A Look At The Basics Of Building An Arduino Watch

August 1, 2019 by 8 Comments

Miniaturization has made smart watches possible, even for the DIY maker to tinker with. For those just getting to grips with basic digital electronics, it can be daunting, however. For those just starting out, [陳亮] put together a handy guide to building the core of an Arduino-based watch.

The writeup starts at the beginning, going over the basic hardware requirements for a smart watch. This involves considering size, packaging and power draw, as well as the user interface. The build settles on an Arduino Pro Micro, as it uses the ATmega32U4 which eliminates secondary USB-to-serial chips, helping cut down on power consumption. A square IPS LCD display is used to display an analog-style watch face, and time is kept by a DS3231 real-time clock. A pair of small vibration sensors are used to wake the watch when the user moves their wrist to check the time.

While it doesn’t cover the final assembly into a watch-like form factor, it’s a handy guide on what it takes to build a working watch for those who are still getting their feet wet with hardware. Once you’ve got that down, it’s time to contemplate how you’ll build the sleek exterior. Naturally, a good maker has that covered, too.

Automate The Freight: When The Freight Is People

August 1, 2019 by 35 Comments

Before I got a license and a car, getting to and from high school was an ordeal. The hour-long bus ride was awful, as one would expect when sixty adolescents are crammed together with minimal supervision. Avoiding the realities going on around me was a constant chore, aided by frequent mental excursions. One such wandering led me to the conclusion that we high schoolers were nothing but cargo on a delivery truck designed for people. That was a cheery fact to face at the beginning of a school day.

What’s true for a bus full of students is equally true for every city bus, trolley, subway, or long-haul motorcoach you see. People can be freight just as much as pallets of groceries in a semi or a bunch of smiling boxes and envelopes in a brown panel truck. And the same economic factors that we’ve been insisting will make it far more likely that autonomous vehicles will penetrate the freight delivery market before we see self-driving passenger vehicles are at work with people moving. This time on Automate the Freight: what happens when the freight is people?

Continue reading “Automate The Freight: When The Freight Is People” →

Driving P5 Panels With A Raspberry Pi

August 1, 2019 by 14 Comments

Building displays out of LEDs can be fun, but quickly becomes tedious as the pixel count increases. At this point, it’s worthwhile investing in off-the-shelf panels that have everything pre-soldered and ready to go. [Tom Hammond] wanted to run a P5 panel, and put a Raspberry Pi to work to get it going.

P5 panels are so-called for their 5 mm spacing between LEDs. The panels in question are built with RGB LEDs, allowing full-color graphics to be displayed. In this build, a 64 x 32 panel is used for a total of 2048 pixels. A Raspberry Pi Zero runs the display, using its GPIO to clock out pixel data. Software designed for Christmas light displays is used to program the light show, with xLights being the choice in this case. It’s all wrapped up in a tidy 3D printed frame, and the final product looks remarkably well put together.

It’s a great way to get familiar with P5 panels, and an excellent starting point if you’re contemplating a larger build down the track. If you’re going all out, consider how to make the most of your install from an architectural perspective. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Driving P5 Panels With A Raspberry Pi” →

Reon Pocket Keeps You Cool With A Peltier Element

August 1, 2019 by 53 Comments

With another summer of heatwaves leaving its mark on our planet, finding a way to stay cool during the day isn’t an easy task. From the morning and afternoon commute in public transport, to busy crowds outside during lunch hour, there are many times when you cannot just find a place inside an airconditioned room to deal with the heat. Exactly for this purpose Sony has successfully completed a kickstarter (in Japanese) on its corporate ‘First Flight’ crowdfunding platform for the Reon Pocket.

Many people probably aren’t aware of Sony’s crowdfunding platform, but it’s a way to gauge the interest from the public for more ‘out there’ products, which do not fit Sony’s usual business model. In this case the Reon Pocket is a Peltier-based device which is placed against the back of one’s neck, from where it can either lower or increase the body’s temperature, reportedly by -13 ℃ and +8.3 ℃ respectively.

Covered in more detail by Engadget and its Japanese sister site, the reported 24 hour battery life refers to the Bluetooth link that connects the device with one’s smartphone, whereas the battery lasts under two hours with the peltier element active. This is probably not too shocking to anyone who knows how a peltier element functions, and how much electricity they consume.

Still, the basic concept seems sound, and there are functioning prototypes. While a 2-hour battery life isn’t amazingly long, it can be just the thing one needs to keep one’s cool during that 15 minute walk to the office in a three-piece suit, without needing a shower afterwards. The device isn’t expensive either, with a projected ¥12,760 (about $117) supplied. Naturally the device will only be on sale in Japan.

Continue reading “Reon Pocket Keeps You Cool With A Peltier Element” →

Creative Limitation And The Super Nintendo Sound Chips

July 31, 2019 by 18 Comments

The Super Nintendo recently experienced a surge in popularity, either from a combination of nostalgic 30-somethings recreating their childhoods, or because Nintendo released a “classic” version of this nearly-perfect video game system. Or a combination of both. But what made the system worthy of being remembered at all? With only 16 bits and graphics that look ancient by modern standards, gameplay is similarly limited. This video from [Nerdwriter1] goes into depth on a single part of the console – the sound chips – and uses them to illustrate a small part of what makes this console still worth playing even now.

The SNES processed sound with two chips, a processing core and a DSP. They only had a capacity of 64 kb, meaning that all of a game’s sounds and music had to fit in this tiny space. This might seem impossible if you’ve ever played enduring classics like Donkey Kong Country, a game known for its impressive musical score. This is where the concept of creative limitation comes in. The theory says that creativity can flourish if given a set of boundaries. In this case it was a small amount of memory, and within that tiny space the composer at Rare who made this game a work of art was able to develop a musical masterpiece within strict limitations.

Even though this video only discusses the sound abilities of the SNES, which are still being put to good use, it’s a good illustration of what made this system so much fun. Even though it was limited, game developers (and composers) were able to work within its limitations to create some amazingly fun games that seem to have withstood the test of time fairly well. Not all of the games were winners, but the ones that were still get some playtime from us even now.

Continue reading “Creative Limitation And The Super Nintendo Sound Chips” →

Ping-Pong Ball Makes Great PID Example

July 31, 2019 by 12 Comments

It is a common situation in electronics to have a control loop, that is some sort of feedback that drives the input to a system such as a motor or a heater based upon a sensor to measure something like position or temperature. You’ll have a set point — whatever you want the sensor to read — and your job is to adjust the driving thing to make the sensor read the set point value. This seems easy, right? It does seem that way, but in realitythere’s a lot of nuance to doing it well and that usually involves at least some part of a PID (proportional, integral, derivative) controller. You can bog down in math trying to understand the PID but [Electronoobs] recent video shows a very simple test setup that clearly demonstrates what’s going on with an Arduino, a motor, a distance sensor, and a ping-pong ball. You can see the video below.

Imagine for a moment heating a tank of water as an example. The simple approach would be to turn on the heater and when the water reaches the setpoint, turn the heater off. The problem there is though that you will probably overshoot the target. The proportional part of a PID controller will only turn the heater fully on when the water is way under the target temperature. As the water gets closer to the right temperature, the controller will turn down the input — in this case using PWM. The closer the sensor reads to the setpoint, the lower the system will turn the heater.

Continue reading “Ping-Pong Ball Makes Great PID Example” →

Reflecting On Margaret Hamilton: 50 Years After Apollo 11

July 31, 2019 by 36 Comments

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, Google created a 1.4-square-mile portrait of NASA software developer Margaret Hamilton using more than 107,000 mirrors from the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert, a solar thermal power plant with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts.

The fields of heliostat mirrors (173,500 in total) ordinarily focus sunlight on receivers located on the solar power towers, which subsequently generate steam to drive steam turbines. The facility was first connected to the electrical grid in September 2013 before formally opening in February 2014, during which it was the world’s largest solar thermal power station. Ivanpah was developed by BrightSource Energy and Bechtel, with Google contributing $168 million towards its $2.2 billion in costs. Google no longer invests in the facility, however, due to the decline of the price of photovoltaic systems.

The facility has historically taken steps to avoid disrupting the natural wildlife, which includes desert tortoises. The effect of mirror glare on airplane pilots, water concerns, and collisions with birds has also been addressed by the operators of the installation.

According to Google, the image was larger than Central Park and could be seen a mile above sea level. The mirrors are all attached to a rotating mount that maneuvers the mirrors in order to create lighter and darker shades to make up the image.

The Apollo 11 mission, manned by Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, was the first to bring humans to the moon in 1969. Hamilton‘s role in the team included programming the in-flight software for all of NASA’s Apollo missions. She had also worked on satellite tracking software for the Air Force through Lincoln Lab (started by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and later joined the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. It was, however, her work on creating computer systems to predict and track weather systems for use in anti-aircraft air defenses that made her a candidate for a lead developer role at NASA.

Continue reading “Reflecting On Margaret Hamilton: 50 Years After Apollo 11” →