8-bit turkey, anyone?

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Most people prefer their Thanksgiving turkey stuffed. Well, engineers like it embedded.

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Who’s ready for the IoT? The Internet of Turkeys, that is. As everything around us becomes connected, engineers have seemingly found countless ways to embed technology into once-ordinary objects to make them smart. And well, Collin Cunningham has proven that there really is nothing that can’t be enhanced with the help of an Arduino, not even poultry. Introducing the 8-bit TurkeyShield.

Several years ago, the Maker decided to embellish the holiday centerpiece by stuffing it with a plethora of technology. This included an Arduino Duemilanove (ATmega168), a potentiometer for user input, an accelerometer for knowing its bearings, a compass so it’s always facing due north, a lithium backpack for power and mobility, as well as an LCD screen. He even went as far as wiring on a TouchShield Stealth (ATmega645) for output.

“I’m always looking out for new ways to add more shields and components to my Arduino, and this felt like a natural (and festive) experiment, so I gave it a shot,” Cunningham explains.

He also threw on a knob for toggling (admittedly this didn’t work) and a button, which enables him to know exactly when the turkey is ready to eat. Now, he can easily monitor vital orientation data with the help of the LCD display.

In true Maker spirit, Cunningham has made his project open source and has outlined his entire build here. Gobble gobble!

Optimizing crop irrigation with Arduino

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To optimize crop yield, this group of Makers developed an Arduino-based irrigation system that uses sensors and a weather station.

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As part of a recent hackathon in Madrid, one team of Makers created a grid system to optimize crop field irrigation through an array of soil moisture sensors and a weather station.

Crop Squares (inspired by alien crop circles) was initially conceived as a way to make the irrigation process both sustainable and efficient by continuously reading and sending sensor data. However, the ultimate goal is that that one day, the system can implemented in developing countries and rural areas with scarce resources.

For its prototype, the group employed an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328) along with moisture sensors in potted plants to detect moisture levels, and a Raspberry Pi was used to garner weather data for the area under surveillance. Meanwhile, data was wirelessly transmitted through an ESP8266 Wi-Fi module. As a way to show off its automated potential, an Arduino Leonardo (ATmega32U4) was tasked with reading another moisture probe and activating a servo motor that pushed up a water bottle to perform the irrigation process, whenever levels dipped below a predefined threshold.

The project features a graphical touchscreen user interface running Dizmo software that shows a map of the field along with collected sensor measurements. Rectangles assigned to each soil sensor change their colors (green, yellow and red) depending on moisture levels. According to its creators, the display could even share weather station results for that area in real-time.

On the backend, the Makers compiled Node.js runtime and installed the Node-RED workflow tool to deliver sensor information via the IBM Bluemix IoTF MQTT Broker. They also wrote Python scripts based on Adafruit’s libraries to read data from the weather station sensors and broadcast them through MQTT.

Intrigued? Check out their entire project here.

This wearable device lets you feel virtual reality

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Impacto is an Arduino-driven device designed to render the haptic sensation of hitting and being hit in virtual reality.

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Virtual reality has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, and is poised to become the next big thing in gaming. Even with major brands like Oculus and Samsung helping lead the charge to a more immersive experience, there’s still one thing missing though: haptic feedback. In other words, being able to feel what is happening as if you’re actually there inside the augmented world.

That may soon change, however, thanks to researchers from Hasso Plattner Institute’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab. The team has developed working prototypes of a device they call Impacto, which is capable of rendering the sensation of hitting and being hit through tactile and electrical muscle simulation.

Impacto is integrated into a wireless band that can be worn around the arm, leg or foot of a virtual reality user, and when combined with a VR headset and custom software, simulates contact on the wearer so that they can actually touch virtual objects or feel if they’ve been struck.

To demonstrate the system, the team selected various VR sports games, including boxing and soccer. All the examples employed an Impacto for haptic feedback, an Oculus Rift for visuals and a Kinect for tracking. While boxing, the user sported the gadget around the bicep along wit  an additional solenoid unit mounted to the back of the hand. This allowed the participant to actually experience the impact of jabs, blows and blocks from the virtual opponent. In the other use case, the Impacto was thrown around the user’s calves enabling him to juggle an imaginary soccer ball with his foot.

“The key idea that allows the small Impacto device to simulate a strong hit is that it decomposes the stimulus. It renders the tactile aspect of being hit by tapping the skin using a solenoid; it adds impulse to the hit by thrusting the user’s arm backwards using electrical muscle stimulation. Both technologies are small enough for wearable use,” the team of Pedro Lopes, Alexandra Ion and Patrick Baudisch explained in their research paper.

As for its hardware, Impacto is equipped with an Arduino Pro Micro (ATmega32U4), a Bluetooth module, an EMS unit, a solenoid, electrodes and batteries. The MCU and EMS are both powered through a 9V regulator, while the solenoid is driven directly from the 22.2V battery. Optionally, the solenoid power can be regulated down to 20V via another adjustable voltage regulator.

Intrigued? Watch the project in action below, or read all about it in its official paper here.

Don’t try this at home: A knife-wielding tentacle

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Now, who wants to take a ‘stab’ at turning this off? 

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While some Makers like to think outside the box, others prefer to mount a servo-driven tentacle to a box. In what may surely be one of the most abstract (and dangerous) DIY gadgets of all-time, YouTuber “OutaSpaceMan” has developed a mechanism that flails a Swiss Army knife around in the air.

We all know what you’re wondering, why a knife bot? According to his video description, he built the device “to amuse those who may be bored. Just right now I think the world needs a laugh.”

The aptly named littleBits Arduino Knife-Wielding Tentacle consists of an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560), a littleBits Proto Module and a servo motor, which together create a mechanical arm that randomly slashes and stabs through the air. Meanwhile, the project is running the Blink Without Delay Arduino sketch.

Okay, so now the better question: How the heck do you turn this thing off? Kids, don’t try this at home. 

This autonomous robot feeds on filthy water

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The Row-bot is a self-powered robot that can eliminate pollutants and contaminants from water.

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Don’t expect to find the tiny robot pictured below swimming in any bathtub or pool anytime soon; in fact, you won’t probably won’t find it in any clean body of water. That’s right, the Row-bot thrives on pollution — the more, the merrier.

Inspired by beetles and other insects like the water boatmen bug who feed off nutrients found in the dirty water it swims in, researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have developed an autonomous machine with hopes of eliminating pollutants and other dangerous contaminants.

When it is hungry, the Row-bot opens its soft robotic mouth and rows forward to fill its microbial fuel cell (MFC) stomach with nutrient-rich dirty water. It then closes its mouth and slowly digests the nutrients, before using the bio-degradation of organic matter to generate electricity via bio-inspired mechanisms. That same electrical energy keeps the Row-bot propelling to a new location for another gulp of H2O.

In order to produce the most efficient movement possible, the researchers tried to mimic the water boatman whose legs are covered by swimming hairs that span laterally to maximize drag during the power stroke and collapse to minimize drag during the recovery stroke. But whereas the insect has hair-covered legs, the Row-bot’s propulsion mechanism is comprised of a 3D-printed paddle powered by a tiny 0.75 watt brushed DC motor.

Row-bot consists of a 3D-printed composite structure with a rigid frame supporting an elastic membrane — each paddle is stretched out to increase the paddle surface area during the power stroke. The membrane has a hinge that changes the angle of attack on the part of the paddle that remains underwater during the recovery stroke to reduce its frontal area, and therefore, its drag.

This robot has plenty of practical applications, such as remote sensing and environmental monitoring. Row-bot can be used in any kind of water, from fresh to salt to waste water. For instance, they can be thrown in a polluted pond and rove for months, while feeding on the filth and cleaning as they go.

“The work shows a crucial step in the development of autonomous robots capable of long-term self-power. Most robots require re-charging or refuelling, often requiring human involvement,” explains Jonathan Rossiter, Professor of Robotics at the University of Bristol and BRL.

Just think of the possibilities… Head over to the Row-bot’s official paper here to read more.

Solar-OSE is an open source steam generator

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One team of Makers have developed a way to create clean, free heat or steam by harnessing the power of the sun.

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Although using solar energy to create steam isn’t exactly a groundbreaking idea, one team of French Makers has its sights set on doing things a little bit different. Created as part of the Open Source Écologie initiative, Solar-OSE is a linear Fresnel reflector that collects clean and inexhaustible energy from the sun to generate heat up to 480°F (250 °C) and eventually vaporize.

Ideally, its reduced size lends itself to applications throughout smaller industries as well as by folks like farmers and artisans. Solar-OSE is designed specifically to power industrial and craft processes such as cooking, sterilization, pasteurization, extraction of essential oils, water purification and heating, to name just a few.

Impressively, the project only takes about a week to be assembled, from start to finish, by a group of four individuals at a cost of no more than $2,200.

Solar-OSE is comprised of multiple mirror strips at the base of its structure, each controlled by an Arduino, to reflect rays onto a central pipe filled with water. What’s more, it can automatically track the sun and ensure that the maximum amount of energy is being captured.

The solar heat energy can be used directly without any conversion, thus allowing a very high energy efficiency. By combining a motor to the Solar-OSE, it could also be used for electric cogeneration, refrigeration and compressed air.

“We dream of a near future where a large part of current industrial production would be performed locally, using renewable energy. Today, heat represents two thirds of the total energy needs of the European industry market. Our Solar-OSE therefore concerns many production processes currently consuming fossil fuels,” its creators explain.

Solar-OSE was recently demonstrated at POC21 — an eco-hacking conference held inside a French castle — and its build process has been made available in an exhaustive step-by-step tutorial.

[h/t MAKE:]

Measure the air quality in your backyard

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Zymbit is measuring the air quality underneath a flight path with a custom sensor board, Arduino Zero and Raspberry Pi. 

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Our friends at Zymbit are located in Santa Barbara, not too far from the county’s municipal airport. Residents of their local community were a bit concerned over how flight patterns overhead affected their environment and overall health. And so, the team decided to develop a system to easily monitor the air quality in their backyards to determine once and for all if their well-being was, in fact, was impacted by airplane departures and arrivals.

For this project, Zymbit built and deployed five air quality stations, each tasked with measuring different air quality parameters using the combination of commercial grade sensors, Raspberry Pi and Arduino. These units were then connected through Zymbit’s proprietary software to generate real-time charts. The data is further integrated into environmental analysis software from Groundswell Technologies, too. This allows the Santa Barbara residents to essentially “see the air they breathe.”

The complete system is attached to a modified solar radiation shield crowned with an IP67 enclosure, while all the sensors are mounted to a custom motherboard. Sensor data is acquired using an Arduino Zero (Atmel | SMART SAM D21) located within the top tier of the radiation shield. From there, data is packaged and sent to a Raspberry Pi via a serial connection, which is external to its waterproof IP65 housing. As Zymbit notes, this way the heat is properly dissipated and does not affect sensor measurements.

Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi acts as the connection gateway and publishes the packaged data to zymbit.com/console. For immediate purposes, data flow is unidirectional — meaning, the unit is not subscribing to any outside streams, though this could easily be integrated. Additionally, with room to spare in the Raspberry Pi enclosure, the Zymbit crew added a PoE (Power Over Ethernet) splitter for versatility. This makes installation simple and improves overall reliability since the unit only requires a single cable connection and POE can handle wide line voltage variations. The user can then choose either a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. Of course, a USB cable will also work to power the unit.

At the heart of the air quality station lies a custom designed sensor board that integrates multiple sensor types, such as particulate matter, carbon dioxide, relative humidity, temperature and barometric pressure.

“The particulate sensor was the primary driver for the board’s design; it uses a small convection heater to circulate air and this requires the module to be oriented vertically,” Zymbit’s Evan Fairchild explains. “The particulate matter sensor has two channels; one for ~ 2.5 micron particles and one for ~ 10 micron particles. Each channel produces pulses which are measured and accumulated over thirty second intervals. The other sensors are managed via I2c bus and are all averaged over 15 second intervals.”

Once data is published, it is stored in the Zymbit Cloud. There, it is easy to interact with using instant dashboards or the Zymbit API. For this application, the engineers at Groundswell Technologies — who also collaborated on this project — utilized the API to pull the raw data into their analysis and visualization software.

At the moment, five Zymbit air quality stations have been successfully deployed and are active in their area of interest. Impressively, each unit only required less than an hour to install and to begin receiving data.

“Data streams from each unit are now being integrated into Groundswell’s geospatial software,” its creators add.

Zymbit hardware is self-contained and designed to operate outdoors in a nominally shaded area. For the initial pilot, connection to the Internet is established via Wi-Fi or Ethernet to host building gateway/router. For subsequent projects, Zymbit has plans to provide options for solar power and cellular connection.

Interested? You can find all of the real-time data here, and learn all about the project on its official page.

Maker creates an Arduino lightning detector

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Now you can use an Arduino to detect lightning along with an approximate distance.

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Lightning is both beautiful and terrifying, and should generally be enjoyed indoors. You could watch the weather report to see what is on the horizon storm-wise, but if that’s not available, you can instead turn to your own personal lightning detector.

Texas-based engineer Kevin Palivec decided to build his own, based on the AS3935 lightning sensor. This sensor interfaces with an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), which provides the brains of the operation. The Arduino, in turn, is hooked up to a Nokia LCD display for output, as well as a few buttons in order to select the needed options. As seen in the video below, Palivec has designed a neat interface for his sensor, including a cloud that floats around onscreen.

As for the design’s functionality, Palivec claims that “the MOD-1016 can detect storm fronts up to 40km away, trigger interrupts on your microcontroller to let you know about weather events and changes in storm distance — you can even tell as storm fronts move closer and move further away.”

Pavilec does videography for a local high school football team, so besides being an interesting project, he could see this device being a useful tool for that endeavor. Perhaps, something like this could even be used for lightning photography, though one would need to engineer a way for it to interface with the camera’s shutter release.

Intrigued? Head over to the project’s page here.

Turn an image into a full-color edge-lit lithopane

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The Lit-O-Pane! 

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A lithopane is an etched or molded artwork in thin translucent porcelain that can only be seen clearly when backlit with a light source. Ryan Branch’s creation, the Lit-O-Pane, however is something much different, involving more colors, an Arduino, RGB LEDs and several panes of acrylic. It might not be immediately obvious from the video below what’s going on, but the idea behind it is really neat, and took a lot of experimentation to perfect.

To make this ‘Pane, red, green, blue, and white from a single picture were separated out using the GIMP image manipulation program to form four images. These separate images were then etched with a laser onto their respective panes. Each pane was lit up the correct color, and when one looks through the four panes together, a coherent image containing all the colors is produced. A separate white pane is needed because combining the three colored panes didn’t display white as needed.

An Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) is used in this assembly to control the NeoPixel RGB LEDs because the colors need to be adjusted slightly depending on the image. Using a microcontroller makes things really convenient adjustment-wise, since instead of having to play with resistors, a value can simply be programmed in as needed. Branch warns that you shouldn’t program this device with the LEDs hooked up, as you could end up drawing excessive power from your computer’s USB port.

Intrigued? Head over to Branch’s project page here.

RumBot is a party machine that makes drinks in seconds

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Simply place your cup on any of its five locations and a pre-programmed recipe will begin dispensing.

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If you plan on hosting a holiday party in the coming weeks and anticipate a decently-sized turnout, you may want to check out this project from Alex Bucella. The Wake Forest University student has developed an drink-making robot that’s capable of dispensing up to five different cocktails at the same time.

RumBot is equipped with a set of five reflective optical sensors, each represented by a different drink. Whenever a cup is placed on one of these sensors, the machine is triggered and a pre-programmed recipe begins dispensing the beverage of choice into your mug in as little as three seconds.

Drink selection is handled by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), which communicates via simple digital I/O with an all-in-one servo motor. This moves the nozzle into place, and then controls the on-time of five pumps to begin pouring the cocktail. RumBot’s frame is comprised of wood and several 3D-printed plastic parts.

One of its most notable features, however, is the strength knob in the top righthand corner. This old-fashioned interface allows you to select the alcohol level of a particular drink — from “virgin” (none) to “lightweight” to “problem” (you’ll probably need a DD). Any recipe can be accommodated, too.

The source code is written to dispense a variety of mixes, including a Hurricane, a Daiquiri, a Bolo Lemon, a Bolo Lime and Bucella’s special concoction. Impressively, the Maker estimates that this nifty device could keep a party of 100-plus people going without anyone having to wait in line.

Intrigued? Head over to the 2014 Hackaday Prize quarterfinalist’s page here, or watch the Maker provide an overview of the project below.