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The joystick that changed a life and could help many more

April 25th, 2013

joystick

Robert Book is a tinkerer by nature and works at Silicon Valley Bank with Ian McCutcheon, a geek by nature. One day they were talking and Robert shared his big problem: his son Jerry, who suffers from Muscular Dystrophy, couldn’t use a keyboard anymore but loved to play computer games. Jerry could only be able to use a mouse with his right hand and very limited abilities in his left.

After a chat they realized that if they put their heads together they could make something that might enable him to play the different computer games with more ease and enjoyment.
Ian knew that Arduino Leonardo has a great capability, it can emulate a keyboard and a mouse and soon they came up with the first release of an augmented joystick making Jerry much happier. This collaboration became a great story  you can watch in the video below and it’s going to make even more people happy thanks to the shared code to build the joystick yourself.

 

Arduino’s cameo appearence in The Following

April 24th, 2013

Arduino cameo in the  theFollowing

 

The Following is an american TV Series which premiered last january and telling the story of

 former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) and his attempts to recapture serial killer Joe Carroll following the latter’s escape from prison

On the 9th of April Season 1, chapter 12  aired and some of you noticed the unexpected!

An Arduino Uno spotted for the first time in a TV series at 17m 40s: Kevin Bacon jumps over an ArduinoUno-activated device … the red led blinking seems pretty dangerous!

But what kind of device is it exactly?

Turning drawings into a music game

April 23rd, 2013

musicink

Gilda Negrini and Riccardo Vendramin, two young product designers from Italy, wrote us to share their last work, designed during a course called Autoproduzioni at Politecnico of  Milano. It’s called MusicInk, it runs on an Arduino Duemilanove board, and  gives an alternative method to teach music to children. That’s how they describe it:

MusicInk makes drawings turning into real music, this magical process is due to a mashup of various eterogenous technologies: Conductive Ink  by Bare Conductive, MPR121 controller, Arduino (Duemilanove board), LiPo shield (removed on a second time), Bluetooth shield by Seedstudio, Android platform, Pure Data for Android (libido), Pure Data patch.
Our project was developed with the help of our friend Manh Luong Bui and has been a very hard work.
We started our project studying the possibilities to create new and cheap musical instruments, then we discovered studies about conductive ink and we decided to create something different with these two technologies.

Here you can see their experience in testing MusicInk in a kindergarten in Milano with children between 4 and 5 years old:

 

 

Arduino meets Wearables: workshop at Codemotion Berlin

April 21st, 2013

wearables arduino

After  participating to Codemotion Rome last month, from the 9th of  May we’ll be spending a couple of days at Codemotion Berlin,  an innovative tech event engaging developers of all languages and technologies.

We’re having an Arduino wearables workshop organized together with Kobakant duo (Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson) and focused on the use of Lilypad.

In these 8 hours workshop we’ll explore how computing can be made wearable using the Arduino Lilypad and a selection of conductive materials to make textile sensors and sew electrical connections.

In order to quickly prototype interactive wearables within the workshop, we’ll provide a selection of open source lasercut felt designs that can readily be assembled to garments and accessories. The textiles sensors and fabric circuits can be stitched into felt and powered by battery to make final stand-alone objects.

The cool thing is that no previous experience in programming or sewing is required to participate, so don’t be shy! Check the details and the earlybird offer on Codemotion website!

codemotion  berlin

The next day, Massimo Banzi, thanx to Maker Faire Rome, is opening the Conference with a keynote speech titled: “People over megahertz”.

Come and join us in Berlin!

**UPDATE**

On the 11th you can join the conversation in the panel starting at 5.20pm with Mika Satomi, Hannah Perner Wilson and Cecilia Palmer:

Makers movement and fashion are getting closer than we think

What happens when fashion and technology get combined? During the panel we’ll explore how the use of low-cost devices and machines is multiplying possibilities of participation and is transforming the way we approach our garments.

Makerfaire Rome – Hangout on-air with Massimo Banzi on monday

April 19th, 2013

makefaire rome

Last february we announced the official dates of  MakerFaire Rome – The European Edition – taking place next October and finally, also released  the Call for Makers to invite tinkerers to enter projects and take part to this event celebrating the makers’ revolution in Italy.

Non we’d like  to start exchanging ideas and presenting you some of the protagonists that’s why we are organizing a series of Hangouts OnAir, to inspire and be inspired by some of our friends who are going to participate.
The first hangout is planned for next monday 22nd of april h.8pm CET – Massimo Banzi will be the moderator and his guests are:

David Cuartielles – Arduino Team – Sweden
Addie Wagenknecht – Lasersaur – Austria
Marc Bruyere - Snootlab – France
Join us on googleplus and see you on monday! (the hangout on-air video will be embedded in this post)

Let’s go german with Arduino video Tutorials – auch auf Deutsch

April 18th, 2013

Arduino Esplora Video Tutorial

(Den Text auf Deutsch findet Ihr weiter unten)

Today we are announcing the first of a series of video tutorials in german created in collaboration with our friend Max, founder of MaxTechTV and published on Arduino channel on Youtube.

The tutorial of this month explains how to turn your Arduino Esplora into a customized computer gamepad to play any of your videogames. And it’s just the beginning to start the real fun of personalizing the controller: what about configuring it to start a special weapon with a shout using the microphone, included in the board? The options are endless! (here’s the tutorial in english)

For this example we configured the code to be suitable for SuperTuxKart, an open-source racing game we love to play during our breaks!

Enjoy the video below and share with us your new projects made with Esplora, or other Arduino boards, joining our official Flickr Group.

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Wir freuen uns heute das erste Video einer Reihe von Videotutorials auf deutsch veröffentlichen zu können. Die Tutorials werden in Zusammenarbeit mit unserem Freund Max, Gründer von MaxTechTV produziert und auf dem Arduino YouTube-Kanal veröffentlicht .

Das Tutorial des Monats April erklärt wie man den Arduino Esplora  in ein individuelles Gamepad für den Computer verwandeln kann, um jedes beliebige Videospiel damit zu steuern. Und das ist nur eine von vielen tollen Möglichkeiten den Controller zu personalisieren und anzupassen: Wie wäre es das eingebaute Mikrofon zu nutzen, um über einen Sprachbefehl eine ‘Special Weapon’ abzufeuern ? Die Möglichkeiten sind endlos! (Hier das Tutorial auf Englisch)

Für dieses Beispiel haben wir den Code angepasst, um damit das open-source Spiel SuperTuxKart zu steuern, ein Rennspiel, das wir auch gern mal in unseren Pausen spielen.
Viel Spaß mit dem Video! Ihr könnt Eure Projekte mit dem Esplora oder einem anderen Arduino Board in unserer offiziellen Flickr Gruppe teilen.

 

————————————————- Ankündigung

Du sprichst deutsch und möchtest uns dabei unterstützen einen Teil der Arduino Dokumentation in deine Sprache zu übersetzen? Wir haben schon angefangen und hier kann man unseren Fortschritt beobachten: http://arduino.cc/de/Main/Products.

Wenn Du uns helfen willst, schreibe Max (max @ maxtechtv.de) und er wird Dir erklären wie Du in das Gemeinschafts-Übersetzungsprojekt eingebunden werden kannst. Danke!

 

Equipping teens with hands-on approach to robots

April 18th, 2013

frank magazu

 

Hello, I am Frank Magazu. I am 16 years old and go to school in Pasco, Florida. I make robots with the Arduino and got interviewed by my school district. Here is a video of me. Thanks for helping me become proficient at robotics as well as electronics and programing in general.

Thank you Frank! You made our day with your email. Keep up with the great work you and your professor are doing to inspire more people in getting involved in diy robots.

 

Instagram fan makes a DIY wooden photo-booth

April 17th, 2013

DIY-Photo-Booth

Photographer and Instructables user Alexander Morris created a giant Instagram inspired photo-booth and published all the steps to make one yourself. It’s the perfect solution to pimp-up your parties!

What’s inside of the box? An Arduino DUE coded to start the photo-booth sequence once the big red button is pressed and some other stuff:

Read the rest of this entry »

Lego’s stress test reveals the magic number is 37,112

April 16th, 2013

lego clutch power

 

The question was simple: ”How many times can I assemble LEGO bricks before they wear out?” And Phillipe Cantin found the answer  after building a machine to test it: it took 10 days and 37,112 assembling and disassembling actions. Read the rest of this entry »

Talking about hacking secondary school education in Spain at Coderdojo conference

April 15th, 2013

Dojo Conference 2013

Coderdojo is a global collaboration providing free and open learning to young people, especially in programming technology. Last weekend David Cuartielles from the Arduino team went to Slane Castle in Ireland  to make a brief presentation to the CoderDojo conference about the Castilla project and how we are hacking Secondary School education in Spain. Read the rest of this entry »