When Arduino meets traditions, here the story of [the.anykey] and gift making.

We have a great Dutch tradition called sinterklaas (5th of december). For the older “non-believers” we make surprises. The purpose is to buy a small present but make a really cool “surprise” around it. Here my arduino based Split-flap game I made as surprise.
I made this for my 15-year old niece that was asking for very expensive presents only, so I thought I would make her a bit more price conscious

The arduino (uno) used to run this all was tested to its limit 15 I/O ports
- 5 pins for the score LEDs
- 4 pins for the stepper motor control, via ULN2003a
- 1 PWM pin for Servo to lock or unlock the side door
- 1 PWM pin for piezo speaker so we can make some sounds
- 1 pin for micro switch to align start of cards
- 2 pins for the lower and higher button

Anyway, the project is well structured and there is also a full [instructables] about it, we really enjoyed the submission.

Ok this is not a project 100% core Arduino, because it uses custom hardware and only the bootloader of Arduino. But Arduino follows the Open-Hardware philosophy, so we are honoured to share this project that use a bit of Arduino. [chris] , from silverball software, sent us his way to build a game controller , programmed with Arduino software.

Well after a few months of tinkering and several designs I finally have one.
The design is based around the Atmega 328 running the Arduino bootloader. There is a RN42-HID bluetooth module that allows serial communication between it and the microprocessor.

I wanted the device to be fully hackable so I designed it with headers for both the bluetooth module and the Atmega 328 chip. I can reprogram the bluetooth module to run HID keyboard or mouse (or combined), it can iterate as a gamepad, or it can reconfigured to run serial protocol and iterate as a virtual com port.

On the [website] there is full description with lots of pictures, have a look.

Here’s a new piece of hardware from your beloved OSHW project. The Arduino Esplora is meant for newbies and anybody willing to enter in the world of Arduino, without having to deal with breadboards or soldering. Shaped like a game controller, it’s designed to be used out of the box without extra parts since it comes with many sensors and actuators already on it.

Have a look at the Esplora Page on the Arduino site, you will find Arduino Esplora at Radioshack’s in its Retail Version (like the one you see on top) and soon on the Arduino Store and from our distributors in both Standard and Retail versions.

Codebits is the most geekest event in Portugal and surroundings!

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The hardware that went into this Arduino gaming console is just fine. But the coding that produced this game called Twisted SNAKE is beyond compare. [Rodot] has programmed several games for the hardware, which uses an Arduino, 160×168 TFT screen, a 3 axis accelerometer, and two input buttons. If you’re interested, there is a forum thread in which he talks a bit more about the hardware design. But you’re not going to want to pass up either of the two videos embedded after the break.

The first clip shows off a bouncing-ball platforming game. The accelerometer moves the ball back and forth, and the top scrolling level brings more ledges into play. This in itself is a great game. But the Twisted SNAKE game shown off in the second video makes our own ARM-based Snake game look like a 3-year-old programmed it. [Rodot] filled up all of the program memory of the ATmega328 chip to  make this happen. There’s a menu system which allows for color themes and difficulty selection. The game play itself lets the snake travel anywhere it wishes with the tail following behind in graceful curves. Wow!

TshirtOS showed us one take on wearable gadgetry earlier this month, and now it's Woven's turn. This particular e-garment packs quite the selection of hardware, as you can see above -- a trio of LilyPad Arduino boards (and some custom ones), a Bluetooth module, 12 x 12 RGB LED "screen", speakers, bend sensors, a heart rate monitor, shake motors and a power pack. You'll need to accessorize, of course, with a smartphone for hardware harmony and to run companion apps. So what's it for, you ask? Well, the creators are touting it primarily as a "pervasive" gaming platform, and even seem to have a working first title in the form of SPOOKY (think gesture-based ghost-fighting). Other uses (which appear a little more conceptual) see Woven as a workout companion, TV remote, Wii controller, social network alerter or simply a fashion accessory. Check out the videos below to see it in action and imagine all the fun you could have in the five minutes before you're ushered into that padded room.

Continue reading Woven's wearable platform for gaming, cool points and a whole lot more (video)

Filed under: Wearables

Woven's wearable platform for gaming, cool points and a whole lot more (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 05:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hi there LMR, here is another one of our projects, as promised. :)
This is Xylomatron. It is a robot that you can play a game similar to "Simon Says" but with a xylophone interface. Basically, it does play a note and expect you to repeat it, if you succeed it adds another note to the previous sequence and expect you to do the same. Therefore the game gets harder at each level, depending on your memory.
When you fail, it gets quite angry thinking "The puny human couldn't memorize X notes" (it does really trace it in fact :D)

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Samuel Cox, a maker who defined himself as a mix of “design, ideas and technology“, has invented a brand-new competition for digital citizens: Digilympics.

From his website:

2012 is not only the year of the Olympics, but also the launch of the first ever ‘Digilympics’, a twitter-powered race for sporting success where you determine the outcome. Four Lego athletes move down a physical racetrack as fans Tweet their team to move them further towards the finish line.

Starting today (07/18/2012), the Digilympics will be a two-week event as the four teams – UK, US, Canada and Japan – compete for the prestigious Digilympics Gold Medal.

The competition is open to anyone on the web, allowing them to Tweet their team to success using one of four unique Twitter accounts (UK_Digi, US_Digi, CA_Digi &JP_Digi). Tweets in support of a particular account will move that country’s contestant physically along a running track.

After each race, the team victories are recorded and contestants go back to the starting line. At the end of the week the team who has won the most races will be given the Gold Medal online at digilympics.com

Under the hood, this funny race is enabled by a Processing sketch that seeks for Twitter replies on each account: a new reply triggers a motor-shield equipped Arduino board, which provides the movement to each athlet.

More information can be found here. And… let’s start twitting for your favourite team! ^^

[Via: Samuel Cox's Digilympics]

Emmo is a ludic and interactive artifact for visually impaired children (age 4-6 y.) based on RFID technology. It is meant to motivate spatial exploration and helping children to develop the capability of creating mental topological maps.
The toy includes lighting and sounding elements for a treasure hunt, a space-related memory game. This activity is improving attention and acoustic capabilities.
The goal of the game is detecting each of the seven lighting elements according to the sound. The player is helped by this “magic wand”  (finder),

Emmo’s main colours are black and white (high chromatic contrast is important to let the childern discrminate colours); lights & sound are further aid, marking different phases of the game.
The command interface is pretty simple and visible. Buttons can be distinguished by colour and shape.
The toy elements are designed in order meet childern needs and  technology requirements.

We asked Dototea Panzarella to answer few questions regarding her project.

Q: Tell us about you and your background.

I was born  in Palermo on 21/04/1985 , in Cefalù, a charming Sicilian town overlooking the sea. I learned the words “project” and “creativity” since childhood, thanks to my dad, architect, and my mother, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. During childhood and adolescence I experienced different things:  artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, I learned to play keyboards and I worked in summer camps for children. Not yet having a clear idea about my future, after school, I enrolled at the Liceo Classico Mandralisca Cefalu. After high school, I registered for the Bachelor in Industrial Design at the University of Palermo and I had the opportunity to participate in the Erasmus program and attend the Hochschule fuer FHNW Design and Art in Aarau (CH). In 2008 I moved to Treviso, to follow the specialist degree course in product design of the IUAV University of Venice. Lately I collaborate occasionally with a design studio in Venice, which mainly designs consumer electronics.

(interaction) design is a challenge to me beacuse involves technical-scientific and humanistic-artistic elements: every project is a new discover!

Q: When did you start working on your project and how long did it take?

I started to work on “Emmo” at the end of August 2010 to end in April 2011: 8 months of work. The first 3 months were mainly research and analysis. In December 2010, I started to define the game’s playing features. From January onwards I have dealt with the choice of electronics need for the toy, the design of the artifact itself and eventually the realization of the prototype.
I saw many toys for the stimulation of hearing, the residual vision, touch. Emmo is thought to add something new.

Q: What inspired you to make the thing you made?

The interest in the project “Emmo” is the result of my interest in the world of childhood, science of learning and psychology of perception but also of my interest in electronics and interaction design.

It all started with a workshop of 2 years of specialization at the IUAV in which the teacher (and my future thesis supervisor) asked us to design interactive artifacts. We were also required to create a prototype using Arduino. Having found the theme of the workshop quite exciting I then wanted to continue on the same track with the thesis.In the spring of 2010 I went to Barcelona (Spain) to deepen my knowledge by participating in the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children. I picked up many hints. The theme of low vision was one of many that appeared in the list that I compiled and I chose it because it would give me the ability to use light and sound as real therapeutic tools.

Q: How did you hear about Arduino and why you decided to use this hardware in your project?

I had already seen some Arduino projects of my friends and especially my roommate during the course of the Medienkunst FHNW.

In that circumstance I had appreciated the installations but had not yet grasped the potential of Arduino.  I’ve used in the creation of Emmo because I knew that in case of any difficulty I could find help on the web easily.

We are extremely pleased that the Arduino is used in such projects, and we are sure that the community will always give a strong support.

Many thanks to Dorotea for her kindness.