Pighixxx, from the Arduino forum, has created several pinout diagrams for the Arduino UNO and for several ATMega microcontrollers, such as the ATMega 328 and the ATMega 1284p.
These diagrams provide a clear picture about how to use each pin of the board and can be used as real “cheatsheets” for your own DIY projects. You can download them from here. Enjoy! 
[Via: PyroElectro.com]
As a hobbyist, we often want to extend the functionality of our arduino board. In order to minimize wires and maximize functionality, we design special need-based ‘shields‘. A useful step by step tutorial that I found here , breaks down the process into the following stages:
1) Part selection
2) Prototyping the board
3) Schematic design
4) PCB Layout
5) PCB Fabrication
[Via: krisbarrett]
If Kickstarter is nowadays best place to find new (or upcoming) toys to dream about, Gameduino is probably one of the most amazing pieces of hardware I’ve seen hosted there. The shield mounts its own FPGA able of 80ies style graphics and sounds for creating old-school, 8-bit video-games, pre-loaded with numerous sprites and set up for easy connection to a VGA display.
Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino – or anything else with an SPI interface – built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers.
The sound and graphics are definitely old-school, but thanks to the latest FPGA technology, the sprite capabilities are a step above those in machines from the past.
- video output is 400×300 pixels in 512 colors
- all color processed internally at 15-bit precision
- compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800×600 @ 72Hz)
- background graphics
- 512×512 pixel character background
- 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette
- pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll
- foreground graphics
- each sprite is 16×16 pixels with per-pixel transparency
- each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors
- four-way rotate and flip
- 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line
- pixel-perfect sprite collision detection
- audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer
- 16 independent voices 10-4000 Hz
- per-voice sine wave or white noise
Have a look at the nice reference poster, its detailed hardware reference or its set of sample programs and library.
support this project on [Kickstarter], via [CrunchGear] [BoingBoing] source [ExCamera]
Flash / Arduino Based Speed Detector from Mike Chambers on Vimeo.
[Mike Chambers] developed a nice Flash / Arduino based speed detector with clients for Mac, Windows and Android based devices (via Adobe AIR 2.5 beta).
Here is how it works. I have an Arduino Duemilanove with ATMega328 which has two photo-resistors connected (with a 10k pull down resistor). I set up two laser pointers to shine a laser directly onto the photo-resistor (which is enclosed within a dark box). The Arduino monitors the values returned from the light sensor, and watches for any changes that indicate that the laser bean has been broken. When both laser beams are broken, the Arduino calculates the amount of time between when each sensor was tripped. It then sends that value to the Adobe AIR based client, which is connected to the Arduino via USB / Serial port and a serial port proxy (in the case, TinkerProxy).
You can get the schematics and the codes from this project on Mike’s github.
via [MikeChambers]
A very impressing project that brings out the idea (seen some time ago with Bikes against Bush, and later enpowered by the Tour the France) of triggering several motors/paintBrushes in sequence, and printing out some messages.
The project is well designed, well-referenced, and German. I’m getting used to see wonderful urban-related projects from Germany.
The txtBOMBER is a one-hand-guerillia-tool – a machine not much bigger than a pressing iron – that generates political statements on the fly and immidiately prints them on any flat surface.
If you feel you are part of our modern viewless generation, the txtBOMBER is the perfect tool for you! Just switch it on, it’s powered by a strong battery. And move it along a wall. It’s that easy to show your?its?someones? opinion of something?someone?! Hell! You should reconsider if you are keen enough to use it!
The txtBOMBER has seven build-in pens to “print” the letters and a micro-controller-brain (Arduino), no need for a computer or any other brain.
video after the break.
A little arduino circuit was create to ignite the rocket motors at the recent (potentially annual) NortHACKton rocketry day.
Feeling the need to create something needlessly complicated to short a battery across the ignitor of the chemical rocket motor I turned to my Arduino Mega.
I already have a dot matrix display for my Arduino and have been using it to scroll the word ‘NortHACKTon’ when we go to the NortHACKton pub meets so that those people looking for geeks in a pub know who we are ”(cos we would’t stand out enough without it )”. I figured the dot matrix could be used to provide a visual countdown and the Arduino could activate a relay which connects the 9V supply directly to the rocket and then whoosh off it goes.
via [HackedGadgets] souce [NortHACKon]
