Because the Arduino is in such high demand for producing multiple musical tones at the same time; [Jeremy Blum] has successfully figured out the math and other necessaries that will take your once previously single tone producing MCU and turn it into a 5 tone producing machine. unsurprisingly its really just some creative use of PWM control but it all works out in the end anyway and helps prevent you from purchasing additional sound generating chips. This truly does open up some new doors, as [Jeremy] shows with his still in production thingamakit like project: ReacXion.
You may remember seeing the golf glove air guitar hack last month. Here’s two more uses for gloves with sensors on them.
On the left is a glove interface with flex sensors on each digit as well as an accelerometer. The VEX module reads the sensors to detect sign language as a command set. A shake of the hand is picked up by an accelerometer to delineate between different command sets. See it controlling a little robot after the break. This comes from [Amnon Demri] who was also involved in the EMG prosthesis.
Straight out of Cornell we have the SudoGlove, seen on the right. [Jeremy Blum] and his fellow engineering students bring together a mess of different sensors, sourcing an Arduino and a XBee module to control a small RC car with added lights and a siren. There’s embedded video after the break. You may want to jump past the music video for the description that starts at about 3:52.
Behold the electronic Jack-in-the-box. Open the lid or enter the wrong combination and you’ll set off an alarm. But if you get the right 6 combination code entered using the three buttons you’ll be rewarded with a little ditty and the appearance of the Jack (who lives in the box). [Jeremy Blum] designed this as part of his introduction to rapid prototyping class at Cornell University. See his description of the project after the break.
When he shared the link with us he mentioned that this might be a fun project for beginners and we couldn’t agree more. The design is easy to wrap your mind around using the provided schematic. The source code package includes PDF files that contain well commented code segments along with their descriptions. You can use this to get comfortable with driving a speaker and servo motor using an Arduino, as well as to read from two different types of inputs. We are especially interested in the hardware debounce implemented for the switch that detects if the lid is closed. Software debouncing is pretty much the standard these days but because an external interrupt is used to read the switch that method won’t work here.
If you’ve got an Arduino and few of these components why not give this a try?
Have you ever wanted to own a full-sized ShopBot? What if some geniuses somewhere made a tool the size of a coffee maker that had the same capabilities? Does an augmented reality, real-time feedback, interactive, handheld CNC router that can make objects ranging in size from a pillbox to an entire conference room table sound like a thing that even exists? It didn’t to me at first, but then I visited the Shaper Tools office in San Francisco and they blew my mind with their flagship tool, Shaper Origin.
This table and the spool holder sitting on it was made with a machine the size of a coffee maker.
It’s impossible for me not to sound like a fan boy. Using Shaper Origin was one of those experiences where you just don’t know what to say afterwards. This is what the future looks like.
I’ve used a lot of CNC tools in my life, from my first home-built CNC conversion, to 1980s monstrosities that ran off the floppy kind of floppy disks, and all the way over to brand new state-of-the-art vertical machining centers. I had to shake a lot of that knowledge off when they demoed the device to me.
Origin is a CNC router built into the form factor of a normal wood router. The router knows where it is on the work piece. You tell it where on the piece you would like to cut out a shape, drill a hole, or make a pocket. It tells you where to go, but as you move it keeps the cutting bit precisely on the path with its three axes of control.
[Jeremy] is all about the Arduino, but also into helping people get started working with electronics. He has put together a series of videos on his web site which discuss the basics of using an Arduino. Having just published his tenth tutorial, he dropped us a line to let us know. His videos cover a wide range of topics and include source code, schematics, and a full parts list to help you follow along with him.
While the core of his lessons focus specifically on how to use the Arduino to perform particular tasks, he does introduce the viewer to many different concepts along the way. He covers PWM, button debouncing, interrupts, SPI communications, analog inputs, and more – all of which are must-know topics that extend beyond the realm of experimenting with Arduinos.
The videos run anywhere from 6 to 20 minutes in length, so you will want to set a block of time aside if you plan on checking them out.
If Arduino-specific videos aren’t your thing, he also has a series of general tech-related videos on his site as well which may be of interest. Otherwise, stick around to see the latest in his series of tutorials.
Robotic claws are awesome, period. [Jeremy’s] Remotely controlled robotic claw, thats just a whole new level of cool – even if the intention is to just pick up blocks. The setup is simple enough, a Parallax Propeller controls the whole system by first polling a web server for changes in variables that the user has invoked. Those changes are then passed to relays that control the claw. To keep from fumbling in the dark, he’s even included a webcam. We hate to see that he’s used such expensive equipment to just control a toy, but maybe one day he’ll move to bigger and better things.
Here’s another hacked Nerf Vulcan rifle. This time it is an automated sentry gun. You must present it your badge, if no badge is found, you are assaulted with a fiery storm of small nerf darts. All encounters are logged and a photos are kept. This was a final project at Cornell, and for once it wasn’t ECE. This was for CS1114. They did a pretty good job with the tracking, now they need to add some more interesting voice options to it.
