This DIY mouthpiece allows those with disabilities to easily surf the web.
Out of more than 170 submissions, Maker Tobias Wirtl’s Mouth Operated Mousehas been named the winning entry in Thingiverse’s Assistive Technology Challenge.
After reading about difficulties those with disabilities face in accessing new technologies, Wirtl wanted to create an affordable and easily accessible device that could enable more people without the use of their arms and hands to navigate the Internet. Even better, the mouth-operated piece can be built for $20 using a 3D-printed case and off-the-shelf components — a mere fraction of the cost of commercial solutions on the market today.
“There are many new technologies that people with disabilities can’t access and in my opinion everyone should be able to benefit from today’s media, especially the Internet,” Wirtl explains.
The mouth-operated mouse moves the cursor by using a mouthpiece, which works like a joystick. Pushing the mouthpiece towards the case operates the right mouse button, while the left button is emulated by a $5 e-cigarette sensor that recognizes when the user sucks air through it. The system is all controlled by an Arduino Pro Micro (ATmega32U4) and can be connected to virtually any PC via USB.
This winning design follows in the footsteps of several other Maker projects, including Hackaday Prize champion Eyedrivomatic, that could ultimately change the lives of others.
These Makers channeled their inner Clark Griswold and adorned the outside of their homes with Arduino-based lighting.
“250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights… 25,000 lights. I dedicate this house to the Griswold Family Christmas…Drumroll, please…Drumroll…Jooooooy to the worldddd.”
Just days before all of your friends, loved ones and Santa arrive, Christmas and its twinkling light spectacles are well underway. And really, what could be more appropriate for Makers than a set of artfully strung, decorative LEDs controlled by an Arduino? For those looking to channel their inner Clark Griswold and adorn the outside of their home with hundreds of bulbs, here’s some holiday inspiration!
Over the years, a number of DIY enthusiasts have turned to the easy-to-use Arduino Uno (ATmega328), Yún (ATmega32U4) or Mega (ATmega2560) to drive their impressive displays — some of which would put “Sparky” to shame.
Then, there’s always that one neighbor who does their best to keep you from getting into the spirit. If you’re like Clark and have a Todd and Margo Chester of your own, you’ll get a kick out of what one Maker did to get back at those next door in a very subtle yet ingenious manner. Using an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), the Instructables user “ywyjrgrasc” decided to program his lights to blink an insulting phrase in Morse Code. (#GeekMode)
And for the Star Wars fans out there, this is an added bonus is for you. Although it may or may not be powered by an Arduino, this clip from ABC’s Great Christmas Light Fight will certainly awaken your holiday decorating force!
One Maker has built his own Internet-connected, voice-controlled robotic bartender with Arduino.
If you enjoy mixed drinks, but would rather not have to think about mixing them correctly, a robotic assistant could be quite helpful. Tony Marsico has had a vision of this kind of assistant since he got out of college, and finally got around to building it as his first Arduino-based project.
After some initial testing of how his peristaltic pumps worked on an Uno (ATmega328), Marsico attached five of them to a wooden frame, as well as an Aduino Yún (ATmega32U4) to control everything. A transistor array switched by outputs from Yún the drives the pumps.
The Yún is a little more expensive than some of the other Atmel-based boards on the market, but its built-in Wi-Fi capability made it quite conducive to connecting the device to the Internet. To allow for voice control, he used an Amazon Echo. This control scheme explained around 1:20 in the video below with a nice whitboard illustration. As he puts it, his device is an “Arduino-powered, voice-controlled, Internet-connected, electronic bartender.”
Possible future upgrades include an expanded ingredient capacity, as well as a website for the device that would include a BAC (blood alcohol content) leaderboard. This kind of information could be useful as an estimate, but it’s unlikely that a police officer would listen to any excuse involving the words, “My robot said it was OK.” Seriously, please robo-drink (and normal drink) responsibly!
Here’s a look at a bunch of boards that caught our attention over the last 12 months. Feel free to share your favorites below!
“Hardware becomes a piece of culture that anyone can build upon, like a poem or a song.” – Massimo Banzi
Arduino Zero
A 32-bit Arduino powered by the Atmel | SMART SAM D21.
Arduino Wi-Fi Shield 101
An IoT shield with CryptoAuthentication that enables you to wirelessly connect your Arduino or Genuino with ease.
Arduino MKR1000
A powerful board that combines the functionality of the Zero and the connectivity of the Wi-Fi Shield.
Atmel | SMART SAM L21
A game-changing family of Cortex-M0+ MCUs that deliver power consumption down to 35 µA/MHz in active mode and 200nA in sleep mode.
BTLC1000
An ultra-low power Bluetooth Smart SoC with an integrated ARM Cortex-M0 MCU and transceiver.
Atmel | SMART SAMA5D2
An ARM Cortex-A5-based MPU that offers great features integrated into lower pin count packages, making it ideal for applications where security, power consumption and space constraints are key considerations.
Atmel | SMART SAM S70/E70
An ARM Cortex-M7-based MCU with a floating point unit (FPU) that’s ideal for connectivity and general purpose industrial applications.
ATmegaS128
A space-ready version of the popular ATmega128.
Adafruit Feather
A new line of development boards that, like it’s namesake, are thin, light and let your ideas fly. Expect Feather to become a new standard for portable MCU cores.
Adafruit METRO 328
An ATmega328-driven processor packed with plenty of GPIO, analog inputs, UART, SPI and I2C, timers, and PWM galore – just enough for most simple projects.
Arduino GEMMA
A miniature wearable board based on the ATtiny85.
Adafruit Bluefruit LE Micro
A board that rolls the versatility of the ATmega32U4 and the wireless connectivity of the SPI Bluefruit LE Friend all into one.
SparkFun Stepoko
An Arduino-compatible, 3-axis control solution that runs grbl software.
SparkFun SAM D21 Breakout
An Arduino-sized breakout for the ATSAMD21G18.
Bosch Sensortec BMF055
A compact 9-axis motion sensor, which incorporates an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a magnetometer along with an Atmel | SMART SAM D20 ARM Cortex M0+ core.
BNO055 Xplained Pro
A new extension board, which features a BNO055 intelligent 9-axis absolute orientation sensor, that connects directly to Atmel’s Xplained board making it ideal for prototyping projects for IoT apps.
SmartEverything
A prototyping platform that combines SIGFOX, BLE, NFC, GPS and a suite of sensors. Essentially, it’s the Swiss Army knife for the IoT.
Qduino Mini
A tiny, Arduino-compatible board with a built-in battery connector and charger built-in, as well as a fuel gauge.
Tessel 2
A dev board with a SAM D21 coprocessor, reliable Wi-Fi, an Ethernet jack, two USB ports and a system that runs real Node.js/io.js.
LattePanda
A Windows 10 single-board computer equipped with an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 Cherry Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and an ATmega32U4 coprocessor.
LightBlue Bean+
An Arduino-compatible board that is programmed wirelessly using Bluetooth Low Energy.
Makey Makey GO
A thumbdrive-shaped device that can transform ordinary objects into touch pads.
Hak8or
An uber mini, DIY board based on an Atmel | SMART AT91SAM9N12 that runs Linux via a USB drive.
Modulo
A set of tiny modular circuit boards that takes the hassle out of building electronics.
Microduino mCookie
A collection of small, magnetically stackable modules that can bring your LEGO projects to life.
The AirBoard
A compact, open source, wireless and power efficient dev board designed to learn, sketch and deploy prototypes out in the field.
Autonomo
A matchbox-sized, Arduino-compatible MCU powered by a small solar panel.
Helium
An integrated platform that brings the power of the cloud to the edge of the network, enabling you to observe, learn and capture actionable insights from existing physical ‘things’ in your environment.
Sense HAT
An add-on for the Raspberry Pi equipped with a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a temperature sensor, a barometric pressure sensor and a humidity sensor, as well as a five-button joystick and an 8×8 RGB LED matrix — all powered by an LED driver chip and an ATtiny88 running custom firmware.
Ardhat
A HAT with an Arduino-compatible processor that responds quickly to real-time events, while letting the Raspberry Pi do all of the heavy lifting.
Wino
A cost-effective, Arduino-compatible board with built-in Wi-Fi.
pico-Platinchen
A little board designed for wearable devices that features a BNO055, an ATmega328P and a CR2032 coin-cell battery.
XeThru X2M200 and X2M300
A pair of adaptive smart sensor modules that can monitor human presence, respiration and other vital information.
LinkIt Smart 7688 Duo
An Arduino Yún-friendly platform powered by an ATmega32U4 and MediaTek MT7688 SoC.
Piccolino
A small, inexpensive controller with an embedded OLED display and Wi-Fi connectivity that you can program using existing tools like the Arduino IDE.
ZeroPi
A next-generation, Arduino and Raspberry Pi-compatible dev kit for robotic motion structure systems and 3D printers that boasts an Atmel | SMART SAM D21 at its core.
CryptoShield
A dedicated security peripheral for the Arduino and was made in collaboration with SparkFun’s previous hacker-in-residence, Josh Datko. This shield adds specialized ICs that perform various cryptographic operations which will allow you to add a hardware security layer to your Arduino project.
ZYMKEY
An add-on board that makes it easy to secure your Raspberry Pi and Linux applications.
Flip & Click
A two-sided, Arduino-like board with an AT91SAM3X8E for its heart.
ChipWhisperer-Lite
An open source toolchain for embedded hardware security research including side-channel power analysis and glitching. The board uses a Spartan 6 LX9, along with a 105 MS/s ADC, low-noise amplifier, an Atmel | SMART SAM3U chip for high-speed USB communication, MOSFETs for glitch generation and an XMEGA128 as a target device.
KeyDuino
An Arduino Leonardo-like board with built-in NFC that lets you replace your keys with any smartphone, NFC ring or proximity card.
Neutrino
An inexpensive, open source and shrunken-down version of the Arduino Zero that boasts a 32-bit ATSAMD21G18 running at 48MHz and packing 32K of RAM.
WIOT
An open source, Arduino-compatible board with an ATmega32U4, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module and lithium-ion battery support.
Obscura
An ATmega32U4-powered, 8-bit synthesizer that enables you to create NES, C64 and Amiga-style chiptune music by simply connecting a MIDI device.
Zodiac FX
An OpenFlow switch that is powerful enough to develop world-changing SDN apps yet small enough to sit on your desk. Based on an Atmel | SMART SAM4E, the unit includes four 10/100 Fast Ethernet ports with integrated magnetics and indicator LEDs along with a command line interface accessible via USB virtual serial port.
Goldilocks Analogue
A board that brings sophisticated analog and audio input, output and storage capabilities to the Arduino environment.
NodeIT
A super small and expandable IoT system for Makers.
Pixel
A smart display that features an Atmel | SMART SAM D21 MCU operating at 48MHz and packing 32K of RAM, along with a 1.5” 128×128 pixel OLED screen and a microSD slot.
SDuino
An Arduino crammed inside an SD card.
… and how could we not mention this?
The WTFDuino!
Do you feel like today’s MCUs are too simple and sensible? Well, one Maker decided to take a different approach by “undesigning” the Arduino into a banana-shaped processor whose form factor is impossible to breadboard and whose pins are incorrectly labelled.
Simone Giertz is back — this time with a machine that can chop broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and just about anything.
Already equipped with several quirky machines that take care of most of her morning routine (from getting out of bed to brushing her teeth to feeding her breakfast), the innovative and always hilarious Simone Giertz has taken her ingenuity to the next part of the day: lunch.
That’s because the Maker, who happens to be a lifelong vegetarian, has developed a terrifyingly awesome Chopping Machine. And like her other inventions, the gadget was designed to automate a particular task that would otherwise require spending time and effort.
Why, you ask? “Because I’m lazy (?),” Giertz says. “I’ve spent a significant amount of time chopping, mincing and dicing all varieties of vegetables. Eating healthy is boring enough in itself, why does preparing healthy food have to be such a tedium?”
The Chopping Machine is exactly what it sounds like: a mechanism that can literally chop veggies. It consists of an Actobotics system, two knives and a pair of servo motors, all driven by an Arduino Nano (ATmega328).
The device itself is relatively simple, yet pretty dangerous nevertheless. (Translation: don’t try this at home!) Two servo motors lift the knife up and a spring at the bottom pulls it right back down. With it, Giertz can now slice broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and pretty much anything else… even the board itself.
Intrigued? Terrified? Fascinated? See it for yourself below!
If you like plants, but sometimes don’t remember to take care of them, you can always take the “easy” route and build your own custom watering and lighting box from scratch. Okay, so building something this involved might not actually be easy, but once it’s set up, Maker Peter Ward should be able to successfully ignore his plants until the box runs out of water.
For control, the aptly named Automatic Grow Boxuses an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) interfaced with an off-the-shelf household outlet timer. As diagrammed in his Instructables article, Ward found a suitable output bit from the timer to signal the Arduino at the appropriate times. This enables the box’s lighting to follow a set schedule, and even allows the plants (or possibly the humans) to sleep in and stay up later on the weekends. The box also has an RGB LED on the front to indicate the status of the plants and the box, including whether it’s too hot or cold, or if the tank needs more water.
According to Ward, he’s “neither am a carpenter, welder, electrician, programmer or gardener. Everything is self-taught and I can therefore understand that others have easier and better solutions.” Despite his modest comments, the build looks extremely good. On the other hand, one would need to be very cautious when dealing with water in close proximity to electronics if this inspires another build.
Your Master Lock has met its match, thanks to Samy Kamkar. That’s because the serial hacker devised a motorized, battery-powered, 3D-printed, Arduino-based mechanism that can crack any combination lock in less than 30 seconds.
KeySweeper
Another security project from Kamkar, this stealthy unit camouflages itself as a functioning USB wall charger and passively sniffs, decrypts, logs and reports back (over GSM) all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboards in the area.
JöLLY Tracker
Ad agency McKinney introduced a wearable of a different kind. It’s not a fitness tracker. It’s not a smartwatch. It’s an embedded Santa Claus beard that has one job, and one job only: to monitor how much you smile. Should you frown, it’ll emit a friendly little reminder in the form of an electric shock to your face.
Mjölnir Replica
Like Thor from The Avengers, engineer Allen Pan created his own real-life Mjölnir replica that only he could lift by using electromagnets, an Arduino Pro Mini and fingerprint scanners.
Railgun
Most commonly associated with the military or NASA, railguns are electromagnetic projectile launchers based on similar principles to the homopolar motor. David Wirth is neither a soldier or a rocket engineer. Instead, he’s simply a Maker who decided to build a Quake-like blaster with the help of 3D printing and some widely available components.
DIY Overhead Control Panel
Most of us rely on a keyboard and mouse to perform tasks on our computers. Not Redditor user “smashcuts.” Instead, the Maker constructed a fully-functional overhead control panel for his PC, complete with 100 programmable buttons and switches that trigger all kinds of actions, from the useful to the absurd.
True Love Tinder Robot
Just in case contemplating age, location and looks is too daunting of a task, NYU ITP grad student Nicole He has developed a robot that can automatically swipe right or left based on your galvanic skin response.
3D-Printed Skittles Sorting Machine
Not a fan of yellow Skittles? Only enjoy the purple ones? Why waste your time sorting through the candy when there’s an automated machine that can do it for you? That’s exactly what Nathan Peterson did. The Maker 3D-printed a gizmo capable of detecting the color of each Skittle and then spitting them out in different repositories for easy picking.
Protopiper
Tired of always trying to decide whether or not a piece of furniture will fit inside in your living room? For those times where a tape measure will just not suffice, one group of researchers have built a handheld gadget that can actually sketch room-sized objects at scale, in minutes.
Open Source Snow Plow Robot
With winter quickly approaching, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a machine that could do all that tedious shoveling for you — without ever having to step foot outside? Boris Landoni thought so, too. The Maker developed a caterpillar robot that can be remotely operated via a PS2 controller.
Boombox Blaster
While not everyone may have the same taste in music, there are just some cases where we can’t help but to all agree that a tune is godawful. And with the countless stations on Internet radio, it’s bound to happen. This is what inspired the Neo-Pangea crew to dream up a creative project, which adds a gamification element to their boombox selection by turning a NERF target into their “skip” button.
Hairware
These hair extensions let wearers discreetly open applications, send preset messages and broadcast a person’s location.
Circular Knitic
Now this is what we call doin-knit-yourself!
VIDEOBLΛST_R
Spray-painted graffiti is so 2014. Just ask media artist R▲, the creator of a cyberpunk wearable device that enables you to project audiovisual art on a variety of objects and surfaces, ranging from the walls of buildings to the bottom of fire escapes.
Real-Life Space Invaders
Martin Raynsford, who happens to be co-owner of Just Add Sharks, chose to play a real world version of the classic arcade game with laser cutters. The paper invaders were clipped to a plate that used stepper motors for movement, while the 80W laser cutter is driven side-to-side by an Arduino Nano hooked up to a PC via USB.
Moon Phases
As a way to better visualize new, quarter and full moons, Makers Yingjie Bei and Yifan Hu’s interactive, turntable-like installation lets you input a date and see its corresponding moon phase.
BB-8 Replica
Right in time for the debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, robot enthusiast and prop-builder James Burton devised his own Bluetooth-controlled, Arduino-driven BB-8 droid.
Camera Restricta
Looking to put an end to touristy photos, Philipp Schmitt has developed a new type of ‘smart’ camera that determines its location via GPS and then combs through online images that have been geotagged in the same place. If the device decides that too many images have been taken at your location, it retracts the shutter and blocks the viewfinder, disabling you from taking any more pictures there.
Open Sesame
MIT student Dheera Venkatraman figured out a way to unlock an Internet-connected door by simply saying the words “open sesame” into his Android Wear smartwatch.
Cover That Judges You
Have you ever judged a book by its cover? Well, Dutch artist Thijs Biersteker and creative studio Moore turned the tables on the old-school idiom with a book cover that sizes you up before letting you read it.
Heartbeat Car
Sure, there has been quite a bit of talk around a future filled with autonomous vehicles. But what about cars that can reflect a driver’s heartbeat? That’s exactly what Lexus has set out to accomplish with its first-of-its-kind, specially-designed coupe that uses biometric technology and electro-luminescent paint to visualize the thrill of driving an RC F from both an emotional and physical perspective.
The Typewriter Symphony
A computer scientist at Tufts University hacked his 1960s typewriter to turn it into a mechanical printer. Even better, the keystrokes play percussive music while printing out a document.
Antenna
Dmitry Morozov (commonly known as ::vtol::) came up with a prototype truncheon that sends a text message to an police officer’s mother every time it is used, in an attempt to prevent cop brutality. This was just one of several impressive projects from the Russian artist this year.
Knife-Wielding Tentacle
In what may surely be one of the most abstract (and dangerous) DIY gadgets of all-time, YouTuber “OutaSpaceMan” unveiled a robotic tentacle 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, the project was designed “to amuse those who may be bored. Just right now I think the world needs a laugh.” The better question is, how will he turn this thing off?
3D-Printed Rubberband Sentry Gun
Let’s just say that you’ll never have want to fling rubber bands with your fingers again.
Jacobson’s Fabulous Olfactometer
Knowing all too well the dangers of air pollution, Susanna Hertrich built a head-mounted contraption that offers sensory augmentation for the human olfactory system under extreme living conditions. The wearable enables you to directly sense chemicals in the air and as a warning signal, modifies your face similar to a specific form of animal behavior called the ‘Flehmen response.’
Impacto
The brainchild of researchers at Hasso Plattner Institute’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab, this Arduino-driven band can be worn around the arm, leg or foot, and when combined with a VR headset and custom software, allows you to ‘touch’ objects or ‘feel’ like you’ve been hit in virtual reality.
Electric Knife Orchestra
What do you get when 16 knives and one meat cleaver come together to perform a Bee Gees hit? This.
Bedfellow Robot Bed
Forget self-driving cars, Randy Sarafan over at the Instructables Design Studio has created an autonomous bed that seeks out people and makes new friends along the way.
MyoWare Bionic Claws
While we’ve seen plenty of ‘X-cellent’ DIY Wolverine projects in the past, Advancer Technologies founder and die-hard Maker Brian Kaminski has surely topped the list of clawesomeness. With his 3D-printed bionic accessory, he simply flexes his arms — and snikt! — the claws extend in a matter of seconds.
Environment Dress
Marìa Castellanos and Alberto Valverde have designed a smart dress that measures the aggressiveness of your environment and analyzes how it affects mood and behavior. Its embedded sensors can detect variations in noise, temperature, atmospheric pressure, ultraviolet radiation or the amount of carbon monoxide present in our daily life. All this information is then transferred, via Bluetooth or open Wi-Fi networks, to a smartphone and generates a big database with the geolocated references.
OpenSurgery
Frank Kolkman at London’s Design Interactions/RCA set out to explore whether building surgical robots, outside the scope of regulations, could plausibly provide an accessible alternative to expensive professional healthcare services worldwide. Made from a combination of off-the-shelf components and custom 3D-printed parts, the open source machine could permit people to perform keyhole surgery on themselves using just a Playstation 3 video game controller. Psh, what could go wrong?
Sensible Data
As a way to demonstrate just how easily people are willing to give up their personal information to participate in something fun, ECAL student Martin Hertig’s unique installation collects a user’s data, judges their mood, age, gender and beauty, and then creates a faux passport that is also randomly sent to another participant without them knowing.
Ex Machina Sound Reactive Wall
If you’ve ever watched the sci-fi flick Ex Machina, then chances are you’re familiar with Nathan’s (played by Oscar Isaac) infamous dance scene. The character flips a switch to transform his home’s concrete-walled lounge into a disco floor, complete with music-synced flashing lights. For those of us not lucky enough to be billionaires and install high-tech walls inside our homes, engineer Dan Chen has revealed that it only takes some laser-cut cardboard, LEDs and a little ingenuity to devise an affordable replica of the groovy, sound-reactive light fixture of your own.
Super Ventilagon
Alejandro Cura, with help from friends Jorge Crowe and Cristian Martinez, decided to attach an Arduino Nano to fan blade and play a version of Super Hexagon in a more “circular” format.
Remote-Controlled AT-AT Walker
What do you get when you combine an Arduino, an Adafruit Servo Shield, an Xbox 360 controller and a 1981 Kenner AT-AT Walker? A toy that Star Wars fans like Dave Stein have always dreamed about as kids.
Personal Space Defense System
Don’t you hate when people invade your personal space and get right up in your business? What better way to send a message than by squirting them with a water gun? Well, DJ from Instructables has an automated solution that takes care of that task for you. If someone gets a bit too close, an embedded sensor pendant will detect the invader and the Super Soaker Electro Storm will blast a few shots of H2O in their direction.
Android Autonomous Vehicle
One team of students at the University of Gothenburg turned an RC car into a self-driving vehicle capable of following street lanes, parking and overcoming obstacles.
Clara
Working on a project? Cramming for an exam? This brain-sensing, environment-augmenting lamp uses EEG technology to tell how focused your are and block out distractions.
Chilflix
Have you ever found yourself craving a citrusy beverage on a hot summer afternoon only to turn on Netflix in search of something equally refreshing? Or maybe pondered what show would go best with your late night bite? Apparently a team of FirstBuild hackers has — their fridge magnet recommends movies based on what time of day you’re snacking.
Grasp
Learning new skills which are more physical and instructional in nature has always been limited by the constraint of a mentor and the learner having to be in the same space. Akarsh Sanghi wanted to change that. His shoulder-worn tool provides a mentor with real-time insight into a learner’s environment through the coupling of a first person POV and an instructional laser pointer.
DORA
This robot wants to bridge the gap between immersive virtual simulations and real world physical telepresence. An Oculus Rift can track a user’s head movements and orientation, whether up/down, left/right or forward/backward. That data is then wirelessly transmitted to the bot’s Arduino and Intel Edison MCUs, prompting its camera-equipped head to mimic the headset wearer’s movements.
The True Love Tinder Robot will “find you love, guaranteed.”
Are you an active user of popular social media dating apps? Have you made some poor decisions lately? Well, fear no more. Nicole He, a graduate student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, has developed a robot that reads your body’s reaction as you browse through Tinder profiles, and then swipes right or left based on your skin’s response. In fact, she promises the bot will “find you love, guaranteed” merely by reading the change in your galvanic skin response over a period of time. (Meaning, how sweaty your palms get.)
As simple as today’s sites make finding a potential suitor, if contemplating between age, location and looks still requires too much thought, the True Love Tinder Robot can be your perfect wingman. The system itself is powered by an Arduino, and includes a pair of servos to move the hand, some LEDs, a text-to-speech module, a bunch of wires, a speaker and a couple of sheets of metal that act as a skin sensor. There is also an indentation for your palms.
With Tinder open, you put your smartphone down in from of the rubber hand. Once you’ve placed your hands down on the sensors, a robotic voice (inspired by the villain GlaDOS from Portal 2) guides you through the process and questions your feelings. As you are looking at each profile, the True Love Tinder Robot will read your true heart’s desire through the sensors and decide whether or not you are a good match with that person based on how your body reacts.
For instance, it’ll ask things such as “Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life with this person?” If it determines that you’re attracted to that person, it will swipe right. If not, it will swipe left. Throughout the process, it will make commentary on your involuntary decisions. Although galvanic skin response may not be the most precise measurement, it is often used by Scientologists for spiritual auditing and by law enforcement as part of polygraph tests.
The first prototype of the bot actually attempted to incorporate facial recognition, but was later swapped out for galvanic skin response. The idea behind GSR is pretty straightforward: when you see or experience something stimulating, your skin reacts appropriately by creating an electrodermal response. As your skin gets a little wetter, it becomes more conductive to electricity. GSR then measures that physiological feedback through skin conduction.
“In a time when it’s very normal for couples to meet online, we trust that algorithms on dating sites can find us suitable partners. Simultaneously, we use consumer biometric devices to tell us what’s going on with our bodies and what we should do to be healthy and happy. Maybe it’s not a stretch to consider what happens when we combine these things,” He explains.
The premise is that a computer may actually know you better than you know yourself, so why not let it pick you a date? While chances are the installation may not choose your future hubby or wifey, it’s still a pretty nifty project nevertheless.
“I want this project to be sort of amusing, kind of creepy and slightly embarrassing. I want the user to feel a tension between the robot assuring you that it knows best and not being sure whether or not to trust it. I want the user to question whether or not we should let a computer make intimate decisions for us,” He writes.
Oh the weather outside is frightful, but this LED fire is so delightful!
It’s December, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere it’s most likely starting to get cold outside. Modern HVAC systems are great for automatically keeping your dwelling properly heated, but there is still something magical about having an actual fire to keep everyone warm. What’s not magical is the effort required to start and fuel a fire, as well as the inherent risk of things getting out of control.
Maker Jason Tumblin decided to bridge this gap with his LED fire log. Though it likely provides only a miniscule amount of heat, it does at least simulate the look of a burning log using an Arduino Esplora (ATmega32U4) and an LED strip. As seen in the video below, it’s a pleasing effect and the Esplora provides convenient built-in control capability.
The really unique thing about this build is that the log that is meant to be on fire is made from an actual burned log. A rectangle is cut into the top of it where a piece of plexiglass is placed. LED strips are glued under the glass, and above it are placed cut chunks of wood. Spaces in these chunks are naturally left when these pieces are attached, allowing light to filter up through the top.
And you thought reading an analog watch was tough…
The Mengenlehreuhr, which in German means “Set Theory Clock,” is also known simply as the Berlin Clock. It is the first clock in the world to tell time via illuminated colored sections, and was initially installed in 1975. It keeps time in a 24-hour format, with four rows of LEDs, representing hours on the top two rows, and minutes on the two rows below that, and a blinking second “hand” on top. 40 years later, and we have the technology to replicate this clock at home using readily available and inexpensive technology.
Maker “mr_fid” decided to do just that using an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), a real-time clock (RTC) unit and three eight-bit shift registers. These shift registers combined give 24 individual outputs, equalling the number of lighting sections in the original clock.
As the hours, minutes, and seconds don’t really match up with our base 10 numbering system, or even a computer’s binary system, programming isn’t as straightforward as some projects featured here. He includes an explanation, as well as the code he used, in his linked Instructables article.
‘Fid doesn’t go into all of the mechanical details of his build, preferring to let his drawings and photos do most of the talking. One interesting feature to note is his use of frosted acrylic material on top of the LEDs. Using a material like this can help soften LED or other lights to make illumination more even. This diffusion effect that can be used for artistic purposes as seen here, or for more practical reasons like lighting in a computer vision system.
