The ElectroAxé Full-Body Percussion Suit

March 31, 2011 by Jason Komp 17 Comments

Carnival in Salvador, Brazil is arguably one of the biggest and craziest parties this world has ever known. With millions in attendance for what is already an incredible audio and visual display, performers are faced with the daunting task of continually bringing something new and fresh to the masses. One could always add more fireworks or visual displays (never a bad thing), but it will only take you so far. [Kyle McDonald] and [Lucas Werthein]’s answer: The ElectroAxé Full-Body Percussion Suit as demonstrated by Carlinhos Brown at Carnival 2011.

When most people hear the word “axe” as related to music they think of an electric guitar. “Axé” however, refers to a unique Afro-Caribbean fusion genre of music that originated in Salvador in the mid 1980’s and is a favorite at Carnival. [Carlinhos Brown] is a popular Brazilian percussionist and was looking for a creative new way to express himself through his song and dance. Instead of being stuck in one place near his instruments or carrying one or two drums around “marching-band style”, he is now able to move around the stage freely – his body has become his instrument.

In order to make the magic happen, [Kyle] and [Lucas] designed custom laser cut and cnc machined drum pads containing piezo sensors and integrated them with a full-body jump suit. When struck, these sensors send a signal to an Arduino with a Sparkfun Midi Shield housed in a custom enclosure on the performer’s waist. From there the MIDI signal is sent wirelessly and then audio is played through the existing sound system – it appears that a CMD WIDI X-8 wireless MIDI system is employed for the actual wireless transmission.

Although details are somewhat scarce, there are plenty of pictures, (more) available. You really can’t argue with the results as you watch thousands of people jam along.

Come join in the festivities with video after the break!

Continue reading “The ElectroAxé Full-Body Percussion Suit” →

Using TouchOSC With Your Projects

March 31, 2011 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

[Marcus] wrote a guide to using TouchOSC to control your projects. He sent a link to us after reading our feature about using Open Sound Control for Arduino without an Ethernet shield. He’s been using that method for quite some time now, but takes it one step further by using a smartphone as a control device. He designs his own user interface for the iPhone using TouchOSC. This is a package which we’ve seen in other projects but now you can get an idea of how easy it really is.

The project starts by interfacing an Arduino with the device you’d like to control. The circuit above patches into a remote control using a couple of transistors. Now the Arduino can simulate button presses on that remote, sending the signal to turn a light on or off. Next, TouchOSC is used for the smartphone – here it’s an iPhone but the suite works on Android as well. In the video after the break you can watch a quick interface design demo. Buttons are dragged into existence, uploaded to the phone, then configured to control you device over a network. A Processing sketch listens for OSC commands and then sends instructions to the Arduino via USB.

Continue reading “Using TouchOSC With Your Projects” →

Snuggle Up With The Softer Side Of Hacking

March 30, 2011 by Mike Nathan 19 Comments

led_quilt

Not all hacks need to be made up of servo motors, wireless radios, and PIR sensors. Sometimes hacking has a softer side, of which [Katie] reminds us with her latest creation.

Her LED quilt incorporates 64 hand-sewn LEDs, all of which were painstakingly attached with conductive thread. The same thread was used in a sewing machine to build the conductive grid that powers the LEDs. One half of the circuit was sewn into the front of the quilt in the form of 8 rows, while the columns are sewn into the back side. All of the rows and columns meet in the corner of the quilt, where they are attached to a Lilypad Arduino using simple metal snaps.

The LED matrix panel was then tested, then sewn into an actual quilt. The finished product looks completely innocuous until lit up, as you can see in the video below. We think it would make a great nightlight replacement for a child, especially if programmed to display soothing light patterns.

[via Make]

Continue reading “Snuggle Up With The Softer Side Of Hacking” →

Converting The BlinkM Into The World’s Tiniest Arduino

March 30, 2011 by Mike Nathan 18 Comments

blinkm_arduino

The BlinkM “Smart LED” is a great little device on its own accord. It allows for complete control of its RGB LED using a built-in microcontroller, enabling the user to do a wide array of things that normally require PWM to accomplish. At just over half an inch square, this little device might also be the smallest Arduino on the market.

The BlinkM packs an ATiny85 micro controller, which allows it to be flashed with the Arduino bootloader thanks to the people over at the [High-Low Tech group at MIT]. They did some tweaking of the Arduino IDE configuration files and incorporated some core library code created by [Alessandro Saporetti] to get the job done – all of which is available on their site.

Once the code is uploaded to the BlinkM, you essentially have a micro Arduino running at 8MHz with a built in LED and 2 I/O lines (5 if you snip off the LED). It’s a great device to have on hand if you feel like a full-fledged Arduino would be overkill in your project.

Stick around to see a video tutorial of the reflashing process.

Continue reading “Converting The BlinkM Into The World’s Tiniest Arduino” →

Wireless Luge Timer Levels The Playing Field

March 29, 2011 by Mike Nathan 3 Comments

wireless_luge_timer

In Colorado, amateur luge competitions are serious business.

Every winter, [Ryan’s] friends dig a long luge track through the many feet of snow that occupies their yard, and have competitive sled races to see who can make it down the giant hill in the least time. They call it the Mario Cup, after one of the participants, not the Nintendo mascot, and they were in desperate need of some timing equipment.

You see, the luge track is several hundred feet long, and they decided that a human armed with a stopwatch is not a good enough means of picking a conclusive winner. A set of three Arduino sensors packed inside plastic food containers were used along with light sensors to track when the luger passed the start, midpoint, and finish lines of the race. XBee radios then transmitted the timing data back to the base station for recording.

The system worked quite well according to the participants, and they look forward to using the system again in the future. Of course, improvements have been planned, including dual timers at each checkpoint to gauge the luger’s speed, as well as a Christmas-tree starting signal like you see at drag races.

Continue reading to see a video below of the luger’s in action, as well as the timer system undergoing some tests.

[via Make]

Continue reading “Wireless Luge Timer Levels The Playing Field” →

How A HP VFD Module Was Reverse Engineered

March 29, 2011 by Kevin Dady 12 Comments

We all love getting a good deal on sweet parts, but not all of them are documented. Some of us have trained our eyes and brains to spot “timesinks”, having been burned before. The rest sit down with whatever pile of stuff they have on hand, and figure out how to talk to that HP Media Center VFD.

[Jayeson] found some good deals on some Vacuum Fluorescent Displays from a HP Media Center computer as “new”, from some (unmentioned) shady dealers. Once receiving his B stock displays he needed to figure out a way to make them work.

Fun and excitement includes: figuring out the pins, first attempts of communication, getting the data sheet for a house brand chip… that still has the Atmel stamp on it, sniffing traffic with a logic analyzer, and deciphering that data. All that while being a pretty interesting read, good showing of willpower, and resulting in a couple Arduino Libraries as a bonus.

Nano Sumo Robot Takes On All Comers

March 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 10 Comments

nano_sumo_bot

While most Sumo-style robots are fairly sizable, there is a subsection of the Sumo robot movement that focuses on making small robots. Really small robots.

[Patrick] wrote in to share his latest creation, a Nano Sumo robot measuring a scant 1 in. x 1 in. The Nano Sumo is operated by an ATMega 328 micro controller housed on a custom-built PCB. The board was designed to interface directly with the 1A Dual Motor Driver from SparkFun, which provides all of the PWM signaling to the motors for speed control and braking. A small 50mAh Li-poly battery is attached to the robot, which can be charged using 4 AA batteries via a custom charging circuit. The mechanical components of the bot were handled by his friend [Gary], which you can read about here.

As you can see in the video below, the bot does its job pretty well. It does seem like the object detection gets confused every once in awhile, but that can likely be remedied with a few software tweaks.

Check out his page for additional build videos, including the PCB construction and programming processes.

If you’re interested in learning more about Sumo bots, check out this slightly larger robot we covered a short while back.

Continue reading “Nano Sumo Robot Takes On All Comers” →