[Alex Weber] put together a motorized drawing machine painting 2d Vector Graphics on his office’s glasses.
An automatic scribbling machine sounds less than useful, admittedly, but it’s really just the style of line created by this motorized drawing machine. It’s reminiscent of ASCII art, in which heavier characters are used to create darker tones; in this case, the more jiggle added to the drawing platform, the more ink is put on the drawing surface. It’s kind of mesmerizing.
David Schneider from [IEEEspectrum] tells and shares his DIY Remotely Operated Vehicle undersea, based on two Arduinos
Last year at about this time, crews in the Gulf of Mexico were working feverishly to bring BP’s blown-out oil well under control. Some of the more spectacular parts of that effort, as you may recall, involved the use of remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Perhaps you had the same thought as I did—that it would be cool to build one.
Arduino forum user [Blibo] shares its 2.4 Ghz spectrum analyzer project on the forum. The project is based on the CYWM6935 board (wireless), an Atmega 328 and a Nokia 5110 LCD-
I finished the (mostly) permanent version of my 2.4ghz spectrum analyzer, and soldered it up. I included 3 modes for scanning (fast, slow, and ghost – like the long exposure on a camera), plus a function to display the voltage on an analog pin, and graph it (for when the oscilloscope’s not cooperating). These modes are toggled through by hitting the big push button [...] I have already used it to help setup my wireless network, (channel, location, things that cause interference), and it is always interesting to see what uses the 2.4ghz spectrum. So far, the things that I’ve noticed on the spectrum while walking around with the analyzer are: -microwave ovens (huge disturbance in the middle of the spectrum) -Wifi -Cordless phones -Bluetooth -Wireless keyboard -Wireless speakers The fast mode is ok for seeing EMI, but for digital signals, the slow mode is best. The ghost mode also gives a general idea of spectrum use over a period of time.
Barcelona-based IAAC school is hosting a summer school (in Barcelona and Mumbay). The theme of this year’s course is creating an urban tool of a networked city based on a new informational layer.
What happens if we think Urbanism and Energy through a new informational layer added in our cities?
If you dig the 8-bit style colourful site you’ll discover several other video oddities based on Arduino (or at least Atmega328), well explained and referenced by the [Gijs Gieskes].
Assembling medium quantities of PCBs was never within the reach of a home based manufacturer. It requires expensive equipment, but most of these parts can actually be 3D printed, and you can use your existing 3D printer, such as the Ultimaker, to do pick-and-place operations.
[pabloxid] shared an Hexapod project on the forum based on an Arduino MEGA 1280 and 18 Dynamixel AX-12 motors:
SAMSA is based on the Wiring board, with an ATmega128 microcontroller, and SAMSA II on the Arduino Mega, with an ATmega1280. Both are pretty similar, tough the ATmega1280 has 8 KB SRAM, twice the ATmega128. For SAMSA II the Arduino IDE was not used. The software was written directly in C++, using some libraries from both Arduino and Wiring.
SAMSA II has also two additional microcontrollers. One is an old Arduino Mini (ATmega168) located in the head, tasked with handling the sensors. The other is an ATmega8 and is integrated in the display. The firmware in the display was replaced with another one, freeing the main microcontroller from handling the display pixel by pixel, storing the frame buffer, etc.
The head’s microcontroller is responsible for sampling, filtering and processing sensor’s data. The data from the Sharp distance sensor and the lateral IR sensors are combined in a single “super smart distance sensor”. This microcontroller also decodes the data coming from the 38 KHz IR receiver, used for the Remote Control.
These two additional microcontrollers further reduce the load on the main microcontroller, allowing for more sophisticated behaviours.
[Michael] posted some interesting uses of Nootropic’s latest shield, the Video Experimenter Shield, besed on a LM1881 video sync separator to detect the timing of the vertical and horizontal sync in a composite video signal. It’s one of the few examples of Arduino processing a live video signal, as previously seen with the Eye Shield (based on the same IC, but with no video out implemented). The image here is processed and sent out from the Arduino using a custom version of the TVoutLibrary. Wow.
The Video Experimenter shield can give your Arduino the gift of sight. In the Video Frame Capture project, I showed how to capture images from a composite video source and display them on a TV. We can take this concept further by processing the contents of the captured image to implement object tracking and edge detection.
The setup is the same as when capturing video frames: a video source like a camera is connected to the video input. The output select switch is set to “overlay”, and sync select jumper set to “video input”. Set the analog threshold potentiometer to the lowest setting.
[Alex] collects retro gaming consoles. One day while playing a SNES title, his save games got wiped when he powered off the system. It turned out that the battery inside the game cartridge got disconnected somehow, and it got him thinking. He decided he wanted to find a way to back up his save games from the cartridges for safe keeping.
While cart readers exist, he says that they are hard to find nowadays, so he decided to construct his own using an Arduino. SNES cartridges are relatively complex, so he opted to focus on Gameboy cartridges for the time being. Before attempting to back up save games, he first chose to learn how to communicate with the cartridges in general, by reading the ROM.
[Jeremy] made ten Tutorials about Arduino worth our “All Stars” category. He talks about different themes: Blinking Leds [Intro & #2], Electrical Engineering [#3], Analog Inputs [#4], Motors & Transistors [#5], Serial Communication & Processing [#6], I2C & Processing [#7], SPI Interfaces [#8], Wireless Communication [#9] and Interrupts [#10].
Thanks to a generous sponsorship from element14, I’m putting together a tutorial series on using the arduino microcontroller platform! The arduino is a platform that I’ve done several projects with, and I think it is the best possible way for beginners to get acquainted with electronics. This tutorial series will be aimed at beginner users, but I’m hoping to keep it going with some more advanced topics a few episodes into the future.
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