Arduino and Genuino Education is a worldwide-leading school initiative bringing technology into the hands of teachers and students to create a more inventive learning experience. It offers multiple platforms, including research-based projects like PELARS and in-class programs such as Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC), all of which are present at this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area.

With CTC, students are able to learn basic programming, electronics, and mechanics concepts in an approachable, playful way through a series of coding projects and easy-to-assemble experiments.

Arduino’s one-of-a-kind STEM program has been implemented in nearly 500 schools throughout the globe, resulting in an overwhelming satisfaction rate among both students and teachers alike. 95% of instructors continue to use the curriculum in their classrooms year after year, while more than 13,000 students have already participated.

CTC 101 — running on Arduino 101 — is divided into four distinct stages:

1. Teacher training (one week)
2. Themed modules (five modules, 10 weeks)
3. Student projects (nine weeks)
4. Technology fair (one day)

Each program comes with a CTC 101 Toolbox consisting of:

• Sets of electronics components and pre-cut mechanical parts
• 25+ hands-on projects
• Live training for teachers
• Free online documentation and course materials
• Support forums for teachers and students

Interested? Be sure to come visit us at Maker Faire Bay Area to learn more and fill out this form so we can get in touch!

While countless Makers love Arduino, none may love the boards as much as our friend John Edgar Park. In the spirit of Maker Faire Bay Area, we decided to take another look at what is surely the largest one we’ve ever come across. Introducing the “Arduino GRANDE.”

I love Arduino! But the boards are so tiny that they can be difficult to hug. And not so easy to see, either, if you’re a student sitting at the back of a classroom. So why not solve both problems by building a really huge, fully-functioning Arduino that’s six times larger than real life?

Bringing this fully-functional device to life required 3D modeling software, laser-cut acrylic, a few LEDs and buttons, some wiring and connectors, and a tiny (in comparison at least) Arduino Uno for a brain. After making its original debut several years ago, Park has now published a how-to tutorial of his project.

The first step I took in building this was to build a 3D model in Rhino. I based it on the Arduino Uno dimensions, and then started creating the parts based upon my real-world materials and scale. (Since I’m using an Epilog Zing 16 laser cutter with a bed size of 16″ x 12″, my maximum dimensions were dictated for me. So, this is actually a 5.6x larger-than-real-life Arduino.)

The chip is just for show, but the power jack will eventually hide the batteries, and the USB port will be made functional by the addition of a panel mount USB jack.

Insert the banana jacks into the female header blocks and then thread the nuts on to hold them in place. A dab of Loctite will prevent them from loosening up later.

On each banana jack, solder a length of wire sufficient to route through the board to the real Arduino. Push the wires through to the underside of the board at the header location, then insert and assemble the header blocks with screws and nuts which will be held captive in the acrylic t-slots.

The reset button (originally sold as a doorbell) needs to have two long lengths of wire soldered to it, which are then fed through the board to route to the real Arduino. The same goes for the panel mount rectangular LEDs.

Attach a real Arduino Uno to the board, and then run all of the header, reset, and LED wiring to it, and plug in the USB cable. You can use a ScrewShield to prevent wires from falling out. Full disclosure, I’m one of the creators of the ScrewShield and will make a little bit of money if you buy one.

Hide a 4xAAA battery pack inside the [cardboard] barrel plug, and then run it through a switch to GND and Vin on the Uno to power the Arduino GRANDE.

You can now upload a test sketch and try things out! I wired banana plugs to resistors, 10mm LEDs, potentiometers, speakers, buzzers, servo motors, and other typical components to plug into the GRANDE.

As for what the GRANDE’s applications, the possibilities are endless! It can be used as an an interactive, educational tool for Arduino classes, carried around like a boombox playing chiptunes, or even expanded upon with GRANDE scale shields! You can check out the entire project on Instructables.

Have you ever thought about what it’d be like to have a few extra fingers? Sang-won Leigh has, which is why he has developed programmable robotic joints that are worn around your wrist to instantly give you an extra pinky, a third thumb, or even another hand. These cyborg-like devices, called Robotic Symbionts, consist of 11 motors that can detect brain signals sent to the forearm’s brachioradialis muscle and rearrange themselves to suit different tasks. Since these muscles aren’t used to move your human hand, anyone can learn to employ their Robotic Symbiont fairly quick.

According to its paper, the motors are linked together using LEGO parts, each of them with a 180-degree motion range. Cables from each motor are connected to an Arduino.

Physical interfaces with actuation capability enable the design of wearable devices that augment human physical capabilities. Extra machine joints integrated to our biological body may allow us to achieve additional skills through programmatic reconfiguration of the joints. To that end, we present a wearable multi-joint interface that offers “synergistic interactions” by providing additional fingers, structural supports, and physical user interfaces. Motions of the machine joints can be controlled via interfacing with our muscle signals, as a direct extension of our body.

As many of you already noticed, we recently released a new “Linux ARM” version of the Arduino IDE available for download on our website together with the usual “Linux 32bit” and “Linux 64bit.”

This release enables you to run the Arduino Software (IDE) on many of the mini PC boards based on ARM6+ processors currently on the market, including Raspberry Pi, C.H.I.P., BeagleBone, UDOO… just to name a few.

The Linux ARM release has been strongly supported by our community and we would like to thank all the people that helped to make this happen: GitHub handles @CRImier, @NicoHood, @PaulStoffregen, @ShorTie8, and to everyone that patiently tested and reported problems.

If you are interested (and brave!), you can read the full story and explore the complete list of collaborators below:

https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/pull/3549
https://github.com/arduino/arduino-builder/issues/105
https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/pull/4457
https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/pull/4517

Disclaimer: The release is “experimental,” meaning that it mostly works but some boards do not work or may not produce the desired result… enjoy imperfection and give us feedback on Github!

Nick Demopoulos is a guitarist, sound designer and musician. He is also a Maker and the creator of the “SMOMID” — an Arduino Mega-based MIDI instrument that resembles a touch-sensitive guitar with several joysticks and other sensors. Not only does it just look cool, it can even flash LEDs in sync with the music being played for some wild effects and visual feedback for the performer.

This instrument was created out of necessity because despite the fact that the guitar is the most popular instrument in the world, there are almost no guitar-like midi controllers commercially available. The SMOMID is not a guitar, nor is it a substitute for a guitar, but rather it is a new and unique interface. Like all musical instruments, it has its strengths and weaknesses, and requires patience and practice to master.

Its software allows the performer to control numerous aspects of a performance, including the playing of melodies and harmonies, the direction and pattern of a melody, controlling beats, controlling bass lines, triggering samples, manipulating audio files, and more. All aspects of a performance can be controlled from the grid on the fret board and the buttons on the instrument body. Additionally several custom made synths can be chosen as sounds and several tunings are available. The instrument can be played like a fretted guitar, like a fretless guitar, with twelve notes to the octave, or other variations like twenty four or forty three notes to the octave. In addition to emitting sound, the SMOMID also emits light that is rhythmically in sync with the music the instrument is then creating. The lights also provide visual feedback for a performer that can indicate if an effect is engaged, the rhythm of a delay or the section of a composition among other facets of a performance. The SMOMID connects to any device or software that can receive MIDI information via a USB cable and is bus-powered.

You can read all about the project here, and check out some SMOMID performances below!

Back at Arduino Day 2016, Massimo Banzi explored the true meaning of the Internet of Things in a more philosophical, approachable way. During his presentation, the Arduino co-founder touched upon the current state of the industry, some guiding principles, as well as what the future may entail.

“A lot of people are trying to build products that are connected, but not a lot of stuff makes a lot of sense right now. There’s a lot of strange stuff happening. It’s the beginning of an industry,” Banzi explained. “There’s a couple of misconceptions. A lot of people tend to equate the Internet of Things with smart thermostats for your home, and it’s much more than that. The part of the IoT that right now is impacting and can impact your life the most is the least sexy one.”

You can watch the entire talk below:

If you grew up in the ‘90s, chances are you have an old SNES controller lying around somewhere. Well, thanks to a recent project from CompSci Studio, it may be time to blow off the dust and transform it into a modern-day USB gamepad using Arduino.

By following the instructions detailed in the video below, you’ll be able to use the retro controller to play arcade games like Super Meat Boy and Fez on either your Mac or PC. To get started, you’ll need an Uno, five jumper cables, and a simple Arduino sketch that creates an HID compliant joystick out of the SNES device.

For his end of the year project at the University of Valencia, Maker Jorge Crespo built an Internet-connected, GPS-enabled rover using an Arduino Mega, an Adafruit FONA 808 module, and a PIC18F45K20 microcontroller.

Other hardware includes IR sensors for obstacle avoidance, a dual H-bridge motor controller, an LCD screen, DC/DC converters, and an 11.1V, 5Ah LiPo battery. The bot is managed through a web-based interface, allowing its user to select between auto or manual commands, as well as track its location on a map.

The project can be found on GitHub.

Let’s start off by saying that, if you’re a senior engineering student just weeks away from graduation, it takes some serious guts to create an animatronic face of your school’s president. We should also add that it’s pretty hilarious.

Geoffrey Toombs and James Schopfer are the two University of Texas at San Antonio undergrads behind the Disney Audio-Animatronics-inspired project, which uses a plastic mask, an Erector set, an Arduino Mega with an MP3 shield, and some computer speakers. The face — consisting of eyes, a nose, a mouth and a formidable mustache — is driven by a set of servos. An even cooler feature of the robot is that the mouth is synchronized to an audio clip.

The audio was a sample taken from a YouTube video using various softwares to turn the video file into an audio file and then cutting to the proper length. The original YouTube address of the video I wanted was copied and pasted on the Zamzar.com website so the video could be downloaded and manipulated. The program, Audacity, was used to turn the video file into an audio file and it allowed the audio to be clipped and saved an an MP3. This MP3 audio file was then saved to a microSD card. The card was then placed into the MP3 shield, and the shield is then carefully attached to the Arduino Mega, being careful to not bend the pins.

Code was written for the eye movements. It was decided that he would roll his eyes and wiggle his nose after the mouth movement. This wasn’t really necessary but it let me use the eyes that I spent so much time making and gave a little humor to the project.

While this particular project mimicked the university’s president, the Makers note that any face or picture could be used. A friend? A colleague? A principal? The possibilities are endless. Future upgrades may include a smaller speaker hidden inside the head, a web camera built into an eye, steppers for more precise and fluid movement, IR sensors and more motors for tracking, blinking eyelids, and potentially Skype integration.

Jerome Calvo, who took this sweet pic during Arduino Day in Berkeley, is this week’s winner of our Instagram giveaway. He’ll be taking home an Arduino MKR1000 and an Arduino t-shirt!

Starting at a young age with @arduino.cc #arduinod16 #genuinod16

A photo posted by Jerome Calvo (@caljer) on Apr 11, 2016 at 9:24pm PDT

There’s still a few weeks left to share your pics for a chance to win. Here’s how:

– Follow our official Arduino.cc account on Instagram

– Share your images on your account on Instagram using hashtag #ArduinoD16 and #GenuinoD16 and mention us with the tag @Arduino.cc

– Every Thursday, from April 7th to May 26th, we are going to choose one of your pics (posted starting April 2nd) and announce the winner of an Arduino or a Genuino MKR1000 and one of our t-shirt or mug  on the blog. That’s a total of of eight lucky people! Easy enough, right?