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.
Yesterday we had a wonderful day at New York Hall of Science, for the Open Source Hardware Summit, in its second edition. We had the chance to see amazing presentations from makers all over the worlds [see schedule & list of participants] We had a good time in taking with Alicia Gibb, one of the organizers who explained us this year’s numbers and some ideas for the future.
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.
Most of people working in the field of biological or scientific research should greet the open hardware applications we are witnessing in this age of Garage Science. From the Phduino to the DIY Oscilloscopes, through STM (Scanning-Tunneling Electron Microscope), Arduino is getting used to prototype tools that used to be more expensive and possibly unavailable some years ago.
OpenPCR is an amazing project aimed to bring the genome analysis to a desktot experience. From the “What Is OpenPCR?” page:
What can you do with it?
Cool apps include:
DNA Sequencing – PCR is used to generate enough DNA for the sequencing run. You can have a look at some of your own genome!
DNA Barcoding – Determining the species based on DNA. Can be used to identify plants, screen for agricultural pests, investigate airplane bird strikes, and check that sushi is legit. What about testing your food to see if they contain GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)?
The Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR, is a method of replicating DNA. It is capable of taking a small amount of DNA, or even a single molecule, and amplifying (copying) a specific region exponentially, such that once the reaction is finished, there may exist up to 230 copies of each starting molecule (do the math — that’s more than a billion!).
This is important because DNA of interest often exists in quantities too small to detect, or may be mixed in with other DNA. For example, an accurate test for HIV must be able to detect a single virus particle in 50,000 cells. PCR is able to do this by targeting a small region of DNA that is specific to the HIV virus. If the virus exists in a sample, amplification will occur which can be easily detected. If no virus is present, no amplification will occur.
The specific region of targeted DNA is determined by how the reaction is setup, based on the specific “PCR primers” added to the reaction mixture. Virtually any sequence of DNA can be targeted.
NYC-based interactive advertising agency and research lab Breakfast NY, in collaboration with Zach Eveland, just released The Verbalizer, an open source board based on Arduino, to use with Google Voice’s search for desktop.
The Verbalizer connects wirelessly to a personal computer via Bluetooth. When you trigger it, it opens google.com in a new tab and activates Voice Search. An audio notification is played, signaling when google is ready for your queryYou speak into the mic, and the query starts. Breakfast released all the plans and firmware appropriately, and left some I/O pins open for those who want to play with it.
The Verbalizer
Pretty neat, and nice to see folks inching toward consumer devices with Arduino inside.
Friedrich posted a nice example of real-time animation control using Moviesandbox and Arduino. Two sock-puppet bend sensors (connected to the computer via Arduino) control the movement of the mouths of the digital characters in real-time, allowing for live performance and expressive control by the human puppeteers. As Friedrich and Jake talk, we see their words being mouthed by the on-screen fish. There’s even a real-time depth-of-field filter (Gaussian blur) being applied to give an aquarium feel to the rendering. Overall, it’s a great example of using Arduino for continuous, real-time control over a 3D animation.
Moviesandbox is a new open-source tool for real-time 3D animation, with or without physical control and input. It allows you to sketch 3D models using drawing tools, then add a skeleton (bones) for animation control. You can even import data from the Kinect!
For more information about Moviesandbox, check out the tutorials page or FAQ.
There is a brand new logotype for the Open Source Hardware initiative, as Ayah reported on this blog post:
The results of the public votes for the OSHW logo are in! Almost 9000 people voted, and the community selected “Golden Orb” by Macklin Chaffe as the OSHW Logo v1.0 (submitted on Feb 11th, 2011).
Congratulations Golden Orb and thank you all for voting!
[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.
Sensebridge is a little board that logs up to 61831 heart beats, about 14 hours of data. It is based on a atmega 168, a Real Time Clock, and 512 Kbit EEPROM. And it’s released open source.
The Heart Spark is a heart-shaped pendant which flashes little lights (light emitting diodes, LEDs) in time with your heart beat. A polar chest strap with transmitter (sold separately) is used to measure your heart beat, which is transmitted wirelessly to the pendant. An arduino-compatible circuit captures each beat as it happens and flashes LEDs (later versions will log data to an onboard EEPROM – see below). The pendant is carefully designed to maximize its visual appeal, including symmetry and optionally a high-gloss epoxy coating (as pictured to the right). A CR2032 coin-cell battery provides 8+ hours of battery life. Two small switches on the back allow selection of operating mode:
