We’d like to share the performance, by Opificio Sonico,  recorded live in July 2014 of  Toa Mata Band, best known as the “World’s first LEGO robotic band” and controlled by Arduino Uno which is hooked up to a MIDI sequencer:

In this video, the third episode, the robots are playing some unconventional drum-percussions made by some food packaging are captured by a contact microphone (piezo) and processed in real time in the D.A.W. Ableton Live. A brand new device appears for the first time, it’s a moving platform on x-axis, made of Lego bricks, gears and servo motors that permits to move with semitones-steps the tiny synth. The song is a cover of the famous synth-pop band Depeche Mode, it’s a personal tribute to the band who made my days in the 80′s.

Nikodem is a young maker  based in Poland and shared with us his latest project based on Arduino Leonardo. It’s a DIY bike tachometer providing you with a set of additional information:

It shows your speed, the average speed, the temperature, the trip time and the total distance. You can change it using the button. Additionally, the speed is shown on a tachometer. I built it because I like building new things, I have not found anything like this on the internet so I want to show you how to build a good speedometer as the one on my bike is not as cool as I want .

You can find all the steps to make one yourself on  his Instructable account, and in the meanwhile take a look at the two videos below.

A new release of OpenWrt-Yún was announced today on Arduino Forum by Federico Fissore and you can download it from this page.

1.4.2 includes both bug fixes and new stuff.
We fixed some glitches in the webpanel (a bug was found by wildpalms: thank you!).
The OpenWRT Image Builder and the software produced by the http://allseenalliance.org/ is now available for download.

Compared to 1.4.1 this release contains:

• OpenWrt-Yún (Linux side)
  Added “image builder” to the build process. See details on Github
  Added alljoyn feeds and packages. See details on Github

• Web panel
  Fixed wrong JSONP serialization. See details on Github
  Fixed a javascript error in webpanel login page

The complete list of changes is available here.

Arduino has been chosen as an example of how the open-source, collaborative approach is reshaping the world of technology and design and, on September 5th and 6th, we’ll be on of the contributor of the Weekend Specials section of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia curated by Rem Koolhaas.

The Arduino space at the Biennale Architettura 2014 has been conceived to inspire visitors to rediscover their ‘maker gene’: the impulse to learn and make things by yourself. Curated by Enrico Bassi, the exhibition includes responsive installations and hands-on demos to encourage visitors to interact and better understand the creative, transformative potential of Arduino and other open-source digital tools.

The first section focuses on the history, development and applications of Arduino. It features a glance at the evolution of the board, alongside an illustration of how it can enable an easy, direct approach to electronics and programming. In a dedicated area, the Treviso Arduino User Group, a local community of makers, engages visitors in a two-day hackathon on biometric and environmental sensors. The mezzanine level offers a playful and immersive take on what Arduino can bring to light installations.

A second section explores the impact of Arduino on a variety of innovative projects and businesses. It features a selection of items from Arduino AtHeart, a program designed to support and promote independently developed Arduino-based products: Primo, Smart Citizen Kit, Bare Conductive Touch Board, littleBits Arduino Module, and Cromatica.
In the Italian Innovators area, a special focus is granted to outstanding examples of how Arduino fosters creativity and technological development in its country of origin: WASProject, a research initiative on architectural 3d-printing; MEG, an innovative open-source home greenhouse; Light Cryptalk, an Arduino-powered recreation of the WW2 Enigma cypher machine.

Ironically extending the maker approach to other, broader parts of society, a set of videos in the final section of the exhibition compares the effects of the closed- and open-source philosophy in sectors ranging from the auto industry to architecture, suggesting the possibility of a radical, pervasive transformation.

The Maker Gene was produced in collaboration with: Fablab Torino, Officine Arduino, Treviso AUG, Torino AUG, MEG, WASProject, Michele Lizzit, Primo, Smart Citizen Kit, Bare Conductive Touch Board, littleBits Arduino Module, and Cromatica.

Supported by: Arduino

Useful links:

Take a look at the general website of La Biennale>>

The venue hosting The Maker Gene is the Arsenale and our installation is hosted within the Weekend Specials initiative.

You can buy your ticket  at this link.
Come and visit us on the 5th and 6th of September from 10am to 8pm!

Toot is an interactive and sound-active toy designed for children aged between 3 and 6 years old that wants to enhance their auditory, music and language skills. It was developed by Federico Lameri as his thesis project of Master of Interaction Design at Supsi and prototyped using Arduino Leonardo.

The toy is composed by eight little cubical speaker boxes:

On each speaker children are able to record a sound. In order to listen back to the recorded sound the speaker must be shaken as if the sound was physically trapped into a box. After having recorded sounds on them, the speakers can be placed in a sequence after Mr.toot, and by tapping on his head it is possible to trigger the playback of the speakers in a sequence. toot is also matched with a mobile application that offers different kind of interactions and experiences. it allows to play some exercise that will teach children to listen, understand and catalog sound and melodies.

The app expands the possibilities of interaction, offering different exercises created with the help of musicians and educators from different areas of expertise,  some of them are also inspired by a Montessori sensorial activity.

Take a look at the video interview with Montessori educator Fanny Bissa:

Heidi Røneid with an Arduino Ethernet microprocessor. (Photo: Tore Zakariassen, NRK)

When The Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) planned the television broadcast of the Chess Olympiad 2014 in Tromsø, Norway, they encountered a challenge: how to mix video, graphics and the results of many ongoing chess games simultaneously, requiring 16 cameras for the games going on at the same time?

On their blog you can find a long and nice post about how they found the solution using Arduino Uno, Arduino Ethernet Shield and the library for Arduino to control such Atem switchers written by Kasper Skårhøj:

At first, the idea was to use a computer with a webcam for each of the 16 games, then mix video images, background animation and results in software on each of them.

Afterwards the finished mix of images would be streamed to separate channels in our web player, so that the online audience would be able to choose which game they wanted to follow. This solution would also provide our outside broadcasting van (OB van) with 16 finished video sources composed of video, graphics and results. This would make the complex job of mixing all video signals much easier.

After thorough thinking we came to the conclusion that for our web-audience, it would be better to skip the stream of individual games, and spend our resources on building websites that could present all games in the championship via HTML in real time. This would also give the audience the opportunity to scroll back and forth in the moves and recall all the previous games in the championship. We started working on it immediately, and you can find the result on our website nrk.no/sjakk.

Agy Lee is an active member of the Singapore maker community and shared with us on the Arduino G+ Plus Community the interactive pad she prototyped using Lilypad Arduino:

She was inspired by the Sensor Demo Mat made by Kenneth Larsen some months before and that you can make yourself following this Instructables!

After spending some time on Arduino Forum and finding the right solutions for his project’s sketch, Connor Hubeny shared with us the infraHarp: an Arduino-powered eight-tone arpeggiator made with infrared emitters and detectors, Sparkfun’s Musical Instrument Shield, and an Arduino Mega 2560:

The InfraHarp was my first Arduino project. At first the project seemed daunting since I had no previous experience in programming and electrical engineering. Yet after spending some time with the Arduino I realized that electronics work very much the same, and by learning a few core components you are really right on the doorstep of exploring any technology you have the faintest interest in.

The InfraHarp can play in the keys of A, B, C, D, E, F, G in major, minor melodic and harmonic scales, with two octave choices. Listen to it in the video below:

The project requires basic soldering skills and Connor shared all the info and the sketch on this page.

Read more on MAKE

Last May at Maker Faire Bay Area Massimo Banzi introduced our new board to the open source community:

The Arduino Zero, developed in collaboration with Atmel, is a simple and powerful 32-bit extension of the platform established by Arduino UNO. The Zero board aims to provide creative individuals with the potential to realize truly innovative ideas for smart IoT devices, wearable technology, high-tech automation, crazy robotics, and projects not yet imagined. The board is powered by Atmel’s SAMD21 MCU, which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex® M0+ core.

After the great experience we’ve been having with the beta-testing of the the Arduino TRE, we are happy to announce that starting today a limited batch of 20 Arduino ZERO is available for people wanting to join us in the process of beta-testing it..

The ideal beta-tester has time and interest in working on some specific issues we hope to accomplish with the beta-testing: we set up a list of tasks including writing examples, testing libraries and external hardware, and making projects that can be completed in a variety of timeframes.

Ultimately our goal is to make the ZERO welcoming to non-technical customers and useful for tech-savvy customers at the same time, like all of our products. To that end, we’d like feedback from you, as beta testers, about where we could simplify for beginners and explain or document better.

If you want to take part and feel you can spend some time on it, fill this application form by the 17th of August.

By the 21st of August we are going to contact 20 people out of those filling the application. They will receive a coupon to get the Arduino ZERO Developer Edition for free on the Arduino Store.

We will also send them an invite to a Basecamp project where they can get started with the program and sign up for tasks and projects according to their interests, skill-set and time availability.
The beta-testing phase is going to last 1 month (ending around the 20th of September).

Feel like joining us? Fill the form now!