New Version Of Energia Supports Wolverine And Connected

March 11, 2014 by Nick Conn 14 Comments

Energia Update There is something to be said about how easy it is to write Arduino code. For those of who you are big fans of the MSP430 and Texas Instrument’s LaunchPad series, an upcoming release of Energia brings Arduino style coding to the two newest member of the LaunchPad family: the TivaC Connected LaunchPad EK-TM4C1294XL and Wolverine FRAM LaunchPad MSP-EXP430FR5969LP.

“Energia is an open-source electronics prototyping platform … with the goal to bring the Wiring and Arduino framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430 based LaunchPad.” The newest release of Energia is exciting for the sole reason that the new TivaC Connected LaunchPad and Wolverine FRAM LaunchPad are supported. The TivaC Connected LaunchPad is a $20 development board for TI’s low-power ARM processors that has Ethernet connectivity. The MSP430 at the heart of the Wolverine FRAM LaunchPad uses up to 250x less power than flash based MCUs at low speeds in addition to many other cool benefits.

Be sure to keep an eye out for the new version of Energia, it should be arriving sometime next week. Now is a better time than ever to try out the Tiva C or the MSP430 MCUs!

Already Impressive Wolverine Claws Now Energized With High Voltage

May 31, 2013 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

wolverine-claw-high-voltage

A few years back [James] built an utterly amazing set of Wolverine replica claws. They are held together by a bar that laces between his fingers so that when he’s gripping it you don’t see anything but the claws. Add to that the tail design which makes it look like they’re actually coming out of his skin and he’s made an amazing replica. But they’re also rather utilitarian as you can see in the demo/how-it-was-done video where he spears hay bails as they’re thrown at him from off camera. Machine shop fans are going to love learning how these were made.

More recently he decided to update the project after seeing our own Thor’s Hammer offering. He got down to business by salvaging a huge transformer from an old oil furnace. He has no idea what kind of voltage this thing puts out, but that doesn’t stop him from wiring it up to the pair of claws and letting the sparks fly. He even creates a Jacob’s Ladder effect by placing the claws at a narrow angle to each other.

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