If you’ve been waiting for a new way to generate geometric art, then be sure to check out the Cycloid-O-Matic from InventorArtist Darcy Whyte.
This three-axis cycloid drawing machine is something of an update on the classic spirograph toy, but instead of (only) using an arrangement of gears, it incorporates stepper motors to create smooth curving patterns.
Control is accomplished via an Arduino Uno and GRBL shield, while a single motor rotates the paper in a circle on top of a lazy Susan. A pen is held above in a linkage system, actuated by two steppers that spin to move the linkages and draw in the X/Y plane.
Hydraulically-actuated robots are nothing new, but normally they come with a battery or external supply of some sort. This lifelike robotic lionfish developed by Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania researchers, however, has its own artificial circulatory that pumps synthetic ‘blood’ to help flap its fins and as the device’s power source itself.
The trick is that the liquid is actually the cathode of a battery built into the fish, which powers its two hydraulic actuators, as well as the Arduino Uno control system. This integral battery—which would be analogous to blood in a real fish—gives it enough energy to operate untethered for 36 hours, though as it swims at 1.56 body lengths per minute, so it can use all the time it can get!
As James Pikul, a co-author on the study and researcher at Penn, told Gizmodo:
In our synthetic vascular system, the fluid stores chemical energy which we can use to power the fish robot. As the fluid is pumped through the fish robot, the moving fluid also causes the robot to move. The vascular system, therefore, is multifunctional. It is these multiple functions that allow the robot to maintain its dexterity while also having a long operational time.
If you’ve ever played with desk toys portraying a beach with liquids that splash around, this project by Lena Strobel, Gabriel Rihaczek and Guillaume Caussarieu takes things up several levels as a surf simulator that you can actually ride.
The device features two parts — an oil/water wave diorama which sloshes around using a servo actuator and a wooden “surfboard” large enough for a person to stand on.
The board is curved on the bottom enabling for someone to tilt it back and forth with their body movement, while a three-axis accelerometer handles angle measurement. This data is then passed from an onboard Arduino Uno to a second Uno that drives the diorama’s servo via nRF24L01 radio transceivers.
The result is an actual body-controlled wave motion, and a distraction that looks like a lot more fun than simply pushing a tank around with your finger!
Do you feel a sudden urge of going surfing, but there is no large body of water nearby? Are you scared of deep and turbulent waters? Or are you just to lazy to go outside? Then the Ultra Realistic Surfing Simulator is the perfect solution for you! It allows for a close to reality surfing experience from any place imaginable. As a two part system, motion is sensed by a board and translated into wave motions of an ocean diorama.
You’ve seen self-balancing robots, where a pair of wheels suspend a mass above them in what’s known as an inverted pendulum configuration. As neat as they are, the “Augmented Arthropod” by Grzegorz Lochnicki and Nicolas Kubail Kalousdian puts a new spin on things.
The structure for the build consists of three platforms separated on threaded rod and a couple of rather standard DC gear motors. Electronics include an Arduino Uno, a BNO055 IMU, and an L298N motor driver.
Where things get a bit interesting, though, is that the mech is piloted by the movements of an insect placed inside a plastic case using two HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors.
Perhaps the most valuable part of the project write-up is the discussion about how it balances via PID, or proportional, integral, and derivative control.
Embedded programming using the Arduino IDE has become an important part of STEM education, and while more accessible than ever before, getting started still requires some coding and basic electronics skills. To explore a different paradigm for starting out on this journey, researchers have developed Flowboard to facilitate visual flow-based programming.
This device consists of an iPad Pro and a set of breadboards on either side. Users can arrange electrical components on these breadboards, changing the flow-based program on the screen as needed to perform the desired actions. Custom ‘switchboard’ hardware, along with an Arduino Uno running a modified version of Firmata, communicate with the iPad editor via Bluetooth.
With maker-friendly environments like the Arduino IDE, embedded programming has become an important part of STEM education. But learning embedded programming is still hard, requiring both coding and basic electronics skills. To understand if a different programming paradigm can help, we developed Flowboard, which uses Flow-Based Programming (FBP) rather than the usual imperative programming paradigm. Instead of command sequences, learners assemble processing nodes into a graph through which signals and data flow. Flowboard consists of a visual flow-based editor on an iPad, a hardware frame integrating the iPad, an Arduino board and two breadboards next to the iPad, letting learners connect their visual graphs seamlessly to the input and output electronics. Graph edits take effect immediately, making Flowboard a live coding environment.
Since its invention in 1974, Rubik’s cubes have been entertaining and frustrating those that choose to take on the challenge of aligning their shapes. More recently, however, people have been building algorithms and machinery to do it for them, including Mario Milanesio’s Arduino Rubik Solver, or ARS.
ARS, which was constructed with the help of Milanseio’s students, is comprised of several 3D-printed and laser-cut parts. The device utilizes a series of four stepper motors to rotate the cube, along with two more to pull the grippers back when needed.
Solving is assisted by the ARS Studio software package, which lets users program in the existing color sequence. It then sends movement commands to an Arduino Uno over serial, which controls the motors via six A4988 Pololu drivers to complete the puzzle.
Plenty of people and organizations have busts of famous figures, but how many of them can follow you around the room with a moving head? If you would like to be one of those lucky few, check out this Chartreuse model by Anna Lynton.
The face itself was laser cut in layers, stuck together to form its 3D figure, and a diffused LED eye assembly is also implemented to give it a more lifelike feel. Whenever someone approaches Chartreuse, the person or thing is tracked via an ultrasonic sensor mounted to a servo, while a separate stepper is used to actuate the head.
This Arduino Uno-controlled statue not only rotates, but conveys emotion through the color of its eyes, as well as an internal eyebrow assembly that changes the light’s shape.
Meet Chartreuse! Chartreuse’s face follows you when you walk by. When she sees you, her eyes turn yellow and she gets a happy expression in her eyes. As you walk away, her eyes change to blue and she sadly turns away.
Chartreuse is powered by an Arduino Uno, two servos, and a stepper motor and a couple of addressable LEDs and constructed from a few pieces of 1/8″ hardboard.
Supercapacitors are intriguing power sources, and while they don’t hold as much total energy as a battery, they can store and release charges in an instant. To take advantage of this interesting properly, Mike Rigsby created the ‘Little Flash‘ rover.
This device uses a pair of continuous rotation-modded servos to move about for roughly 20 minutes. It’s controlled by an Arduino Uno, and employs over-current detection as well as a bump switch to keep it from getting stuck.
The coolest feature, however, is that it’s powered by a bank of three 350 farad supercaps in series. The capacitor setup allows it to charge in seconds, though with a current flow of nearly 50 amps, charging experimentation wisely took place with Rigsby some distance away!
A few months ago, maker Fabian Mazza created a CD ROM plotter for his daughters. While the three-year-old loves it, the eight-year-old thought it was too small. Rather than giving up—or building a CNC machine from scratch—he cleverly constructed a new plotter out of a Smith Corona electric typewriter.
Since this device is designed to control the X and Y positions of a writing implement using steppers, it gave him everything he needed for CNC use via an Arduino Uno and GRBL shield.
For better resolution, he added gear reduction to the carriage stepper salvaged from an old scanner. Z-axis movement is done using parts from a DVD-ROM to control whether the pen lowered onto the paper or retracted.
Creators keep coming up with new clock designs, and while you might think that every new possibility has been exhausted, Christine Thompson has proved this assumption wrong once again with her “VFD Trilateral Clock.“
This Arduino Uno-powered device employs a stepper motor to rotate a triangular prism shape with scales for hours and minutes on one side, temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit on the other, and humidity and pressure on the third surface.
The geometric scale travels in 120-degree steps, causing each face to line up with a pair of IN-13 Nixie tubes on either side. These linear tubes are then used to indicate time and environmental conditions in a beautiful bell jar display, as seen at around 3:30 in the video below.
While waiting for the delivery of parts for another project I decided to push ahead with this project. At its heart is two IN-13M Nixie tubes. These tubes are designed to provide a linear scale between maximum and minimum points using an illuminated column. The project uses two of these IN-13M, three wire Nixie tubes to show, time (Hours and Minutes), temperature (Celsius and Fahrenheit), Humidity (percentage), and Pressure (millibars).
At this point I would like to thank Dr. Scott M. Baker for his great web site, which provided me with all the information I needed to get these Nixie tubes to work. In particular the Current Regulator as displayed and detailed on his web site.
The project uses a BME280 sensor to determine the temperature, pressure and humidity and RTC clock to monitor time. As the system needs to display six different values it was necessary to construct a rotating central display which showed these values against six scales. In order to achieve this an equilateral triangle of wood was fashioned, each side showing two sets of values. A stepper motor was mounted under the top platform and this motor rotates through 120 degrees in time for the next set of values to be displayed on the two Nixie tubes.
