Spatialized umbrella

umbrella-1

Reader [Joe Saavedra] sent in his latest project: the spatialized umbrella. The base of each umbrella rib features an LED, speaker, and distance sensor. These are connected to an ATMega168 microcontroller running the Arduino environment. The IR sensor triggers a rain drop sound based on proximity. Shorter distances mean more droplets are played. The sounds are generated using a lookup table and the digital pins. You can see the demo video embedded below.

Using the Arduino environment without the associated board is part of another idea that [Joe] is working on. The MapDuino Project uses the standard Arduino hardware for programming, but then transfers the chip to a more barebones circuit in target project. They based their initial work on the ITP breadboard Arduino.

Comments [20]

tagged: arduino, ATmega168, itp, joe saavedra, led, mapduino, mfa dt, parsons, umbrella, video, vimeo

Reader Comments

Whats the point?

Posted at 6:57 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by epicelite

…

Posted at 7:17 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by anon

Screw dat, make a DISCO UMBRELLA!!

Posted at 7:18 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by anon

i don’t get it

Posted at 7:19 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by andrew

apparently it is a glorified proximity sensor. It goes nuts depending on how close you are to something.

Doesnt make much sense though as far an an umbrella inside.

Posted at 7:49 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by Hal Hockersmith

I still don’t get it
I would understand Geiger meter retrofitted with LCD and doing pings ala Alien detectors, but umbrella? please

Posted at 7:53 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by rasz

I think it’s simply an exploration of space and sound. Looks kinda cool to me!

Posted at 8:40 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by teenybreeny

i think i’ll file this under art that i don’t quite understand. don’t take that personally joe, there’s a lot of art I don’t understand. i’m not opposed to hacking random things together to create weird and useless devices. i’m definitely guilty of that.

Posted at 8:45 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by amk

The second part, “Using the Arduino environment without the associated board” is certainly something I can get behind. the amount of wastage in some art student’s “blinking light in a box” project can be cut down on, at least. Added to my feeds.

The rainbrella’s an ok proof of concept, and probably fun to walk around in the dark with. Beyond that, eh. Same could be said of an aliens movement sensor though.

Posted at 8:49 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by cynic

flippin sweet bro

Posted at 8:56 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by Ninja

This is that straight burning man type of art! I like it. Maybe some dont, but maybe they also dont like other things.. Personally, if neon lights and sound are involved, count me in. Especially at night.

Posted at 8:58 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by 36Chambers

I see china reproducing fakeLEDBrellas in the year 2010.

Posted at 9:53 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by SeanMartin

yoooo ive got something to maybe make this more..useful or fun? How about play a sound inside the umbrella every time a raindrop hits, and depending on where it hits a different note is played :) musical rain could be more entertaining while walking around in the stormy weather :)

Posted at 11:24 pm on Apr 12th, 2009 by tapius

The idea already spawns new ideas, brilliant!

Posted at 1:55 am on Apr 13th, 2009 by ragnar

I first thought this was to detect raindrops too. maybe they could add that function, and have the different segment of the top play different notes. then you could stand under a shower to play it? that would sound good!

P.S @seanmartin, everytime i read or hear 2010 i think of it being in the distant future, then remember its only 8 months away! the sad part is im only 20! too many sci-fi novels me thinks :)

Posted at 1:59 am on Apr 13th, 2009 by peter

This website is going downhill in a hurry. Every project h.a.d. posts now involves an Arduino and blinking leds. Can we get some complex projects or at least something useful?

Posted at 4:10 am on Apr 13th, 2009 by Rob

lol gay

Posted at 6:28 am on Apr 13th, 2009 by bort

does it attract lightning ?

Posted at 7:05 am on Apr 13th, 2009 by misha

Er… the ‘mapduino’ project is called the mega168. Atmel did that before arduino was even an idea!

Funny how people are looking at it top-down, though.

Posted at 4:21 pm on Apr 13th, 2009 by Josh

thanks all, for the great comments (even the “constructive” ones), and thanks so much to Eliot for posting this! I love the idea of having actual raindrops determine the attack, frequency and pitch of the sounds, although at the moment I can’t think of the technology that would get that done…

If I could just make one correction – I did indeed use an ITP post as the basis for the HackDuino project, however, I am an MFA Design and Technology student at Parsons, so Eliot, if you are reading this, do you think you could also tag this post with “parsons” or “parsons MFA DT”. thanks, again.

Josh is absolutely correct – MapDuino is completely top-down. There was never a question of which came first – the microcontroller or the breakout board. But it’s definitely something that is getting completely overlooked, and along with LadyAda, Freeduino, and others, we hope to continue to encourage this sort of DIY approach to the prototyping process.

more projects soon, with far better documentation, i promise…

Posted at 8:38 pm on Apr 14th, 2009 by joe saavedra

Spatialized umbrella

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