If you need to get creative with something useful, clocks are always great objects to hack together. One idea, in particular, is this Pong Clock from Brett Oliver.

Oliver’s Arduino-powered device is based off of a similar project by Nick Hall, and plays itself in Pong, winning and losing to show the correct time as the score. This version adds a temperature display, countdown timer, and an excellent enclosure made out of what was once a cheap jewelry box.

The results are excellent enough to place in a stylish kitchen or living room, and looks like an approachable build. You can check out the project in the video below and find more details Oliver’s write-up here.

As part of a physical interaction and realization course at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, a team of students decided to build an interactive installation called “Alone Together”

Their setup consists of sensor-equipped, networking artificial plants. The leafy plant model, dubbed “Thorulf,” uses flex sensors to detect leaf movement, while “Svamp” mushrooms employ circular force sensors for interaction.

Arduino Uno boards, along with Bluetooth modules and a computer running an openFrameworks server, allow the plants to communicate. When one plant is bent, it signals its partner to light up with a fun LED pattern as seen in the video below.

We imagine a series of plants all around the Library, assigned to one another to communicate. Our concept could even be applied over the web, so that the plants could be long distances apart, and used to communicate from one country to another, similar to the “friendship lamp” concept. In this case, the light interaction could be changed, so that the plant stays lit up when touched.

More details on the project can be found here.

“ChrisN219” is the proud owner of an antique Coke machine that he uses to store his favorite beverages. While a very cool decoration, it doesn’t have a way to reveal how many cans are left.

To add this functionality, he turned to an Arduino Nano along with an ultrasonic sensor that he embedded inside the machine to sense how high the cans are stacked. This allows the user to know when it’s time to stock up again, and after inserting another ultrasonic sensor to the display unit on top, an OLED screen automatically shows the sodas (or beers) available as someone approaches it.

If you’d like to build your own, you can find more details, code, and 3D printing files in ChrisN219’s write-up.

On March 10th, I was a guest speaker at Maker Faire Cairo 2018 as a representative of Arduino. I took the opportunity as I had never been to Egypt and was really curious about the maker culture there. You can imagine that different cultures are always going to adopt ideas in various ways and Maker Faire is a great example for this. If you’ve ever been to Maker Faire Bay Area, where the event is arranged inside some old hangars and known for its steampunk character, then you would realize how very different it is from Maker Faires throughout Europe.

Take for example, Rome, which we help organize every year (and that my partner, Massimo Banzi, curates) whose location changed for several years in a row until finding its place at the Fiumicino exhibition center and features a number of Italian universities and institutions that come and exhibit (in fact, there was a full CSI lab from the Carabinieri, the national police force, at last year’s event); but also from smaller ones like the one in Bilbao, Spain, held at an old cookie factory and that has the compromise to remain small as a way to allow makers to meet and talk to each other.

You’ll ask yourself: what kind of Faire was Cairo then? The truth of the matter is that Maker Faire Cairo is still a small event that gathers about 10,000 people at the gardens of Smart Village, a complex inhabited by tech companies ranging from multinationals to local startups. Thanks to the support of both local and international institutions (namely the U.S. embassy), the crew behind the event put together a remarkable show that is clearly going to grow over the next couple of years.

To start, the two days before the Faire, all the international guests and makers were invited to a tour to see the FabLabs, the city, the pyramids, the national museum with the national mummies (hundreds of them), and to get to know one another a little better. Even if I could only join for the second day, I could value the importance of this trip. It also happened in parallel with the Egyptian Maker Week, which was arranged prior to the event in an effort to raise awareness around the Maker Movement and its importance for STEAM education.

But back to the Faire. The whole event happened outdoors; in Cairo it barely rains, so they were running no risk when they decided to book a garden to bring in some open tents and build the booths. Not to mention, the gardens were located by a fountain that kept the air fresh, despite the heat of over 30 degrees Celsius during the day. People are used to the temperature, because nobody seemed to be concerned about it. Besides, it’s all about wearing a cap, sunglasses, and drinking plenty of water.

Engineering could be considered the main theme of the Faire. Most of the projects on display, from older and younger makers alike, were exploring different topics within the field of engineering: robots looking for mines, robots making cotton candy, fighting robots, drones, a “formula student” car, a wheelchair that could go up and down stairs, the FabLab Egypt experience, underwater robots, and so on. During my talk, when I asked to the audience about their field of interest, 99% of the people were or wanted to be engineers.

While engineering seemed to be the signature of the Faire, something that should–in my opinion– make the organizers proud about such an achievement is that there were other things going on. There was a decent amount of cosplayers that came to celebrate their geekness. I had the chance to listen to some of the international cosplay guests about how much work goes into creating certain elements of the costumes, particularly the gadgets are the problem, and specially if they have any kind of interactive technology. Yet again, cosplayers weren’t afraid of the heat either, even if their hours-long make-up work could easily be washed away by it.

The FabLab network in Egypt had a great presence with both separate booths for some of the most permanent labs, as well as with their collective booths to show the work they do in promoting the Maker Movement. Some of their initiatives are remarkable, like the “FabLab on wheels:” a van with a mini fabrication laboratory that has been traveling across the country for an entire year and that will continue to do so in the forthcoming future.

Small independent designers presented their work in the field of upcycling; I liked the work from a group that looked at glass, car tires, and wood as basic construction pieces. But I was also nicely surprised by a painter that created his own version of  “projection mapping” using cardboard boxes as a canvas.

The presence of Arduino at the Faire was simply astonishing. Most robots had something Arduino inside. The aforementioned electric wheelchair was controlled by Arduino Uno boards. There was even a vending machine that accepts cryptocurrency payments thanks to its arducrypto library! I was seriously impressed by the quality of some of the projects I saw.

The Faire closed with a concert with hip-hop artists MTM, an Egyptian band that made their comeback at the Maker Faire Cairo. The stage was equipped with the latest LED technologies, huge DMX lights, fireworks… That’s what I call ending in style! The party took place directly on-site, at the main stage. All the makers, cosplayers, and visitors came together to dance and celebrate an outstanding event.

But one cannot talk about something like a Maker Faire and not talk about the people behind it. The speakers, who came from all across the Middle East and beyond–had the best hosts possible: Omar, Ahmed, Madonna (sorry for not mentioning everyone, there were so many volunteers)… To all of you: thanks for a great time and for showing us around!

Today, at Embedded Linux Conference 2018, Arduino announced the expansion of the number of architectures supported by its Arduino Create platform for the development of IoT applications. With this new release, Arduino Create users can manage and program a wide range of popular Linux® single-board computers like the AAEON® UP² board, Raspberry Pi® and BeagleBone® as if they were regular Arduino boards. Multiple Arduino programs can run simultaneously on a Linux-based board and interact and communicate with each other, leveraging the capabilities provided by the new Arduino Connector. Moreover, IoT devices can be managed and updated remotely, independently from where they are located.

To further simplify the user journey, Arduino has also developed a novel out-of-the-box experience for Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone boards, in addition to Intel®  SBCs, which enables anyone to set up a new device from scratch via the cloud without any previous knowledge by following an intuitive web-based wizard. Arduino plans to continue enriching and expanding the set of features of Arduino Create in the coming months.

“With this release, Arduino extends its reach into edge computing, enabling anybody with Arduino programming experience to manage and develop complex multi-architecture IoT applications on gateways,” said Massimo Banzi, Arduino CTO. “This is an important step forward in democratizing access to the professional Internet of Things.”

“At Arduino we want to empower anyone to be an active player in the digital world. Being able to run Arduino code and manage connected Linux devices is an important step in this direction, especially for IoT applications that need more computing power, like AI and computer vision,” added Fabio Violante, Arduino CEO.

When you swipe a card through a reader, you expect it to read a magnetic stripe on one end. In other circumstances cards might contain an RFID chip, but what if the card only had a pattern of colors on it?

That’s the idea behind the Color Lock system by Rudec Technologies. The cards have a pattern of four colors printed on one side, which are read by an array of LEDs and a TCS230 color sensor when pulled through a slot. An Arduino Uno then takes this information and lights up an LED if the correct sequence is recognized.

This is a door locking system that uses a card with a preset color sequence printed on it to unlock the door. The system is still in the prototyping stage, i’m waiting for the actual lock part to arrive in mail to continue developing this. The idea behind this system is to avoid using RFID authentication, as it can be ‘stolen’ without contact, and this system offers a simple physical object that you use to authenticate yourself – think of it as an updated physical key. The system can offer much more than the conventional keys: if you lose your key, you simply print a new one, you can use a number of different keys for the same lock (or just one if you choose), the system logs all entries with timestamps (useful for tracking access), you can use your regular printer to print new keys, you can unlock it via Wi-Fi when paired with your phone or another device, the system can be used to authenticate in various situations (doors, cabinets, computers, entry points etc.

It’s an interesting concept that could be taken in a variety of directions depending on security needs. A clip of the prototype can be seen below!

Witaya Junma decided to combine creations from three different time periods: a Spirograph (1965), Stirling engine (1816), and an Arduino board developed in the 2000s to form a unique art piece.

What he came up with is the Spirotrope, which invites users to draw a pattern using a Spirograph, then place it in a special holder that spins it with a Stirling engine. This engine also provides electrical power for the Arduino, allowing it to blink a light on the moving pattern at various rates.

These flashes make the drawings appear to rotate at different speeds, and several patterns can even appear to move independently, forming a unique layered effect.

Hardware used includes a Stirling engine, Arduino, Spirograph, motor 12 DC, LED 3V, B10K, Capacitor 470uf 16v, diode 1N4001, TIP 31 and round belts. Software: Arduino

Stirling engine is a heat engine that operates by expansion of hot air, which is created by an alcohol burner in this work. The engine does two jobs: it turns the wheel by giving power to the belt and generate AC currents by spinning the generators. The currents are then converted to DC by a 1N4001 diode and fed into a set of capacitors, which stabilize the currents before powering up the Arduino board. The board controls the frequency of LEDs, which can be controlled by turning the B10K potentiometer.

The blinking LED creates the illusion of moving patterns from a rapid succession of static images.

Be sure to check it out in the video below. More project details are available in his write-up and on Creative Applications.

There’s perhaps no other game more classic than Pong, and likely none that require fewer control inputs, making it perfect for “porting” to a Sony Watchman. While an amazing piece of tech when introduced in the early ’80s, the current lack of analog TV signals means they only receive static.

As seen here, hacker “sideburn” decided to do something about it, and removed the tuner and decoder chip, making space for an Arduino Nano in the device’s housing. To complete the build, he hooked up the Arduino outputs to TV inputs, along with the tuner as a paddle controller and built-in switch as a start/pause button, and was able to seal the unit up again.

The result is a retro gaming system that looks completely stock, playing Pong as if it was there the whole time. Be sure to check out the video to see it in action!

In order to separate their office and shop areas, NYC CNC installed a rubber strip assembly that had to be pushed out of the way every time someone wanted to walk through. Although functional, it was also quite annoying, so they installed a system that uses a pneumatic cylinder to automatically move the rubber strips out of the way.

The device uses an Arduino Nano for control and VL53L0X  time-of-flight sensors for presence detection. In addition, it features a clever gear and belt assembly to mirror one side of the door with the other.

You can find more details of the build in the video below and check out the project’s components, Fusion 360 design files, and Arduino code here.

The last couple of weeks have kept the Arduino Education team extremely busy. While some of us were presenting CTC 101 to teachers all across Italy, others were in Barcelona for the CTC 101 Faire with more than 4,000 upper secondary students showcasing the projects they created as a result of the CTC 101 2017-18 academic year.

The one thing that really amazes us at Arduino EDU is how the CTC program has scaled since its inception five years ago. Back then, we prototyped our first full-year academic program and conducted a test with 25 schools. Our first faire garnered 400 participants, about 10% the size of one of our latest events. The earliest edition of CTC ran on Arduino Uno, consisted of 20 projects, was made in black and white, and included a mascot that we commissioned to the well-known Mexican artist “Grand Chamaco.” From that experiment on, almost 18,000 students have gone through the program. CTC has been implemented by 800 schools, mainly in Spain, Sweden, Ecuador, and Mexico, while more than 1,600 teachers have had the opportunity to learn under the guidance of the Arduino EDU team both on and offline.

In 2018, CTC 101 will expand to several countries including Italy, where my partner and Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi together with Valentina Chinnici (Arduino EDU Product Marketing) led the EDU team through a custom-made “Giro d’Italia” visiting Turin, Bologna, Roma, Bari, and Naples to hold special events and workshops to Italian high school teachers, together with CampuStore, one of our Italian partners.

In the words of Massimo, “The Arduino Education tour was created to confirm and strengthen Arduino’s efforts and attention towards Italian school. The hundreds of teachers who signed in to all the dates are a great encouragement for Arduino to continue the path towards research, innovation, and dissemination of the values of open source.”

Not only did Massimo present CTC 101 to 400 teachers in person, he also hosted a webinar for over 900 educators. In case you missed it, we have posted the webinar video to the Arduino YouTube channel. (Please note that it is in Italian.)

While Massimo was touring Italy, I travelled to Barcelona with Nerea Iriepa, CTC’s project manager, to participate in the 2018’s edition of the CTC Catalunya Faire at the renowned CosmoCaixa science museum.

The EduCaixa Foundation has been sponsoring this project for the last four years in the regions of Catalunya, Andalucía, and Valencia, with a great degree of satisfaction from both teachers and students alike. In particular, a total of 200 schools in Catalunya (one-third of all of the public schools in the region) have been sponsored by EduCaixa, providing access to the program that has helped teachers enter the world of STEAM via Arduino Education.

This year’s faire brought together nearly 500 projects from 100 schools. It is worth mentioning how much effort all of the participants put in building their projects. It has been a tremendous journey for students and teachers that kicked off in September 2017 and culminated at this exhibition.

We are truly grateful for CESIRE (big hugs to Rossana and Jordi for their work), the regional ministry of education, as well as Ultralab, our local partner, in organizing this faire.