A former student of a college located in the town Bikaner, Rajasthan(India), Anirudh Sharma (twitter, blog) is a maker with a lot of perseverance. His first project Sparsh (Video) during college days generated a lot of interest in the Indian Maker community. His regular work at HP labs as a consultant, and his most famous recent work which was presented at TEDx BITS, Goa, the shoe for the blind – Le-chal, has brought him to the attention of makers around the world.

The latest was him getting featured in the MIT Technology Review, India TR35 list as a ‘young technology innovator’ followed by a call to pursue further studies with MIT Media Labs.

A casual chat-up with him threw light on the way open source hardware is affecting the lives of independent makers of India.

Priya: Congrats Anirudh! How does it feel to be featured in MIT list of young inventors?
Anirudh: Feels great that our work is being recognized at that level. Its a great platform to meet other people in doing technology related work.
Priya: Could you explain the project that was featured for our readers?
Anirudh: Codenamed as le´ chal, it’s a way of communicating navigational information with an intuitive eye-free interface. We used pizeo vibrational actuators in the four sides of the shoe that ‘poke’ the user about the direction he needs to walk in. The system could fit within a shoe. The reason we used a shoe is because it is something that we can repeatedly use in our day to day lives. We’ve started a company – Ducere Technologies [website yet to be up] to take this forward as a full fledged product.
Priya: Which specific area interests you the most in the field of electronics?
Anirudh: [I am] Not much of an electronics guy, I started fooling around with transducers back in 2010. I like the research going on in area of MEMS/Biomechatronics though.
Priya: What prompted you to use Arduino?
Anirudh: [Laughs] Not being an electronics guy, Arduino was the easiest way for me to start prototyping. The high-level easy access to sensor data pushed me to choose this platform to begin with.
Priya: So, MIT media labs that is big! What do you plan to study there?
Anirudh: Not thought yet. I’d love to explore tangible input to CAD systems, Raskar’s NETRA project which creates an inverse Shack-Hartmann sensor. This compiles to new hardware add-on to mobile phones for instant eye-prescription data. Other projects that interest me are AutoStereoscopic displays-BiDi screen, similar to explorations I did with my mentor ‘SriG‘(Sriganesh Madhvanath) at HP Labs.
Priya: I see that you have taken initiatives for the blind, what other areas can you see open source hardware solving problems?
Anirudh: If you’ve an idea that could touch lives, there’s nothing better than open source hardware to start your explorations with, as it not only provides the right tools but a community backing that you could rely on.
Priya: Any special blogs/people that you follow in the field of technology?
Anirudh: [I follow the works of] Arduino, MIT Tech Review, Seth Sandler, Bret Vitor, Aza Raskin, ladyada for it brings out fresh insights. In general, I admire works of VS Ramachandran, Feynman, Shwetak Patel and Bill Buxton.
Priya: Any other hobbies other than tinkering?
Anirudh: I play Portal 2, FarCry, trek to new places, and do photography.

I am proud to announce the final show for the Physical Prototyping course at the BA in Interaction Design at the School of Arts and Communication at Malmo University, Sweden. This year our students got to work under the brief “Mean Machines” and a whole series of seriously nasty objects were produced as a result. There is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these objects in action by coming to K3 on Friday March 23rd between 11.00 and 18.00. There will be a guided tour at 17.00, don’t miss it!

As an example, here a picture of the All-In-A-Row keyboard, trying to slow down the typing experience to the maximum:

(c) 2012 by its authors, All In A Row Keyboard

I love the way Tony Olsson, the course’s instructor, introduces the final show:

As always its not officially spring until the bachelor students at the Interaction Design program in Malmö present their final exhibition for the Physical Prototyping 1 class. At this one day only event the student will introduce you to some rude, anti social, annoying and politically incorrect technology made with a whole lot of love.
So head over to Malmö University’s School of Arts and Communication (K3) on the 23rd of March.

The exhibition will open at 11.00 and at 17.00 there will be a guided tour where you will have the chance to meet up with the students behind these mean creations. The exhibition closes officially at 18.00 and then the unofficial party will start and move from K3 to continue elsewhere through the night.

You can find K3 on this map.

As a side note, Tony is also known for being behind the Open Softwear book.

BetterNouveau is organizing a promising workshop about circuit milling with Roland iModela in Turin. Massimo is going to walk you around milling your own shield.

[...] you’ll learn to design and create your very own Arduino shield (‘shields’ are boards that can be plugged on top of the Arduino extending its capabilities). We’ll start from schematics, create the layout and make real prototypes on-site: become a pro Arduino user and learn to design circuits with the Eagle PCB software and make your own Arduino Shields using the Roland iModela desktop milling machine. D.I.Y shields are the best way to move your project from a breadboard-based approach into a professional prototype.

The Workshop is held on February 17-18-19.

via [Better Nouveau]

For the past couple weeks I’ve been wrapped up in finals at ITP, and in producing the ITP winter show 2011, along with my colleague Marianne Petit. I lost count of all the great Arduino projects in the show, but probably somewhere around 70% of the 110 projects in the show have a little blue board somewhere inside. If you’re in New York City today or tomorrow, come on down, it’s a good time, with lots of creative projects covering a range of application areas from healthcare  to fashion to video sculpture to politics, data visualization, assistive technologies, and more.

Here are a few selected at random that are using Arduino:

Here is a good news for the creative at heart non-programmers!

Minibloq is a graphical programming environment for Arduino™, Multiplo, physical computing devices and robots. One of it’s main goals is to bring closer physical computing and robotic platforms to primary schools, kids and beginneers.

It comes with a good documentation and is the outcome of a kickstarter campaign.

Source: minibloq

Sometimes, it is amazing to see how technology is used to make the world a better place to live for the less fortunate. One such problem has been thought out and tackled by Anirudh Sharma aka touchaddict on IRC. His invention is called ‘Le-chal’ which translates to ‘Take me there’ in Hindi.

Sharma conceptualized and demonstrated the system at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab Design and Innovation Workshop 2011.

The Le Chal system comprises of a pair of shoes, one of which is fitted with Vibrators, proximity sensors and a Bluetooth pad which is connected to an Android phone that calculates directions and real time location using Google Maps and the phone’s built-in GPS and compass module.

For all the people calling Arduino a ‘toy’ and ‘too simple’ here is a fact: it’s simplicity gave the inventors the power to rapidly prototype, and the invention was ready in 6 days.

As per his presentation, the system costs barely a few hundred rupees to assemble with 8 mini vibrational motors costing Rs 90, a sole of specified dimensions, an Arduino Lilypad GSM+GPS shield custom made for Rs 400 or a wired version costing Rs 150 for all the components.

The shoes have also been tested at a blind school in Bangalore, India, and have received positive reviews.

Source: Medianama and Pixelonomics

New fellows in the TinkerKit!  family: [T000060] and [T000062] are two versions of the same gyroscope module (1x / 4x sensitivity) based on the LPR5150AL from ST Microelectronics. We are sharing example codes and a visual UI in Processing (hosted on Scuola)

Kenbak  computer (claimed to be one of the first personal computer – 1971) has come back from the shadows of the past.

I’d been thinking for a while that emulating an old-school switches-and-lamps computer would be a fun Arduino project, but had stalled looking at things like the Altair 8800 with its 30+ lights and 20+ switches. However, when I stumbled upon the Kenbak I thought it was something I could pull off as my first real Arduino project. Naturally I called it the KENBAK-uino. 
This is the end-product, it can be programmed via the buttons on the front panel and show outputs on the LEDs. It’s a faithful emulation of the original CPU but with a few enhancements thrown in like pre-loaded sample programs and access to a real time clock.

via flickr (set), (videos) (code).

Massimo interverrà all‘Arduino Day organizzato all’interno di Robotica 2011.  Oltre alle presentazioni di Davide Canepa [Scuola di Robotica] e Leonardo di Cosmo [Discienza] vari utenti Arduino (scuole e singoli) avranno la possibilità di mostrare / presentare il loro progetto [Programma]. (scrivi a info (chiocciola) scuoladirobotica.it partecipare allo show-case).  Arduino parteciperà attivamente a questa edizione di Robotica 2011 con uno stand. Veniteci a trovare per avere maggiori informazioni su Arduino e la didattica, sperimentare con vari progetti in esposizione e partecipare alle attività organizzate durante la fiera.

via [Robotica 2011]