Ready to level-up your robot skills? ArduRoller is a self-balancing, inverted pendulum robot that’s also capable of autonomous navigation indoors or out. I created it as an entry for the annual SparkFun Autonomous Vehicle Competition: The goal was to create a nontraditional vehicle capable of quickly navigating an obstacle course […]
The post How to Build a Self-Balancing Autonomous Arduino Bot appeared first on Make:.
Ready to level-up your robot skills? ArduRoller is a self-balancing, inverted pendulum robot that’s also capable of autonomous navigation indoors or out. I created it as an entry for the annual SparkFun Autonomous Vehicle Competition: The goal was to create a nontraditional vehicle capable of quickly navigating an obstacle course […]
The post How to Build a Self-Balancing Autonomous Arduino Bot appeared first on Make:.
Riding a bike can be fun, great exercise, and, if you live in a city conducive to it, a great mode of transportation. According to author Scott Bennett who lives in Vancouver BC, Canada, a city with a high bike theft rate, he “wanted to have some peace of mind […]
The post Secure and Track Your Bike with this Arduino-Based GPS Lock appeared first on Make:.
Riding a bike can be fun, great exercise, and, if you live in a city conducive to it, a great mode of transportation. According to author Scott Bennett who lives in Vancouver BC, Canada, a city with a high bike theft rate, he “wanted to have some peace of mind […]
The post Secure and Track Your Bike with this Arduino-Based GPS Lock appeared first on Make:.
Yes, we made it! You have some more days to complete your application for Maker Faire Rome – The European edition, and be with us next October. So far, we received many interesting, challenging, surprising projects and we don’t want to miss yours: defeat the procrastinator hiding in you and submit you project now!
Projects will be selected by a jury and will participate free of charge. If your project is accepted:
[Vlad] wrote in to tell us about his latest project—an RC boat that autonomously navigates between waypoints. Building an autonomous vehicle seems like a really complicated project, but [Vlad]’s build shows how you can make a simple waypoint-following vehicle without a background in autonomy and control systems. His design is inspired by the Scout autonomous vehicle that we’ve covered before.
[Vlad] started prototyping with an Arduino, a GPS module, and a digital compass. He wrote a quick sketch that uses the compass and GPS readings to control a servo that steers towards a waypoint. [Vlad] took his prototype outside and walked around to make sure that steering and navigation were working correctly before putting it in a boat. After a bit of tweaking, his controller steered correctly and advanced to the next waypoint after the GPS position was within 5 meters of its goal.
Next [Vlad] took to the water. His first attempt was a home-built airboat, which looked awesome but unfortunately didn’t work very well. Finally he ended up buying a $20 boat off of eBay and made a MOSFET-based motor controller to drive its dual thrusters. This design worked much better and after a bit of PID tuning, the boat was autonomously navigating between waypoints in the water. In the future [Vlad] plans to use the skills he learned on this project to make an autopilot for the 38-foot catamaran his dad is building (an awesome project by itself!). Watch the video after the break for more details and to see the boat in action.
[Myrijam Stoetzer] and her friend [Paul Foltin], 14 and 15 years old kids from Duisburg, Germany are working on a eye movement controller wheel chair. They were inspired by the Eyewriter Project which we’ve been following for a long time. Eyewriter was built for Tony Quan a.k.a Tempt1 by his friends. In 2003, Tempt1 was diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disorder ALS and is now fully paralyzed except for his eyes, but has been able to use the EyeWriter to continue his art.
This is their first big leap moving up from Lego Mindstorms. The eye tracker part consists of a safety glass frame, a regular webcam, and IR SMD LEDs. They removed the IR blocking filter from the webcam to make it work in all lighting conditions. The image processing is handled by an Odroid U3 – a compact, low cost ARM Quad Core SBC capable of running Ubuntu, Android, and other Linux OS systems. They initially tried the Raspberry Pi which managed to do just about 3fps, compared to 13~15fps from the Odroid. The code is written in Python and uses OpenCV libraries. They are learning Python on the go. An Arduino is used to control the motor via an H-bridge controller, and also to calibrate the eye tracker. Potentiometers connected to the Arduino’s analog ports allow adjusting the tracker to individual requirements.
The web cam video stream is filtered to obtain the pupil position, and this is compared to four presets for forward, reverse, left and right. The presets can be adjusted using the potentiometers. An enable switch, manually activated at present is used to ensure the wheel chair moves only when commanded. Their plan is to later replace this switch with tongue activation or maybe cheek muscle twitch detection.
First tests were on a small mockup robotic platform. After winning a local competition, they bought a second-hand wheel chair and started all over again. This time, they tried the Raspberry Pi 2 model B, and it was able to work at about 8~9fps. Not as well as the Odroid, but at half the cost, it seemed like a workable solution since their aim is to make it as cheap as possible. They would appreciate receiving any help to improve the performance – maybe improving their code or utilising all the four cores more efficiently. For the bigger wheelchair, they used recycled car windshield wiper motors and some relays to switch them. They also used a 3D printer to print an enclosure for the camera and wheels to help turn the wheelchair. Further details are also available on [Myrijam]’s blog. They documented their build (German, pdf) and have their sights set on the German National Science Fair. The team is working on English translation of the documentation and will release all design files and source code under a CC by NC license soon.
We are happy to announce Tsunami by Arachnid Labs has joined the Arduino At Heart Program.
Tsunami is a new powerful and flexible signal generator built on the Arduino platform and the best way to get started experimenting with analog signals.
Nick Johnson, its creator, took the versatile processor behind the Arduino Leonardo, and combined it with a Direct Digital Synthesis chip, which makes generating analog signals incredibly straightforward. He also added flexible input and output circuitry, an easy to use software library, to make working with analog signals as easy as blinking an LED.
Tsunami lowers the barriers to making music, sending and receiving data, experimenting amateur radio, and creating educational applications. It was launched successfully on KickStarter last April and you are in time to pre-order it on Crowd Supply!
Here’s a list of projects you could do:
Want to know more? Meet Nick and Tsunami in this video:
A pretty color LCD screen, an Arduino, a buzzer and a joystick is all you need for a minimalist gaming console for under $20. At least, that’s all [João Vilaça] needed to get this sweet version of Tetris up and running. (He’s working on Breakout right now.)
It’s a testament to the current state of the hardware hacking scene that [João] could put this device together in an afternoon for so cheap, presumably after waiting a while for shipments from China. The 320×240 SPI color TFT LCD screen used to cost twice as much as this whole project did. And wiring it up is a simple matter of connecting this pin to that pin. Almost child’s play.
Equally impressive is the state of open source software. A TFT library from Seeed Studios makes the screen interface a piece of cake. [João] wrote his own sound and joystick code, and of course the Tetris gameplay itself, but it’d be much more than a few weeks’ work without standing on the shoulders of giants. Check out [João]’s Github for the project code and stick with us after the break for a demo video and some of our other favorite Arduino gaming hacks.
Now, we’ve seen a whole lot of Arduino-based gaming platforms around here before, and they range from the simplistic black-and-white to the bells-and-whistles of the Gameduino which tacks an FPGA onto your Arduino to enable sprites, awesome sound, and VGA output. But we’ve also got a place in our hearts for simplicity and comprehensibility, and [João]’s device and code has got those in spades.
If you’re ready to push your Arduino skills beyond blinking LEDs, [João]’s game project should be on your reading / building list. We can’t wait to see Breakout.
Cubled is an interactive installation made of 27 luminous spheres arranged in space to create a cube 5 mt (16.4ft) per side floating on a stage.
The project created by Giuseppe Acito of Opificio Sonico has a structure made of steel wires, RGB LED Strips and Ikea paper lanterns.
The system is MIDI-controlled, the notes generated by a sequencer are converted to electric signals using an Arduino UNO and a Mosfet:
No DMX device was used for this system which is 12V DC powered, with slim electric wires in order to give the lightness needed to this installation. In this clip, the performance is splitted in 2 parts: in the first a kit of electronic percussion is “played” live by a step sequencer named Sonic Fraction Beatdown (a Max\MSP device for Ableton Live), the combinations of 12 MIDI notes generated are linked to the spheres. In the second part the combinations of sounds and lights are pre-programmed patterns clip and performed live by a Tenori-on Yamaha and Ableton Live. The installation was mounted inside the Link Club (Bologna – Italy) in December 2013, which hosted some world-famous DJ set, during a month of permanence.
