Some weeks ago we started introducing to the community our list of resellers and the updated page where you can find resellers of Genuino and Arduino products around the world.

We started with Watterott from Germany and now, in the picture below,  you can see Diego and Oscar from BricoGeek  based in Spain and ready to ship  Genuino Uno and Genuino Mega  boards!

Let’s get to know them better:

- Tell us a bit more about BricoGeek

We started our company in 2005 and later in 2007 we became one of the first Arduino official distributors for Spain and Portugal. After winning a board in a contest organized by uchobby.com I had so much fun with my new board, I continued to make more projects which I posted in our blog and realised that this little board was really easy to understand and I could make  great things with it. Many of our viewers also enjoyed our projects and started making too. And here we are, 10 years later, sharing projects and growing our community of fellow makers!

- What’s your company’s super power?

We aim to be honest and don’t fool our customers. We try to make BricoGeek a good place to share knowledge and ideas and it seems our customers love that as much as we do.

- What’s your favorite Arduino or Genuino project?

[Oscar] There are so many projects I like and it’s hard to keep track of all of them but I recently discovered a really cool project called “Cubetto” which is a game with a little robot to help kids understand and learn programming. And from the same guys another one called “Toot” also for kids and based on the Montessori learning system. Im working on very similar projects that hopefully I will release them in a few weeks (but shhh it’s a surprise for my daughter! ;D). I really enjoy when I make a project that helps young people learn new technical skills, you will be surprised how smart kids can be when they really enjoy learning.

Contacts

BricoGeek Store Website  – Facebook – Twitter – Youtube - Instagram – Google+

“Data transparency” is a project by Jiayu Liu, a designer and media artist, interested in physical data visualisation and interactive code. The installation runs on Arduino Mega: when the microphone senses a person’s blow, it transforms it in a Led animation and then activates the bubble machine for 8 seconds. The project is not aiming to visualize any specific data but “data visualization” itself:

In my point of view, data is not dissimilar to a conclusion of our past, and we need it for our future. When we see a data from a computer, it is something that has already happened. We use intelligent methods of computing science to analyze the data so that to predict the future. We are living in a world of data, and data is like a language objectively describing our past. In this work, I take more attention on rethinking and recalibrating the role of data in our lives, and the relationship between the virtual world we build as a main method of data storing, analyzing and visualization and ourselves.

Also, I am thinking of that it is better to make sense of the role of data visualization before really visualizing it. Finally, I found a good perspective to see how data connects with our lives, which is Time.
Therefore, the project is not aiming to visualize any specific data but what I am trying to visualize is the “data visualization” itself. I would like to bring a new experience to the viewer in different space. So I want to create a interesting play space and bubble game to the viewer . Let them have a really funny and relaxing experience.

Take a look at the “making of” video below to see it in action:

Bonsai trees are not like other plants. There’s no single watering schedule that can be applied to a bonsai and the best way to tell if the bonsai needs water is to touch the soil. Experienced growers know when a tree needs to be watered by observing the foliage or just by the weight of the pot. If you are not used to taking care of this type of tree, Bonsai Watchdog could be the perfect project for you. It runs on Arduino and Genuino Uno and makes it really easy to monitor the moisture level in the soil.

Thomas Baum, created it and shared it some days ago on the Arduino Community on G+ :

Two pencil leads, an Arduino and a 12864 (ST7565) LCD watches out my little bonsai. The filling level shows how often the sapling need to be watered.
source and discription (in german) you can find here:
http://tiny.systems/categorie/lcdProjekt/BonsaiWatchdog.html

Scientists in Chile are turning foggy air into a reliable water source for nearby residents using a new sensor connected to  Arduino Mega and XBee module. The project is called FogFinder and was developed by Richard LeBoeuf in collaboration with Juan Pablo Vargas and Jorge Gómez at the Universidad de los Andes. It’s a system to generate new renewable source of water for communities and reforestation through use of a probe and wireless communications technology to develop a liquid water flux map for fog harvesting.

Fog collectors are common in arid climates in Chile where rain runs scarce and are typically installed on hillsides and remote areas where fog is abundant. The innovative part of the project lies in determining where to install these collectors, how to orient them, and understanding how efficient they are at collecting water from the air. This can be done with a new type of sensor called the “Liquid Water Flux Probe” to measure the availability of water at current and potential fog collector sites. The sensor measures the liquid water content and speed of the fog and can be used to understand the optimal location and orientation for each of the collectors.

Matt Ahart  of Digi, the company producing Xbee modules , told us:

“The primary function of the Arduino Mega is to simplify data collection and processing. The development team also made use of software libraries that simplified the use of sensors and API mode configuration for the XBee radios.
Another important reason for using Arduino, is that the Fog Finder project was created by students with only a few months to complete the design and creation of the device. A great thing about Arduino is that the learning curve is very fast and students can quickly start making contributions instead of spending weeks or months trying to understand the software and hardware.”

The FogFinder project has received support from the Universidad de los Andes through its Fondo de Ayuda de Investigación, Andes Iron – Dominga, and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In 2014 it was finalist in the Wireless Innovation Project sponsored by the Vodafone Americas Foundation.

In 2015 we’ve been setting-up an independent, modular production network with world-class partners that share our very own approach to open source hardware. We partnered with manufacturers and resellers including Adafruit in United States, Seeedstudio in China, Axel in Italy.

Now we are happy to share with our community the updated page dedicated to resellers, making Genuino and Arduino products available around the world. On the  page you can find all the info and links to get in touch if you are interested in purchasing  boards in your country, or you want to become one of our resellers.

From today  we’ll be also highlighting new resellers on the Arduino blog, so you can get to know them better.

Watterott Electronic (Germany)

The team of Watterott Electronic is manufacturing Genuino boards and is the official Genuino reseller for Germany. We started selling Genuino boards manufactured by Watterott during Maker Faire Rome 2015.

In the picture you can see Stephan Watterott of Watterott Electronic (Germany) holding brand new Genuino boards ready to be shipped!

- Tell us a bit more about Watterott

I founded the company Watterott Electronic in early 2008 as a hobby project in Hausen (Thuringia, Germany). The goal was to offer some own microcontroller boards and special hard to find development components.
My first warehouse was in the garage of my parents house. After about 2 years the garage was to small and I moved to the city of Leinefelde (only 5km away). Until today I added more and more products to our portfolio and also the manufacturing of own boards has increased. Finally at the end of 2015 we became a manufacturer and reseller for Genuino boards.

- What’s your company’s super power?

We can do nearly everything in-house and so we a very short time from the idea to a prototype or final product/board.

- What’s your favorite Arduino or Genuino project?

I have two favorite Arduino/Genuino projects:

• DIY-Thermocam (previously Cheap Thermocam) from Max Ritter.
  I followed the project from the first hour and I also supported Max on his first prototypes.
  http://www.diy-thermocam.net
• FabScan (DIY 3D Scanner).
  The project shows how 3D scanning is working and I also designed the Arduino FabScan Shield in 2012.
  http://www.fabscan.org

Contacts

Watterott Store Website – Twitter – Facebook  – Google+

Bespoke Electromechanical Instrument was built by Jay Harrison as part of a dissertation undertaken on the Creative Music Technology degree course at Staffordshire University. The instrument, running on Arduino Mega 2560 is designed  to allow each note to be independently placed in a space:

The project involved the creation of an electromechanical system capable of autonomously playing a bespoke Lithophone musical instrument. The underlying idea was to create a Lithophone that allowed the audience to literally step inside it, giving a unique spatial and acoustic surround experience. Designing an autonomous electromechanical was the thought to be the most effective and reliable solution to achieving this.

The Arduino Mega 2560 was used to interface Max/MSP with the physical circuitry. Control messages/signals would be sent out of a Max/MSP patch using Maxuino, these signals would then be interpreted by the standard firmata sketch loaded onto the board and would go on to trigger and control the 24 rotary solenoids and 24 servo motors that work to produce the notes.

In the video below the instrument is arranged in a 24-foot surround configuration and the audience is invited to experience the instrument from within offering a unique spatial dimension to the Lithophone intended to completely envelop the listener:

For the third year we are inviting the open source community gathered around Arduino and Genuino globally to celebrate with us Arduino Day 2016 on Saturday April 2nd!

Arduino Day is a worldwide celebration of Arduino’s birthday. It’s a 24 hours-long event –organized directly by the community, or by the Arduino team– where people interested in Arduino get together, share their experiences, and learn more. Everyone can participate in the role of local organizer or as a participant.

For the past two years organizers throughout Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia involved participants in activities, workshops, events for a wide range of audiences and skillsets.

Stay tuned because in February we’ll be launching the open call for entries.

In the meanwhile explore what happened in 2014 and 2015 and … start organizing!

Hashtag: #ArduinoD16

Circuit Basic recently posted a 9-minute video unboxing, Setting Up, and Comparing the Arduino 101 to the Arduino Uno.

The Arduino 101 (US only) and the Genuino 101 (outside US), created in collaboration with Intel, keeps the same robust form factor and peripheral list of the Uno with the addition of onboard Bluetooth LE capabilities and a 6-axis accelerometer/gyro to  expand your creativity into the connected world.

Watch the video below to learn the first steps on how to use this new board!

Good news everyone. Due to many requests from our community we agreed to extend the contest to January 31st 2016.

You have some more days to submit your ideas to the World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge,  win one of the one thousand Arduino and Genuino MKR1000 and a fully-funded (up to $1,500) trip to Maker Faire Shenzhen, New York, Bay Area or Rome; a chance to present your creation at the Microsoft and the Arduino & Genuino booths; a professional video production of you and your creation; and a whopping $500 gift certificate to Adafruit.

Watch Massimo Banzi’s video presenting the contest.

Keep dreaming new ideas and have fun!

Open.Theremin is an open source hardware and software project by Urs Gaudenz of  Gaudi Lab with the aim of building the next digital generation of the legendary music instrument developed in the ’20s by the Russian inventor professor Leon Theremin. The project is documented under a open license and uses Open.Theremin.UNO, an Arduino  or Genuino Uno shield featuring a digital mixer, combined 12 bit audio and CV out, audio jack on the bottom for more compact design, two completely separate antenna circuits:

The theremin is played with two antennas, one to control the pitch and one for volume. The electronic shield with two ports to connect those antennas comprises two heterodyne oscillators to measure the distance of the hand to the antenna when playing the instrument. The resulting signal is fed into the arduino. After linearization and filtering the arduino generates the instruments sound that is then played through a high quality digital analog audio converter on the board. The characteristics of the sound can be determined by a wave table on the arduino.

Most theremins on the market are either expensive or then not really playable. That’s how I decided to design a playable, open and affordable theremin. The first version was modular and difficult to program. Then I decided to redesign it as a shield to fit on the Arduino.UNO. This was a big success and many people could start using it, change the sounds and adapt it to their own application. The whole design is open source and documented on the website. I produced a small batch of the shield that can be bought through the small batch store on the website.

Watch the video below with Coralie Ehinger, a Swiss theremin player and organizer of the first Swiss theremin festival N / O / D / E, playing the instrument: