The Raspberry Pi was made to be inexpensive with an eye toward putting them into schools. But what about programs targeted at teaching embedded programming? There are plenty of fiscally-starved schools all over the world, and it isn’t uncommon for teachers to buy supplies out of their own pockets. What could you do with a board that cost just one dollar?

That’s the idea behind the team promoting the “One Dollar Board” (we don’t know why they didn’t call it a buck board). The idea is to produce a Creative Commons design for a simple microcontroller board that only costs a dollar. You can see a video about the project, below.

Despite being licensed under Creative Commons, there isn’t much detail available that we could find. It appears the board uses an 8 pin Atmel CPU (and the FAQ indicates that the board will use the Arduino IDE). We’re guessing that it’s essentially a Digispark / Adafruit Trinket / ATtiny85 with V-USB installed.

The crowdfunding campaign page lists the following details:

• CPU: 8-bit
• GPIO (input and output ports): 6
• USB Interface: Yes
• Memory: Flash 8 kBytes (expandable to 256 kBytes)
• Spaces for expansions: WiFi ESP8266, Memory 24C256, H bridge L293
• Voltage: 5V
• Indicator LEDs: 2
• Reset Button: Yes
• Fitting Spaces: 4 (compatible with Arduíno UNO or similar)
• Quick Guide: The English board comes with a printed guide in other languages.

If it is an ATTtiny85-based design, two of those “GPIO” pins will be eaten up by the USB programmer, and maybe two more by the indicator LEDs. And some of that 8 kB of flash is consumed by the bootloader. In short, it’s not going to be able to do everything all at once. Still, it could be just the thing for getting your feet wet.

But the real story is the price. The dollar price tag doesn’t include shipping or taxes, of course, but even getting the price down that low is impressive. Time will tell if the market has an appetite for a dollar board. If we had to guess, the real value will be in ready-made course material.

There are plenty of educational boards out there, but few (if any) cost a buck.

Maker Faire is a three-day, family-friendly event that has been celebrating the DIY Movement for the last 10 years. The ‘Greatest Show & Tell on Earth’ is designed for creative, innovative people of all ages and backgrounds, who like to tinker and love to make things.

In just a few days, the Arduino team will be in attendance for the 11th annual Maker Faire Bay Area as a Goldsmith Sponsor. Those heading to the San Mateo on May 20th-22nd will want to swing by our booth (#2321) and join us for some inspiring talks, especially the highly-anticipated State of Arduino by Massimo Banzi on Saturday at 12:30pm.

We’ve been preparing a series of demos to showcase the family of Arduino tools for the Internet of Things through our Arduino Create platform. Those who come by our booth will have the chance to experience the following firsthand:

• Cloud Sensor Station | “Make Sense of Your Data”
  The Cloud Sensor Station is equipped with four different sensors: gas detection, light intensity, motion detection (infrared) and temperature/humidity. These four sensors send values to the Arduino Cloud so that you can see real-time results of the collected data from everywhere.
• Yún Camera | “Lights! Camera! Facebook!”
  The Yún Camera captures photos at the press of a button and then automatically uploads them onto Facebook. (We’re sensing plenty of selfies in our near future!)
• Yún Message | “Leave a Message and I’ll Show It Back”
  The Yún Message is a smart desk, developed in collaboration with Opendesk, that displays custom messages on an LED matrix. This piece of smart furniture lets users share a reminder or note through a webpage. Come and leave a note or… do it online!
• Twitter Printer | “The IoTweet!”
  This connected thermal printer running on MKR1000 will automatically print tweets from all over the world with the #PrintArduino hashtag. (Look forward to seeing what you come up with!)

Additionally, we’ll be showcasing our Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC) program, which is a collaborative learning curriculum designed for schools that wish to incorporate emerging technologies into their existing technology classes.

Whether you’re a teacher or student, come and discover how to explore electronics through a series of hands-on coding projects that’ll provide you with the foundations of programming, electronics and mechanics.

Aside from some of our latest products and projects, we’ll also play host to several members of our growing open-source ecosystem and partners like Intel, ARM and Atmel, to name just a few.

Have a question about Arduino? Looking to get started but don’t know how? Beginners, or even experienced users, will have the chance to get their questions answered inside our booth. We’ve set aside an area where you can speak to our team of experts, from your recent invention to one of our boards. What’s more, you’ll even be able to take home an assortment of Arduino SWAG: stickers, pins and other cool giveaways!

Can’t wait to see everyone soon! In the meantime, stay tuned as we’ll be posting a confirmed agenda of scheduled talks in the next few days. For everything else, check out Maker Faire’s official site!

Lately I’ve been struggling with the STEM/STEAM approach to teaching computational technology. It assumes you’re either an artist, scientist, or engineer. What about the rest of us? I meet plenty of people who don’t fit any of these categories, yet who use programming and electronic devices in their work. I’m looking to understand their perceptions of how these technologies work, and how they fit into their practices. In this talk, I tried to explain some of what I’ve noticed by observing and working with people from different backgrounds, and to review some of the current tools for teaching a general audience.

Ultimately, I want us to get to a point where we use programming tools in the same way as we use language. We all use language, but we’re not all language-using professionals. We use it casually, expressively, sometimes professionally, in a thousand different ways. We don’t follow all the rules, yet we work together to share a common understanding through language. We’re starting to do the same with media like video, audio, and images as well. Maybe we can get there with programming and computational thought, too.

Watch the video:

Interested in building and programming your own robot? You might want to give Antbo a try. Billed as the "insect robot designed for anyone with an inquisitive mind," it's a programmable entry-level kit for beginners or anyone with a casual interest in robotics.

Interested in building and programming your own robot? You might want to give Antbo a try. Billed as the "insect robot designed for anyone with an inquisitive mind," it's a programmable entry-level kit for beginners or anyone with a casual interest in robotics.

Interested in building and programming your own robot? You might want to give Antbo a try. Billed as the "insect robot designed for anyone with an inquisitive mind," it's a programmable entry-level kit for beginners or anyone with a casual interest in robotics.

Massimo Banzi is among the judges on “America’s Greatest Makers” a reality competition from Mark Burnett (the reality-TV king behind “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” and “The Voice”) in partnership with Intel which debuted last week on TBS.

In a first of its kind competition, the tv show takes 24 teams of makers from across US and puts them in head-to-head challenges to invent disruptive projects and win $1 million. The team are composed by unique people from 15 years old to 59 with ideas going to inspire a whole new audience of potential makers.

In the first two episodes, each team pitched their device idea to the judging panel composed by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich; business and financial expert Carol Roth; comedian, serial entrepreneur and co-host of truTV’s Hack My Life Kevin Pereira; and one of the celebrity guests.

At the end of April during 4th episode guest judge Massimo Banzi joins the panel as the remaining makers compete in the “Make or Break” rounds for $100,000 and a spot in the million dollar finale. If you are not in the USA, watch the episode at this link after April 27th.

In the meanwhile you can also watch a beginner maker project to learn how to do obstacle avoidance using Arduino 101. Cara Santa Maria is the trainer who’s going to guide you into the tutorial about this really important topic for projects involving moving objects like robots and drones:

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and use hashtag #AmericasGreatestMakers

A class in Brazil was given the assignment to make a board game. [Marcelo], presumably, heard his son lamenting how lame it was going to be if the board was just cardboard with some drawings on, and came to the rescue.

Working with the class, they came up with the rules of the game. We’re not certain what those are, but it involves a regular game board, a flashing light circle with numbers, and a fusion between Operation and one of those disease transmitters commonly found at the doctor’s office. You can try to puzzle them out from the video after the break.

The brains of the board is an Arduino with an external EEPROM for all the sound effects and other data needed for this construction. Everything is laid out on a beautifully done home etched PCB. It’s too bad the other side of the board isn’t visible.

We’re sure the kids learned a lot working with [Marcelo]. It would have been nice if a traveling wizard came to some of our earlier classes in school and showed us just how much cool stuff you can do if you know electronics.

Abu Zubair developed a toy to help his son with fine motor skills. Now this toy is helping many more children with autism.

Read more on MAKE

The post Father Creates an Interactive Toy that Hones Fine Motor Skills for Son with Autism appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Macchina Poetica is a digital prototype converting sounds into onomatopoeic words and images and it’s inspired by the art of the Futurism movement.

Futurism is a modernist, avant-garde artistic movement originated in Italy in the early 20th century. Thanks to sound representation, Futurism artists aimed to emphasize speed, technology, youth and violence, all concepts arising from industrial innovations and war.

In order to keep continuity with this particular artistic movement, the authors, Alessandra Angelucci, Aris Dotti, Rebecca Guzzo, students at Master of Advanced Studies in Interaction Design SUPSI, decided to design an object that looks like the musical instrument of Futurism movement (precisely a Celesta). The object plays a metallic sounds and the user is facilitated in understanding how to use the object due to a instrument-like interface.

The machine is built using 4 piezo sensors, a thermal printer, a board, electrical cables, 4 resistors (1K), a 6 volt power supply and a Genuino Uno board.

The instrument’s interface is designed with plywood, metal plates and sponge that serves as a shock absorber. Between the metal plates and the sponge there are the piezo sensors along with resistors communicating with the Genuino Uno board every time the user interacts with the metallic plates. Once the Genuino receives the signal, it sends a command to the thermal printer that will print a word or a Futurism poem.

The interaction takes place when the user with the help of a metal tool (for example a screwdriver or a wrench) strikes the metal plates with different pressures. At the end of the performance the user and the viewers can have a clear overview of the produced sounds reviewing the printed paper outputs.

The prototype is the result of two weeks physical computing class Creating Tangible Interfaces held by Ubi De Feo at Maind program SUPSI  in Lugano, the goal of the course is how to make tangible interfaces via learning fundamentals of electronics prototyping and interaction design.  (Applications are open for the next edition 2016/2017 starting in September 2016)