In the Harry Potter series, a Muggle is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability. Growing up reading these books, one can only imagine what it would be like to cast spells using a wand. Well, wonder no more as a group of NYC Muggles decided to build their own smart wand that can ‘magically’ control devices over Wi-Fi.

The 3D-printed wand is equipped with a voice recognition module that lets users cast spells of their own with a flick of the wrist, like ordering takeout from delivery.com, turning the lights on and off, as well as playing and silencing music.

Other components include (what appears to be) a MKR1000 board, a LiPo battery, a PowerBoost, a microphone, a switch, and a vibrating motor that indicates when a command is recognized.

Those wishing to buy one are out of luck, as the creators reveal this was merely a fan-made project to celebrate the Harry Potter prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”  You can read more about the Muggle Wand here! 

A few days ago, we launched the MKR2UNO Adapter, which enables you to easily turn an Arduino Uno form factor project into a MKR1000-based one. Simply mount your IoT board to the adapter, plug in any Uno shield and have a wireless device in no time.

Our newly-published tutorial provides a step-by-step overview of how to build a WiFi-controllable robot using the MKR2UNO Adapter with a MKR1000 and an Arduino Motor Shield.

This project combines the Arduino MKR1000’s web server and Arduino Motor Shield’s capabilities to drive a pair of different DC motors. A basic interface is hosted and hard-coded in the MKR1000, allowing the user to maneuver the robot up, down, left or right.

Check out all of the schematics and code here!

Recently presented at Disrupt SF Hackathon 2016, this modified hamster ball rolls and dispenses treats while you’re away!

Creators Anthony Alayo, James Xu, and Lawrence Chang don’t like the idea of leaving doggies alone all day to fend for themselves. Although these companions will generally wait for their owners to get home, this surely gets boring. To help solve this problem, they created the DogeBall–a hamster ball equipped with advanced electronics including what looks to be an Arduino MKR1000. This allows it to roll around under remote control via an accompanying app, and can even give your pooch a treat, perhaps as a reward for not chewing up your shoes!

Say you’re at work and your dog has been alone for a while. If you have a nest cam or other home cameras setup, playing with him/her is easy. The app we created acts as a remote controller, connecting to the ball over the internet. Shoot your dog a treat, hit the speak button to talk with him, or control the ball as if you were right there beside him/her.

Sound like something you might want for your pup? You can check out the team’s Devpost article or TechCrunch’s writeup on this excellent project!

(Photos: Devpost)

Our friends at 330ohms–who also happen to be Genuino resellers in Mexico–recently published a video a review of the MKR1000 [in Spanish]!

Check it out:

Woodworking and electronics, automatons and camera sliders. Ben Brandt's YouTube channel offers lots of cool projects.

Read more on MAKE

The post Weekend Watch: B2Builds Dives into Electronics and Woodworking appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

No matter which candidate you will be voting for in November, it’s hard not to chuckle a bit when seeing this project from YouTuber “Makers4America.” The IoT machine works by responding to tweets from presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump and then proceeding to kick him in the face with a 3D-printed boot attached to a metal rod.

The setup is fairly straightforward: a Raspberry Pi running Node-Red and a local Mosquito MQTT broker poll Twitter, and then writes the tweets to an MQTT topic. Meanwhile, an Arduino MKR1000 runs an MQTT client subscribed to the same topic, and controls the servos and RGB LED strips reading “Dump Donald.” 

Although this project targets Trump, it’s hard not to imagine other use cases for such a device–one in which includes the face of your arch nemesis, a rival sports team, or perhaps even your ex. The possibilities are endless!

During a recent workshop, Swedish innovation studio Topp set out to create a platform for rapid prototyping with design and data. The team decided to take an existing product and retrofit it with IoT capabilities. For this, they selected an IKEA Spöka night light and hacked it with an Arduino MKR1000. The connected lamp is capable of reacting to its surrounding environment through sound, motion, and light, while an accompanying app is used to monitor and control intensity.

Traditionally data and physical interactions have been difficult to work with, often requiring the availability of early hardware or by constructing mockup data. However, to achieve quick iterations and a higher fidelity experiences for projects involving data, sensors, cloud, and other things typically unavailable to designers early on in projects, we’ve developed a tool called Noodl to help support a better way of working. We’re using Noodl as a foundational tool when we hack our night light.

A key function for this hack is to have the lamp and the phone connected to an IoT cloud broker. Bluetooth or other non-routable communications would not work with remote presence, so by using Wi-Fi and a public broker we could build a prototype that also works with multiple clients in a true IoT fashion.

The end result was a platform that makes use of cloud and data, which could be employed for a wide range of intelligent home devices ranging from a baby monitor to a morning alarm to a smart dimmer. You can read all about the project — along with instructions, code and components — on Topp’s page here.

Congratulations to Geoff Seawright for the following photo showing a cute dog getting angry with four-legged Arduino spider. He’s the last winner of our MKR1000 giveaway, which kicked off back on Arduino Day! Thanks to all the participants sharing their pics and mentioning our new official Arduino Instagram account!

Dog getting angry with 4-legged arduino spider…possibly it will replace him #arduinoD16 @Arduino.cc

A photo posted by Geoff Seawright (@geoffseawright) on May 14, 2016 at 9:08pm PDT

We’re excited to announce the winner of this week’s Instagram giveaway, who will be receiving an Arduino MKR1000 and an Arduino t-shirt for sharing this #ArduinoD16 picture. With Maker Faire Bay Area quickly approaching, it is only fitting to have a winner from San Francisco — congratulations to Amped Atelier!

We spent #arduinod16 #genuinod16 as part of a technology fashion show showcasing our mimic dresses powered by @arduino.cc

A photo posted by Amped Atelier (@amped_atelier) on Apr 21, 2016 at 8:37am PDT

Think your pic is a winner? You have one more week to submit it:

– Follow our official Arduino.cc account on Instagram

– Share your photos on your account on Instagram using the hashtag #ArduinoD16 and #GenuinoD16, and be sure to mention us at @arduino.cc

– Every Thursday, from April 7th to May 26th, we are going to choose one of your images (posted starting April 2nd) and announce the winner of an Arduino or a Genuino MKR1000, as well as one of our t-shirts or mugs right here on the blog.  That’s a total of of eight lucky people! Easy enough, right?

Jerome Calvo, who took this sweet pic during Arduino Day in Berkeley, is this week’s winner of our Instagram giveaway. He’ll be taking home an Arduino MKR1000 and an Arduino t-shirt!

Starting at a young age with @arduino.cc #arduinod16 #genuinod16

A photo posted by Jerome Calvo (@caljer) on Apr 11, 2016 at 9:24pm PDT

There’s still a few weeks left to share your pics for a chance to win. Here’s how:

– Follow our official Arduino.cc account on Instagram

– Share your images on your account on Instagram using hashtag #ArduinoD16 and #GenuinoD16 and mention us with the tag @Arduino.cc

– Every Thursday, from April 7th to May 26th, we are going to choose one of your pics (posted starting April 2nd) and announce the winner of an Arduino or a Genuino MKR1000 and one of our t-shirt or mug  on the blog. That’s a total of of eight lucky people! Easy enough, right?