Photo credit: [Stimmer] on the Arduino Forum

[Stimmer] on the Arduino Forum hardcoded a way to display 160×240 (320×240 after some posts) VGA signal.

After working out how to do a timer interrupt I’ve had a go at making a VGA framebuffer. It is rather low-res at present(160×240) and fuzzy but I hope to be able to improve that. It has 8-bit colour (RRRGGGBB).
I cannot get Eagle to run right now so will have to describe the schematic in text:
Due pin 2 -> VGA pin 13 (HSync)
Due pin 3 -> VGA pin 14 (VSync)

Due pin 25 -> 820R resistor -> VGA pin 3 (blue)
Due pin 26 -> 390R resistor -> VGA pin 3 (blue)

Due pin 27 -> 2k2 resistor -> VGA pin 2 (green)
Due pin 28 -> 1k resistor -> VGA pin 2 (green)
Due pin 14 -> 470R resistor -> VGA pin 2 (green)

Due pin 15 -> 2k2 resistor -> VGA pin 1 (red)
Due pin 29 -> 1k resistor -> VGA pin 1 (red)
Due pin 11 -> 470R resistor -> VGA pin 1(red)

Due pin GND -> VGA pins 5,6,7,8,10

Via [Arduino Forum]

[Via: The Naked Espresso]

Nice Grasshopper-to-Arduino plotter hack from FablabTorino maker Pietro Leoni, a collabotator at Carlo Ratti Associati studio in Turin. We’d love to see code & sketches online soon, as much as a second edition of the plotter.

PLOTS guys propose an interesting way to measure the quality of the air for indoor environments, by hacking a second-hand Roomba robot (an autonomous vacuum cleaner).

These robots are programmed to randomly move inside rooms to clean up the floor, so by adding a simple air quality sensor on top of one of them, it is possible to easily implement a sort of “random walker” that will sense for us the presence of gases (volatile organic chemicals, VOCs), such as NH3, alcohol, CO2 and so forth.

To keep track of the air quality measurements, the authors equipped the so hacked Roomba with an RGB led, whose color can be changed according to the air sample. By taking a long exposure picture of the room where the robot was roaming in, they could determine the areas where a high concentration of VOCs was present.

The complete description of the project can be found on the PLOTS’ website, while here you may find a short video about it:

PLOTS guys are also working on a different approach to air sensing, which does not make use of a Roomba robot but uses a hamster ball, instead. Further details can be found here.

[Via: Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science]

Happy to see the KegBot Project adding a new fancy Android shell as casing.

“If you are looking for an exciting hardware project, KegDroid deserves a look. It is a sophisticated system that involves Android, Arduino, NFC, plumbing and — beer. Perhaps the final stroke of genius is to package the whole thing in a Droid body. Some how the little green fella looks at home on the bar. You have heard of desktop and laptop apps now we have bartop apps to add to the list“

via [SlashDot]

3D image input is often a challenging task when it comes to irregular objects like a human body. Here is where an arduino, tilt sensors and a little math comes to the rescue. University of Toronto’s Responsive Architecture at Daniels school created one such blanket.

The petals are made up of a conductive material, which are linked to larger network of conductive threads all in the shape of a hexagon. The loads of tilt sensors send the data of their position with respect to a central Arduino-powered computer which is then able to calculate the slopes between the various flowers and petals on the blanket. Thereby giving out a 3D input to the computer.

The concept will be widely applicable to interaction design, video game controls and numerous other fields.

Via:[Gizmodo, University of toronto - RAD]

A yet another reason to have arduino in your basic-electronic toolkit. You can build your own battery capacity measuring device. Now compare all the brands of the so claimed ‘long lasting batteries’. Know what you are buying!

Follow the instructions to build from here. and get building!

Via: [Instructables]

The Twittertape Machine prototype from Adam Vaughan connects to his Twitter account via Ethernet, checks for updates twice every minute, and prints out a hard copy of any new Tweets without the need for printer ink.

Vaughan told us that the idea for the Twittertape Machine was born of a desire to have the kind of old stock ticker seen in movies sitting on his desk. After a lukewarm reception to his pitch from friends, he decided to make his dream a reality. Rather than sacrifice a rare original (like the Edison Universal Stock Ticker used for Ames Bielenberg’s Spring Break project), he opted to build his own replica version from some old brass clock movements, a wooden plinth and a glass dome found online.

It is powered by two AC adapters and is controlled by a network-enabled Arduino-style microcontroller running custom code in the base. The board checks Vaughan’s Twitter account every 30 seconds for new Tweets.

The little thermal printer hidden at the base prints the tweets on a cut-down thermal paper. An awesome product in an awesome demand!

[Via: Twittertape and Gizmag]