Cata Sopros is interactive sound installation running on Arduino Uno and created by Elas Duas, a multidisciplinary studio based in the city of Guimarães (Portugal). If you translate the title from portuguese it means: Breathe Catchers. In fact the project is a collective musical instrument made with paper windmills transforming the users’ breathe into sounds:

The windmills have inbuilt electret microphones that were connected to an Arduino Uno. The sensor data was then sent to MaxMSP and the sounds were played with Ableton Live. The video was shot at the cloister of the beautiful Alberto Sampaio museum in Guimarães, Portugal.

Enjoy the video:

Hive (2.0) is the second iteration of an interactive sound sculpture consisting of fifty speakers and seven audio channels. The sensors detect the proximity of people and Arduino manipulates audio according to it.

It was created by Hopkins Duffield, a Toronto-based collaborative duo exploring ways to combine both new and familiar mediums with artistically technological practices. In this work they used Arduino Uno together with Max 6 / Max For Live.
Check the video to listen to the sculpture:

“Earth Partitions” installation by artist Melik Ohanian was exhibited at the Centre d’Art Contemporain à Sète in France and it’s composed by two synchronized videos with a dancer and a seismogram, the second being “written” by the first.

The dancer with two controllers in the hands was asked to “translate” into corporal expression and movements what he saw in a seismogram of an earthquake . His movements were consequently “translated back” to a seismogram using a device. Both the mime and the seismograph were filmed at the same time and both were then broadcasted simultaneously on two different screens during the exhibition.

The project was made thanks to the work of Out of Pluto, a multidisciplinary startup working on the research and development of new technologies to materialize various projects and ideas and decided to share with us some more info about this installation.

Arthur and Mathias, founders of the startup, submitted the project to this blog describing me how they used two Arduino boards:

The Arduino Micro reads the accelerometer values, computes a global value and sends it via bluetooth to the computer. The computer reads this value, computes an angle according to a configurable ratio (sensitivity) and sends a new value to the Arduino Uno. The Arduino Uno sends the angle to the servo motor that rotates to this angle and then come back to 0 (if no other value is sent). Coming back to 0 simulates the end of the “earthquake”. The mechanical part of the arm is flexible so there is some inertia involved, creating the typical outline of seismograms. There is a simple motor to pull the paper at a constant speed.

Take a look at the video:

Last weekend the second edition of Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition,  hosted 90,000 people (15,000 young boys and girls!) at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, discovering more than 600 maker projects, participated to workshops and attended the conferences and many light-talks.

Take a look at some snapshots on our Flickr account: we took them during the faire at the Arduino Booth and Store (also behind the scene),  the Arduino Activities and the presentations announcing  the State of Arduino and CasaJasmina – the open source connected home – curated by Bruce Sterling. During the long and intense weekend Arduino participated also to the press conference and vernissage of the exhibition 50 years of italian inventions, from Programma 101 to the first 3d printed car, a project by Make in Italy CDB foundation.

In the next weeks we are going to share some  videos of the presentations and the events of those amazing days! Thanks for participating to Maker Faire Rome! Stay tuned…

Do you have any picture to share about the event? Post the link in the comments!

From the 3rd to the 5th of October all the Arduino crew will be staying in Rome for the European Maker Faire hosting more than 500 makers from all over the world! You can come and visit us in one of the 3 main areas (Arduino  booth, Arduino Store, Arduino Activities) of the fair dedicated to Arduino:

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ARDUINO BOOTH
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Visit the Arduino booth and explore a showcase of projects and Arduino boards:

• SPECIAL Installation – Arduino TRE Photobooth
  A 3D anaglyph photobooth uses two cameras to capture a 3D picture. Each picture is processed using the new Arduino TRE board. It separates the red channel from one camera and the cyan channel from the other, and overlays them together. The result is then printed out on a large photostrip.

• Arduino Starter Kit – Demos

The Kit walks you through the basics of using the Arduino in a hands-on way. The kit includes a selection of the most common and useful electronic components with a book of 15 projects.

• Arduino At Heart – Showcase

Learn more about the Arduino AtHeart program, designed for makers and companies wanting to make their products easily recognizable as based on the Arduino technology. Fea

Bhoreal – OpenTracker v2 Board – JubeBox with littleBits Arduino Module – Cromatica – Smart Citizen Kit – Apollo

• Creative Technology in the Classroom (CTC)

Kit Demo for Teachers & Schools

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ARDUINO STORE
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The official Arduino Store will be open during the 3 days of the Maker Faire and is your chance to purchase boards, materials, kits, for all your tinkering skills.  Come check us out to discover more than 300 products.

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ARDUINO ACTIVITIES
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FRIDAY

///h.10.30-19.30
Creative Technology in the Classroom
Activity: 4 Kit Demos for Teachers & Schools

• Tickle Robot A regular ticklish robot in a rocking chair. Come to think of it, that doesn’t sound very regular at all. Tickle the robot on its heart and it will start wiggle like crazy.

• Open Box An open source box that contains open source electronics. Oh, and it automatically opens when you knock on it.

• Binary  LP This sort of works as an LP player. The difference is that instead of using a needle on a plastic disc, we use three IR sensors in a row to read a pattern from a paper disc. If you are both musically and digitally inclined, you will have lots of fun creating melodies with this.

• Drawdio You might think that this pen is magic, and it might just be. Drawdio turns (almost) everything that is conductive into an instrument. You can either make music by drawing a picture or by touching the tip of it to different conductive things around you.

///h.10.30-14.30
Arduino and Makers activities
Activity: Presentation for Teachers & Schools

Overview of workshops and activities for kid and teens at school

///h.14.30-15.30
Arduino TRE and Web IDE
Activity: Board Demo

Come try out the new Arduino Software (IDE) we are designing for the Arduino TRE, give us your feedback to guide the development in the right direction!

///h.10.30-18.30

Svante’s catapult and claw
Activity: Kid-friendly Workshop (over 6 year-old)
You can remote control our robot Svante: grab objects with a claw, or make him use the catapult to launch balls to specific targets.

Do you want to participate? Add your name to the schedule (on paper) in the Arduino Activity area and be there at your scheduled time.

SATURDAY

h.10.30-11.30/12.30-13.30/14.30-15.30/16.30-17.30

Drawdio
Activity: Kid-friendly Workshop (over 7 year-old) – 4 slots

Make sound while you draw. Learn about conductivity and sound by drawing on a piece of paper.

Do you want to participate? Add your name to the schedule (on paper) in the Arduino Activity area and be there at your scheduled time.

h.11.30-13.30/13.30-14.30/15.30-16.30/17.30-18.30

Binary LP
Activity: Kid-friendly Workshop (over 7 year-old) – 4 slots

Draw your own binary patterns to play music in our nice Binary LP player. Learn about sound, melody, binary reading and sensors.

Do you want to participate? Add your name to the schedule (on paper) in the Arduino Activity area and be there at your scheduled time.

h.13.30-16.30

Conductive dough cakes and animals
Activity: Drop-in Workshop (20 min – over 6 year-old)

Make an animal, a cake with candles or an emitting light object with conductive dough and learn the basics on conductivity.

h.10.30-12.30

Lasercut Race
Activity: Workshop

Build something is usually pretty fun, but if we’re talking about lasercut race cars, it’s impossible to not enjoy it! what could be better? tune them after all and challange the other racer!

Do you want to participate? Add your name to the schedule (on paper) in the Arduino Activity area and be there at your scheduled time.

h.10.30-18.30

LED necklace
Activity: Drop-in Workshop (15 min)

Build a cool and simple necklace! Power an LED with a small battery and put it inside a designed paper box. You will be able to decorate it with hole patterns and hang it from your neck.

h.14.30-16.30

Arduino TRE and Web IDE
Activity: Board Demo

Come try out the new Arduino Software (IDE) we are designing for the Arduino TRE, give us your feedback to guide the development in the right direction!

h.16.30-18.30

Vibro-Robot
Activity: Kid-friendly Workshop (over 6 year-old)

A workshop to learn by playing the basics of robotics. Using little motors, lasercut pieces and little plastic parts, kids will build their (first) small robot!

Do you want to participate? Add your name to the schedule (on paper) in the Arduino Activity area and be there at your scheduled time.

SUNDAY

h.10.30-18.30

Svante’s catapult and claw
Activity: Robotics Demo

You can remote control our robot Svante: grab objects with a claw, or make him use the catapult to launch balls to specific targets.

h.10.30-18.30

Conductive dough cakes and animals
Activity: Drop-in Workshop (15 min – over 6 year-old)

Make an animal, a cake with candles or an emitting light object with conductive dough and learn the basics on conductivity.

h.10.30-18.30

LED necklace
Activity: Drop-in Workshop (15 min)

Build a cool and simple necklace! Power an LED with a small battery and put it inside a designed paper box. You will be able to decorate it with hole patterns and hang it from your neck.

h.11.30-13.30

E-Jewels
Activity: Workshop

Jewels are not just for girls and electronics not just for boys. During this brief workshop you will learn how to solder and make your first electronic jewel. This workshop is perfect for mum/dad+son/daughter

Do you want to participate? Buy your E-Jewel kit in the Arduino Store (10 euro) before the workshop starts r name on the paper in the Arduino Activity  area and be there at the scheduled time.

h.14.30-17.30

Arduino TRE and Web IDE
Activity: Board Demo

Come try out the new Arduino Software (IDE) we are designing for the Arduino TRE, give us your feedback to guide the development in the right direction!

“Trataka” by Alessio Chierico is an interactive installation controlled by Arduino and based on a brain-computer interface. It was exhibited at Ars Electronica last week. When a visitor totally relaxes and focuses, the candle magically extinguishes:

Trataka is a Sanskrit term which means “to look” or “to gaze” and it refers to a meditation technique. This practice consists in concentrate the attention in a small object, or more commonly in a flame. In meditation, this technique is used to stimulate the ajna chakra: a point located in correspondence of the brain. According to the Hindu tradition, this chakra is one of the six main centers of vital energy, and it is considered as the eye of the intuition and the intellect.

This installation is composed by a brain-computer interface that detect the brain waves and defines parameters like the level of attention. Wearing this device, the user is invited to concentrate his attention on a flame placed in front of him. The level of attention detected by this system, controls an air flow located under the flame: higher level corresponds with a more intense air flow. The interaction process aims to the user engagement for increase his attention in order to put the flame out. This will happen when the highest level of attention is reached: the air flow become strong enough to extinguish the flame.

 

Arduino has been chosen as an example of how the open-source, collaborative approach is reshaping the world of technology and design and, on September 5th and 6th, we’ll be on of the contributor of the Weekend Specials section of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia curated by Rem Koolhaas.

The Arduino space at the Biennale Architettura 2014 has been conceived to inspire visitors to rediscover their ‘maker gene’: the impulse to learn and make things by yourself. Curated by Enrico Bassi, the exhibition includes responsive installations and hands-on demos to encourage visitors to interact and better understand the creative, transformative potential of Arduino and other open-source digital tools.

The first section focuses on the history, development and applications of Arduino. It features a glance at the evolution of the board, alongside an illustration of how it can enable an easy, direct approach to electronics and programming. In a dedicated area, the Treviso Arduino User Group, a local community of makers, engages visitors in a two-day hackathon on biometric and environmental sensors. The mezzanine level offers a playful and immersive take on what Arduino can bring to light installations.

A second section explores the impact of Arduino on a variety of innovative projects and businesses. It features a selection of items from Arduino AtHeart, a program designed to support and promote independently developed Arduino-based products: Primo, Smart Citizen Kit, Bare Conductive Touch Board, littleBits Arduino Module, and Cromatica.
In the Italian Innovators area, a special focus is granted to outstanding examples of how Arduino fosters creativity and technological development in its country of origin: WASProject, a research initiative on architectural 3d-printing; MEG, an innovative open-source home greenhouse; Light Cryptalk, an Arduino-powered recreation of the WW2 Enigma cypher machine.

Ironically extending the maker approach to other, broader parts of society, a set of videos in the final section of the exhibition compares the effects of the closed- and open-source philosophy in sectors ranging from the auto industry to architecture, suggesting the possibility of a radical, pervasive transformation.

The Maker Gene was produced in collaboration with: Fablab Torino, Officine Arduino, Treviso AUG, Torino AUG, MEG, WASProject, Michele Lizzit, Primo, Smart Citizen Kit, Bare Conductive Touch Board, littleBits Arduino Module, and Cromatica.

Supported by: Arduino

Useful links:

Take a look at the general website of La Biennale>>

The venue hosting The Maker Gene is the Arsenale and our installation is hosted within the Weekend Specials initiative.

You can buy your ticket  at this link.
Come and visit us on the 5th and 6th of September from 10am to 8pm!

The training program Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC) is a 3-month  educative program designed by David Cuartielles and Arduino Verkstad in collaboration with Fundación Telefónica, Fundación la Caixa and Ultra-lab.

It’s a toolbox comprised of more than 20 hands-on, easily assembled electronic experiments; an online source for course materials and documentation tools; and a collaborative space where teachers can meet with a moderator to share their findings and ask technical questions.

It aims to train teachers of Technology and students to creative technologies, which means technologies empowering young students to make devices, machines, art-works, experiments etc., enable them to learn doing things and to express themselves as creators.

Teachers are trained in programming with Processing and prototyping with Arduino, in order to become a mentor and help all along the program the students, following the different step-by-step experiments of the program.

The beneficial aspect of this program is not only about acquiring new skills and technical knowledge but mainly on experimenting a different methodology of learning and transmitting knowledge, based on sharing information,  questions,  doubts, and resolving them together by experimenting.

This project has been successfully implemented in the Region of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid involving 50 enthusiastic teachers,  around 1200 youngsters who were able to invent, create and exhibit their project made with Arduino.

See the video below for details (in spanish):

Thanks to the support of Fundación La Caixa, the same program will be held in 50 colleges of Barcelona and a new edition, with the renewed support of Fundación Telefónica, will begin again in Madrid in 2015.

Gleb Kanunnikau is  a designer and trainer based in Minsk. He is part of a group of volunteers running a meetup group and an open laboratory bringing together people from the tech and education/media and experimental, hackerspace scene trying to solve a few very local and very practical problems that don’t seem to be getting a lot of attention from the tech community.  Their initiative is focused on providing educational tools for children and adults with vision disabilities and is organized as an open laboratory with contribution from Minsk hackerspace (the first in Belarus), Belarusian meetup.by community, and monogroup.by - community of architects and visual artists.

Gleb wrote me a long email and explained the aims and the context of their amazing work:

The problem is that schools for the visually impaired aren’t getting new books with Braille type and the education system for these kids is stuck in the 1970s, only now it is much worse (at least in the USSR there were factories and employment options for these people, as well as city districts with disabilities-friendly housing). They are the forgotten, invisible people – no textbooks means there are few people able to read Braille books – and they just can’t leave their apartments nor get education or a job.

Luckily, Ludmila Skradal, who works with these children on a regular basis as a tour guide and a teacher, had met a few architects, as well as people from the first Belrusian hackerspace and we’ve organized a hackathon a year ago.

We are building the first tactile museum exhibition for these children (but also for adults) on history/ethnography/architecture.

This is a sound/tactile installation that uses technology but isn’t tech-centric and solves a practical problem. We are combining hand-built architectural plastic models of buildings and elements printed with a 3d printer (open source mendel prusa, with Arduino inside) for small-scale columns and ornaments etc.

The models serve as instructional materials and partly substitute for the missing handbooks on history and culture that the children in schools for the visually impaired are not receiving currently.
The kids say that these architecture lessons were the first time they’ve been able to even imagine what buildings in cities “look like” above ground level. Things that were outside of their reach, like the clock tower on the city hall building, rooftops, column capitals were suddenly accessible – they were invited to touch the real city hall walls during the field trip to feel their texture and then they explored the model, and hearing the sound of the real city hall clock they examined it in the model.

The current goal is to build a museum exhibition unified by narrative and allowing self-exploration within the space, using Arduino for controlling the exhibits.

We hope that 3d printed objects could work as handbooks on history, culture, art. Maybe we’ll even print DNA segments that can be combined as like lego puzzles – so that kids can try to put together a DNA chain out of aminoacid plastic blocks to understand how the spiral of amino-acids looks like. There are many possibilities.

If you want to get in touch and know more about their project, visit the website.

Al periodico appuntamento con l’elettronica amatoriale presso Modena Fiere, che oggi e domani (19-20 Gennaio) ospita Expo Elettronica, i makers e gli hobbysti emiliano-romagnoli non possono rimanere delusi per il calibro degli ospiti in programma. Officine Arduino, assieme ai ragazzi del FabLab di Reggio Emilia, offrono un’occasione unica per confrontarsi con il mondo dei makers e con la prototipazione DIY, grazie a numerose varianti di stampanti 3D esposte e funzionanti, assieme alla possibilità di provare e “toccare con mano” alcune delle novità più interessanti del mondo Arduino, come l’Arduino DUE.

Lo stand del FabLab di Reggio Emilia.

Alcune delle novità più interessanti riguardano i prossimi eventi in programma, fra cui troviamo l’importante “Makre Faire – The European Edition”, che verrà ospitata per la prima volta in Italia nei giorni 3-6 Ottobre 2013 a Roma e che vedrà coinvolta l’intera comunità di makers provenienti da tutta Europa. Fra gli eventi in programma vi saranno conferenze, workshop hands-on e numerosi speech, in aggiunta alla fiera “vera e propria” che si terrà nel week-end.

Per partecipare come espositori, a partire dal 18 Febbraio si aprirà una “Call for makers” alla quale chiunque sia interessato potrà inviare la propria candidatura e i propri progetti, che verranno accuratamente selezionati per costituire il programma delle numerose esposizioni previste. Stay tuned sull’home page della fiera per i prossimi aggiornamenti!

Costantino e Davide presentano la Maker Faire di Roma.

Fra gli imminenti eventi in calendario elenchiamo il prossimo Workshop Base di Arduino che si terrà i giorni 26-27 Gennaio a Reggio Emilia, presso il FabLab “Spazio Gerra”. Le iscrizioni sono ancora aperte, ma i posti ancora disponibili sono limitati! Accorrete numerosi!