Python On A Microcontroller

September 26, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 17 Comments

The team at LeafLabs was looking for something cool to do with their new ARM development board. [AJ] asked if anyone had ever played around with Python, so [Dave] cooked up an implementation of PyMite and put it on a Maple board. While the writeup is only about blinking a LED with a microcontroller, they’re doing it with Python, interactively, and at runtime.

The build uses the Maple Native board the team is developing. The board has a 32-bit ARM chip with 1 Meg of RAM – more than enough horsepower to run PyMite. The tutorial for putting PyMite on a Maple is up on the LeafLabs wiki.

PyMite is theoretically able to control every pin on the Maple Native and do just about everything a regular Python distro can do. The LeafLabs team is still working on the necessary libraries for their board (although we don’t see anything on the Google code page), so right now only blinking the LED is supported. Still, it’s pretty cool to have Python in your pocket.

A Cellphone Based Interactive Voice Response System

August 30, 2011 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

We’re all familiar with IVRS systems that let you access information using a touch-tone telephone. [Achu Wilso] built his own version which uses a cellphone, microcontroller, and computer.

The cellphone is monitored by an LM324 op-amp with an attached 555 timer chip. When a call comes in the voltage on the headphone output goes high, activating the timer circuit. If it goes low and does not go high again for about 25 seconds the call will be ended. Each incoming touch tone acts as a keepalive for the circuit.

An MT8870 DTMF (touch tone) decoder chip monitors the user input. An ATmega8 microcontroller grabs the decoded touch tones from that chip, and pushes them to a PC via USB. The PC-side software is written in Python, using MySQL bindings to access database information. eSpeak, the open source speech synthesizer software is used to read menu and database information back to the caller.

Not a bad little system, we wish there was an audio clip so we could hear it in action.

Zigbee Home Automation Gives Us Another Reason Not To Get Up

August 24, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

[Russell] sent in a neat home automation project he’s been working on. Even though the project only has two devices so far, we can already see the potential of his project.

Instead of the X10 standard that has been a staple of home automation for more than 30 years, [Russell] went with ZigBee modules. Aside from being much faster and more flexible than X10 home automation modules, ZigBees also open up a bunch of projects that would be impossible if he went with X10. With some well-placed IR transmitters hidden in his living room, it would be possible to have a TV and cable box controlled via the Internet.

So far, [Russell] built an network-controlled RGB ‘mood lamp’ and an infrared remote for his central air. Everything is controlled through a web app, and [Russell] says that additional modules can be easily added to the code.

Check out [Russell]’s demo of his project after the break.

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Minecraft Is Now A 3d Design Tool

July 7, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

[Cody Sumter] and [Jason Boggess] are students at the MIT Media Lab, and they just came up with Minecraft.Print(), an attempt to create a bridge between Minecraft and the real world via 3D Printers.

The print is first prepared by placing obsidian, diamond, gold, and iron blocks on opposite corners of the model in Minecraft. From there, a Python script takes over and parses the world map to generate an .STL file for a RepRap or MakerBot.

So far, [Cody] and [Jason] have printed a few Companion Cubes and the model of the Enterprise D. We’re pretty impressed with the resolution of the prints, especially considering the original model is voxelated. The prints look very nice, and right now we really want to print out all the cool stuff we’ve seen, like Isengard, gigantic CPU, or maybe a Minecraft 3D printer.

Minecraft.Print() sure is a nice program [Cody] and [Jason] have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. Check out a video demo after the break.

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Twitter Notifier Lets Us Know How Awesome We Are

June 22, 2011 by Mike Nathan 14 Comments

Let’s admit it, you’re just a little bit vain. Heck, we’re all just a little bit vain when you really think about it. Instructables user [pdxnat] was self-absorbed enough that he constructed an LED “mood light” that alerts him each time someone mentions his user name on Twitter.

The build is pretty simple, with most of the work being done on his PC. His Arduino is wired to a simple RGB LED that calmly cycles through various colors until someone mentions his name on Twitter. At that point, the client software running on his PC passes a message to the Arduino over a serial interface, causing it to wildly pulse the LED. Once it catches his eye, he stops the alert cycle with the press of the reset button, returning the LED to its previous state. As a bonus, he decided to write the Twitter-polling application in both Processing and Python, enabling fans of either language to easily replicate his work.

It’s a pretty cool idea, and it would be great to see someone expand it to include other online services to provide a greater overall feel for how awesome they really are.

Keep reading to see a quick video of the notifier in action.

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Facebook Notifier Uses Some Papercraft And Simple Electronics

May 24, 2011 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

This weekend project will tell you when you’ve got something new to look at on your Facebook page (translated). The yellow flag on the side of the mini-mailbox automatically goes up, alerting you to your recent online popularity.

[Rocco’s] craftwork on this project is fantastic. We love the scale, the colors, and especially the artificial grass that adorns the base. Inside the mailbox an Arduino controls a small servo motor attached to the new mail flag. As with other Arduino-based notifiers (be it the Internet Furby, or our own troll sniffing rat) the USB connection makes it incredibly easy to convert online information to real-world signals. The client side of this is a Python script. It uses a package that we were previously unfamiliar with called mechanize. We’ve just made a cursory examination of how that package is used, but we’re going to keep it in mind as an alternative to our usual go-to package, BeautifulSoup, which tends to be a bit hairy when you’re just looking for some basic data.

Automate Repetitive PC Actions With A Foot Pedal

May 5, 2011 by Mike Nathan 41 Comments

foot_pedal

Instructables user [bkovac] was sick of clicking the terminal icon on his desktop whenever he wanted to launch a terminal window. Keyboard shortcuts aside, he figured the easiest way to take the tedium out of the process would be to launch terminal windows with a foot pedal.

He grabbed a pedal that he had sitting around in his workshop and took it apart to ensure the switch contacts were configured for his particular use. The wires were run to an Arduino which talks to the computer over serial using a Python script.

While the setup works just fine, it’s definitely not the most efficient or simplest way of getting the job done. In fact, we have seen other methods that are quite a bit simpler, though they lack the potential versatility of this particular modification.

Rather than simply loading a terminal window on his computer, we would love to see this pedal enhanced to perform multiple functions – at which point the Arduino would be a pretty decent choice. We would probably start out by swapping out the full-sized Arduino for a Teensy, mounting it inside the pedal. Multiple foot presses could be used to trigger different events, based upon the number of presses that occur within a given time period. It could be made even more useful by using it to trigger gesture-based events, similar to those seen in plug-ins for Chrome and Firefox.

How would you enhance [bkovac’s] pedal interface? Let us know in the comments.