Hear the sound of 300 stars with Arduino

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Artist Francesco Fabris created a sonic representation of stars and constellations through a dedicated interface.

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Unlike some science fiction movies would have you believe, there is no sound in space. With this fact in mind Francesco Fabris created Stellar. This interactive art installation was designed to be “a sonic representation of stars and constellations through a dedicated interface.”

This project takes the form of a cylinder with several important constallations represented below its transparent cover. Inside this cover are two robotic arms which are controlled by hand motions via a non-contact sensors and an Arduino Uno (ATmega328). These arms are used to select the star that is seen and heard.

Once selected, several aspects of that star are analyzed, including temperature, brightness (as seen from Earth), distance (from Earth), frequency, amplitude and duration. These statistics are then represented and displayed as a sound and color. The video below shows the installation in action, or you can check out the “making of” video at the end for more insight into this project.

“The project has been developed using Arduino and Max7 software,” Fabris explains. “Data of more than 300 stars and 44 constellations have been stored from the open-source software Stellarium.org, and coded to interact with the robotic arms.”

In addition to Fabris, several other people helped make Steller a reality: Patrycja Maksylewicz, Przemysław Koleszka and Eloy Diez Polo. It looks like this was a huge undertaking, involving quite a bit of programming, and a lot of work at the project’s location to get everything set up.

Hacking a rotary phone into a recorder and playback machine

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Rotary X turns an old-school device into a modern-day question and answer machine.

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For you youngsters out there, touch tone phones were an interesting piece of technology that used a rotary dial to create a certain number of on-off pulses. This told the phone company what phone number you, literally, dialed. Though this technology was phased out beginning in the 1960s, these resilient devices could still be found many years later. They can also be purchased and turned into something else. As Maker Lizzy Brooks puts it, “Like a lot of analog technology, rotary phones operate with a series of high/low switches that can easily be wired into an Arduino for programming adventures.”

In this case, Brooks is referring to her Rotary X question and answer machine. The guts of this phone are hooked up to an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) which interfaces with a hidden PC to state questions and record responses, controlled by the pulses generated by the rotary dial. Or, as the video below puts it, it’s “magic.”

In addition to wiring the dial and hook switch up to the Arduino, Brooks had to create a new electromagnet for the ringer by simply wrapping insulated wire around the bolt that held the orignal magnet. The microphone and speaker in the phone’s headset were replaced with a microphone scavenged from an earbud set, and a headphone speaker. Brooks notes that, although she used a PC, one could probably use an Arduino audio shield and forgo the PC altogether.

Looking ahead, the Maker is also hoping to add a sensor so it can ring whenever someone approaches, and to connect to the Internet so that it can react to various API data (like ring as you receive a tweet).

If you’d like to try something like this yourself, the Rotary X Arduino and Processing files are available online, and more info on wiring these old phones can be found on Andrew Stella’s “audio_maelstrom” blog.

 

This automated typewriter takes dictation

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See what happens when a Maker adds voice recognition to her old Smith Corona. 

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Long before the days of laptops and tablets, there existed a thing called “the typewriter” much like the Smith Corona owned by YouTuber Zip Zaps. For decades, this device was a fixture in offices throughout the world along with its respective secretary donning a headset. These employees would listen to recordings on tiny micro-casettes and proceed to turn their bosses’ spoken words into print.

No question that the times have changed, but rather than discard her obsolete piece of equipment, Zip Zaps decided to automate the process of converting dictation into words. The Maker notes that she made it a point to interface with the typewriter in a way that a user typically would. In other words, hitting the keys from above and using the return arm to advance a new line.

To accomplish this, she retrofitted her Smith Corona with 24 servos powered by a Pololu servo controller, a Big Easy Driver board and an Arduino. Half of those servos are responsible for moving a small actuator down onto the keys, while the second half move the others above the correct row of the keyboard. Beyond that, the carriage return lever is actuated by a stepper motor, linear rail and giant plastic lever.

The entire system is controlled by a little code she wrote herself, while the speech-to-text conversion is handled by Windows’ built-in voice recognition. As impressive as this may sound, you’ve got to see it in action!

[h/t Hackaday]

 

Coolest dorm room of all-time?

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Inspired by Derek Low’s Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm, one undergrad at Rice University decided to add some smarts to his room as well.

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During his freshman year at UC Berkeley, which as you could tell by the old tunes of Justin Bieber tunes in the video below dates back to 2012, Derek Low set out to create the most ridiculously automated dorm room in the school ever. After working diligently on the project for three months and shelling out several hundred dollars, BRAD (the Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm) came to fruition. The student outfitted his living quarters with remote-controlled lighting, music and curtains, voice activation, as well as a number of other features like a low-light ‘romance mode’ and a ‘party mode’ complete with a fog machine, strobe lights and disco ball.

The now four-year-old project recently inspired another college student to pursue something similar. Rice University undergrad Jordan Pole built a modular system — aptly dubbed RRAD — employing three NRF24L0+ transceivers, two Arduino Nanos (ATmega328) and a Raspberry Pi. The setup consisted of three different types of nodes: actuation (for switching relays and solenoids), sensory (for measuring and reporting room brightness, temperature and motion), and hub (for hosting the control panel, recording room data, providing an external interface for live updates and coordinating information between the other two nodes). What’s more, the hub also allows Poles to manage things throughout his dorm using an Android phone with Tasker.

To no surprise, this neat project went on to become a quarterfinalist in last year’s Hackaday Prize. Since then, Poles has been developing an improved automation system, equipped with voice recognition. You can read all about it here.

Add a touchscreen to your oscilloscope

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This Maker replaced his oscilloscope’s knobs and buttons with a touch interface. 

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Igor, the author of the “More Than User” blog, decided that his unwieldy button and knob interface on his oscilloscope wasn’t good enough. He chose to enhance it with a touchscreen ripped out of a Preistigo 7” tablet, using an Arduino Nano (ATmega328) to convert these signals into something that the scope could understand.

This stated goal of this project was to “remove keyboard completely, instead add touch screen to control oscilloscope.” As seen in the video below, the project is a success, and Igor can control quite a few scope parameters with the press of an onscreen button or the swipe of a finger. As he puts it, he “managed to emulate keyboard data with ATmega328, then I just mapped all the codes that was used to control DSO [digital storage oscilloscope], and bascially that’s all.”

Despite his humble description of the project, actually implementing this solution involved quite a bit of work. The COM port wasn’t working correctly, so he had to find and analyze the keyboard interface pins and revers-engineer the protocol for it. He recommends getting a logic analyzer for tasks like this, as the job will be much easier, especially since he was working on the same scope that he was using for analysis!

If that weren’t enough, the touchscreen itself had to be set up, including multiple broken component issues that had to be dealt with. In the end, it now works well, and is mounted on a nice wooden stand. The Nano is displayed proudly on the front, with wires radiating toward the touchscreen, which should be useful for troubleshooting and modification in the future!

Mirrored pyramid creates mirages in the desert

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Changes in the temperature and light cause this tower’s nine tiers to morph.

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As reported on WIRED, “For a few days in October, a ziggurat of mirrored boxes stood in Dasht-e Kavir, a desert in central Iran. The sculpture contained sensors, gears, and an Arduino processor that sensed changes in the temperature and the light, which caused the tower’s nine tiers to spin independently.” The resulting views of the desert, seen simultaneously from each mirrored surface, are beautiful and ominous at the same time.

This ziggurat was constructed by Italian designer Gugo Torelli and Iranian artist Shirin Abedinirad. As shown on the project’s Flickr page, they used an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560), along with five motor shields to control a total of nine stepper motors. The frame and gears were constructed out of wood, before the exterior was covered in a reflective surface.

If you want to see this tower yourself, there are plans to take this tower to New York City, which would make it accessible for many more people. According to Abedinirad’s site, “When installed in a city location it reacts with different animation patterns to the audience interaction, when placed in a natural environment its movement are changing depending on the weather conditions.” It would seem that city observers may see a different behavior out of the tower, but hopefully it will still be incredible!

[Image: Gugo Torelli and Shirin Abedinirad]

This coat is heated by an Arduino

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Odisseo is the winter jacket you wish you had…

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A blast of bitter cold arctic air has brought the coldest temperatures in decades to some cities throughout the Northeast. As wind chills dip well below 0°F and bundling up in layers won’t do the trick, how great would it be to have a stylish jacket with a built-in heating unit to keep you warm?

This is exactly what an Italian team of of physical computing students did back in 2014. Dubbed Odisseo, the Italian name for Odysseus, the coat is powered by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) and comes with a complete set of IKEA-like instructions pinned to the inside flap.

The zipper activates a heating unit located inside the collar, while capacitive sensors detect when a wearer places his or her hands into their pockets to initiate additional warming.

An Arduino MPPT solar charger shield

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This Maker decided to build his own MPPT (maximum point of power tracking) charge controller.

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Lukas was asked by a friend for help on a solar project. Inspired by an Instructables article, this friend wanted to make (or inspire someone else to make) a system to charge a battery to provide power in his garden. Charging a battery might seem like a simple task, but the a panel’s varying voltage output levels present a challenge. If this voltage spikes at too high of a level, there is a risk of damaging the battery.

If this over-voltage condition were constant, a DC-DC converter, commonly known as a “buck converter” would be well-suited to make the needed voltage conversion. However, since it’s not constant, a “switching converter” would have to be used. Normally a switching converter cycles much faster than an Arduino would be able to handle, but since voltage levels change relatively slowly in this instance, an Arduino’s speed would be quite sufficient. Since this slower speed minimizes switching losses, it would actually be an advantage.

The project is well-documented here, including available design files. Once this neat converter was built, the second step was to test it out. Lukas reports that it does its job with an efficiency of over 95% in the voltage range of interest. He plans to talk about the software involved next, so hopefully we will get to see the entire charging station come together soon!

CowTech Ciclop is a $100 3D laser scanner

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Makers can produce high-quality scans for a fraction of the cost of other machines.

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Those who’ve ever wanted to copy a three-dimensional object without shelling out an arm and a leg for a professional-grade machine are in luck. That’s because Maker Jason Smith has developed an open source, RepRap 3D scanner. The best part? It’ll cost you less than $100.

According to its creator, the CowTech Ciclop boasts “a large scan volume, a simple yet elegant design, and a disruptive price point that blows any other laser scanner out of the water.” Inspired by the BQ Ciclop, this unit’s frame is comprised of sleek laser-cut acrylic and plastic components that users can easily fabricate themselves. Smith has also shrunken down the scanner’s footprint so it can be reproduced on even the smallest of printers.

“We wanted to make sure our product was usable for anyone who owns a 3D printer, so we meticulously designed our parts for a print bed volume of only 115mm x 110mm x 65mm (4.5 x 4.3 x 2.6in) so they can be produced on even the smallest of printers,” Smith adds.

Unlike some other DIY gadgets available today, the CowTech Ciclop is a scanner that employs two red line lasers, a camera and a rotating turntable. Not only can Makers create the CowTech Ciclop’s parts on their own 3D printer in any color and resolution, they can assemble the device in under 30 minutes. Once constructed, they can then take any item they wish to replicate, set it on the 200mm laser cut acrylic turntable, and begin the scanning process.

At this time, two redline lasers flash on the object as the turntable makes a complete revolution. A camera detects the location of each of the lines and stores them as points in the 3D space. A cloud of points is generated after the scan is complete, replicating the surface of the object with up to 0.5mm precision. That point cloud could then be utilized as a standalone or converted into a program like Meshlab and Cloudcompare.

As you would expect, the low-cost CowTech Ciclop kit has an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) for its brain, an Arduino shield for controlling a NEMA 17 stepper motor, a USB cord and a 1.5A power supply.

Sound like the DIY scanner you’ve been looking for? Head over to the CowTech Ciclop’s Kickstarter campaign, where the team is currently seeking $10,000. Delivery is slated for April 2016.

 

This Arduino-powered machine turns tweets into cocktails

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Who knew you could get drunk on data? 

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You’ve most likely read a tweet, you’ve probably even heard a tweet aloud, but chances are you’ve never tasted a tweet. But that may all soon change, because Clément Gault and Koi Koi Design have developed Data Cocktail, an Arduino-powered machine that whips up cocktails based on, you guessed it, Twitter activity.

Data Cocktail works by scouring the web for the five latest posts mentioning keywords that are linked to available ingredients, represented by differently colored bulbs. (The system will accept either words, hashtags and mentions.) These messages are then used to define the composition of the drink and fill the glass accordingly. The result is an original, crowdsourced concoction whose recipe can be printed out.

“If you’re wondering whether a tweet about Santa Claus in Winnipeg, Canada can take part in generating a cocktail in Nantes, we say yes! Data Cocktail is a machine but it doesn’t exclude a minimum of politeness,” its creators reveal. “Once the cocktail mix is realized, Data Cocktail will thank the tweeters who have, without knowing it, helped at realizing it.”

Its creators reveal that they can easily change the keywords, ingredients and proportions to suit specific events. Meaning, the robotic bartender can make drinks based on everything from election coverage (whether you’re experiencing a Trumpertantrum or feeling the Bern) to what’s trending at any particular moment.

In terms of software, Data Cocktail uses the Processing and Arduino programming languages. A first application, developed in Processing, pilots the device. The requests are performed using the Twitter4J library, while the app processes the data and commands the robotic gadget.

As for its electronics, Data Cocktail is comprised of a robot, solenoid valves and LEDs. The robot is built around a modified Pololu Zumo chassis with a motor shield, a Bluetooth module and an Arduino Pro (ATmega328). Meanwhile, the valves and lights are controlled by an Arduino Due (SAM3X8E) connected via USB.

Intrigued? Head over to the project’s page here, or watch it in action below.