Check out these awesome drawbot projects for creating your own robo-Picassos.

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The post 6 of Our Favorite Drawbot Projects appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

I'm trying to move up into the category I originally got into robotics for in the first place: bigger buddies!

I have a Raspberry Pi I'd like to use to control some linear actuators, which are 12v and lift about 225lbs. I'm unaware of their amp usage: a search for similar rated ones said ~4-5A. They were purchased from an online auto parts place, so it's unlikely they'd know.

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Need a quick mood lift when you're missing your pet? This treat dispensing camera rig will text you a photo of your pet.

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The post Remote Treat Dispenser Sends You Adorable Photos of Your Pet appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Fight the drab tyranny of the beige box with these inspiring ideas for project enclosures

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The post 15 Fantastic Project Enclosures appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Nick Squires details his time spent using his maker skills to produce an interactive art installation and performance.

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The post Go Behind the Scenes of Installing an Interactive LED Art Exhibit appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Take three NRF24L0+ radios, two Arduino Nanos, and a Raspberry Pi. Add a bored student and a dorm room at Rice University. What you get is the RRAD: Rice Ridiculously Automated Dorm. [Jordan Poles] built a modular system inspired by BRAD (the Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm).

RRAD has three types of nodes:

• Actuation nodes – Allows external actuators like relays or solenoids
• Sensory nodes – Reports data from sensors (light, temperature, motion)
• Hub nodes – Hosts control panel, records data, provides external data interfaces

The hub also allows [Jordan] to control things with his Android phone with Tasker. He has the Arduino and Raspberry Pi code on GitHub if you want to ridiculously automate something of your own. You’d probably want to adapt it to your dorm room, house, or RV, though.

[Jordan] continues to work on the project and promises to have voice recognition and other features, soon. We cover a lot of home automation projects including some others described as ridiculous. The video below shows BRAD, the inspiration for RRAD.

The game of cricket boggles most Americans in the same way our football perplexes the rest of the world. We won’t even pretend to understand what a “wicket” or an “over” is, but apparently it’s important enough to keep track of that so an English cricket club decided to build their own electronic scoreboard for their – pitch? Field? Help us out here.

This scoreboard build was undertaken by what team member [Ian] refers to as some “middle-aged blokes from Gloucestershire” with no previous electronics experience. That’s tough enough to deal with, but add to it virtually no budget, a huge physical size for the board, exposure to the elements, and a publicly visible project where failure would be embarrassingly obvious, and this was indeed an intimidating project to even consider. Yet despite the handicaps, they came up with a great rig, with a laser-cut acrylic cover for a professional look. A Raspberry Pi runs the LED segments and allows WiFi connections from a laptop or phone in the stands. They’ve even recently upgraded to solar power for the system.

And we’ll toot our own horn here, since this build was inspired at least in part by a Hackaday post. The builders have a long list of other links that inspired or instructed them, and we think that says something powerful about the hacker community that we’ve all been building – a group with no previous experience manages a major build with the guidance of seasoned hackers. That’s something to feel good about.

#include <stdio.h>

#include <string.h>

#include <errno.h>

#include <wiringPi.h>

#include <wiringSerial.h>

#define TRIGsonar1 = 0;

#define TRIGsonar2 = 2;

#define TRIGsonar3 = 3;

#define TRIGsonar4 = 12;

#define TRIGsonar5 = 13;

#define TRIGsonar6 = 14;

#define TRIGsonar7 = 17;

#define TRIGsonar8 = 19;

#define ECHOsonar1 = 1;

#define ECHOsonar2 = 4;

#define ECHOsonar3 = 5;

#define ECHOsonar4 = 6;

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This DIY star wars shooting gallery looks simple and fun.

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The post Shoot First with Home-Built Star Wars Target Practice appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Hi, I have a problem with serial communication between Rasp and Arduino. I have written code for both. When I try serial communication on Rasp in Arduino IDE it is working. But when I try serial communication by code on Rasp, it is printing rectangles (in arduino serial monitor) and no what I send from rasp to arduino. So can anyone help me? :)

here is link to photo of arduino serial output https://www.dropbox.com/s/vjvd4p76mmu4ciq/rectangles.png?dl=0

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