These Midi Controllers Stink!

October 27, 2009 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

BeatShoes-midi-controller

Well, maybe saying it stinks is too harsh. But if you build a midi controller out of an old pair of skate shoes you can be certain that they smell. [Thobson] put odor issues aside and added four force sensitive resistors to his shoes (one in each heel and one under the ball of each foot) for a creation he calls BeatSneaks. As force is applied to the resistors, they become less resistive. This change in resistance is measured by the ADC inputs on an Arduino and used to trigger midi events via USB. There’s video after the break, and [Thobson’s] has provided the schematic and code that he used for his addition to a growing family of unusual musical interfaces.

Does this make tap dancing cool again?

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InPulse Watch Gets BlackBerry Data Via Bluetooth

October 26, 2009 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

inPulse-blackberry-watch

[Eric] just told us about the watch he developed that displays info from a BlackBerry via Bluetooth. The watch displays updates, message alerts, incoming call information, and… tells time. Setup and control is handled with the BlackBerry keypad. The device is charged with a micro-USB connection and will last for about four days without a recharge. We’d chalk up the rather long battery life to the use of an OLED display, which will use less energy when a portion of the display is left black.

So why is it here? Well, he’s got a couple of blog posts that detail two of the final prototypes that you might find interesting. What else? Oh yeah, his original prototype used an Arduino with a Nokia 3310 LCD display. For those of you who continually call the Arduino a worthless toy, looks like it’s good enough to use when taking a product to market.

Halloween Props: Servo Eyes

October 26, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

[flickr video =http://www.flickr.com/photos/todbot/3991211183/]

If you’re wanting to spice up a Jack-o-lantern, why not give it some spooky eyes that will look around? [todbot] shows us how to set this up using an Arduino and 3 servos. His rig uses a hobby servo to control the entire head’s orientation and a smaller servo for each eye’s movement. Their motion is random, but quite convincing. He has them all stuck together with popsicle sticks, but you would probably move the location of the large servo to rotate the entire pumpkin, or whatever other prop you put it all in. You can download the Arduino sketch and give it a try your self. We might suggest building a simple rack and pinion rig to rotate both eyeballs with a single servo.

[via HackedGadgets]

Driving USB Peripherals With Arduino

October 22, 2009 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

arduino-driving-USB-keyboard

Circuits@Home have managed to host a USB keyboard with an Arduino and display the keyboard inputs on a character LCD. This uses the USB host shield we covered in August. That host shield includes a MAX3421 which is used here to drive the character LCD.

The control code for the keyboard ends up being fairly simple. The keyboard is polled for entries. The HID input is then examined and converted to ASCII codes for use with the LCD screen. This could make for an excellent controller or debugger for embedded systems. The Arduino, shield, and LCD could be integrated into the keyboard itself with an I/O port for connecting to your project. Commands can be typed out and sent through the I/O port when enter is pressed, with feedback displayed on the screen.

The example code provided with this project lays out the framework for hosting peripherals. We’re looking forward to more projects, and code libraries that take advantage of this new functionality.

Well Engineered Diy Segway

October 20, 2009 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

diy-segway

[Mark] wanted a Segway but why buy something if you can have more fun building it? His end product is an amazing homemade version of the self-balancing transportation package. We’ve seen several projects that include auto-balance, but this one is large enough to ride on and has a bit of an advantage in the design. The motors, batteries, and other components are mounted below the wheel hubs and are weight balanced. This means that the device wants to find balance naturally, even when the electronics are switched off.

The frame was modeled in CAD and then welded together. For propulsion [Mark] has installed two 750 Watt motors which will use sprockets and chains to turn the wheels. The machine balances based on data from both a gyroscope and an accelerometer, with the entire packaged tied together using an Arduino.

[Mark’s] build log is well laid out and details each part of the build with a different post. His two most recent entries include video of the unit balancing and of him riding the 95% completed project. A big thanks to [Mark] for taking the time to document this so that we can share in the excitement of a well-executed project.

Brain Control For The Arduino

October 20, 2009 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

brain-controlled-arduino

When we hear about a brain controlled Arduino project we immediately think about a coding nightmare. As always, the simple hacks are the best hacks. [Joel] and [Akshay] used hardware from a kid’s game as a brain interface for an Arduino.

We came across the video (embedded after the break) of their work and asked for more info on what we thought was an incredibly difficult hack. It turns out they purchased Uncle Milton’s Force Trainer which uses a headset to measure brain waves and has a base unit that reacts to these measurements. Hacking into this device didn’t require reverse engineering of anything. They took the easy route, and tapped into the five LEDs on the base unit. As the game measures greater levels of concentration, it lights up more LEDs.

So far tapping into the game is just a proof of concept. It’s up to you to implement a brain controlled beer bot.

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Reverse Geocache Puzzle

October 19, 2009 by Zach Banks 32 Comments

fig1-6471

[Mikal] wanted to create an awesome electronic wedding gift for his friend who was moving to France. After experimenting with a few things, he settled on creating a puzzle box that would only open in a certain location. Since his friend introduced him to the Arduino, he fittingly used one in the design, along with a serial GPS module and a mini character LCD. The box itself is locked using a servo-controlled chopstick, which could theoretically be snapped if [Mikal] really screwed something up. To save battery life, he used a small Pololu module to provide power that uses only 0.01 microamps in standby, and can be shut off by the Arduino.

The box was designed to be mysterious yet self-explanatory. When the button on the front is pushed, the box comes to life for 3 minutes, displaying the distance away from secret location. Additionally, it warns how many tries are left: the button can only be pushed 50 times before it is sealed “forever”. In order to open the box, you have to be within 2km of the destination. Theoretically, you can narrow down the location to one of 2 points after 2 readings, but a less scientific approach would probably be a lot more fun.

This seems like an amazing gift, and the same concept could be repurposed into hundreds of other devices. For extra fun, he could have placed it at a geocache location.