Depending on your personality, you may tend to dominate a discussion, or metaphorically slink back into the corner, waiting for a turn to speak that never comes. MIT Tangible Media Group’s SociaBowl, however, aims to change this as “a dynamic table centerpiece to mediate group conversations.”
SociaBowl takes the form of a circular standing table, with a rather curious servo-actuated bowl in the center. Copper wires embedded in the table’s acrylic surface, along with a capacitive touch shield pick up user inputs.
An Arduino Uno then translates into bowl motion, which can mean a reward for thoughtful speakers when the bowl is filled with candy, or in another implementation, the possibility of water inside spilling if one chats for too long.
Interactive video games take many forms, but for the most part, each player has a separate controller that manipulates an onscreen character, vehicle, or other singular element. What if, as in real life, multiple players have to work together with physical objects to control a sailing ship?
That’s the idea behind HOT SWAP: All Hands On Deck by Peter Gyory and Celment Zheng. In it, two players guide various parts of a ship using five different control elements. What makes this really interesting is that each player’s input device has room for two of these control elements, which must be swapped for actions such as steering and to load cannons. Input information is passed to the game via an Arduino Micro.
It’s like if we took a regular game controller, popped off all of the inputs, and made it so you could only use a couple of them at a time. There are two controllers, with each consisting of two input slots. Each controller controls one side of the ship, port or starboard. There are five actions total in the game, each executed with a dedicated physical input: a crank to raise and lower the sails, a wheel for turning the rudder, a hatch for loading the cannons, a wick for firing the cannons, and a flame button for dousing the fire.
There is only one of each input, which makes them a shared resource that players must trade back and forth as they play. There is this old Milton Bradley kids board game from the ’90s called Perfection where players must fit shapes into holes before a timer is up and the board shakes to make everything pop out. HOT SWAP is like if Perfection had a screen attached and had a goal outside of putting shapes into slots.
All of the code is done with JavaScript and the library Three.js, which we bundle into a desktop application using Github’s Electron. The brain of the controller is an Arduino Micro, which mostly just passes data along.
The inputs are created with the Mechamagnets technique that Clement has been developing through his research; all 3D-printed in PLA with neodymium magnets embedded in them. The actual “hot swapping” is facilitated by pogo pins that line up with our custom PCBs for each input. Also, lots of chocolate croissants.
More details on the build are available via this interview as well as in the video below.
If you want a DC power supply that works well, there are a number of places to buy such a device. If, however, you want to learn how one operates, and perhaps build your own, the video below by YouTuber Electronoobs will show you how to accomplish this feat.
His project uses a transformer to step power down from the 230VAC available in Spain, along with a rectifier to produce DC current, and a capacitor to keep the output steady. An Arduino Nano produces a PWM signal that controls a MOSFET on the buck converter circuit, tuning the output voltage and current as needed based on user inputs.
Details can be found on Electronoobs’ website here, though you’ll want to use extreme caution when dealing with mains power. Also, the design will need to be modified if your country uses something other than 230VAC.
Woodworking with power tools creates dust. Lots of it. Hooking a vacuum up to your tool helps greatly, but only if it’s actually running. Annoyed with turning on his vacuum system every time he had to make a cut, Zach Hipps decided to automate the process.
What he came up with uses an ACS712 current sensor to detect when power is flowing to his table saw, and an Arduino Nano for control. When current is sensed, it triggers the vacuum using a relay, then holds it on until five seconds after the device is turned off.
If I’m going to be able to automatically turn on the shop vac, I need to be able to detect when the tool is turned on and running. Without modifying the tool, the best way to do this is to get a current sensor like the ACS712 which I also got on eBay for a couple of bucks. This sensor can read alternating or direct current up to 20 Amps which is perfect for what I’m going to be using it for. The sensor outputs an analog voltage between 0 and 5 Volts that is proportional to the current it senses. I can read that analog voltage output with one of the ADC pins on the Arduino. Once I sense that the tool is running, I need to be able to turn on the shop vac. For that I’m going to use the relay module. A simple high or low logic signal from one of the Arduino’s digital pins is all that is needed to turn on the relay.
After I had the two modules soldered to the Arduino, I decided to model and 3D print an enclosure that will secure everything in place. With the enclosure done, I can wire in the AC power receptacles. One receptacle for the tool and one for the shop vac. Having these will make it easy to move this around my garage and plug in various tools. I bought an extension cord to use for this project and cut off about 8 inches of the male end.
The Arduino team is in Barcelona this week for Mobile World Congress! MWC is one of the biggest technology events in the world, so we’re really excited to be invited to participate in the Mobile IoT Experience’s developer expert zone by event organizers GSMA.
Come find us at Hall 4YFN Montjuic Hall M8 Stand 9 — we’ll be showing how create an LTE Cat-M / NB-IoT connected sensor with the new MKR NB 1500. Arduino Senior Engineer Martino Facchin will also be giving the keynote talk on Monday, February 25th in the Training Zone.
Like all MKR boards, the MKR NB 1500 was designed with security in mind, so we’ll discuss how to use certificate-based authentication and TLS to secure data from your device (and make it easier!) via the Arduino IoT Cloud and other clouds like Microsoft Azure IoT Hub.
Arduino has helped millions innovate by making IoT technology simple — it started with makers and education but Arduino is now used by developers in hundreds of companies worldwide. We’ve been partnering with operators like Telstra, Telefonica, and Vodafone to make cellular IoT even more accessible. We want to make connecting and securing devices to be as straightforward as possible — so people can focus on making their IoT applications.
Do you enjoy mowing your lawn? No? Well now you can ‘simply’ print a robot to do it for you, based on German mechanical engineer Philip Read’s design. His Roomba-esque device uses a pair of gearmotors for movement, an array of three ultrasonic sensors for obstacle avoidance, and a perimeter wire/sensor to keep it within the designated boundary.
An Arduino Mega is employed as the main processing unit for the robotic mower, however a separate Nano onboard helps measure battery voltage as well as current when charging. Meanwhile, an Arduino Uno along with a motor driver are used to control the perimeter wire setup.
Extensive build info is available on the project’s write-up, and a short demo can be seen in the video below.
Fully autonomous robot lawn mower. The mower project includes the mower itself a boundary wire control station and an optional charging station. The mower navigates within the boundary wire which is positioned (pinned) around the perimeter of the garden. Once the mower senses the perimeter wire, it stops reverses and moves off in a new direction. The mower also has 3 sonar sensors to detect objects in the mowers path. Once the mowers battery is exhausted, the mower uses the boundary wire to navigate itself back to the charging station. All this can be customised in the Arduino software or completely re-written to your personal preferences.
Commercial mowers with this specification cost upwards of 600€ ($680).
Obviously, you’ll want to use such a device in an area devoid of kids or pets
We at Arduino believe that the combination of our technology and your passion make it possible to have an impact on everyone’s everyday life. Ingenuity, innovation, and social good are the cornerstones of our community, and we want to celebrate those traits with a contest whose winners will be announced on Arduino Day.
The Arduino Day Community Challenge aims to award the best community projects that can have a lasting effect on some or all of us. Seven winning entries will be selected, one in each of the following categories:
Social innovation
Kids and education
Home automation
Environment & space
Robotics
Audio and visual arts
Small scale manufacturing and startups
Prizes include boards, hardware, and other goodies valued up to €1,000. If you want to apply, please fill out this form by March 3rd. Aside from a description, you will need to upload a photo or video of your work. The winners will be announced on Arduino Day during the live stream from our official celebration in Milan.
And remember: we are seeking inspirational, problem-solving projects that represent the core values of Arduino Dayandcan improve the lives of others! Let’s make a difference, together.
If you’ve ever seen a MIDI pad with dozens of light-up buttons producing electronic music, you may have considered building one using an Arduino. As shown in GreatScott!’s latest write-up, you can indeed create your own Novation Launchpad-like device using a Nano for control, but the real question is should you?
In the video below, GreatScott! shares how made a 6×6 pad, using a 3D-printed body and buttons arranged in a matrix to save I/O, along with WS2812B LEDs. He also goes over the MIDI protocol, which he was able to implement using loopMIDI and Hairless MIDI to serial bridge for Arduino interface.
While the DIY option may or may not be right for you, the concepts presented could be applied to a wide range of electronic musical interface projects.
In this episode of DIY or Buy I will be showing you how I created my own Launchpad. That means I will show you how I combined a design idea with 3D prints, WS2812 LEDs, tactile switches and an Arduino to create a proper MIDI instrument. While building I will also tell you a bit about a keyboard matrix and in the end determine what advantages the DIY Launchpad offers.
YouTuber “Insert Controller Here” has been creating gaming controllers out of a variety of objects, like bananas, mayonnaise, and meat. For his latest iteration, the YouTuber decided to convert a VTech Turn and Learn Driver into—what else?—a Mario Kart: Double Dash steering console.
As seen in the video below, the build consists of disassembling the toy, then soldering wires to the correct points to recreate steering wheel input, braking, and throttle. An Arduino Leonardo is used for the gaming interface, allowing Mario and Luigi to make it around the track by turning the wheel and applying brakes, while the accelerator is simply “shifted” into place.
As seen in our earlier post, James Bruton has been working on a breakfast-making robot, and has now moved from boiling eggs to making toast… or apparently hot dogs/sausages as shown in the video’s demo.
What he’s come up with uses a one degree-of-freedom gantry assembly to move servo-powered forks into position. These can then manipulate a cooking tray as needed to heat food up, flipping it out into a hand-held container when done. Two other servos take care of turning the device on and opening the door.
The control setup looks extremely similar to the previous build, with control via buttons, an Arduino Mega, and a small LCD display. Bruton notes that the Mega is used here because of its multiple serial ports, which will be useful to link everything together in the future.
