Making Music From Cardboard

October 8, 2019 by Sharon Lin No comments

Fans of MaKey MaKey may find this project similar, but there’s a lot more to the Mini Automat than making music from fruit.

The idea for the Mini Automat (which is an off-shoot of the original Automat project by [Dada Machines]) is to make music accessible to anyone. The device functions as a plug and play MIDI-controller that connects to a computer, MIDI workstation (keyboards and sequencers), or DAW for input and triggers actuators on the output to create music.

The modifications make the originally Automat more hackable by making the board compatible with Arduino and Circuit Python, as well as adding in digital and analog pins for connecting to sensors, buttons, or light systems.

The team has released all schematics, firmware, and software, with only the board layouts unreleased to the public. From solenoids that push, pull, jiggle, smash, and bash at drums to surfaces that vibrate screws and beads, there’s a huge variety of household objects that can be used to make complex layered musical compositions, even for a one-person musician.

The Berlin-based team works on open source music tech hardware with the hopes of bringing environmentally and financially sustainable ideas to market.

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Introducing The First Cisco Certified Mixologist

October 4, 2019 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

You’d be hard pressed to find an IT back office that doesn’t have a few Cisco routers or switches laying around and collecting dust. We’d even bet there are a decent number of people reading this post right now that have a stack of them within arm’s reach. They’re the kind of thing most of us have no practical application for, but we still can’t bear to throw away. But it looks like [Sven Tantau] has found an ideal middle ground: rather than junk his Cisco Catalyst switches, he turned them into automatic bartenders.

Inspired by all those perfect little square openings on the front, [Sven] loaded each switch with a whopping 24 peristaltic pumps, one for each Ethernet port. To fit all his plumbing inside, the switches were naturally gutted to the point of being hollow shells of their former selves, although he does mention that their original power supplies proved useful for keeping two dozen power-hungry motors well fed.

The motors are connected to banks of relays, which in turn are thrown by an ESP32 and an Arduino Nano. [Sven] explains that he wasn’t sure if the ESP32 could fire off the relays with its 3 V output, so he decided to just use an Arduino which he already knew could handle the task. The two microcontrollers work in conjunction, with a web interface on the ESP32 ultimately sending I2C commands to the Arduino when it’s time to get the pumps spinning.

[Sven] mentions his robotic bartenders were a hit at the 2019 Chaos Communication Camp, where we know for a fact the computer-controlled alcohol was flowing freely. Of course, if you don’t intend on carrying your barbot around to hacker camps, you can afford to make it look a bit swankier.

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No Need To Watch Your Tea, This Robot Does It For You

October 3, 2019 by Sharon Lin 15 Comments

For anyone who’s ever had to make their own tea, steeping it for the right amount of time can be a pain. That’s precisely the problem that the automatic tea brewing robot solves with its painless approach to brewing tea, built by Slovenian electrical engineering student [Kristjan Berce].

You can use the robot by setting a timer on the knob, at which point the robot raises it arm for the tea bag then dips in the water every 30 seconds until the time has passed. At the end of the timer, the bag is raised clear of the cup to end the brewing. It’s a remarkably simple design that almost evokes chindogu (the Japanese art of useless inventions) if not for the fact that the robot actually serves a useful purpose.

The components for 3D printing the robot are available online, consisting of a case, a container for the Arduino-powered electronics, the lever for holding the tea, and the gear that raises the lever up and down. The device also uses an integrated Li-Ion battery with an accessible charging port and integrated BMS. A 35BYJ46 stepper motor and ULN2003 driver are used to move the 3D printed mechanism. The device uses a potentiometer for setting the steeping time between 1 and 9 minutes, and there’s even a buzzer for indicating once the tea is done brewing.

The Gerber and Arduino code files are open-source for any hackers looking to make their own tea brewers; just take care they operate with “deadly punctuality”.

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Arduino Wire Bender Probably Won’t Kill All Humans

September 28, 2019 by Kristina Panos 19 Comments

Do you want to make your own springs? Yeah, that’s what we thought. Well, blow the dust off of that spare Arduino and keep reading. A few months ago, we let you know that renowned circuit sculptor [Jiří Praus] was working on a precision wire-bending machine to help him hone his craft. Now it’s real, it’s spectacular, and it’s completely open source.

Along with that ‘duino you’ll need a CNC shield and a couple of NEMA 17 steppers — one to feed the wire and one to help bend it. Before being bent or coiled into springs, the wire must be super straight, so the wire coming off the spool holder runs through two sets of rollers before being fed into the bender.

[Jiří]’s main goal for this build was precision, which we can totally get behind. If you’re going to build a machine to do something for you, ideally, it should also do a better job than you alone. It’s his secondary goal that makes this build so extraordinary. [Jiří] wanted it to be easy to build with commonly-available hardware and a 3D printer. Every part is designed to be printed without supports. Bounce past the break to watch the build video.

You can also make your own springs on a lathe, or print them with hacked g-code.

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Lighting The Way For The Visually Impaired

September 28, 2019 by Sharon Lin 8 Comments

The latest creation from Bengali roboticist [nabilphysics] might sound familiar. His laser-augmented glove gives users the ability to detect objects horizontally in front of them, much like a cane or pole is used by the visually impaired to navigate through a physical space.

As a stand in for the physical cane, he uses the VL53L0X time-of-flight (TOF) sensor which detects the time taken for a laser source to bounce back to the sensor. Theses are much more accurate than IR distance sensors and have a much finer focus than ultrasonic sensors for excellent directionality.

While the sensors can succumb to interferences from background light or other time-of-flight sensors, the main advantages are speed of calculation (it relies on a single shot to compute the distances within a scene) and an efficient distance algorithm that simplifies the measurement of distance data. In contrast to stereo vision, which requires complex correlation algorithms, the process for extracting information for a time-of-flight sensor is entirely direct, requiring a small amount of processing power.

The glove delivers haptic feedback to the user to determine if an object is in their way. The feedback is controlled through an Arduino Pro Mini, powered remotely by a LiPo battery. The code is uploaded to the Arduino from an FTDI adapter, and works by taking continuous readings from the time-of-flight sensor and determining if the object in front is within 450 millimeters of the glove, at which point it triggers the vibration motor to alert the user of the object’s presence.

Since the glove used for the project is a bicycle glove, the form factor is straightforward — the Arduino, motor, battery, and switch are all located inside a plastic box on the top of the glove, while the time-of-flight sensor sticks out to make continuous measurements when the glove is switched on.

In general, the setup is fairly simple, but the idea of using a time-of-flight sensor rather than an IR or sonar sensor is interesting. In the broader usage of sensors, LIDARs are already the de facto sensor used for autonomous vehicles and robotic components that rely on distance sensing. This three-dimensional data wouldn’t be much use here and this sensor works without mechanical moving parts since it doesn’t rely on the point-by-point scan from a laser beam that LIDAR systems use.

Barcode Guitar Plays More Than Beep-Bop

September 26, 2019 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

One of our favorite things about the rise of hobbyist development ecosystems such as the Arduino is that it’s now possible to make a MIDI controller out of almost anything, as long as you have the the shields and the dedication. We’re glad that [James Bruton] takes the occasional break from making robots to detour into instrument making, because his latest creation turns it up to 11.

This awesome guitar uses a barcode scanner to play notes, and various arcade controls to manipulate those notes. The barcodes themselves scan as ASCII values, and their equivalent integers are sent to an external MIDI device. This futuristic axe is built on an Arduino Mega, with a USB shield for the barcode scanner, and a MIDI shield on top that [James] connects to various synths in the video after the break.

In between shooting barcodes, the right hand also controls octave shifting and changing MIDI channels with the joystick, and doing pitch-bends with the rotary encoder. The array of arcade buttons on the bottom neck let him switch between single player for monophonic synths, and multiplayer for polys. The other three buttons are press-and-scan programmable single-note sounders that assist in chord-making and noodling.

We particularly dig the construction, which is a combination of 20/20 and 3D printed boxes. [James] found some angled PVC to serve as fretboards for the four necks, and a nice backgrounds for bar codes.The only thing we would change is the native beep of the barcode scanner — either silence it forever or make it mutable, because it doesn’t jive with every note. It might be nice to get the gun to scan continuously so [James] doesn’t get trigger finger. Or better yet, build the scanner into a glove.

Want to do something more useful with that barcode scanner in your parts bin? Use it to manage your household inventory. But first, reacquaint yourself with the history of the humble barcode as presented by [Adam Fabio].

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Review: OSEPP STEM Kit 1, A Beginner’s All-in-One Board Found In The Discount Aisle

September 26, 2019 by Al Williams 11 Comments

As the name implies, the OSEP STEM board is an embedded project board primarily aimed at education. You use jumper wires to connect components and a visual block coding language to make it go.

I have fond memories of kits from companies like Radio Shack that had dozens of parts on a board, with spring terminals to connect them with jumper wires. Advertised with clickbait titles like “200 in 1”, you’d get a book showing how to wire the parts to make a radio, or an alarm, or a light blinker, or whatever.

The STEM Kit 1 is sort of a modern arduino-powered version of these kits. The board hosts a stand-alone Arduino UNO clone (included with the kit) and also has a host of things you might want to hook to it. Things like the speakers and stepper motors have drivers on board so you can easily drive them from the arduino. You get a bunch of jumper wires to make the connections, too. Most things that need to be connected to something permanently (like ground) are prewired on the PCB. The other connections use a single pin. You can see this arrangement with the three rotary pots which have a single pin next to the label (“POT1”, etc.).

I’m a sucker for a sale, so when I saw a local store had OSEPP’s STEM board for about $30, I had to pick one up. The suggested price for these boards is $150, but most of the time I see them listed for about $100. At the deeply discounted price I couldn’t resist checking it out.

So does an embedded many-in-one project kit like this one live up to that legacy? I spent some time with the board. Bottom line, if you can find a deal on the price I think it’s worth it. At full price, perhaps not. Join me after the break as I walk through what the OSEPP has to offer.

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