Solaris is an interactive installation created by Julia Borovaya (idea curation), Edward Rakhmanov (robotic system, chemistry), Vtol (programming, electronics) with the help of Alexander Kaplan, professor of neurophysiology:

it demonstrates the field influence of the permanent magnet on the magnetic and spirit (fluorescent) liquids. Two liquids constitute the diphasic system. Due to liquids movements and their surfaces’ modifications we visualize the unique processes of human brain. The spectator wears on neuro interface Emotive Epoc, the device computes a brain activity and sends information to the installation machinery.

To test the project people of different ages, social groups and professional areas were invited. Test results confirmed that brain activity and mood of the man reflect on the dynamic and character of liquids movements in the sphere. Object reacts on the changes of mind and emotion states. People who spent a plenty of time with the object managed to influence the dynamic and direction of the liquids on the unconsciousness level. We also reveal that the installation visualizes the temperament of the person. The object copies your mental organization and echoes it on the liquid’s surface. The object becomes a part of the participant.

It runs on Arduino Uno controlling dc motors, 2 actuators and a custom digital motor control system interface.

The Drink Up Fountain is project created in September 2013 by YesYesNo Interactive studio in collaboration with PHA Honorary Chair First Lady Michelle Obama and dedicated to encouraging people to drink more water more often: “You are what you drink, and when you drink water you drink up!”

The Fountain runs on Arduino Mega  and

dispenses entertaining greetings and compliments intended to entice the drinker to continue sipping. When a drinker’s lips touch the water, the fountain “talks,” completing a circuit and activating speakers. When the drinker pulls his or her head away and stops drinking, the circuit breaks and the fountain stops talking. With hidden cameras set up, Drink Up caught unsuspecting individuals using the fountain in New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park

Take a look at the video to see how the fountain interacts the people:

The award-winning Minecraft is a very popular PC game and also pretty addictive. It was originally created  by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson, later developed and supported on different platforms and recently acquired by Microsoft for 2.5$ billions.

Arduino user lakhanm shared  a DIY keyboard prototyped with Arduino Uno and substituting the basic keyboard controls such as move forwards or backwards. The project is also compatible with most of the Arduino boards. 

Take a look at the circuit below and grab the sketch and bill of materials at this link.

Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi, announced at MakerCon the collaboration between the open-source microcontroller and futurist Bruce Sterling. The Open-Source Apartment will be located in Torino, near Arduino Italian headquarters and it will serve as a test ground for the latest developments from the open source community, being outfitted with furniture from OpenDesk and a variety of hardware creations.
Watch the video below and more details will be available during Maker Faire Rome:

For the third time, next October 10th & 11th, Munich will host push.conference a unique 2-day event for the interactive professional field, uniting the potential and skillset of a new generation of creative coders, interaction designers and creative technologists with the established UX/UI scene. (discount code at the end of this post!)

With a comprehensive and diverse program, the conference lives up to this with 10 headliner talks and 8 inspiring lightning talks from design consultancies, companies and creatives such as Ben Fry (Founder Processing), Lauren McCarthy (Interaction Artist), Mike Tucker (Universal Everything), Josh Carpenter (Virtual Reality Researcher Mozilla), Daniel Burka & Braden Kowitz (Google Ventures), Markus Eckert (Motion Code Magician) and many more.

If you want to get inspired by the great minds on stage, get in touch with enthusiasts of connected fields, meet agencies looking for talents or maybe find your next team members yourself, register to the conference with the Discount Code (early bird fare) for Arduino fans and lasting 2 weeks from now:  pf214ard3x9.

Arduino user Jubeso submitted to our blog an instructable explaining the 10 steps to build an input device for gaming.

The  Gravity Touch bluetooth glove  is specifically designed to interact with augmented reality glasses like the Google Glass, Meta, Moverio BT or with the VR headsets like Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, vrAse, Durovis Dive:

Those new products are amazing and they need new types of input devices. This instructable will describe how to build your own “Gravity Touch bluetooth glove” and I will also give you some tips to build your own Durovis Dive VR headset so that you will be able to enjoy full mobile VR. Because this glove will be of most use for VR game, I have created a Unity3D plugin for Android that handle the communication between your app and the glove. It means that you will be able to use your Gravity Touch glove to interact with your Unity3D VR game.

The Arduino code and the Java class I wrote to handle the communication between the glove and the Android device will also be available so that you will be able to adapt them for your need.

The bill of materials, among other things, contains an Arduino Micro , FreeIMU – an Open Hardware Framework for Orientation and Motion Sensing and 3m of flexible soft electric wire.

Right before the weekend of  World Maker Faire in NYC, Massimo Banzi will be at MakerCon with a keynote taking place on September 18 at 11 a.m local time. Makercon is a 2-day conference by and for makers organized around 4 specific tracks: Business of Making, Education, Maker Community Building, Tools of Innovation&Technology.

Makercon connects individuals at the forefront of the maker movement, focusing on the technologies, services ecosystem, manufacturing models, and funding trends that provide new ways of making things and getting them to market.

On Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30pm (after the Innovation Showcase) MakerCon will be able to watch the exclusive New York premiere screening of the acclaimed Neflix documentary Print the Legend. Right after the film, Dale Dougherty is moderating a panel discussion with some of the key players from the film.

The connected birdhouse is a project prototyped during a workshop ran by Massimo Banzi at Boisbuchet, last August in France. It was developed using Arduino Yùn, by Valentina Chinnici, who shared with us the project, and two other students taking part to  the week of learning-by-doing around the theme of  the Internet of Trees.

They redesigned a traditional object, a wooden birdhouse to be placed outdoor, and connected it to a lamp shaped like a nest, to be placed indoor:

The connected birdhouse was in fact an interactive object able to communicate to the nest/lamp the presence of a bird inside the house, and accordingly to a color coded signal was giving also some informations about the size of the bird itself. In the event of a bird entering into the house, the nest/lamp remotely controlled via WiFi by an Arduino Yùn, was turned on. The nest/lamp received the notification from the birdhouse translating it firstly with a rainbow effect. After few seconds the light changed according to the weight of the bird (green, yellow or red).

The LED strip used for the nest lamp was an Adafruit Neopixel strip controlled by an Arduino Yún.

On this blog you can find the sketch to make it work and create one yourself.

Maker Camp is a free summer camp from Make and Google for building, tinkering and exploring.
Back in July Massimo was invited for a live streaming interview to talk about Arduino (starting at 11’20”) together with Ayah Bdeir , founder of the littleBits electronic components. Enjoy the video!

“Trataka” by Alessio Chierico is an interactive installation controlled by Arduino and based on a brain-computer interface. It was exhibited at Ars Electronica last week. When a visitor totally relaxes and focuses, the candle magically extinguishes:

Trataka is a Sanskrit term which means “to look” or “to gaze” and it refers to a meditation technique. This practice consists in concentrate the attention in a small object, or more commonly in a flame. In meditation, this technique is used to stimulate the ajna chakra: a point located in correspondence of the brain. According to the Hindu tradition, this chakra is one of the six main centers of vital energy, and it is considered as the eye of the intuition and the intellect.

This installation is composed by a brain-computer interface that detect the brain waves and defines parameters like the level of attention. Wearing this device, the user is invited to concentrate his attention on a flame placed in front of him. The level of attention detected by this system, controls an air flow located under the flame: higher level corresponds with a more intense air flow. The interaction process aims to the user engagement for increase his attention in order to put the flame out. This will happen when the highest level of attention is reached: the air flow become strong enough to extinguish the flame.