This Arduino powered DMX controller came along at just the right time. We had shown you a project earlier that involved the DMX system and several commenters remarked on the price to get into DMX hardware. If you happen to have an Arduino around, you can build a DMX controller. He found a schematic for a DMX driver, and built some custom code to control it all. You can download his code on the project site.
This Clock Knock Block has a bit of everything; milling, Arduino, sensing, solenoids, and plenty of dirty puns. Just knock on the box or on the table right next to it and the time of day will be played back to you in a series of crisp, clean knocks. A big part of the fun here is that the box is a musical instrument.
If you take a look inside you’ll find an Arduino, a piezo sensor, a solenoid, and a nine-volt battery. The piezo sensor detects your knocking as an input. It can even listen to and repeat back a series of your knocks. The Arduino actuates the solenoid, which strikes the wooden enclosure, producing the knocking sound.
We’ve embedded a video of this useless machine after the break (that’s where all the puns are). One note for your own build; this box is made out of mahogany and because it is used as a resonance chamber, this may not work as well if it isn’t milled from a piece of quality lumber. Continue reading “Clock Knock Block Full Of Puns”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATnnMFO60y8]
We saw this pretty smooth solar tracker run by an Arduino. There aren’t many details, but we can see that it works well, and is in fact, run by an Arduino. We knew if we posted this that people would be commenting that the Arduino is overkill. We agree. So this post is to ask, how would you do it? Give us links to the more efficient designs you have come up with. It doesn’t have to be a fully documented project, a schematic will do. We would probably go with something like a phototropic suspended bicore for simplicity and low power consumption.
[via littlebirceo]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4PSgXDp64]
This musical Lazy Susan, or “Crazy Adam” was brought to us by students from MIT. It basically plays [Soul II Soul]’s “Back to Life” as it turns. In their words: “Through the interaction with the Singing Lazy Susan, we found the eating patterns and behaviors unique to each person, which reflect our personalities and interests. The dining experience expands to a new domain.” Are we the only ones who think this is silly? Not only is an Arduino overkill for this, how does this help reflect our personalities and interests? We know, someone will say that art doesn’t need to make sense, but this would just get annoying really fast. Good job coming up with an idea and making it happen. Please don’t bring that to our next office party. It is also worth noting that musical Lazy Susans aren’t exactly a new idea.
[Tim] sent us his Noise Box Synth. The box is a sixteen step synthesizer that can generate sine, square, triangle, and sawtooth waves as well as a collection of sound effects (video after the break). The hardware is simple; an Arduino, four potentiometers, four buttons, a switch, a speaker, and some LEDs. This was a gift for a three-year-old but we’d be just as happy unwrapping it ourselves. We didn’t find a schematic but all of the connections and hardware can be extrapolated from the source code.
Arduino sometimes gets a bad name around here. This project, [Tim’s] first that uses Arduino, proves that the accessibility of the platform makes it possible to jump directly into the deep end. Catch the video after the break. Continue reading “Noise Box Synth Lays Down Some Beats”
One of the highlights from the Music Hack Day in Berlin was the Arduino singing “Daisy Bell”. If you don’t know, this is an homage to the HAL 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey; an artificial intelligence that was taught the song in its first steps toward self awareness culminating in an attempt to kill its masters.
It’s unlikely an Arduino will every make it to the point of attempted homicide but with the available code you can find out. Sample code and an explanation of human synthesis is now available through the Cantarino project. The project facilitates the use of phonemes from the SAM Apple II synthesizer to build wave forms that make up recognizable speech on the Arduino platform. The code illustrates how to select and link together speech sounds from the library. Check out the video after the break and then get to work on your own speech synthesis. We’re waiting for someone to put together the theme song from the 1980’s Transformers cartoon. Good luck! Continue reading “Make An Arduino Talk To You”
Circuit Ideas Design has posted a digital picture frame project based on their 240×320 16-bit color QVGA display. We made our own digital frame from a smaller screen a while back and this is pretty much the same implementation except with a larger screen and built around the AVR family of microcontrollers rather than PIC controllers.
The thing that piqued our curiosity was the five icons silk screened on one end of the display. That’s right, this is a touch screen. The board also has a built in SD slot and a bit of flexibility for connecting to a microcontroller. It can be controlled from a 40-pin header, or from headers that are designed to work as an Arduino shield. We’d love to get our hands on one but we were unable to figure out what currency the list price was in. Has anyone used this board yet?
