Arduino “python” Integration

October 30, 2009 by Phil Burgess 9 Comments

vivarium

[Cyberspice] informs us she likes snakes. Hey, who doesn’t? She’ll soon be adopting a lovely ball python and wanted to keep close tabs on the sensitive creature’s environment. To that end she assembled a network-enabled vivarium monitoring system based on Adafruit’s Boarduino (a minimalist Arduino clone), a TMP36 analog temperature sensor, Saelig’s WIZ810MJ Ethernet interface, and a common LCD screen. The Arduino rig periodically issues updates to a web server, which can then generate informative graphs using a set of PHP scripts (what, no Python?).

Okay, so we could probably count on one hand the number of readers in need of fancy reptile monitoring and still have fingers left over. There are countless other applications where networked sensor monitoring of this sort is a frequent necessity, so the article could be a good starting point for your own projects. There’s lots of source code to work with, on both the Arduino and web server sides. And the parts list demonstrates serious frugality: the Boarduino, the generic LCD, and especially the Ethernet interface; even with the breadboard adapter, this unit is about half the cost of the usual Arduino Ethernet shield, leaving more funds available for the snake food budget!

Single Servo Robot

October 30, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRPZRovn74]

[Guilherme Martins] rose to a challenge to build a robot with a single servo. His robot is a puppet controller, called talkie walkie. In real time, it will move its mouth to the sound of what you are saying. For those really curious, he’s speaking Portuguese and he roughly says “Hi, how’s it going”. He’s using an Arduino with a custom sound sensor, a single servo, a box, and a folder paper mouth.

Building a single servo robot shouldn’t be that much of a challenge, we’ve even seen walking robots with a single motor. There’s this 2 legged crawler, and we recall seeing a 4 legged B.E.A.M. walker with a single servo, but can’t find it right now.

[via RobotsDreams]

Halloween Props: Techy Jack-o-lanterns

October 29, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeYS_Tjf7pQ&feature=player_embedded]

Halloween is this weekend. If you still have some time and parts available, you might be looking to spice up your Jack-o-lantern. We’ve found a few projects that we thought might be nice to share. None of them would merit a post on their own, so we thought we would just round them up and share them all at once. They all appear to be powered by the Arduino, which we know will bring some comments. Just to clear up some questions, they don’t pay us to advertise Arduinos. People just do a lot of projects with them.

First, the silly string shooting Jack-o-lantern which you can see above. He’s using a single servo hooked to an Arduino and a motion sensor. When it detects motion, it lets out a short squirt of silly string. You can download the code from the project page. We might suggest you arrange this in a manner to avoid spraying directly into some kids eyes.

Check out the next two after the break.

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Headpiece Jabbing For Smiles

October 28, 2009 by Devlin Thyne 33 Comments

Happiness_Hat

[Lauren] has created a facial conditioning device dubbed the Happiness Hat. The hat measures a sensor at the wearer’s cheek to determine if the wearer is smiling. When the hat does detects the wearer is not smiling, it activates a servo that prods the wearer. This project is fairly unique in that it provides haptic bio-feedback of what the body is doing, a similar project to the Happillow. While the Happiness Hat seems to work for treating the outward symptoms of unhappiness, this is but an early step towards the droud.

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?

Continue reading “These Midi Controllers Stink!” →

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]