Arduino Gemma preview – Final board coming late autumn

During his saturday morning presentation at Maker Faire Rome, Massimo Banzi gave a preview of a new collaboration and a new board: Adafruit Gemma becomes officially Arduino Gemma, a tiny but powerful wearable microcontroller board in a 27mm diameter package.

Powered by an Attiny85 and programmable with the Arduino IDE over USB, anyone will be able to easily create wearable projects with all the advantages of being part of the Arduino family. The board will be default-supported in the Arduino IDE, equipped with an on/off switch and a microUSB connector.

The Attiny85 is a great processor because despite being so small, it has 8K of flash and 5 I/O pins, including analog inputs and PWM ‘analog’ outputs. It was designed with a USB bootloader so you can plug it into any computer and reprogram it over a USB port (it uses 2 of the 5 I/O pins, leaving you with 3). Ideal for small & simple projects sewn with conductive thread, the Arduino Gemma fits the needs of most of entry-level wearable creations including reading sensors and driving addressable LED pixels.
After the fruitful joint effort developing Arduino Micro, once more the Arduino Gemma has been developed in collaboration with Adafruit Industries, one of the main leaders of the Maker movement. Arduino Gemma will be available for purchase on the Arduino Store and Adafruit Industries starting late autumn 2014.

Technical specifications:
Microcontroller: ATtiny85
Operating Voltage: 3.3V
Input Voltage (recommended): 4-16V via battery port
Input Voltage (limits): 3-18V
Digital I/O Pins: 3
PWM Channels: 2
Analog Input Channels: 1
DC Current per I/O Pin: 40 mA
DC Current for 3.3V Pin: 150 mA
Flash Memory: 8 KB (ATtiny85) of which 2.5 KB used by bootloader
SRAM: 0.5 KB (ATtiny85)
EEPROM: 0.5 KB (ATtiny85)
Clock Speed: 8 MHz
MicroUSB for USB Bootloader
JST 2-PH for external battery

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!

‘Draw It Yourself’ is a MIDI controller created by Dani Sanz which uses conductive ink as push-buttons. It is based on Arduino Uno and uses a capacitive sensor to determine whether the drawn buttons are being touched or not:

This was my second semester project for the Interactive Music Systems Design Course (CDSIM) at the Music Technology Group (MTG) at University Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona. I presented this project at Sonar+D, part of the Sonar festival of Barcelona, held between June 12th and 14th 2014.

It can be used for multiple applications, not only for music! You can download the Fritzing  and make it yourself on the Instructable and see it in action with this video:

Solaris is an interactive installation created by Julia Borovaya (idea curation), Edward Rakhmanov (robotic system, chemistry), Vtol (programming, electronics) with the help of Alexander Kaplan, professor of neurophysiology:

it demonstrates the field influence of the permanent magnet on the magnetic and spirit (fluorescent) liquids. Two liquids constitute the diphasic system. Due to liquids movements and their surfaces’ modifications we visualize the unique processes of human brain. The spectator wears on neuro interface Emotive Epoc, the device computes a brain activity and sends information to the installation machinery.

To test the project people of different ages, social groups and professional areas were invited. Test results confirmed that brain activity and mood of the man reflect on the dynamic and character of liquids movements in the sphere. Object reacts on the changes of mind and emotion states. People who spent a plenty of time with the object managed to influence the dynamic and direction of the liquids on the unconsciousness level. We also reveal that the installation visualizes the temperament of the person. The object copies your mental organization and echoes it on the liquid’s surface. The object becomes a part of the participant.

It runs on Arduino Uno controlling dc motors, 2 actuators and a custom digital motor control system interface.

The Drink Up Fountain is project created in September 2013 by YesYesNo Interactive studio in collaboration with PHA Honorary Chair First Lady Michelle Obama and dedicated to encouraging people to drink more water more often: “You are what you drink, and when you drink water you drink up!”

The Fountain runs on Arduino Mega  and

dispenses entertaining greetings and compliments intended to entice the drinker to continue sipping. When a drinker’s lips touch the water, the fountain “talks,” completing a circuit and activating speakers. When the drinker pulls his or her head away and stops drinking, the circuit breaks and the fountain stops talking. With hidden cameras set up, Drink Up caught unsuspecting individuals using the fountain in New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park

Take a look at the video to see how the fountain interacts the people:

The award-winning Minecraft is a very popular PC game and also pretty addictive. It was originally created  by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson, later developed and supported on different platforms and recently acquired by Microsoft for 2.5$ billions.

Arduino user lakhanm shared  a DIY keyboard prototyped with Arduino Uno and substituting the basic keyboard controls such as move forwards or backwards. The project is also compatible with most of the Arduino boards. 

Take a look at the circuit below and grab the sketch and bill of materials at this link.

Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi, announced at MakerCon the collaboration between the open-source microcontroller and futurist Bruce Sterling. The Open-Source Apartment will be located in Torino, near Arduino Italian headquarters and it will serve as a test ground for the latest developments from the open source community, being outfitted with furniture from OpenDesk and a variety of hardware creations.
Watch the video below and more details will be available during Maker Faire Rome:

For the third time, next October 10th & 11th, Munich will host push.conference a unique 2-day event for the interactive professional field, uniting the potential and skillset of a new generation of creative coders, interaction designers and creative technologists with the established UX/UI scene. (discount code at the end of this post!)

With a comprehensive and diverse program, the conference lives up to this with 10 headliner talks and 8 inspiring lightning talks from design consultancies, companies and creatives such as Ben Fry (Founder Processing), Lauren McCarthy (Interaction Artist), Mike Tucker (Universal Everything), Josh Carpenter (Virtual Reality Researcher Mozilla), Daniel Burka & Braden Kowitz (Google Ventures), Markus Eckert (Motion Code Magician) and many more.

If you want to get inspired by the great minds on stage, get in touch with enthusiasts of connected fields, meet agencies looking for talents or maybe find your next team members yourself, register to the conference with the Discount Code (early bird fare) for Arduino fans and lasting 2 weeks from now:  pf214ard3x9.

Arduino user Jubeso submitted to our blog an instructable explaining the 10 steps to build an input device for gaming.

The  Gravity Touch bluetooth glove  is specifically designed to interact with augmented reality glasses like the Google Glass, Meta, Moverio BT or with the VR headsets like Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, vrAse, Durovis Dive:

Those new products are amazing and they need new types of input devices. This instructable will describe how to build your own “Gravity Touch bluetooth glove” and I will also give you some tips to build your own Durovis Dive VR headset so that you will be able to enjoy full mobile VR. Because this glove will be of most use for VR game, I have created a Unity3D plugin for Android that handle the communication between your app and the glove. It means that you will be able to use your Gravity Touch glove to interact with your Unity3D VR game.

The Arduino code and the Java class I wrote to handle the communication between the glove and the Android device will also be available so that you will be able to adapt them for your need.

The bill of materials, among other things, contains an Arduino Micro , FreeIMU – an Open Hardware Framework for Orientation and Motion Sensing and 3m of flexible soft electric wire.

Right before the weekend of  World Maker Faire in NYC, Massimo Banzi will be at MakerCon with a keynote taking place on September 18 at 11 a.m local time. Makercon is a 2-day conference by and for makers organized around 4 specific tracks: Business of Making, Education, Maker Community Building, Tools of Innovation&Technology.

Makercon connects individuals at the forefront of the maker movement, focusing on the technologies, services ecosystem, manufacturing models, and funding trends that provide new ways of making things and getting them to market.

On Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30pm (after the Innovation Showcase) MakerCon will be able to watch the exclusive New York premiere screening of the acclaimed Neflix documentary Print the Legend. Right after the film, Dale Dougherty is moderating a panel discussion with some of the key players from the film.