applaud every CNC build, this one shows that affordable and easily sourced mechatronics can result in a bolt-up build of considerable capability. [SörenS7]’s BOM for this machine is 100% catalog shopping, from the aluminum extrusion bed and gantry to the linear bearings and recirculating-ball lead screws. The working area is a generous 900 x 400 x 120mm, the steppers are beefy NEMA23s, and the spindle is a 3-kW VFD unit for plenty of power. The video below shows the machine’s impressive performance dry cutting aluminum.
All told, [SörenS7] came in 500 € under budget, which is a tempting price point for a machine this big and capable.
You likely know that growing plants via hydroponics involves some sort of water and fertilizer solution. Perhaps, however, you don’t realize that these plants need to be removed from the water occasionally in order to air out the roots. Normally, this means that the water is raised and lowered.
Peter Fröhlich, though, decided to go a different route, and came up with a device to physically raise and lower the plants using a large wheel, resembling a sort of Ferris wheel for plants!
The frame itself is a plastic bin he purchased at a local hardware store, while the wheel and its arms were made with components lying around his lab and other laser-cut parts. To make this interesting setup turn, he used a stepper motor from an old printer, controlled by an Arduino and stepper driver.
Want to grow your own salad right inside your home? You can find more details of this fascinating build in Fröhlich’s project write-up and on Hackaday here.
Do you ever wonder what certain colors would smell like? Perhaps red would emit the fragrance of a rose, while blue may be reminiscent of the ocean.
During a recent workshop at ÉCAL in Lausanne, Switzerland, Niklas Roy challenged students to come up with new communication devices. In response, they devised an Arduino-based machine that senses a color and translates it into a certain smell.
The resulting mechanism, which they’ve dubbed “Bouquet,” comes in the form of a cone with an optical sensor on one end, and a stepper motor-controlled disc on the other that turns pads with according scents under the nose of the art connoisseur.
As seen here, they topped the project off with a series of colorful posters that could be experienced in a new way! You can find more of this project on Roy’s website, as well as in this Creative Applications article.
Hope springs eternal for Smell-O-Vision. [Niklas Roy] recently taught a workshop called Communication Devices at ÉCAL in Lausanne, Switzerland. Four of his Media & Interaction Design students built a scanner that detects colors and emits a corresponding scent.
The project consists of an Arduino connected to a color sensor as well as a SparkFun EasyDriver. The EasyDriver controls a stepper motor which rotates a disc of scent swatches so you sniff the swatch corresponding with the color. The students chose strawberry for red, and blue ended up being “ocean”-scented room spray.
With design students involved it’s no surprise the project looked good. Bouquet’s creators [Erika Marthins], [Arthur Moscatelli], [Pietro Alberti] and [Andrea Ramìrez Aburto] gave the device an intriguingly featureless look, and the “olfactory graphic design” posters they created to demonstrate it look great as well.
[Niklas Roy]’s excellent projects have graced the pages of Hackaday many times before. Be sure to check out his RC Beer Crate, his Music Construction Machine, and his Thermal Imaging Rig if you haven’t already.
You’ve seen exoskeletons in movies such as Aliens and Iron Man, and perhaps even heard about current experiments with human use. Unfortunately though, if you want to learn about this technology, the barrier to entry is very high.
EduExo, now available on Kickstarter, is an attempt by robotics researcher Volker Bartenbach to bring this technology to the masses. Based on an Arduino Uno, the device takes the form of an upper and lower arm cuff, along with a motor and force sensor to allow it to be used for haptic control.
It’s available for you to 3D print and assemble yourself, or for a larger pledge, you can receive all the parts needed to build it. Interested? Check out Bartenbach’s campaign!