Lasers, Arudinos, cats doing funny things -- here's a student project custom built for the internet age. We popped by the Winter Show at NYU's ITP school to check out a new batch of works exploring the intersection between art and technology and couldn't help but be enamored by Cat Car, the "feline fitness frenzy." Designed to be a sort of exercise contraption for our furry friends, Sam Brenner's project eventually blossomed into something for more entertaining, though he assures us that "the safety and wellbeing of the cats involved [were his] top priorit[ies]." Cat Car uses a steering wheel controller with an attached Arduino and gyroscope / accelerometer, which communicate with a cat harness via an XBee. The movements control a servo on the back of the cat, which moves around a laser pointer, propelling the cat forward, thus allowing the user to remotely control the cat. A video of this magic can be found after the break.

Continue reading Cat Car turns your feline into a furry RC vehicle

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Source: Sam Brenner

The example here is part of a larger project that explores the development of interactive sensory objects for and by people with learning disabilities, specifically to enhance the experience of museums and heritage sites in the UK.

In this example we embedded an Arduino Uno inside a granary loaf, together with a Phidgets 1110 touch sensor, an Adafruit Wave Shield and a portable speaker with amplifier. The sounds stored on the SD card were recorded by the participants on our project and were selected randomly each time the load was picked up.

We are not yet at the end of our first year of the project, and still finding out the many incredible things that can be achieved with an Arduino, and some basic sensors!

Thank you [kingarthursdog] that sent us this big project involving Arduino. On the [website] you can find all their projects.

[Dmitry Narkevich] likes a strong cup of tea and his method of getting there is to oscillate the tea bag as it steeps. But why take the time to do this when you can make an Arduino brew your tea for you. As you can see, he rigged up a system to move the tea bag as it steeps in his metal bottle.

The motion is provided by a hobby servo connected to an Arduino. This makes timing the process very simple and we’d imaging it’s only a matter of time before he adds an alarm so he’ll know when it’s ready. But the real hack comes in the apparatus that connects the servo to the bottle. Since he’ll be drinking out of it the assembly needs to be easy to remove and should be able to stand up to the abuse of being clamped on and taken off a few times each day.

The base of the device is a guitar capo. This is meant to gently clamp to the finger board of a guitar using spring tension so it is already covered in rubber which gives it a firm grip on the bottle’s opening. The servo is connected to a metal part from a stapler, and the string drapes over the body of a disposable pen. Don’t miss this in action in the clip after the break.

If you don’t have a servo on hand you could try using the sled from an optical drive.

[via Reddit]

Read the full article on MAKE

Today we all celebrate the 10th anniversary since Creative Commons was created. Look for the closest party to join the celebrations (and donate for the cause).

Arduino loves / uses / promote Creative Commons Licenses: have a look at what does this mean, it could be your choice for sharing your next project!

Hi.

Does anybody know of a decent freebie transparent serial monitor? I've been having some trouble with processing and arduino, (see this), and I'd like to be able to compare what processing and the arduino terminal are sending so I can find the problem.

Thans in advance.

On the whim of a coin flip, Nick Thatcher once decided between building a homemade Segway, or a self balancing unicycle. Even though the powers of fate chose the former, Thatcher's thirst to build wasn't quenched -- he built the one-wheeled scooter anyway. The Raptor looks a lot like a Ryno unicycle built from spare parts -- a chain driven wheelbarrow wheel powered by a 350w geared motor, a pair of batteries wired in series, some PVC and polycarbonate, an IMU gyro and an Arduino UNO -- all hobbled together to form a one-wheeled electric mount. Thatcher says the scooter can push 10mph safely, but faster speeds tend to outpace the gyro's corrective efforts. Still, the bike promises between 90-120 minutes of face-plant free fun, provided the rider is at least a little balanced. The motorized unicycle isn't for sale, but peek on over to Thatch Industries for a parts list, or scoot on past the break to see the bike in action.

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Via: Hackaday

Source: Thatch Industries

We’ve seen automated Rubick’s Cube solvers before, but never one that has garnered as many awards as [James]‘ popsicle stick and LEGO Rubick’s Cube solver.\

To keep the project complexity down, [James] opted not to use a webcam to detect the color pattern on each face of the cube. Instead, he wrote a little Python app to manually enter the pattern on each face before letting his algorithm loose on the cube and calculating how to solve it.

So far, [James] has seen a huge amount of success from his project. He entered it in the New Zealand Brightsparks competition netting him $1000. This competition led to a win in the Realize the Dream science competition where he won a major prize and an entry into the International Taiwan Science Fair held early next year. An awesome accomplishment from a budding hacker, and we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

You can check out a video of [James]‘ cube solver after the break.

Do you need to build a KeyPad for your system? [AverageGuy] did it himself. Here his story:

My old keypad GDO gave up the ghost a while back so I decided I’d undertake a new Arduino based project. I saw there were quite a number of wireless projects already and one wired, but the wired on didn’t go into any detail, so here’s an incomplete implementation. Food for thought if nothing else.

On the [website] there is a full description and the schematics. I really recommend you if you’re interested, because the explanation is complete in every aspects.

Long time no see LMR!!!!

This semester was my most brutal yet, but the rewards have been priceless!

Anyways, back to the robots,

So my current project is to create a virtual indentity that I can have a VERY simple conversation with. His name is Sergei, cause everyone needs an awesome Russian buddy. But I find myself being a bit stuck on one thing: Serial Communications

What Im really trying to better understand is how to make the Arduino respond to my serial input. 

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