design

171 Articles

Win Big: American Design Style

November 8, 2010 by 20 Comments

Last week we announced a Germany based design contest only accepting applicants from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Unfortunately, this left out one of the larger segments of our readers. After doing some scrounging around (and a helpful tip from [Flash Gordon]), we managed to find a similar contest run by STMicroelectronics, the makers of the Discovery board. This contest sounds familiar, with free Discovery Board for all approved applicants, and prizes for the most interesting and creative projects. Right now the official rules page seems to be missing, so you technically legally should probably wait to enter, but we can’t stop you. It looks like the official rules page is located here. Thanks to [Andee] for pointing that out. Also, it looks like if you live in Puerto Rico or Quebec, you are also out of this contest as well.

If you are from the EMEA area and missed the last contest, be sure to go back and check it out for your chance to win! Also, we love covering contests (especially ones that give out free kits to all contestants), are there any readers out there that know of a developer other than STM that is offering this kind of deal? We would love to hear from you!

PCB Trace Antenna

August 5, 2010 by 19 Comments

If you’re working on a device that includes RF wireless, [Colin’s] Guide to PCB Trace Antenna Design might clear some headaches when sending off for PCBs. While it is directed at devices transmitting at 2.4GHz, the techniques and recommended equipment (read: espresso smith charts and network analyzers) should work for almost any frequency. While trace antennas aren’t as easy to implement as a measured wire, the space benefits make up for the difficulty. Unless you don’t mind how larger your project is, did someone say cantenna?

Alzheimer’s Victims Fitted With LoJack

October 18, 2009 by 23 Comments

alzheimers-tracking-watch

First it was for finding stolen cars, then keeping track of criminals, now Alzheimer’s sufferers are being fitted with tracking devices. This has been going on for some time now, but unlike the old tracking devices we’re seeing an update in technology to take advantage of the cell network for communications. The person wearing the device can be located using Uplink Time Difference Of Arrival or U-TDOA. This is the same technology that is used by 911 services to calculate the location of a cell phone.

Alzheimer’s is a frightening disease. The thought of a loved one wandering off with nothing to identify them and no recollection of who they are is a fear of every family dealing with the illness. There’s no doubt that this is a cost-effective solution that really works.

But from our perspective, can someone hot-glue a $3 Seiko to this thing? If you were designing this, would you even consider something that straps to your wrist and doesn’t have a clock on its face?

Update: Andrew corrected an error in the original post.  This system uses U-TDOA for location, not GPS.

Update: Jeremy works for LoJack and has informed us that the product in the post and the technology used have nothing to do with the LoJack brand of products.

Fritzing, Go From Prototype To Product

August 25, 2009 by 21 Comments

fritzing

Fritzing is an open source project designed to help you move from a prototype to a finished project. Aimed at those basing their projects around Arduino, you start by building your physical prototype, then recreate it with Fritzing software’s graphical editor. From there you can generate a schematic, PCB artwork, and PCB production files.

[thanks CH]

Oomlout’s Guide To Kitting

January 14, 2009 by 14 Comments

oomlout

The team at oomlout has continued to post all the methods they use in their manufacturing process. This time around it’s the kitting process: how they actually packaged 30 identical SERB kits in an efficient fashion. We covered their wire cutting bot before, but they’ve got other dedicated machines like a sticker cutter. The stickers are used to remove all the cut acrylic pieces from the laser cutter as one unit. They’ve got some other tricks like using a scale to count bolt quantities, and an egg timer to keep track of the laser cutting. All of their envelopes are printed using a parallel port inkjet that has been modified to work with any thickness paper.

We love when hackers bother to post this much detail about their process. One of our favorites is [ladyada]’s full rundown of how the Minty Boost was created.

Open Source Hardware Inspires Innovation

October 23, 2008 by 32 Comments

Technology Review turns the spotlight on the open source hardware movement. Open source hardware is hardly a new concept, but lately it’s been getting a lot more attention, with the help of magazines like MAKE and websites like Instructables. Chumby, a company that sells a modifiable cube with a screen, embedded computer, and a Wi-Fi connection, designed their product to be easily hackable. The openness of the product caused a community heavily invested in the product’s development to be created. The growth of such communities has also sparked interest from corporations such as Nokia, which is collaborating with MIT on open source video decoders. They recognized that opening up would cause development time to be reduced and provide greater flexibility, allowing them to allocate resources to other areas, including marketing and brand development. [Jamey Hicks], director of the Nokia Research Center in Cambridge, believes that the open source movement can even complement closed designs, as long as it’s handled appropriately. With greater access to sophisticated software tools and resources, the barriers to entry keep falling away, and it’s much easier for the world to discover the joys of tinkering and hacking.

[photo: Andreas Pizsa]