INDOOR AIR QUALITY MAPPING
– May 23rd, 2012
PLOTS guys propose an interesting way to measure the quality of the air for indoor environments, by hacking a second-hand Roomba robot (an autonomous vacuum cleaner).
These robots are programmed to randomly move inside rooms to clean up the floor, so by adding a simple air quality sensor on top of one of them, it is possible to easily implement a sort of “random walker” that will sense for us the presence of gases (volatile organic chemicals, VOCs), such as NH3, alcohol, CO2 and so forth.
To keep track of the air quality measurements, the authors equipped the so hacked Roomba with an RGB led, whose color can be changed according to the air sample. By taking a long exposure picture of the room where the robot was roaming in, they could determine the areas where a high concentration of VOCs was present.
The complete description of the project can be found on the PLOTS’ website, while here you may find a short video about it:
PLOTS guys are also working on a different approach to air sensing, which does not make use of a Roomba robot but uses a hamster ball, instead. Further details can be found here.
INDIA, OUR FORUM SALUTES YOU
– May 22nd, 2012
India is large … or should I say XXXL? In order to give a better support to all the Arduino interested people in India we have created a new section in our forum where to bring up issues in both English and Hindi. We know there is a growing community coming from schools, maker groups, and the hardware section of the free/open source movement.
To coordinate the efforts around Arduino in India, we have gathered an excellent group of forum moderators (their nicknames are mentioned for you to find them in the forum):
- Priya (our Arduino representative in India) – beachbrake
- Sudar - Sudar
- Nishant - NI$HANT
- Jobin – jo_v
(there is more to come, as we expect the Indian community to move quick, we will need all the help in the world)
So if you are in India and want to find your pals at our forum, refer to the following website and contribute!
India, our forum salutes you!
ARDUINO 1.0.1 RELEASE INCLUDES ARDUINO LEONARDO SUPPORT AND MULTIPLE TRANSLATIONS.
– May 22nd, 2012
I’m very happy to announce that Arduino 1.0.1 is now available on the software page. This release includes a ton of bug fixes and new features (see the release notes for details). The biggest additions are support for the Arduino Leonardo and translation of the Arduino development environment into multiple languages. We’ll be doing a blog post on the Leonardo soon but, for now, see itsgetting started page and hardware page.
The translations were the work of many people, particularly Shigeru Kanemoto (who internationalized the software and translated it into Japanese) and David Cuartielles from the Arduino team (who coordinated the translation process). Languages in Arduino 1.0.1: Arabic, Aragonese, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch), English, Estonian, Filipino, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuaninan, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese – Brazil, Portuguese – Portugal, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Tamil. (For details or to help with the translations, see this page on the playground.)
Thanks to the many people who contributed to this release (see the release notes for credits). Again, you can download Arduino 1.0.1 from the software page.
ARDUINO-BASED THEREMIN
– May 21st, 2012
Theremin is one of the most exiting musical instruments ever made, mainly because of its “quite odd” playing method. Infact, its working principle is based on near-filed coupling between the hands of the theremin player and two metal antennas, used to determine the pitch of a variable-frequency oscillator and to adjust the volume of the output signal, respectively.
Several theremin implementation are possible, such as the “original” analog one (based on the mixing of two sine waves originated by a fixed-frequency oscillator and a variable-frequency one) and those based on digital techniques.
LabIII guys implemented a nice and simple Arduino theremin module, based on a TTL LC-type oscillator, usable not only to play electronic music, but also as a generic sensing-device, for example to control motors and/or to work with Processing, Max etc.
The detailed description of the project, together with schematics and source code, can be found here.
[Via: elektor.it]
SUMMER SCHOOL ON WEARABLE COMPUTING
– May 21st, 2012
Next July a workshop on wearable computing will be held at Supsi Summer School (Ticino).
Goal of the workshop is the design and prototyping, through the Arduino platform, of objects that sense, interpret and react to the real world and that can be wearable and digitally fabricated.
More info here.
Via [openwear.org]
[SAVE THE DATE] ARDUINO CAMP 2012 A TORINO
– May 18th, 2012
Il 16-17 Giugno prossimi si tiene a Torino, presso le Officine Arduino, l’ArduinoCamp 2012 (leggi post di Massimo sul Forum di Arduino)
La partecipazione è gratuita ma i posti saranno limitati dalla capienza del luogo dell’incontro.
- Vuoi partecipare all’ArduinoCamp e/o HackDay? Inserisci i tuoi dati qui http://bit.ly/JFqWxP
- Hai fatto un progetto con Arduino o stai usando Arduino nella tua azienda, faccelo sapere inserendolo qui: http://bit.ly/Lwm6BW
Saremmo contenti di vedervi raccontarlo nel nostro tradizionale pecha-kucha- Vuoi essere volontario? ne stiamo cercando 6 http://bit.ly/K82OkU
Due giorni di Arduino, il primo dedicato a presentazioni sui vari utilizzi di Arduino (con il tradizionale pecha-kucha), il secondo con l’HackDay a premi. Per trovare indirizzo e programma consulta la pagina creata sul playground di Arduino.
SPAMPOETRY (OR HOW TO RECYCLE SPAM)
– May 18th, 2012
Everyday, a lot of spam inevitably arrives to our mailboxes, forcing us to lose time in discerning fake emails from good ones, so everyone agrees on saying that spam is frustrating and completely useless.
This is almost true, since Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet Sola have taken advantage of spam coming from the Internet (more specifically, those messages “donated” by Eindhoven people) to make a very creative art project: first, they have recycled spam to algoritmically create poetry and, then, they have sent the result to a properly Arduino-hacked knitting machine (Arduino has been used to emulate the typing of the commands required to load the pattern).
From the authors:
Concerning the concept, we are interested in bringing together digital culture and traditional handicraft. To be more specific, the idea is to experiment with the form and meaning of SPAM. We turn SPAM into a romantic, funny or even sarcastic poetry and present it in unusual tangible form as knitted garment. To be more specific, we call final result dysfunctional wearable, because it reminds a sweater but is not really a one. Like SPAM, our dysfunctional wearable does not have a purpose.
The result is really impressive and it has been presented at two exhibitions, at Eindhoven and Malmö. Several pictures of the events can be found here. More information about the project can be found at Mar and Varvara‘s homepages.
[Via: Mar's Homepage and Varvara's Homepage]
A LITTLE LIGHT WORK
– May 18th, 2012
The end of the semester at ITP always brings interesting projects I haven’t yet seen, which is one of the things that makes working there so much fun. I am a sucker for good lighting projects, and this year’s class featured some really nice ones. Here are a few from this spring’s crop:
Avery Max’ Neon God is a giant El-wire mirror driven by two Arduino Unos. Here’s a prototype video, and here’s Avery with the final wall. If you like rainbow sparkle psychedelia, you’re gonna love Avery’s work in general.
Avery Max with Neon God
Sukmo Koo’s Hand in Hand is a lamp that requires friends to join hands in order to light up. In his final presentation at ITP, Koo managed to get the entire room, and his thesis advisor, all joining hands:
Sukmo Koo's Hand in Hand
Geetha Padapati’s Sunlight as Mediated By an Object is a lightbox driven by a camera focused on the sky above her apartment. UUsing Adafruit’s LDP8806 RGB Lightstrip and an Arduino, she created a beautiful abstraction of the subtle changes in skylight.
Sunlight As Mediated by an Object (images courtesy Geetha Padapati)
Emily Webster’s Cellar Door seeks to liven up the ubiquitous sidewalk cellar doors of Manhattan by lighting them from within. Force sensors beneath a sheet of structural plexiglas are tied to an Arduino that controls the halogen lights that light up the entrance and allow pedestrians to stroll over and peek inside.
Emily Webster's Cellar Door lights up the sidewalk (image courtesy Emily Webster)
The lighting project are only a tiny portion of the great work students did this semester; I’ll hopefully post about a few others in the coming days. Meantime, if you want to see them all, check out the ITP Spring Show 2012 site.
DIY AMP HOUR METER
– May 17th, 2012
Ever wanted to see how much electricity your next project is consuming? Look no further; this Instructable will guide you about how you can, too, make a device to monitor the same.
This project was developed by Steve Spence of Arduinotronics with input from forum members at the Yahoo Group - Arduino Home and The Arduino Forum.
Steve writes:
“There’s a couple of commercial products that can do this, but not with the flexibility I wanted. I designed an Arduino micro-controller based solution that is very extensible. Right now it monitors the above values of attached gear, and I’m thinking about adding web monitoring and an SD Card for data collection.”
ROBOT FESTIVAL: 5° EDIZIONE
– May 17th, 2012
Il roBOt festival, giunto quest’anno alla sua quinta edizione, è un evento di carattere internazionale, promosso dall’Associazione Culturale Shape (e realizzato con il sostegno della Regione Emilia Romagna e del Comune di Bologna), il cui obiettivo è quello di mostrare “sul campo” lo stato dell’arte creativo, applicato ad ambiti quali l’arte, la sperimentazione e l’intrattenimento.
roBOt è terra d’elezione per chiunque metta in campo fortissimamente se stesso affrontando con spirito pioneristico ed innovatore le nuove arti contemporanee, quelle in grado di interagire con la tecnologia.
Il tema centrale di quest’anno riguarda “Il linguaggio del futuro”:
La moltitudine di sistemi non verbali e multimediali che rendono possibile lo scambio di informazioni, quindi la competenza comunicativa, di ogni singola entità all’interno della rete globale interconnessa.
Il roBOt festival è in cerca di nuove produzioni relative a installazioni, video, animazioni, performance, fotografia, design e autoproduzioni. Maggiori dettagli, così come il regolamento per la partecipazione alla selezione, possono essere trovati qui.
La deadline per la partecipazione è fissata per il 24 Giugno 2012.
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