Using Arduino Micro to control a fountain is the project shared by Michael Diesing on Twitter:

May I introduce my second ARDUINO-project with own pcb. With the pcb I am able to drive seven brushless pumps(with integrated electronics). The “problem” with such kind of pumps is that they don’t accept unfiltered pwm-signals as supply voltage. So I created a circuit where the pwm-signals of an ARDUINO-micro are level-shifted to 12V with a darlington array and afterwards filtered with a 1 uF ceramic capacitor and a 730 Ohm resistor (low pass filter). The signals are then led into the adjust-pins of seven “lm317″s. To work properly I needed to connect the adjust-pins also with 2500 Ohm resistors to gnd, but I found out that with two l293d instead of the used TDP62783 (darlington array) these resistors are not needed, but different resistor and capacitor values for adequate filtering!
The pums also have tacho signals which I connected via schottky-diodes to the ARDUINO (inputs with pullup). With the tacho-signals I am able to find out if pumps are stuck, are sucking air or are not connected.
Additionally I added one ACS712-05B current sensor (which measures the entire current of the circuit) that could be used to find out if pumps that don’t have tacho-signals are working properly. At the moment it is not used.
Besides that I integrated a lm386 audio-amp used to amplify the signal of an electret-mic to a level that is suitable for the ATEMGA’s ADC.

As the first project for the pcb I created a fountain consisting of a shortened wine barrel, seven brushless pumps, a pushbutton with led and pebbles (s. video).
There are seven animation-modes which can be selected via the pushbutton (the selected mode is stored in eeprom).
The speed of the pumps is checked permanently during operation.
The average power consumption is ~20W and max. consumption is 30W.

Discover the different modes to control it reading the description on youtube video.

Last saturday, Arte tvl aired a short documentary in french language about Arduino. The video was created by FUTURE magazine and featuring Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles and Arduino users: children and young electronics enthusiasts:

Tinkering in a garage on a drone, playing with a set of lights with LEDs or even build a robotic arm worthy of a science fiction movie … Today, even when one is a novice in electronics all this is possible through Arduino, a real flexible technology.

They also created two nice short info-animations to explain what is Arduino and the idea of open source:

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[Connor] was working on a project for his college manufacturing class when he came up with the idea for this sleek desk lamp. As a college student, he’s not fond of having his papers glowing brightly in front of him at night. This lamp takes care of the problem by adjusting the color temperature based on the position of the sun. It also contains a capacities touch sensor to adjust the brightness without the need for buttons with moving parts.

The base is made from two sheets of aluminum and a bar of aluminum. These were cut and milled to the final shape. [Connor] found a nice DC barrel jack from Jameco that fits nicely with this design. The head of the lamp was made from another piece of aluminum bar stock. All of the aluminum pieces are held together with brass screws.

A slot was milled out of the bottom of the head-piece to make room for an LED strip and a piece of 1/8″ acrylic. This piece of acrylic acts as a light diffuser.  Another piece of acrylic was cut and added to the bottom of the base of the lamp. This makes for a nice glowing outline around the bottom that gives it an almost futuristic look.

The capacitive touch sensor is a pretty simple circuit. [Connor] used the Arduino capacitive touch sensor library to make his life a bit easier. The electronic circuit really only requires a single resistor between two Arduino pins. One of the pins is also attached to the aluminum body of the lamp. Now simply touching the lamp body allows [Connor] to adjust the brightness of the lamp.

[Connor] ended up using an Electric Imp to track the sun. The Imp uses the wunderground API to connect to the weather site and track the sun’s location. In the earlier parts of the day, the LED colors are cooler and have more blues. In the evening when the sun is setting or has already set, the lights turn more red and warm. This is easier on the eyes when you are hunched over your desk studying for your next exam. The end result is not only functional, but also looks like something you might find at that fancy gadget store in your local shopping mall.

Despite the MicroView shipping a ton of units, we haven’t seen many projects using this tiny Arduino and OLED display in a project. Never fear, because embedded systems engineer, podcaster, and Hackaday Prize judge [Elecia White] is here with a wearable build for this very small, very cool device.

The size and shape of the MicroView just cried out to be made into a ring, and for that, [Elicia] is using air-drying bendy polymer clay. To attach the clay to the MicroView, [Elecia] put some female headers in a breadboard, and molded the clay over them into a ring shape. It works, and although [Elecia] didn’t do anything too tricky with the headers and clay, there are some interesting things you could do running wires through the clay.

What does this ring do? It’s a Magic 8 Ball, a game of Pong controlled by an accelerometer, a word-of-the-day thing (with definitions), all stuffed into a brass silicon, OLED, and clay knuckle. Video below.

If you’re wondering, Turbillion (n). A whirl; a vortex.

One day, [Samy]’s best friend [Matt] mentioned he had a wireless doorbell. Astonishing. Even more amazing is the fact that anyone can buy a software defined radio for $20, a small radio module from eBay for $4, and a GSM breakout board for $40. Connect these pieces together, and you have a device that can ring [Matt]’s doorbell from anywhere on the planet. Yes, it’s the ultimate over-engineered ding dong ditch, and a great example of how far you can take practical jokes if you know which end of a soldering iron to pick up.

Simply knowing [Matt] has a wireless doorbell is not enough; [Samy] needed to know the frequency, the modulation scheme, and what the doorbell was sending. Some of this information can be found by looking up the FCC ID, but [Samy] found a better way. When [Matt] was out of his house, [Samy] simply rang the doorbell a bunch of times while looking at the waterfall plot with an RTL-SDR TV tuner. There are a few common frequencies tiny, cheap remote controls will commonly use – 315 MHz, 433 MHz, and 900 MHz. Eventually, [Samy] found the frequency the doorbell was transmitting at – 433.8 MHz.

After capturing the radio signal from the doorbell, [Samy] looked at the audio waveform in Audacity. It looked like this doorbell used On-Off Keying, or just turning the radio on for a binary ‘1’ and off for a binary ‘0’. In Audacity, everything the doorbell transmits becomes crystal clear, and with a $4 434 MHz transmitter from SparkFun, [Samy] can replicate the output of the doorbell.

For the rest of the build, [Samy] is using a mini GSM cellular breakout board from Adafruit. This module listens for any text message containing the word ‘doorbell’ and sends a signal to an Arduino. The Arduino then sends out the doorbell code with the transmitter. It’s evil, and extraordinarily over-engineered.

Right now, the ding dong ditch project is set up somewhere across the street from [Matt]’s house. The device reportedly works great, and hopefully hasn’t been abused too much. Video below.

Last week we published our gift guides presenting you a list of products  available on the Arduino Store and divided by topic for Kids and people interested in IoT, Home Lab and Fashion Tech.

Now we’d like to give you some suggestions for gift ideas fitting anyone’s piggy bank:

Gifts Under 15€

Arduino ISP

It’s a tiny AVR-ISP (in-system programmer) based on David Mellis’ project FabISPand useful to anyone needing more space on the Arduino board

Flashing Card Set – Merry Resistivities by Bare Conductive

The Merry Resistivities Set contains all the materials you need to make three flashing greeting cards using Electric Paint. This fun activity is great for makers of all ages.

Minipov by Adafruit

A simple POV toy for beginners who are looking to learn how to solder, how to program microcontrollers, or make LED blinky toys. Because the programmer is built into the kit, one does not need a special “microcontroller programmer”.

Arduino Proto Shield

The Arduino Prototyping Shield makes it easy for you to design custom circuits for your next Arduino project. You can solder parts to the prototyping area to create your project with extra connections for all of the Arduino I/O pins.

Make Robot Notebook Moleskine

Pocket Moleskine Notebook – Fresh from the Maker Faire comes our exclusive mini-Moleskine (5.5″x3.5″, 30 pages) notebook, available with Robot logos.

Gifts Under 30€

Getting Started with Arduino – 2nd Edition

This classic book to start tinkering with Arduino gives you lots of ideas for projects and helps you work with them right away. From getting organized to putting the final touches on your prototype, all the information you need is here!

Arduino Case + Breadboard Wires Kit

This lasercut (in Officine Arduino), wooden case is perfect to host your project and store electronic parts. It features two drawers, a confortable surface for a standard breadboard and the space for two Arduinos to be hooked up. It’s stackable, perfect for teaching material or group work.

Arduino UNO

If you want to make any beginner happy, this is the perfect gift. “Uno” means “One” in Italian and is named to mark the upcoming release of Arduino 1.0. The Uno and version 1.0 will be the reference versions of Arduino, moving forward. The Uno is the latest in a series of USB Arduino boards, and the reference model for the Arduino platform.

Lumi Red or Blu

Lumi is a new DIY alternative to screen printing.The process works on cotton, linen, silk, rayon, canvas, and any other natural & absorbent fiber. Once finished, your print is permanent and can be machine washed without fading.

Blend Micro by RedBearLab

Arduino At Heart Blend Micro is RedBearLab first integrated developement board, they have “blend”ed Arduino with Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (aka BLE or Bluetooth Smart) into a single board. It is targeted for makers to develop low power Internet-Of-Things (IoT) projects quickly and easily.

Gifts Under 60€

Arduino Esplora

The Arduino Esplora is a ready-to-use, easy-to-hold controller that lets you explore the infinitive possibilities you have in the world of sensor and actuators, without having to deal with breadboards, soldering or cable. There is no limits to the sensors applications! Adding a LCD module you can make your personal videogame!

Bare Conductive Touch Board

Touch Board can turn almost any material or surface into a sensor by connecting it to one of its 12 electrodes, using conductive paint or anything conductive. It’s designed as an easy-to-use platform for a huge range of projects, whether it’s painting a lightswitch on your wall, making a paper piano or something nobody’s thought of yet.

Intel Edison

The Intel Edison is an ultra small computing platform that will change the way you look at embedded electronics. This kit also includes a Arduino Breakout, which essentially gives your Edison the ability to interface with Arduino shields or any board with the Arduino footprint.

Arduino Yún

Arduino with onboard Wi-Fi connectivity and a Linux computer. Great for IoT projects. The Arduino YÚN is the combination of a classic Arduino Leonardo (based on the Atmega32U4 processor) with a WiFi system-on-chip running OpenWrt-Yun.

Remember

FREE SHIPPING to European Union for all orders over €100 (below 3Kg overall weight). Should you need delivery by Dec 24th, we strongly advise you to place the order before Dec 15th. FREE SHIPPING is available from Dec. 2nd 2014 until Jan 6th 2015. Read more about the shipping policy.

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