Bare Conductive’s Touch Board Starter Kit hits the MoMA Design Store.
You may have noticed that our good friends at Bare Conductive were absent from their usual spot within the Atmel Maker Faire booth, and with good reason. That’s because they were busy in New York City for the launch of their brand-spanking new Touch Board Starter Kit at the MoMA Design Store.
The all-in-one DIY box contains everything a Maker could possibly need to begin transforming things within their environment into touch sensors. The plug-and-play Starter Kit is comprised of an ATmega32U4 based Touch Board, some Electric Paint, other essential components like a microSD card, a USB cable and alligator clips, as well as a growing range of tutorials, visual guides and examples.
What’s nice is that the MCU comes preprogrammed to trigger MP3 tracks, something that will be ideal for absolute beginners and young Makers as they explore one of three featured projects: interactive wall graphics, voice-activated objects and motion-detecting alarms.
Connect your board to the Blynk platform and create a graphic user interface in a matter of minutes.
Developed by Pasha Baiborodin, Blynk is a platform that allows anyone to control their Arduino and other Atmel based MCUs with an iOS or Android device. Makers will now have the ability to create a drag-and-drop user interface for their project in just minutes, without having to purchase another proprietary shield.
Blynk is kind of like a prototyping board, just on your smartphone, that features everything from sliders and displays to graphs and other functional widgets that can be arranged on the screen to control an Arduino unit, as well as gather data from sensors in a project. What’s more, the platform works right out out of the box — all that’s needed is the app and an MCU that can connect to the Internet.
“We’re on a mission to see the Maker Movement thrive by removing technical barriers and steep learning curves that prevent new creators from going beyond just tinkering with their boards through to useful inventions as quickly as possible,” Baiborodin explains.
It should be noted that Blynk isn’t exclusively for beginners. In fact, experienced engineers, developers and Makers can gain quite a bit from the platform. Not only will they have an easy-to-use mobile app for their next Arduino (or Raspberry Pi) gadget without having to actually build it from scratch, they can employ the program as a rapid prototyping tool to test new ideas prior to buying physical components for implementation.
The agnostic Blynk isn’t limited to a specific board or shield, but is instead compatible with a wide-range of Maker-favorite hardware. Whether the MCU is linked to the Internet via Wi-Fi, Ethernet or even an ESP8266, Blynk’s libraries and example sketches will have hardware connected to the server and smartphone-ready without requiring a laptop, accessing additional web services or learning new programming languages.
Blynk libraries currently support USB, Ethernet shield, Wi-Fi shield, as well as just about every Arduino from the Uno (ATmega328) to the Yún (ATmega32U4), other Arduino-compatible chips like the TinyDuino (ATmega328P), Raspberry Pi via its GPIOs, Spark (now Particle) Core and ESP8266.
“Arduino has completely changed the game of hobby electronics, especially thanks to their awesome user experience. They provide you with everything you need to start and understand the basics. Unfortunately, the more inspired you get to create great things, the more you find out that each next step requires more and more knowledge. So, your learning curve is slowing down and your frustration is growing. Maybe some people find this challenge appealing, but for me it just inspired the creation of Blynk,” Baiborodin adds.
Taking Arduino outside of the home network has proven to sometimes be difficult for Makers just starting out. Subsequently, Blynk’s Server was built to handle all communication aspects, and monitor the board while the smartphone is offline. Arduino talks directly to the server with lightweight binary protocol based on web sockets, making communication very fast and avoiding all unnecessary nodes.
Now live, the app can be found on both iTunes App Store and Google Play. Over the course of development, the startup has gone on to form partnerships with a number of notable names throughout the Maker community, including AirBoard, TinyCircuits, ThingSpeak and Konekt.
As to what you can create using the platform, the possibilities are only limited by one’s imagination. Among some of the projects already devised using Blynk are smartphone-controlled drones, self-aware plants and connected refrigerators. Hot on the heels of its successful Kickstarter campaign, be sure to follow along with the team’s updates here.
These quarter-sized, stackable, Arduino and LEGO-compatible modules allow Makers to bring their ideas to life.
If there’s one trend that is continuing to evolve throughout the Maker Movement, it’s modularity. DIYers are constantly seeking expedited and efficient ways to piece together their projects, all while bringing their ideas to life without the hassles of soldering and wiring messes. Joining the likes of littleBits and Modulo, the Microduino crew has launchedmCookie — a small, stackable electronic hardware kit for designers, engineers and curious tinkerers of any age and skill set.
You may recall their first Kickstarter campaign from back in September 2013, which went on to garner well over its pledge goal in just a matter of days. Since then, Microduino has developed over 50 blocks and 30 sensors, and has granted users access to more than 100 basic tutorials, 500 project samples and a burgeoning online community.
Hoping to continue riding its wave of success, the next-generation of Microduino consists of quarter-sized hardware components inspired by the incredibly popular Arduino platform that not only connect magnetically, but can be built into predesigned projects or used to innovate new ones as well. Each open source module is color-coded and is designed to be stacked on top of a main processor to perform one core function — whether that’s expanding Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities, GPS and sensor hubs, audio and battery management, or a core USB.
As its creators note, there are three microcontroller modules in the mCookie series, all of which powered by Atmel. The CoreUSB is built around the ATmega32U4, while the Core and Core+ are driven by an ATmega328P and ATmega644PA, respectively.
Ultimately, these components will provide users with the ability to build any number of projects, ranging from drones and robots to wearables and smart gardening gadgets. Helping speed up the development process, these devices can be programmed using Arduino IDE and integrated into existing Arduino sketches of all kinds. Aside from that, the modules are even LEGO-compatible and only fit together when the right connection is formed, making them more accessible to people of all ages and eliminating the need for soldering.
Meanwhile, for projects that require a little more reinforcement, spring pins offer rugged surface-to-surface linkage between circuit boards for an extended usable lifetime, and M2 screws can be employed to securely fasten more robust designs. Not only geared towards beginners, experienced and well-seasoned Makers can write their own programs in the Arduino IDE and transmit that program to the hardware via USB, too.
mCookie comes in a variety of packages, including Basic, Advanced and Expert kits, each of which bundles different boards and sensors. So whether you’re looking for a fast and simple way to devise a remote-controlled LEGO car, a Wi-Fi weather station or even a DIY quadcopter, mCookie is for you. With its incredibly popular crowdfunding campaign complete,Microduino expects to begin shipping units by the end of July 2015.
OSM is an easy-to-use, open-source, reprogrammable microlight with endless possibilities.
Created by Pasadena, California startup Quantum HEX, OSM is an open-source microlight ideal for various wearable projects. Built around a versatile ATmega328P, the OSM is packed with with a micro-USB port, a three-axis accelerometer with custom features, several I/O connectors, a WS2812 addressable LED strip, as well as unmatched sensitivity.
The microlight is ready for use right out of the box and comes pre-loaded with 10 modes including many old-school favorites like BPM heartbeat, rainbow chaser and 3D morph. What’s more, its creator Ramiro Montes De Oca reveals that Makers can continually update their light on the fly with some basic coding.
“Once you save a setup you can save it as a file and send it to all your friends — they just need to copy and paste it onto their chip. We’re building a developer community so that you can learn (as well as trade) from one another. Our code will be posted up for free, and you’ll be able to post up your own code as well,” De Oca explains.
The OSM (no accelerometer) and the OSM-xyz (with accelerometer) are not your typical microlights. Unlike others available today, users can easily employ the USB port to upload new programs — meaning, there’s never a need to go buy new lights. Boasting incredible speed capacity and memory, a Maker can burn up to five different lights on one OSM, as each head has its own color palette, presets and modes. This makes it a clear choice for wearable projects, like gloves, which require illuminations on each finger.
Being 100% reprogrammable OSM, a user simply connects the microlight to a computer (Mac, Linux or Windows) via a OSM Programmer, which serves as its interface. The OSM Programmer is a redesign of the popular Arduino2Serial adapter, connecting the reset line to the USB shield.
“Using the micro-USB shield to set low the reset input makes the Micro-USB an alternative communication option to serial communication with an external serial programmer,” De Oca adds. “This is a serial adapter modified to plug into a micro-USB programmer. A USB-to-serial adapter can be plugged on the communication ports of the OSM as alternative.”
Programs can be downloaded from its website and then uploaded directly to any OSM in its original format with Arduino IDE. Given the open-source nature of its NEO 1.0 application, a Maker can modify and expand every aspect of the program in copy and paste-like fashion. What’s nice is that, as soon as a user is done with one OSM, they upload the same code to each of the others.
Sounds like a bright idea, right? Head over to it official Kickstarter page, where the De Oca and the rest of the Quantum HEX team are currently seeking $25,000. Shipment is expected to start in July 2015.
Control these open-source, 3D-printable race cars with your mobile device.
As a way to get more young Makers interested in pursuing STEM-related fields, one Cambridge startup has launched a set of customizable, open-source race car kits. Cannybot Racers are 3D-printable, Bluetooth-enabled toy vehicles that can be remotely controlled using any mobile device, or even a Raspberry Pi.
Keeping in line with the burgeoning Maker Movement, the cars are super simple to create on just about any desktop printer, and can be programmed using Arduino, Blockly, mbed, Python or Scratch. Each Cannybot is comprised of several 3D-printed structural components — such as the chassis, top cover and wheels — that every school with access to a machine can construct in their lab, along with the addition of some low-cost hardware components. This includes a small yet powerful single board controller, dubbed the BlueBrain, which is driven by an ARM Cortex-M0 processor and features a Bluetooth 4.0 module and various motor controllers. The belly of the Arduino-compatible bot is also equipped with line sensor used to detect the track as it makes its way around.
“The openness of the platform enables students and those looking to begin tinkering around delve deeper — peeking behind their visual programming to see the Arduino code that actually runs on the robots — and physically taking apart and reassembling their Cannybots to see how the components fit together and communicate,” the team writes.
Not only can users purchase one of a few tracks printed on high-quality PVC material, which range from figure-eight tracks to complicated mazes, but Makers can just as easily use standard black electrical tape (or A4/A3 paper using a home printer) to design their own raceway on any hard surface.
Have you ever thought about turning a donut into a keypad, an apple into a drum, a JELL-O mold into a game controller? Or, how about capturing a slip ’n slide selfie or initiating a Skype call with your dog? As wild as some of those ideas may seem, they’re all now possible thanks to the newly-revealed Makey Makey GO.
Since its debut back in 2012, Makey Makey has become a household name among DIYers with their ATmega32U4 based circuit board and alligator clips, which have enabled users to turn practically anything into a touch-sensitive device. Now, the JoyLabz team has returned with the world’s first on-the-go invention kit — letting anyone invent anything from anywhere at anytime. Abiding by many of the same principles as the original kit (known as the “Classic”), GO also allows users to hook up multiple clips.
How it works is pretty straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used its larger sibling. The GO inserts directly into the USB port of any laptop (Mac, Windows, and Linux all supported), while its corresponding alligator clips are used to attach the board to the objects of choice. Once a user taps the items, input is relayed over to the computer, which identifies the Makey Makey unit as a generic USB keyboard or mouse.
“For example, a banana. When you touch the banana the Makey Makey GO sends the computer a keyboard or mouse message. The computer just thinks Makey Makey GO is a regular keyboard or mouse. Therefore it works with all programs and webpages, because all programs and webpages take keyboard and mouse input,” JoyLabz writes.
The thumbdrive-shaped gadget is compact enough to throw in any bag, pack into any bracelet or link to any keychain, while transforming ordinary things into Internet-connected touch pads while out and about. If a Maker has an idea that calls for more than one button, simply plug in another. What’s more, a pair of capacitive touch buttons can be found between the USB stick and the alligator clip attachment — one is a play button to activate the board, the other to switch the type of input to the computer.
“It’s a simple tool-slash-toy that allows beginners and experts to make countless art, music, engineering, and science projects. It comes ready to use out of the box with no setup and no installations,” its creators note. “We redesigned Makey Makey Classic to focus it down to its absolute bare essentials: a single capacitive sensor input with a single alligator clip that can pretend to be any key or a mouse click. Then we gave it a magnet, a keyring, and shrunk it down so small that it fits anywhere.”
Following in the footsteps of its older brother, the Makey Makey GO is just about ready to wrap up its incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, which has garnered over $175,000 — well over its initial goal of $10,000. Delivery is expected to begin in November 2015.
Trying to land a job is tough. What if it became fun? Thanks to one group of Makers and a BLE Arduino, it can.
Led by designers Guillaume Beinat and Alexandre Suné of Tazas Project, a dozen graduate students from France’s École de Communication Visuelle Aquitaine created an immersive board game that highlights the experience of being a marketing agency intern.
The aptly-dubbed InternTrip game is based on a Blend Micro (ATmega32U4) and pairs with an iPhone to serve as its interface. As its name would imply, the project recreates the experience (or “trip”) of landing a job at a communications firm, from starting as an intern to landing a full-time position. The system relies on the use of the Arduino BLE chip to calculate a player’s position on the board and simultaneously relay the information over the mobile device.
The received coordinates enable the player to discover inside the walls of the agency by moving their smartphone over the exterior of the building, which in this case is the game board.
“From table football to the terrasse, passing by the coffee machine or the photocopier, they invite us to visit the agency, to talk with the team and to compete with our colleagues in head to head questionnaires about the world of advertising. This is your time, young, exploited interns, to take your revenge and land that job,” the team writes.
Pretty interesting concept, if you ask us. Watch the video below to see it in action! (Nice find, Arduino!)
Get your real-world Internet of Things ideas to market in days, not months.
As the next frontier of the Internet approaches, the IoT represents a compelling opportunity across a staggering array of applications. That’s why the team behind Zymbit has developed an end-to-end platform of hardware and software devices that will enable Makers, engineers and developers alike to transform their ideas into real-world products in blistering speed.
In an effort to deliver secure, open and interactive gadgets for our constantly-connected era, Zymbit is hoping that latest set of solutions will help accelerate adoption and interface with our physical world in a more secure, authenticated manner. The company — who we had the chance to meet at CES 2015 and will be on display in our Maker Faire booth — recently unveiled its Zymbit 1 (Z1), which is being billed as the first fully-integrated piece of IoT hardware that provide users with local and remote live data interaction, along with a low-power MCU, battery-backed operation.
“Z1’s motherboards incorporate some of the latest secure silicon from Atmel, providing accelerated processing of standard open security algorithms. A separate supervisor MPU takes care of security, while you take care of your application,” explained Zymbit CTO Alex Kaay.
Based on the Atmel | SMART SAM D21, the Z1 motherboard is electronically robust with enhanced security provided via an ATECC108 crypto engine and an ATWINC1500 Wi-Fi controller — meaning, no additional parts are necessary. Ideal for those developing next-gen IoT projects, the modular board is super customizable and compatible with Atmel Xplained Pro wingboards, Arduino shields, Raspberry Pi B+, as well as ZigBee, cellular and POE options. The Zymbit team has even implemented discretely controlled blocks to simplify coding and to secure remote device management, while advanced power management supports battery, solar and POE operations.
The Z1 integrates all of the key components required to support a generation of global IoT applications. This includes easily transitioning between Arduino, Atmel and Raspberry Pi designs, integrated open software tools for seamless innovation, as well as a choice of wireless communication. For instance, Makers can design and implement their programs using the Zymbit’s Arduino Zero app processor and take advantage of a vast number of Arduino shields. Or, developers can connect their Raspberry Pi to utilize the various Zymbit services via SPI bus, allowing their B+ module to interact with a wide-range of “things.”
The unique Zymbit architecture delivers three key pillars of security: authenticated data source with 72-bit ID serial number, protected data transmission with SHA 256 and private data transmission via a Wi-Fi embedded AES engine. This is accomplished through a dedicated hardware crypto engine that ensures only trusted data is exchanged between devices.
At the heart of Z1’s operation lies a network/Linux CPU, the Atmel | SMART SAMA5D4 MPU, tasked with its secure communication. Meanwhile, its security processes run within a supervisory, ultra low-power Atmel | SMART SAM L21 MCU, separately from its SAM D21 Cortex-M0+ I/O application MCU. This hardware is all housed inside a dynamically-constructed case, which features standard expansions and mounts perfect for any consumer, commercial or industrial applicable IoT product.
Adding to its already impressive list of capabilities, Zymbit comes with a remote manager that makes it easy to connect and manage gizmos both securely and with transparency. This service enables users to SSH to their devices, whether they are on your desk or across the country. Publishing through Zymbit’s Pub/Sub Engine lets developers collect and share data one-to-one or one-to-many, with or without subscriber authentication. As you can imagine, this opens up an assortment of project possibilities, which range from changing Philips Hue color lighting with data streams to monitoring key parameters of a refrigeration system.
“We are providing some standard dashboard widgets that allow you to quickly view your device performance metrics and data-channels. Initially we are supporting time series charting, together with plugin metrics for Raspberry Pi, and Arduino Yún,” the team writes.
This wearable sensor platform allows you to harness the power of muscle signals.
Using our muscles to control the world around us is something we are all accustomed to — whether that’s pushing buttons on TV remotes, pulling door handles or toggling game joysticks. But what if we could take those things out of the equation? In other words, what if you could remove the middleman by harnessing your muscle’s electrical activity, amplifying it and then converting it into a form that can be used to command an Arduino, a robot or an assortment of everyday devices?
Measuring muscle activity by detecting its electric potential is commonly referred to as electromyography, or EMG. The process has traditionally been employed throughout the medical industry, albeit not so much the hobbyist crowd. However, with the advent of the Maker Movement paired with rise of ever-shrinking yet more powerful microcontrollers, EMG circuits and sensors have found their way into all kinds of control systems. And so, MyoWare was born.
Now in its fourth iteration, the wearable muscle sensor platform enables users to measure the filtered and rectified electrical activity of a muscle. Simply stick the MyoWare sensor on a few electrodes and place onto a person’s skin. When the brain tells their muscle to flex, it will send an electrical signal to that muscle to start recruiting motor units — these are those groups of muscle fibers responsible for generating force strength.read the voltage out and start pumping up those muscles. The more a wearer flexes, the more motor units are recruited to generate greater muscle force. The greater the number of motor units, the more the muscle electrical activity increases. MyoWare then analyzes this electrical activity and outputs an analog signal that represents how hard the muscle is being flexed.
The latest version of the platform allows the sensors to be plugged directy into a 3.3V–5V development board, like an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), and eliminates those pesky wires by letting Makers easily snapping the embedded electrodes onto MyoWare. Advancer Technologies has also added a secondary output for RAW EMG waveform, an on-board on/off switch and a pair of LEDs that will serve as a power indicator as well as a gauge for muscle flexing.
As any Maker knows, extending capabilities is key when a project is under development. And so, the team admittedly decided to take a page from the highly-popular Arduino platform’s playbook and incorporate shields into MyoWare. These modular boards consist of a cable shield for when embedded snaps are not suitable, a proto shield with tons of through hole pins, a power shield with two 20mm coin cell batteries to give MyoWare all of the juice it needs to operate, and a meter shield.
“The Mighty Meter Shield is what got us really excited about the prospect of shields. This shield takes the MyoWare output and lights up an LED bar depending on how hard you flex. The harder you flex; the more bars will light up. It even holds a 20mm coin battery so you can just stick shield+sensor assembly on your muscle and start flexing,” the team writes.
What’s more, the startup has been providing its sensors to several organizations to enable a range of impressive projects that are truly making a difference in this world. Take Limbitless Solutions for example, who has been able to craft 3D-printed myoelectric prosthetic arms and donate them to children in need. During their crowdfunding campaign, Advancer Technologies has committed to donating one sensor a child for every five backers of $25 or more.
Maker replicates California’s earthquake warning and monitoring system using littleBits, Ruby and PubNub.
In the wake of the tragic 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Anmol Agrawal decided to create a mini earthquake warning and monitoring system using littleBits, Ruby and PubNub.
As the the Maker notes, this DIY solution — which also happens to be among the latest entries in this year’s Hackaday Prize — could be be employed to detect both earthquakes and tsunami in prone areas.
“My initial approach was to get some data through online resource like meteorological survey websites, as they are the ones with access to all the sensors, devices, machines, seismographs etc. to keep track of earthquake activities. I planned on getting that data continously and running the logic continously like if earthquake is more than 5.3 richter scale, send the warning,” Agrawal writes.
He decided to take this one step further by creating a system specifically for India. This was accomplished by acquiring the data of seismic activity for the country, which was completed by crawling the India Meteorological Department’s earthquake report every 10-20 seconds.
The Maker adds, “Although that is a very inefficient method but I still wrote the script. I got it working but then I thought, is the data updated on the page in real-time or after couple of hours? If the earthquake comes somewhere at 6pm and it’s getting updated on the site at 8pm, then that data is of no use.”
After some research, Agrawal came across the earthquake early warning system currently in use in California, and decided to replicate it with an Arduino littleBits module (ATmega32U4), Ruby and PubNub. He employed a littleBits pressure sensor to create the earthquake effect based on the strength of his finger’s touch and a bright LED to serve as the warning signal. The data is continuously measured, streamed and sent to PubNub using a dashboard created with Freeboard.io.
“To give an idea of how fast this system is, in recent the Nepal Earthquake, it would have given a three-five minute early warning to Kathmandu and surrounding cities as epicenter was only 70-140km away from them,” he concludes.
