We keep seeing a lot of RGB lamps, but they’re also constantly increasing in size and complexity. Take this rendition, which uses a lot of RGB LEDs and has smartphone control (translated).

The lamp itself uses 31 RGB LEDs arranged in a sphere that organizes them into three vertical rings. They’re all ganged together (not individually addressable) with one transistor per color. An Arduino board is responsible for control, and the build includes a Bluetooth module for incoming commands.

As you can see above, the Android app driving the device is really quite good. In addition to sliders for color mixing there is a separate window with a color picker. [Remick] included options like favorite color combos, color scrolling, and a timer that will shut the lamp off. We couldn’t embed it here, but you’ll find some demo video at the link above.

When we envision our transhumanist future, it's a little more profound than simply adding a sixth finger... but we suppose you've gotta start somewhere. Instructables user and employee Frenzy gave himself a rather primitive extra digit as part of a project for an Electronics and Robotics class at San Francisco State University. Sadly he doesn't provide step-by-step instructions for building your own cyborg appendage, but it doesn't seem too difficult. Frenzy borrowed heavily from other projects, using EMG sensors to trigger a servo controlled by an Arduino, which he strapped to the back of a glove. Like we said, doesn't seem particularly hard, once you figure out how to get the microcontroller to play nice with the sensors. Obviously this is just one small step step for DIY cyborgs. Next, we need to graph on a few extra arms to make one-man liveblogging a much simpler endeavor. To see Primitive Transhumanism #2: Sixth Finger in action, head on past the break.

Continue reading DIY cyborg appendage is less exciting than it sounds (video)

DIY cyborg appendage is less exciting than it sounds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The speaker system [Zurcher] bought was made by Klipsch. It is a surround sound unit but it’s intended to be used with a computer so there’s no wireless remote for it. Instead, a wired unit sits on the desk and lets you select between the speakers or headphones, and has a volume adjustment knob. The thing is he uses them for his home theater system and had to add his own remote control hardware to adjust them from across the room.

He started with some web searches that helped a lot. It seems others have mapped out the hardware in the past and he was able to use that information to find the volume chip inside the controller. A bit of signal sniffing let him work out the control commands coming in over the i2c bus. This was the information he needed to build his own controller. He grabbed his Arduino board, and IR receiver to take commands from just about any remote, and a four-digit 7-segment display to provide settings feedback. You can seen him showing off the final build in the clip after the break.

I am helping my friends first robot! He primaily wanted tractor treads and an Arduino "because he heard they were good" ( I didn't disagree with him. :-)

We decided on an inexpensive kit was a good starting point and then it can be expanded later.

Our choice was the BrutusBot and electronics package (looks like I get to solder 2 boards, lucky me...). It was fairly cheap.

He seems good in the programming and mechanical areas, he isn't so good with the electronics part (he does fine with some guidance).

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I post this for the sheer delight on the face of Massimo

Our previous post about arduino Grande is here and more details of making it is here.

Prototyping my home automation system i ran into troubles. I can’t make work two SPI devices on Arduino Mega. One is an ethernet shield based on enc28J60 made by ekitszone, other is a small module based on Nordic’s nRF24L01+ transceiver. Spot the problem without an oscilloscope was really frustrating, oscilloscopes are not hacker’s best friends for nothing. After checking and rechecking solder joints, my code, astral conjunctions, finally i found the real problem. Trivially MOSI and MISO signals of SPI bus on ethernet shiled are reversed. Detaching the shield from Arduino and using a breadboard to invert MOSI (pin 51) and MISO (pin 50) make everything work (to be true, my code doesn’t use ethernet yet but the transreceiver works like a charm now). I don’t know which batches are affected but if you are in trouble with these shield using enc28J60 datasheet and a tester try to figure out if this is your situation. Happy hacking.

Prototyping my home automation system i ran into troubles. I can’t make work two SPI devices on Arduino Mega. One is an ethernet shield based on enc28J60 made by ekitszone, other is a small module based on Nordic’s nRF24L01+ transceiver. Spot the problem without an oscilloscope was really frustrating, oscilloscopes are not hacker’s best friends for nothing. After checking and rechecking solder joints, my code, astral conjunctions, finally i found the real problem. Trivially MOSI and MISO on ethernet shiled are reversed. Detaching the shield from Arduino and using a breadboard to invert MOSI (pin 51) and MISO (pin 50) make everything work (to be true, my code doesn’t use ethernet yet but the transreceiver works like a charm now). I don’t know which batches are affected but if you are in trouble with these shield using enc28J60 datasheet and a tester try to figure out if this is your situation. Happy hacking.

[Instrument Tek] isn’t messing around with a hobby-sized greenhouse. In fact if it were any bigger we’d call it a commercial operation. But what interests us is the professional-quality greenhouse automation he built around and Arduino board.

The greenhouse is about what you’d expect to see at a nursery, except the footprint is somewhere around 10′x10′. It’s a stick-built frame with walls made of poly. Professional greenhouses monitor and regulate temperature and humidity and this one does just that. The video after the break starts off by showing the controller box. It has temperature, humidity, and light sensors that allow the Arduino to judge growing conditions. If it gets too hot, some slats are opened and a fan exhausts air from the structure. If it gets to cold, a series of light fixtures are energized. They contain heat lamps, as this setup is in northern Alberta, Canada and it can get quite cold some nights. The drip system is also automated, with a solenoid to turn water on and off.

In addition to that 3:26 show-and-tell, we’ve embedded a 27-minute video that shows how to build the controller box. So you can start you plants indoors on the rack, then populate the greenhouse when they get large enough.

[Thanks Ricardo]

Sick of trying to control your 360 using Kinect, semaphore and advanced flailing? Modgod Ben Heck, deciding he wanted to be more Minority Report and less lunatic, has been working on Power Glove 2.0 to improve the console's navigation experience. The prototype glove is tricked out with Arduino, an accelerometer, a gyroscope and some fingertip buttons. With the addition of IR and a little coding magic, the 360's interface can be controlled via subtle gestures, with increased functionality / style points also apparent. Check out the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show after the break for a detailed walkthrough of the project and a demo of the glove in action.

Continue reading Ben Heck makes Super Glove mod for Kinect, takes strain out of gestures (video)

Ben Heck makes Super Glove mod for Kinect, takes strain out of gestures (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Salvius is my humanoid robotics project that I have been working on over the past year. The robot still requires work before it can move around on its own because I still need to get another motor controller. While I search for another Curtis 12v model: 1204 motor controller I continue to work on many other parts of the robot's design. The robot now has night vision and ultrasonic hearing. You can connect to the robot's computer using any wireless enabled device and control the robots actions.

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