Starting a new project is always an effective way to hone your skills while exploring circuitry and programming. To help improve his engineering chops, Joop Brokking recently bought an inexpensive oscilloscope (a device for visualizing voltage over time in an x-y graph) and connected it to an Arduino Uno. He then shared his findings in a detailed tutorial on YouTube.

In the video below, Brokking is using a Hantek 6022BE 20MHz dual-channel oscilloscope and provides three examples to better understand what can go wrong when building a simple Arduino setup.

Sometimes the technology part of a project isn’t the hard part. It is having an idea for something both useful and doable. Sure, a robot butler that would do your cleaning and laundry would be useful, but might be out of reach for most of us. On the other hand, there’s only so many use cases for another blinking LED.

[Martinhui] knows how to use an ultrasonic sensor with an Arduino. Driving a motor isn’t that hard, either. The question is: what do you do with that? [Martin’s] answer: Automate a trash can. You can see a video of the result, below.

You can find commercial versions of this, of course, but what fun is that? The can is a bit small, but a larger motor or a different mechanical design could scale it up easily.

As robotic trash cans go, this isn’t that ambitious, but it is highly doable. If only it connected to the Internet.

Servos are pretty basic fare for the seasoned hacker. But everyone has to start somewhere, and there’s sure to be someone who’ll benefit from this primer on servo internals. Who knows – maybe even the old hands will pick up something from a fresh perspective.

[GreatScott!] has been building a comprehensive library of basic electronics videos over the last few years that covers everything from using a multimeter to programming an Arduino. The last two installments delve into the electromechanical realm with a treatment of stepper motors along with the servo video below. He covers the essentials of the modern RC-type servo in a clear and engaging style that makes it easy for the newbie to understand how a PWM signal can translate into positional changes over a 180° sweep. He shows how to control a servo directly with an Arduino, with bonus points for including a simple 555-based controller circuit too. A quick look at the mods needed to convert any servo to continuous rotation wraps up the video.

If [GreatScott!]’s video whets your appetite for more, be sure to check out [Richard Baguley]’s deeper dive into servos. And when you’re ready to put your new-found knowledge into practice, maybe a nice project would be to convert a hobby servo into a linear actuator.

We’ve already seen an Altoids tin enhanced with a laser for your cat’s entertainment, so why not a yogurt tub?

If you’re looking for a way to keep your kitty busy, but would rather not actually have to get up and wave a laser around, this setup allows you to use the Blynk app to turn on and manipulate a laser right from your phone.

Keeping things simple, the enclosure for this project is a yogurt tub, and the laser manipulator is two Arduino-driven servos stuck together with tape. A computer provides power as well as Wi-Fi control, though with a Wi-Fi shield and battery it should be able to be used independently.

Now obviously the end result isn’t the most practical device you’ll ever build, but this was a great way for me to learn the fundamentals of programming Arduino and it can help you to learn too.

Looking for a new way to play with your feline friend? You can check out the project’s Instructables page, as well as the recent Altoids tin laser assembly here.

Light graffiti, virtual reality, and motion control combine to make one amazing robotic sidekick.

Film making has advanced in a staggering way over the last 50 or even 10 years, but what if you were to augment your filming rig with a VR headset and add a camera that automatically tracks where a VR controller is? Jaymis Loveday did just this, and in the video below, you’ll see a very interesting result–he’s painting with light in thin air.

If you’ve ever tried light graffiti, you’re familiar with what he’s doing. The problem is figuring out what and where exactly you’ve painted, and his system seems to solve this.

Later in the video, he interacts with a virtual world while the real world is still in the shot, for a kind of mixed reality filming experience. The possibilities for this kind of interface are staggering, so hopefully we’ll see even more strange art in the future!

… it’s a project I’ve had in my mind since I first used the Vive over a year ago, at PAX Prime in Seattle. As soon as I waved the controller in front of my face and noticed the tracking speed and accuracy I started mentally designing camera tracking systems. I wanted a VR system in my life because I love games, but I needed a Vive for filmmaking science experiments.

You can see more about this rig on his website here or on the project’s Reddit post. You can also check out Loveday’s previous video tracking only version here.

Using eight jack-o’-lanterns and an Arduino Mega, “CrankyCoder” built his own automated pumpkin patch.

CrankyCoder’s favorite holiday, as well as his family’s, is Halloween. After creating a skull that follows people around a few years ago, he decided to take things up a notch with his “Creepy Pumpkin Patch.” His patch includes eight pumpkins on the edges of a path with homemade pressure switches in between. As trick-or-treaters walk by, the patch is activated, making the pumpkins spin creepily.

Cleverly, CrankyCoder employs two pie pans with marbles in between for each rotating pumpkin, creating ball bearings to support the weight. Also, instead of a candle or other complicated electronics, he’s using flickering LEDs from the dollar store to produce a creepy lighting effect.

With Halloween just days away, be sure to check out the project’s video seen here or its GitHub page to get started on your own Creepy Pumpkin Patch.

Les Boites Mécaniques are a set of four automated boxes that produce music out of wood and metal. These experimental instruments enable anyone to explore the magic of making sound by pressing buttons on a remote, which activate each respective device to vibrate, knock, and rub materials.

The boxes were developed by Kogumi‘s Anatole Buttin and Yan Godat for educational electronic music workshops, and can be played either solo or in unison. There’s even a mode that allows users to control it all via MIDI notes on a computer.

In terms of hardware, each box is equipped with an Arduino Uno, a TLC59711 LED driver, step motors with AccelStepper library and a 3D-printed microstep driver.

You can watch how it all comes together to create a unique sound below!

Using a rather large custom PCB, Hari Wiguna made a Sudoku board using discreet LED displays and a physical keypad.

Most people, buy a book and play Sudoku with a pencil or perhaps just get an app. Those that are really dedicated buy a standalone game, but this wasn’t good enough for Wiguna, who made his own electronic board not out of a normal LCD screen, but from 27 three-character LED modules to display the game on a glowing grid. Input is done via a keypad, which uses the grid layout to allow for two-button selection of any square.

Though extremely impressive, it doesn’t yet have a puzzle generator. Wiguna would welcome any contributions for this code-wise!

You can find out more about this project on his page, on GitHub, as well as in his detailed YouTube videos below.

Maker dad Royce Husain and his daughter Zoey have made it an annual Halloween tradition to build fun and exciting new costumes. Following in the footsteps of last year’s El Niño project and the incredibly popular Minnie Mouse stick figure from 2014, the duo is back with another elaborate getup: a Princess Cumulus thunderstorm that is admittedly “a bit impractical for actual trick-or-treating.” (But cool nevertheless!)

The costume itself consists of a cotton-covered inflatable suit along with LED strips connected to an Arduino programmed to produce a flashing lightning effect.

Be sure to check it out below!

Update 06/11/2016

Hey guys,

I sort of got the motor working. Adding a small resistance(about 2-3ohms) in series with the motor seemed to stop the Atmega reseting whenever Pin 3 was pulled HIGH (still don't know for sure what was causing this!). I'll still continue t troubleshoot this problem and completely figure out what exaclty was causing the Atmega to reset, since the resistor is not a permanent solution (wasteful energy loss). I'm really grateful for the huge amount of help from here guys!! Thanks alot! :)

Cheers!

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