[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_hiz-Kx0kM]
[jay] reminded us of this old video of solenoids banging rhythms on furniture and household objects. There’s no schematic, but in the video it looks like an Arduino drives a bunch of solenoids through relays. The PC interface is run on Pure Data, an open source programming environment for audio, video, and graphic processing. Thanks [Jay].
[ERASME] built this interactive globe interface for an exhibit on Inuit people and their land. The goal was to have a tactile input device to Google Earth data. The unit is composed of a half globe for location selection, a touch pad for layer selection, and a Wiimote for view changes.They had to develop their own driving application for Google Earth as none exists for Linux. The software, called KeyEvents takes inputs from all the devices and mimics keyboard and mouse control in Google Earth.
There is much more information on how they got the pieces to work together, as well as some videos in french showing the device working. One thing that stands out though is that they decided to use direct association on their Wiimote, thus stopping rogue Wiimotes from gaining control. Who would carry a Wiimote around just to hijack public displays? We would.
[thanks Leucos]
SparkFun’s new Arduino Pro is an updated version of their Skinny. The board comes populated with the running gear of an Arduino, but without all of the connectors in place. It’s targeted at people building integrated systems around the Arduino and not just prototyping. The board is 3.3V with an 8MHz bootloader just like the LilyPads and is fully certified by Arduino. It has a small side mounted power switch, but you have to supply your own DC jack (if you need it). There is no USB hardware on board and you’re expected to program it via an FTDI breakout board or cable. We definitely like the stripped down approach, but it would have been nice if the price had dropped more.
[via Make]
[Julien Bayle] has posted this great breakdown of building an RGB monome clone. He is a musical performer using Ableton Live. He wanted to do away with the need for a computer screen and found that the monome would have been perfect had it been RGB. So he decided to build his own.
The parts list for the entire project is as follows:
He also has files for the schematics and source code as well as information on how to assemble and test it.
The RGB aspect is still under development. He is using the LEDMatrix-Serial Interface-RGB from Sparkfun Electronics to run it. It is expensive, but is exactly what he was looking for.
There aren’t very many pictures of the project, and none of the working RGB unit. He makes up for it in sheer information. Many parts have links to manufacturers or support forums. Hopefully he’ll post some pictures and video of the final product soon.
Some of us need a little help keeping our green leafy friends happy. The Arduino Tux (translated) plant care system was built to make things a little easier.
The author had a broken tux toy laying around and wanted to do something fun with it. He cut a hole in the front to mount an LED matrix and connected it all to an Arduino. A couple of metal rods serve as a resistivity sensor in the plant’s dirt.
When you water the plant, tux flashes some hearts and a smiley face. As the moisture drops, tux gets less happy with the end result being a big frown.
These are the same people who brought you the Arduino Photolab.
[via Hack a Day Flickr Pool]
SparkFun is rolling out interesting things to play with every week. They’ve added a NanoMuscle actuator that uses a shape memory alloy to lift nearly 70 times its own weight. Their LilyPad collection has expanded to include small momentary switches and a thermistor type temperature sensor. Lastly, they’ve got an FM receiver module. It just needs an antenna and uses I2C or SPI for control.
The Arduino hardware clones keep rolling in. This weeks entry into the modern dev board’s roster is the StickDuino. The board is designed to be fully hardware compatible and plugs directly into your USB port. The StickDuino uses all SMD components. The creators know that this can make assembly more difficult so they’ve space the components out, opted for larger pads, and collected some links to SMD tutorials. The board feature two more analog inputs than the Diecimila and it has a jumper so you can switch it to 3.3V. All around it looks like a great product; frankly we love anything with full board layouts.
