While exploring new tangible interfaces, designer Martin Hertig wanted to do something a bit different. He chose to transform the zippers on a guitar bag into a fully-functional instrument. Rather than strum the strings of the guitar, he simply pulls the bag’s zippers to jam: one zip for playing notes or chords, another for changing the bar, and a third for the vibrato.

As Hertig explains, the case was converted into a MIDI controller using an Arduino and conductive thread stitched along the zipper, while a Raspberry Pi synthesizer hidden inside produces the guitar sounds. Read the rest of this entry »

Tired of adjusting your blinds depending on outside lighting conditions? YouTuber “Dial” has the solution!

Perhaps you’ve seen hacks where people hook a servo up to blinds to flip them open and shut. If, however, you have the kind of blinds that need to be pulled all the way up to let light in, things become a little more tricky. Dial serves up an incredible solution in the video below, with a servo fixture that holds the balls on a blind’s roll up rope in a setup that could be described as the inverse of how a bicycle sprocket works. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, we announced on the blog how Windows became the first Arduino certified OS and introduced Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino and Windows Remote Arduino. Now, engineers at Windows have published a blog post showing how you can use Windows 10 IoT Core to create or port Arduino Wiring sketches that will run on supported IoT Core devices. Read the rest of this entry »

Bored with normal cell phone charging stations, “Makjosher” decided to make his own with pipe fittings and Edison bulbs.

Makjosher’s charging station resembles a retro-looking light fixture more than a cell phone charger, but it seems to perform both functions quite well. Using an Arduino Uno in conjunction with a current sensor, his charging station senses when a phone is getting “juice” and turns on an Edison bulb to, perhaps, celebrate the occasion. Though it’s shown here being used with an Apple device, there’s no reason a very slightly modified setup couldn’t be used to charge an Android phone, or really any other gadget as needed. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently presented at Disrupt SF Hackathon 2016, this modified hamster ball rolls and dispenses treats while you’re away!

Creators Anthony Alayo, James Xu, and Lawrence Chang don’t like the idea of leaving doggies alone all day to fend for themselves. Although these companions will generally wait for their owners to get home, this surely gets boring. To help solve this problem, they built the DogeBall–a hamster ball equipped with advanced electronics including what looks to be an Arduino MKR1000. This allows it to roll around under remote control via an accompanying app, and can even give your pooch a treat, perhaps as a reward for not chewing up your shoes! Read the rest of this entry »

Hansi (aka “Natural Nerd”) wasn’t content simply controlling his room’s lighting, so he had his control box illuminate along with it!

In order to control lighting intensity, you could hook up a potentiometer directly, but Hansi decided to instead connect four potentiometers to an Arduino Nano to control an external light source. These four inputs are attached to analog pins on the Arduino, which control a strip of RGB LEDs inside of a partially translucent box. When the knobs are turned, the number of LEDs on display increase or decrease, in different colors depending on which it turned. An external light can then be controlled along with the beautiful controller display. Read the rest of this entry »

With a mouth-operated joystick and “sip and puff” controls, the LipSync aims to make smartphones more accessible for everyone.

For the huge number of people that use them, smartphones have certainly made their lives easier. Unfortunately, these amazing gadgets are difficult to use for those with limited or nonexistent use of their arms and hands. The LipSync attempts to address this issue with a device that can be made in just over a weekend’s worth of work. It uses an Arduino Micro along with a Bluetooth module for communication, and allows someone to interface with the phone using its tiny joystick, as well as the user’s controlled breath. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Ryan Bates’ mini vending machine, the Venduino? Well, the Maker has now built a wooden coin pusher that’ll complement his earlier project quite nicely.

If you’ve seen a machine at an arcade with coins hanging off an edge, you probably thought, “Wow, if I just put one more quarter in, I’ll get like $10 back.” Although perhaps he could make money with it, Bates built his own as a fun distraction. His machine uses a cam mechanism to push a “dozer” back and forth so that when you drop a penny down the money input chute, it hopefully knocks a few coins into the area where you can collect them. Read the rest of this entry »

Instead of a huge box of disks, David Schmenk decided to use an Arduino to add a massive amount of storage.

For Apple II enthusiasts, loading games or other programs via a normal disk drive works, but since storage capabilities have exploded since the 1980s, Schmenk’s setup uses an Arduino Uno to access an SD card via the gameport. As seen in the video below, Schmenk is able to read and write data, pulling up Lode Runner in 45 seconds. The Arduino shield’s real-time clock can also be accessed if needed. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve ever dreamt of sitting in the driver’s seat of an RC car, you’ll love this recent project from Paul Yan. The designer has hacked together a first-person driving experience using a natural steering wheel that lets you feel like you’re playing a race kart game in real life.

As he describes in the video below, Yan used an old PS2 wheel controller, two Arduinos, a mini FPV camera, and a headset to act as a standalone monitor. The RC car–which is equipped with a Micro–interfaces with the wheel using an Uno and a PS2 Shield. Both Arduinos communicate via a pair of NRF24L01 modules.

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