TRINKET EDC CONTEST ENTRY: Lazydoro

December 19, 2014 by Adam Fabio 3 Comments

[Vasilis] has entered Lazydoro in the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. Lazydoro is designed to get him up off his backside, and walking around. Recent medical research has determined that sitting too long is a bad thing. In fact, Dr. David Agus has been quoted by Nike as saying that sitting for several hours is as bad as smoking (wayback machine link). While we’re not exactly up on the latest medical trends, we can definitely see that getting up and walking around a bit never hurt anyone. Lazydoro will alert [Vasilis] once every 20 minutes or so to get up and stretch his legs a bit.

[Vasilis] plans to pair a Pro Trinket with an accelerometer module, specifically an ADXL377 from Analog Devices. The accelerometer will allow Lazydoro to determine if [Vasilis] has moved around. If 20 or 30 minutes go by without major movement, Lazydoro will nudge him to get up and take a walk.

Since shipping to Greece takes awhile, [Vasilis] is developing with an Arduino Uno and a ADXL345 while he waits for his parts to arrive. He’s hacked this into a wrist mounted device for testing. One thing [Vasilis] hasn’t figured out yet is how to alert the user to move around. A small vibrating motor would probably work – but we’d suggest electric shocks. A good zap always puts the spring in our step!

There is still plenty of time to enter the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. The main contest runs until January 2, but we’re having random drawings every week! Don’t forget to write a project log before the next drawing at 9pm EDT on Tuesday, December 23. You and all of the other entrants have a chance to win a Cordwood Puzzle from The Hackaday Store!

Trinket EDC Contest Entry: Shame On You!

December 15, 2014 by Adam Fabio 7 Comments

[BDM] is helping others keep WiFi safe with “Shame On You!“, his entry in Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. We all have that family member, friend, or neighbor who just can’t seem to get their WiFi locked down. Shame On You will show them how easy it is to detect such a hotspot, which hopefully will motivate them to correct the issue. [BDM] was a bit worried when he learned that Adafriut already has an open WiFi detector as one of their Pro Trinket example projects. However, we think he has added more than enough features to make his project stand out.

Shame On You is using a Pro Trinket running at 3.3 volts, along with an ESP8266 WiFi module. Power comes from a LiPo battery and is handled by an Adafruit LiPo backpack. Like several other EDC contest entries, Shame On You is using a cell phone shell as a case. The display is a 1.27″ color OLED with an SD card. A disc style vibrator motor will also help get the user’s attention.

[BDM] hasn’t made much progress this last week, as he’s been battling some Christmas light cutting bandits. Logging each week’s work doesn’t always have to be technical, sometimes life intervenes!

We’re heading into our third week here in the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, but there is still plenty of time to enter! The main contest runs until January 2, but we’re having random drawings every week! Don’t forget to write a project log before the next drawing at 9pm EDT on Tuesday, December 16th. You and all of the other entrants have a chance to win a BusPirate 3.6 from The Hackaday Store!

EDC CONTEST ROUNDUP: Musician’s Assistant AND BitMasher!

December 8, 2014 by Adam Fabio 3 Comments

We’re getting all sorts of entries in the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest! Today we’re featuring just a couple of the awesome entries dedicated to creating music!

[johnowhitaker] is hard at work on A Musician’s Assistant. [John] is creating a device that does anything a practicing musician might need on the go. The Musician’s Assistant will include a metronome, tap/temp counter, and tuner. He’s hoping to also give it the ability to play back arbitrary notes using the Pro Trinket’s on-board ATmega328. [John] is trying to do all this with just LEDs and buttons as a user interface, though he is willing to go to an LCD or OLED if he needs to.

[Michele Perla] is working on BitMasher, portable lo-fi music sequencer. The BitMasher will allow a musician on the go to create music anywhere. [Michele] began with a SID based sequencer in mind, but he’s currently trying to do it all on the Pro Trinket. He’s already got [Roman’s] BTc Sound Compression Algorithm working on an Arduino Leonardo. Lo-Fi for sure, but that’s what makes BitMasher fun! [Michele] envisions the song entry to be similar to that of the classic Roland TR-808. The primary user interface will be an Adafruit Trellis 4×4 button+LED driver board.

Don’t forget that our second random drawing will be held on Tuesday, December 9th, at 9pm EST. To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week. This week’s prize is a Cordwood Puzzle from The Hackaday Store. Check out the contest page for the full details!

Trinket Everyday Carry Contest Drawing #1 Results

December 2, 2014 by Adam Fabio 6 Comments

We just had our first drawing for the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. Thanks to a little help from random.org, the winner is [Korishev] with his project Trinket Timer!

[Korishev] finds that family life calls for a lot of timed events, from how long the kids spend on their homework to keeping the peace by sharing toys. The plan is to build at least a one timer for each child that they will be able to carry around and use as needed. We hope he gets them in on the build to help sow the seeds of hardware development at a young age.

As the winner of the first drawing [Korishev] will receive this beautiful BLINK(1) MK2 from The Hackaday Store. The USB dongle houses a programmable RGB LED. We wonder if this will also be applied as an additional timer for the household?

If you didn’t win this week, don’t worry, there are still four more chances to win a random drawing! Our next drawing will be on 12/9/2014 at 9pm EST with the Cordwood Puzzle as a prize. To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week.

The deadline for the main contest is January 2, 2014! There are just over 40 entries right now, and the top 50 will receive custom t-shirts. Of course the three top prizes are the real juicy ones. Let’s get those pocketable projects going!

Trinket Everyday Carry Contest Roundup: Sniffing Trinket And Portable Trollmaster 3000!

December 2, 2014 by Adam Fabio 16 Comments

Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest is heating up. In just one week we’ve already got over 30 entries! Many of the contenders are completely new open source projects based on the Pro Trinket. Our first drawing will be tonight, at 9pm EST. The first giveaway prize is a BLINK(1) MK2 from the Hackaday store. Make sure you have at least one project log and a photo up to be eligible for this week’s giveaway!

We can’t help but mention how awesome some of the entries are. [Georg Krocker] is taking on the problem of indoor air quality – not with a central sensor, but with a personal sensor that goes where you do. Sniffing Trinket is designed to monitor the air around the user. If the air quality drops, it will alert the user to open a window – or get the heck out. [Georg] has a few sensors in mind, but he’s starting with the MQ135 gas sensor and a DHT11 temperature/humidity sensor. If air quality starts to drop, 3 WS2812b LEDs will alert the user that there is a problem. The system can also be connected to a PC with USB for more accurate readings and logging.

[Georg] has an aggressive schedule planned, with a custom “Trinket Shield” PCB being laid out and ordered next week. January 2 is fast approaching, so hurry up and get those boards designed!

[Dr Salica] is taking a more humorous approach to personal space. The Portable Trollmaster 3000 is designed to surround its wearer in a bubble of “I Am Glad, ‘Cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home” aka “The Trololol song” as sung by Eduard Khil. [Dr Salica] plans to pair the Pro Trinket with the popular Sony MMR-70 FM transmitter. The Trinket is capable of playing back short audio clips, so with a bit of I2C magic, [Dr. Salica] will be able to hijack any nearby FM receiver, creating his own personal trollbox.

Do you have an idea for a great wearable or pocketable project? Check out the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, and get hacking!

Announcing The Trinket Everyday Carry Contest

November 25, 2014 by Adam Fabio 47 Comments

Now that we’ve recovered from our Munich party and the awarding of The Hackaday Prize, we’re ready to announce our latest contest. We’ve been having a lot of fun with our Trinket Pro boards, both the 10th anniversary edition and the new Hackaday.io branded models. While we were soldering, compiling, and downloading, a contest idea took root. Trinket Pro really excels when used in small projects, the kind which would fit in a pocket. To that end we’re holding the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, a showcase for small, pocketable projects which are useful everyday. ‘Useful everyday’ is a bit of a broad term, and we intended it that way. Tools are useful of course , but so are jewelry pieces. It’s all in the eye of the builder and users. We’re sure our readers will take this and run with it, as they have with our previous contests.

There are some great prizes in store for the entrants, including a brand new Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope! The top 50 entrants will get custom Trinket Everyday Carry Contest T-shirts. Check out the contest page for a full list.

We know you all love to procrastinate with your entries, so we’re going to be offering a few perks to those who enter early and update often. Each week, we’ll throw all the entrants who have published at least one project log full of details into a drawing for a special prize from The Hackaday Store. To be considered you must officially submit your project which is accomplished through a drop-down list on the left side of your project page.

Remember, the contest isn’t just about winning a scope, a meter, or any of the other prizes. It’s about creating new Open Hardware designs that nearly anyone can build. So grab those soldering irons, load up those copies of the Arduino IDE, AVR-GCC, or WinAVR, and get hacking!

You can view the all of the contest entries in this list.

What Is This, A Microcontroller Board For Ants?

October 21, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 79 Comments

You youngins probably don’t remember this, but a few years ago there was an arms race on Kickstarter to create the smallest Arduino-compatible microcontroller board. Since then, a few people have realized they can make more money on Kickstarter through fraud or potato salad, and the race to create the smallest ‘duino board petered out.

It’s a shame [Meizhu] wasn’t part of the great miniature Arduinofication of Kickstarter, because this project would have won. It’s an Atmel ATtiny85, with USB port, resistors, diodes, reset button, LED, and pin headers, that is just 72 mils larger than the PDIP package of the ‘tiny85. Outside of getting a bare die of ‘tiny85s, there isn’t much of a chance of this board becoming any smaller.

[Meizhu] was inspired to create this board from [Tim]’s Nanite 85, which up until a few days ago was the current champion of micro microcontroller boards. With a bit of work in KiCAD, the new board layout was created that is just a hair larger than the 0.4″ x 0.4″ footprint of the PDIP ATtiny85. There were a few challenges in getting a working board this small; you’d be surprised how large the plastic bits around pin headers are, but with some very crafty soldering, [Meizhu] was able to get it to work.