While you might not be able to actually manipulate time, this glove by YouTuber “MadGyver” certainly makes it appear that way. His glove, shown in the video below, uses a gigantic LED controlled by an Arduino Nano to allow objects such as a fan, water falling from a shower, and a spinning top to stop, slow down, and even reverse.

The trick is that when the LED’s frequency is aligned with that of the observed moving subject, it lights it up in the same position over and over, making it appear to pause. Frequency is adjusted by rolling one’s hand via an accelerometer, or a potentiometer mounted in the base of the glove can also be used.

If you want to build your own, instructions can be found here and the Arduino code and schematics are available on GitHub.

Danish industrial design student Mikkel Mikkelsen decided to do something a little different this spring, and constructed a self-sufficient geodesic greenhouse dome. His dome, which was planned using this online calculator, now stands roughly 13 feet tall, providing space for crops, along with an annex for chickens.

While this seems like a very “back to nature” project, he didn’t forget to include modern conveniences via an automation system that uses both an Arduino Nano and a Mega. The chickens can come and go through an automatic door, while ventilation windows on the top of the dome can be opened as needed. Even plant watering is controlled automatically.

The dome is also equipped with a GSM module that allows Mikkelsen to check on things using his phone via SMS, as well as a potentiometer for manually varying the watering levels and a speaker that is triggered upon entering the greenhouse.

Be sure to check out Mikkelsen’s elaborate Instructables write-up for more info on the build.

While Halloween has come and gone, it’s not too early to start brainstorming for next year’s jack-o’-lantern hack. Perhaps you’re thinking about lighting a pumpkin with an Uno-powered array of LEDs, or activating a shield to play scary recorded noises. If, however, you’d like inspiration for something more involved, the New Scientist team’s Arduino-controlled nine-pumpkin rig shows off lots of creative ideas.

The system holds candy in a hacked cereal dispenser, which is released through a long clear plastic tube. But instead of giving away treats for free, it’s activated by an interactive memory game involving four pumpkins on the sides of the assembly.

Trick-or-treaters must tap each pumpkin’s aluminum foil switches in sequence. If replicated in the correct order, they are rewarded with candy. If not, visitors are “treated” to a spray of silly string!

You can read more about New Scientist‘s project in this article, and see it in action below!

Ever wonder how studios like Oslo-based Flambert get perfectly timed (and complex) shots of “disasters,” such as the destruction of a birthday party setting seen in the Coop Obs! commercial below?

While the moving camera position was handled by a robotic arm, food jumping off of the table is coordinated by a series of 18 pneumatic actuators controlled by an Arduino.

The pneumatic equipment is cleverly concealed by a tablecloth, making the food appear to fly off the table with no trigger other than the hostess of the party initially slipping. Another clever innovation was making the table with two interchangeable tops, so one could be set up while the other was being shot, saving a huge amount of time during filming.

“We decided to build a table consisting of high-pressure valves with nine individual triggers and 18 air pressure points that could shoot items into the air with extreme precision. We recommended a combination of high-speed camera movements, and triggers to set off and capture the chaos. All this was controlled by an Arduino unit, that again was controlled by a motion-controlled robot.”

Vibratory bowls, which feed small parts up a long curved ramp, are essential elements in many types of automated manufacturing. While the video seen here doesn’t get into how the bowls themselves are made, a crucial part of the setup is the ramp on the end, which controls how items exiting the bowl are aligned.

In the clip below, NYC CNC’s John Saunders machines a feed ramp and proceeds to integrate an Arduino Uno after the 21:00 mark, which uses a photo interrupt sensor to count how many parts have exited the bowl.

Once the proper number has been attained, it can then switch things off as needed using a PowerSwitch Tail. It’s a great setup for testing out the design before being put to use. Code and parts for the project can be found here.

Most musical sequencers use an array of buttons to control sounds played in 16 or perhaps 32 steps. As seen here, Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov (aka ::vtol::) created an installation called “Ivy” wth not 16, but 240!

The sequencer is based on an Arduino Mega along with 74HC40967 multiplexers to handle input from the 240 sliders arranged as controls for each step.  There’s also a bunch of WS2811 LEDs, which are driven by a Teensy board.

Ivy stretches five meters in length, and several “voices” represented by dots on the 1-dimensional light array travel both right and left at different speeds simultaneously. This allows it to be programmed in ways that wouldn’t be possible with traditionally-operated musical devices.

The project is created specially for Open Codes exhibition in ZKM center, dedicated to codes and programming in art. On one side, Ivy is a representation of an archaic method of electronic music programming for analog synthesizers. On the other side – gigantic scale and obsessive multiplication of simple primitive elements turns this project into an art installation, that is referring to the topic of graphic and physical organization of parameters in electronic music.

You can read more about ::vtol::’s latest sound installation here, and see it in action below!

The father of hacker Ricardo Andere de Mello’s good friend has ALS. His symptoms have become worse recently, causing the loss of much of his motor control. To help with the situation, de Mello decided to build a device that would enable him to communicate with his family.

What he came up with was a finger-mounted accelerometer that senses movement, and feeds data to a computer using an Arduino Uno, updated for HMI use. The computer then allows the ALS patient to speak via the same ACAT software used by Steven Hawking.

The result is a system that is very affordable, and that can hopefully help a lot of people with this and other debilitating conditions. For more information, be sure to check out the project’s write-up and watch its demo videos below.

While electric wheelchairs are a vital tool for those with restricted mobility, they typically cost around $2,500, an amount that’s not the most affordable. To address this problem, a group of students from Aviv High School in Israel have come up with a low-cost, 3D-printed motor conversion kit that connects to a standard push-chair without any permanent modification or damage.

The system uses a pair of motors to steer like a tank, and features a joystick and Arduino Uno for control. Another interesting feature is shown later in the video below, when it’s folded up for storage with the motor kit still attached.

You can check out the team’s website for more details this incredible project, as well as All3DP’s recent article here.

As our lives become more and more automated, we tend to rely on computers and unseen algorithms to “protect” us from unapproved experiences. In order to illustrate this concept, and hopefully introduce serendipitous events to our digital lives, David Columbini has come up with an installation that feeds information to users via a web app, available only when it’s on display.

Instead of implementing a carefully designed algorithm, what users experience is based on constantly evolving local weather data sensed by a physical machine equipped with an Arduino Mega, a Raspberry Pi, various sensors, and some other components.

“The Weather Followers” is comprised of four different instruments: a wind-driven messaging app, a pollution-distorted selfie tool, a music player based on the rhythm of rain, and even a device that erases your feed depending on the sun’s intensity!

The installation is comprised of two elements, the four weather instruments and the webapp. Users are invited to connect to the weather machine through the webapp and choosing between one of the four weather instruments: Windy encounters (when your digital social life follows the wind), Polluted Selfie (when your digital individual life follows the pollution), Drizzly Rhythms (when your digital audio life follows the rain) and finally Sun(e)rase (when your digital overwhelming life follows the sun).

More details on the project can be found here. If you want to see another weather/digital world combination by Columbini, be sure to check out this balloon messaging system!

When the Power Glove was released in the early 1990s, the idea that you could control games with hand motions was incredible, but like the Virtual Boy that followed years later, the hardware of the day just couldn’t keep up. Today, hardware has finally gotten to the point where this type of interface could be very useful, so Teague Labs decided to integrate a Power Glove with an HTC Vive VR headset.

While still under development, the glove’s finger sensors have shown great promise for interactions with virtual touchscreen devices, and they’ve even come up with a game where you have to counter rocks, paper, and scissors with the correct gesture.

Making this all possible is the Arduino Due, which supports the library for communicating with the Vive tracker.

We took a Power Glove apart, 3D scanned the interfacing plastic parts and built modified parts that hold the Vive Tracker and an Arduino Due on the glove. After some prototyping on a breadboard, we designed a shield for the Due and etched it using the laser-cutter transfer technique. We then soldered all components and spray-painted the whole shield to protect the bare copper. After mounting the tracker and tweaking the code by matzmann666, we had the glove work.

If you’d like to see the details of what has been accomplished so far, check out the Teague Labs team’s design files and code on GitHub.