If you’ve spent any serious time in libraries, you’ve probably noticed that they attract people who want or need to be alone without being isolated. In this space, a kind of silent community is formed. This phenomenon was the inspiration [MoonAnchor23] needed to build a network of connected house plants for a course on physical interaction and realization. But you won’t find these plants unleashing their dry wit on twitter. They only talk to each other and to nearby humans.

No living plants were harmed during this project—the leaves likely wouldn’t let much light through, anyway. The plants are each equipped with a strip of addressable RGB LEDs and a flex sensor controlled by an Arduino Uno. Both are hot glued to the undersides of the leaves and hidden with green tape. By default, the plants are set to give ambient light. But if someone strokes the leaf with the flex sensor, it sends a secret message to the other plant that induces light patterns.

Right now, the plants communicate over Bluetooth using an OpenFrameworks server on a local PC. Eventually, the plan is use a master-slave configuration so the plants can be farther apart. Stroke that mouse button to see a brief demo video after the break. [MoonAnchor23] also built LED mushroom clusters out of silicone and cling wrap using a structural soldering method by [DIY Perks] that’s also after the break. These work similarly but use force-sensing resistors instead of flex-sensing.

Networking several plants together could get expensive pretty quickly, but DIY flex sensors would help keep the BOM costs down.

Ellen Sundh’s Bad Posture belt uses an Arduino, wave shield, and a flex sensor to detect when the user slouches. If your posture needs correcting, the belt literally yells at you. How’s that for motivation?

The belt is calibrated when the user presses a pushbutton after attaining good posture. After that, he/she is free to be lambasted by this piece of wearable tech.

[via The Creators Project]

At certain point in every geek's life, their mother gives up and stops yelling at them to sit up straight. If the lack of constant reminders to maintain good posture has you slouching and hunching, there are countless technological substitutes. Even a few nice DIY ones. But we've got to give Ellen Sundh props for the simplicity of her solution. While similar projects rely on accelerometers, which can be difficult for the budding hobbyist to work with, to monitor the angle of your body, Bad Posture sticks with a simple bend sensor to keep tabs on your spinal cord. The flexible plastic is arranged vertically in a fabric belt that also houses an Arduino, a Wave Shield from Adafruit and a push button for calibration. Sit at your optimal angle, press the button and you're ready to go. Bend too much and the Wave Shield plays a warning -- "bad posture!" Check out the video after the break to see it in action.

Continue reading Bad Posture tells you to sit up straight, replaces your mom with an Arduino

Bad Posture tells you to sit up straight, replaces your mom with an Arduino originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.