If Elon Musk was to design a soapbox car, the prototype might look something like this by David Traum.

Traum’s project is powered by a 500W motor which is fed by a pair of 12V batteries and a 40 W solar cell, allowing it to attain a top speed of 35 km/h and a range of 10 to 15km. Although that might not sound like a huge number, it looks pretty fast at the end of the video below!

But that’s not all. The vehicle features a rather unique control system, with front wheel steering actuated by a stepper and cable assembly. An Arduino Mega is the brains of the operation, while user input is via a small touchscreen, a joystick, and even a steering wheel (equipped with an Uno, a 9V battery, radio module, and gyro sensor) that can work wirelessly as needed—perhaps to park remotely, or simply as a gigantic RC car

The clip here is in German, but you can read more in this English-translated article.

While you might have never considered the idea, looms—especially the punchcard-driven Jacquard loom, which helped inform both Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage’s pioneering work—are an important part of computing history. As reported here, Victoria Manganiello and Julian Goldman have created an awe-inspiring ode to this computing heritage in the form of a handwoven tapestry that constantly changes the way it looks, aptly named “Computer 1.0.”

The tapestry, which was recently on display at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, stretches nine meters in length and features tubing woven throughout. An Arduino actuates pumps and valves to produce familiar patterns in this tubing with blue-dyed water and air.

These patterns soon become abstract and perhaps more open to interpretation, though with more development it’s noted that images and even smartphone-readable designs could be possible. 

Be sure to see the short demo of this incredible installation in the video below! 

A handwoven textile activated by computer code, Computer 1.0 explores connections between weaving and technology. For the project, Victoria Manganiello invited designer Julian Goldman to collaborate on designing and programming a pump controlled by Arduino microcomputers to move precise sequences of air and liquid through the approximately 2,000 feet of tubing woven through the cloth. The movement of the air and liquid evokes traditional weaving patterns such as bird’s eye, monk’s cloth, and twill. And the operating system—the computer and the pump—is not kept out of sight in the service of the woven screen and the pixelated patterns that run across it, but rather are an integral part of the work; nothing is hidden.

Manganiello’s textile reflects and expands on the ob­scured history of weaving and coding, calling attention to the “under-over, under-over” movement of thread becoming cloth that originally inspired the “zero-one-zero-one” of binary code. The jacquard loom of 1801, which used punch cards to program the movement of thread into increasingly complex woven patterns, is a direct, though frequently forgotten, ancestor of modern computers.

Amazon senior product manager Ben Hamm has a cat named Metric. While this adorable feline friend helped with a rat infestation problem in his apartment, he also likes to take his hunting skills out into nature, bringing… whatever home around one out of 10 nights.

To combat this situation, Hamm used an Amazon DeepLens camera to detect the cat, then examine whether or not it’s carrying something extra, based on a machine learning algorithm trained with over 23,000 images.

If the cat is carrying prey, an Arduino locks the cat out for 15 minutes, while the system texts Hamm pictures. It also gives a donation to the National Audubon Society, described by Hamm in his presentation below, as “blood money.” Currently it only works with Metric, but could be generalized with more cat data if you’re having the same problem.

If you’ve been waiting for a new way to generate geometric art, then be sure to check out the Cycloid-O-Matic from InventorArtist Darcy Whyte.

This three-axis cycloid drawing machine is something of an update on the classic spirograph toy, but instead of (only) using an arrangement of gears, it incorporates stepper motors to create smooth curving patterns.

Control is accomplished via an Arduino Uno and GRBL shield, while a single motor rotates the paper in a circle on top of a lazy Susan. A pen is held above in a linkage system, actuated by two steppers that spin to move the linkages and draw in the X/Y plane.

Hydraulically-actuated robots are nothing new, but normally they come with a battery or external supply of some sort. This lifelike robotic lionfish developed by Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania researchers, however, has its own artificial circulatory that pumps synthetic ‘blood’ to help flap its fins and as the device’s power source itself. 

The trick is that the liquid is actually the cathode of a battery built into the fish, which powers its two hydraulic actuators, as well as the Arduino Uno control system. This integral battery—which would be analogous to blood in a real fish—gives it enough energy to operate untethered for 36 hours, though as it swims at 1.56 body lengths per minute, so it can use all the time it can get!

As James Pikul, a co-author on the study and researcher at Penn, told Gizmodo:

In our synthetic vascular system, the fluid stores chemical energy which we can use to power the fish robot. As the fluid is pumped through the fish robot, the moving fluid also causes the robot to move. The vascular system, therefore, is multifunctional. It is these multiple functions that allow the robot to maintain its dexterity while also having a long operational time.

You can also read more in IEEE Spectrum‘s article here.

Alarm clocks of old—and certainly many of those today—require several button pushes to set things up properly. Maker Michael Wessel, however, decided to implement his own take on a more intuitive clock, creating a device that features three separate eight-digit seven-segment LED panels. Eight buttons allow for direct manipulation of each of the digits, with their own dedicated LEDs.

The info on display includes time and date, as well as temperature, and it can even show how many days, hours, or minutes have passed since a special pre-programmed day. Up to seven audible alarms are available, which can be silenced by a loud noise (e.g. clapping your hands) via a sound sensor. 

The clock is controlled via an Arduino Mega, along with an RTC module to keep things accurate.

I remember I always had to set all digital clocks for my grandparents in the ’80s — these clocks and watches always required some complicated button juggling! So, here it is: a DIY LED alarm clock that my grandparents would have been able to set and use without my help! 

An Arduino-based LED clock with 7 individual alarms, highly intuitive user interface, temperature display, and display of days / hours / minutes passed since a special date, e.g., your birthday. An active / ringing alarm can be disabled by making a loud noise, e.g., by clapping your hands. Timer-based PWM sound output for alarm melodies. 

The Arduino’s EEPROM is being used to store the alarms of course, and the DS3231 RTC is battery backed up, so it survives a temporary power outage and you won’t be late for work the next morning. 

This was put together rather quickly, thanks to off the shelf components, Velcro and existing Arduino libraries for them! The clock can be built for about $30 – 40. 

As you experiment with Arduino boards and programming, you’ll likely have ideas that you want to test right now. Unfortunately, you can’t always have the entire project with you to try out. With that in mind, Khang Nguyen has designed the Portable Arduino Bot.

This sci-fi-inspired device packs an Arduino Nano inside, along with an on/off switch, a microswitch, three LEDs, and a LiPo battery for power. To protect these components, the bot features a nice 3D-printed enclosure, complete with foldable feet that make it look like a small robot or even spaceship. 

While it won’t replace all the tools you have at home, it appears to be a great way to carry out testing, and as shown in the videos below, to play sounds with the addition of a buzzer!

Having a light on your bike at night is important for safety, but what if those headlights could talk to others sharing the road with you? Well now it can, using the [Bike] Swarm by Alex Berke, Thomas Sanchez, and Kent Larson from the MIT Media Lab.

Their device—or collection of devices—controls a bicycle’s lighting via an Arduino and LED driver, and features an nRF24L01 wireless module to communicate with others in the vicinity. When another rider is encountered, the bikes sync their lights up automatically. 

The team has already designed and fabricated prototypes, then strapped them onto local city bike share program bikes for testing. 

It’s an interesting effect when two bikes pass, but as shown in the video below, things get much more fascinating when a handful of bikes can coordinate both their direction and light pattern.

As bikes navigate city streets after dark, they are often equipped with lights. The lights make the bikes visible to cars or other bikers, and the hazards of traffic less dangerous.

Imagine that as solitary bikes come together, their lights begin to pulsate at the same cadence. The bikers may not know each other, or may only be passing each other briefly, but for the moments they are together, their lights synchronize. The effect is a visually united presence, as groups of bikes illuminate themselves with a gently pulsing, collective light source.

If you’ve ever played with desk toys portraying a beach with liquids that splash around, this project by Lena Strobel, Gabriel Rihaczek and Guillaume Caussarieu takes things up several levels as a surf simulator that you can actually ride.

The device features two parts — an oil/water wave diorama which sloshes around using a servo actuator and a wooden “surfboard” large enough for a person to stand on.

The board is curved on the bottom enabling for someone to tilt it back and forth with their body movement, while a three-axis accelerometer handles angle measurement. This data is then passed from an onboard Arduino Uno to a second Uno that drives the diorama’s servo via nRF24L01 radio transceivers. 

The result is an actual body-controlled wave motion, and a distraction that looks like a lot more fun than simply pushing a tank around with your finger!

Do you feel a sudden urge of going surfing, but there is no large body of water nearby? Are you scared of deep and turbulent waters? Or are you just to lazy to go outside? Then the Ultra Realistic Surfing Simulator is the perfect solution for you! It allows for a close to reality surfing experience from any place imaginable. As a two part system, motion is sensed by a board and translated into wave motions of an ocean diorama.

You’ve seen self-balancing robots, where a pair of wheels suspend a mass above them in what’s known as an inverted pendulum configuration. As neat as they are, the “Augmented Arthropod” by Grzegorz Lochnicki and Nicolas Kubail Kalousdian puts a new spin on things. 

The structure for the build consists of three platforms separated on threaded rod and a couple of rather standard DC gear motors. Electronics include an Arduino Uno, a BNO055 IMU, and an L298N motor driver. 

Where things get a bit interesting, though, is that the mech is piloted by the movements of an insect placed inside a plastic case using two HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors. 

Perhaps the most valuable part of the project write-up is the discussion about how it balances via PID, or proportional, integral, and derivative control.