Rewind: These brands are embracing the Maker Movement

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A look at how major brands can leverage the burgeoning Maker Movement and IoT to enhance both the customer experience and their marketing efforts. 

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If you need any further validation that the Maker Movement has picked up steam, just take look at what some major brands have done over the last several months.

Netflix

The Adafruit Pro Trinket-equipped Netflix Socks detect when you’ve dozed off and send a signal to your TV, automatically pausing whatever it is you’re binge-watching.

Adidas

This concept shoe is made up of an upper constructed from ocean plastic materials along with a 3D-printed midsole of recycled polyester and gill net.

New Balance

This pair of high-performance running shoes will include a 3D printed-midsole.

Nike

The Back to the Future II-inspired, self-lacing Nike Mags are now a reality.

Lexus

This concept RC F connects to a driver and displays their heartbeat in real-time through electro-luminescent paint.

Disney

The turtlish BeachBot autonomously creates large scale sand drawings.

Facebook

The Parse for IoT SDK supports the Arduino Zero with the Wi-Fi 101 Shield as well as the Arduino Yún.

Royal Caribbean

The cruise line’s latest groundbreaking ships, the Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas, features two bartending robotic arms that precisely mix drinks to order.

Amazon

The online empire revealed the latest prototype of drones it will deploy as part of its Prime Air service, as well as a connected Dash Button that lets shoppers reorder frequently used household products with a simple touch.

Dole

This ‘wearable’ banana, which was designed for the Tokyo Marathon, is equipped with an LED display and sensors under its skin. The smart fruit monitors a runner’s race time and heart rate, and even shows tweets urging them onwards.

Kagome

This piggybacking robot, aptly named Tomatan, feeds a wearer tomatoes as they jog.

Levi’s

The clothing company partnered with Google’s Project Jacquard to bring touch-sensitive smartphone control to jeans.

AIAIAI

The Booty Drum is a wearable unit that turns ‘twerking’ into music. (NSFW.)

EasyJet

The European airline, with the help of CuteCircuits, unveiled a first-of-its kind smart uniform for both cabin crew and aircraft engineers. The futuristic, LED-laden outfits will enhance communication and passenger safety procedures.

GE

The company’s FirstBuild microfactory debuted an affordable, in-home nugget ice machine, Opal, that went on to garner more than $2 million on Indiegogo.

Local Motors

The manufacturer plans to begin selling the first highway-ready, 3D-printed cars next year within the price range of $18,000 to $30,000.

Hershey’s

The sweets giant partnered with 3D Systems to make an advanced chocolate 3D printer.

Barilla

The pasta maker held a 3D printing competition to explore new shapes and designs.

Crocs

The shoe brand showed off a possible future alternative to heading out to its store by experimenting with drones as a delivery option at a pop-up store in Japan.

Domino’s

The Easy Order smart button pairs to a smartphone app via Bluetooth and makes ordering your favorite pizza simpler than ever.

Hoover

The company let customers 3D print parts for their vacuums by downloading the accessories on Thingiverse.

Huit Denim

The UK jean specialist used Bare Conductive’s Electric Paint and Arduino to turn its window storefront into a touch interface.

Samsung

The Talking Fridge was embedded with Arduino-based sensors to detect customers and sell itself in real-time.

… and while not the brainchild of McDonald’s itself, this project was pretty awesome. The McNugget vending machine is comprised entirely out of LEGO. Simply insert a €2 coin, sit back and let it deliver a box of chicken in seconds, complete with the requisite dipping sauce.

Automate your curtains with Arduino

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Hate getting up to close the curtains? This Maker has developed a Bluetooth-controlled solution for the lazy.

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Curtains are quite useful for privacy and blocking excessive sun, but who has the time or energy to get off of the couch and close them? Certainly not engineer Jordan Tallent, who decided to instead design and build his own wireless curtain controller using an Arduino Nano with a Bluetooth module.

Tallent soldered the Nano (ATmega328) a stepper driver and the Bluetooth module onto a printed circuit board. Though he says that the results were a little messier than he would have liked, he wanted it to have a small footprint, which he seems to have accomplished.

The motor is physically attached to the wall below the curtain rod, along with a free pulley on the other side of the window. To pull the curtains, a piece of fishing line is wrapped around a pulley mounted to the stepper motor as well as the free pulley on the other side. Resourcefully, binder clips were tied to this fishing line and clipped to the curtains on opposite sides of the “string circuit,” allowing both to open or close depending on the motor’s direction.

Tallent intends to eventually write an Android app for his phone and implement clock functionality via a real-time clock chip. For now he’s using a communication program called Bluetooth spp tools pro to communicate with his device. This enables him to type “o” to open the curtains and “c” to close them, which seems to work nicely in the demonstration video below.

Rewind: 30 projects from 2015 that gamers will love

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A look at some gaming-inspired projects that caught our attention over the last 12 months. 

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Arduboy

A credit card-sized device that allows you to play, program and share 8-bit games.

TinyArcade

A shrunken-down cabinet that lets you relive the golden age of arcade games.

8-Person NES

A system that transforms 8-bit side-scrolling games into a totally immersive multi-player experience.

Tetris MicroCard

An ATmega32U4-powered gadget that puts Tetris right in your wallet.

Game:ref

A hardware anti-cheat solution for online gaming.

MAME Game Machine

A game machine driven by a Cosino Mega 2560 (running the AdvanceMAME) with a 7″ LCD display and an Xbox-compatible joystick.

Grand Theft Auto iPhone App

An Arduino Leonardo, an Ethernet shield and a PC enables your iPhone to be used as a GTA controller.

Auto-Leveling Destiny Robot

A robotic mechanism comprised of a servo motor, an Xbox controller and an Arduino Uno that allows you to level up in Destiny without even lifting a finger.

Arduinocade

A creative way to play classic video games on your TV from an overclocked Arduino Pro Mini.

Gloveone

A glove that lets you sense and interact with virtual objects onscreen and in your VR headset.

KADE miniConsole+

An open source gadget that allows you to play all old-school games with their original controllers.

Impacto

An Arduino-driven band designed to make it feel as though you’re hitting and being struck in VR games.

Bedroom Cockpit

A full-scale Cessna 172 cockpit simulator, complete with everything from pedals that control actual airplane rudders and brakes, to a steering yoke, to an Oculus Rift running Lockheed Martin’s Prepar3D software.

Scrapyard Simulator

An actual dashboard for a truck simulator.

Dashboard Simulator

A real dashboard for your car simulator.

Arduino Game Boy

A super-sized Arduboy.

Tetris on an ARM Cortex-M4 MCU

A game of Tetris on an Atmel | SMART SAM4S MCU.

KeyChainino

An Arduino-programmable keychain game.

Super Hexagon

An Arduino Nano attached to a fan blade displays Super Hexagon in a more “circular” format.

Claw Machine

A DIY claw machine that’s faster, fairer and more controllable than anything found in yesterday’s arcades.

Storefront Pong

An interactive storefront game played on a giant 6 x 8 pixel grid display comprised of 18.5” bulbs illuminated by ultra-bright NeoPixel rings.

WideRun

A fully-interactive bike trainer specifically designed to deliver engaging fitness sessions through VR headsets and external screens.

Doorstop Game

A one-dimensional dungeon crawler game that uses a doorstop spring as its controller and an LED strip as its display.

Talon

A motion control ring that enables you to play games and control apps with simple gestures.

Pico Cassettes

An old-school gaming cartridge for your smartphone.

TeleBall BreakOut

A retro-style handheld gaming device.

DIY Game Boy

A portable, 3D-printed console embedded with a Raspberry Pi and Teensy 2.0.

Barebones Console

An extremely low-cost, minimalist gaming console that will take you back to a much blockier 8-bit era.

Arcade-Style Puzzle Box

A vintage, arcade-style puzzle box that resembles the ubiquitous wooden audio equipment of the ‘70s.

UFO Escape Keychain Game

A game of UFO Escape on your keychain? Sure, why not?

Gbg-8

An 8-bit instant photo camera masquerading as a toy gun, which consists of an old Game Boy, a camera, a thermal printer and an Arduino.

Maker builds a $20 mouth-operated mouse

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This DIY mouthpiece allows those with disabilities to easily surf the web. 

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Out of more than 170 submissions, Maker Tobias Wirtl’s Mouth Operated Mouse has 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.

Rewind: 8 Maker projects changing the world

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The Hackaday Prize Grand Prize and Best Product winners are both powered by Atmel!

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As proof that one small idea can make a big difference in this world, the trio of Patrick Joyce, Steve Evans and David Hopkinson were named this year’s Hackaday Prize Grand Prize winners. The nine-month design contest, which challenged Makers to build something that matters, drew more than 900 entries from folks spanning across the globe with differing backgrounds and skills. After narrowing down the submission pool to 10 finalists, the competition culminated with an award ceremony on November 14th at Hackaday’s Super Conference in San Francisco.

The winning innovation, dubbed Eyedrivomatic, is an eye-controlled wheelchair system that allows those suffering from ALS and those who no longer have use of hands to regain their mobility. Whereas most wheelchair units are rented and therefore unable to be permanently modified, this inexpensive and easily adaptable piece of hardware boasts the ability to improve life for those who require more options for controlling their mode of transportation. According to its creators, since it was a group effort, they have decided to take the $196,883 prize rather than a trip into space.

Other winners included:

• 2nd Place: OpenBionics
• 3rd Place: Solar Utility Vehicle
• 4th Place: Gas Sensor for Emergency Workers
• 5th Place: DOLPi

Additionally, Reinier van der Lee was the recipient of the Hackaday Prize’s Best Product award and walked away with $100,000. His project, Vinduino, is a low-cost, simple-to-build and rugged tool for optimizing agricultural irrigation, helping to save wine growers at least 25% in water consumption. The sensor-driven platform monitors soil moisture at different depths to determine when to irrigate, and more importantly, how much H2O is necessary.

Congrats to all of the winners — especially the five of the six mentioned above that are powered by Atmel! What’s more, we had the pleasure of going 1:1 with these finalists prior to Hackaday’s SuperCon. You can click on each of the respective projects below.

Eyedrivomatic’s Patrick Joyce

OpenBionics’ Minas Liarokapis

Solar Utility Vehicle’s Chris Low

Gas Sensor for Emergency Workers’ Eric William

Vinduino’s Reinier van der Lee

LUKA EV’s Maurice Ward

FarmBot’s Rory Aronson

uRADMonitor’s Radu Motisan

Get into the holiday spirit with these Arduino-controlled light shows

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These Makers channeled their inner Clark Griswold and adorned the outside of their homes with Arduino-based lighting. 

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“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!

 

How do you geek out a gingerbread house? Like this…

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As part of an annual tradition, this engineer illuminates his family’s gingerbread house with an AT90S1200.

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The Gingerbread House Illuminator was developed by Geir Kjosavik, Atmel Director of QTouch Product Marketing, back in December 1996. At the heart of the design lies an AT90S1200 — but not just any AT90S1200. This particular device is the very first AVR MCU to ever run user code. The current FW (which has been left unaltered since ’96) runs a pseudo random number generator that seeds four independent PWMs with different intensity sequences so that the connected LEDs mimick a flickering fireplace light.

The Illuminator has been a longstanding tradition in the Kjosavik family’s annual gingerbread house — now in its 20th consecutive holiday season. See it in action below!

Enjoy this festive project? Then you’ll also love this teched-out Christmas tree comprised of and powered by Atmel | SMART SAM D21 MCUs.

An Internet-connected, voice-controlled robotic bartender

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One Maker has built his own Internet-connected, voice-controlled robotic bartender with Arduino. 

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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!

For another interesting Arduino-Amazon Echo collaboration, be sure to check out this voice controlled wheelchair.

Netflix Socks pause shows when you fall asleep

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Netflix Socks detect when you’ve dozed off and send a signal to your TV, automatically pausing your show. 

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How many times have you turned on a movie or prepared to binge-watch a TV series, only to doze off halfway through? Good news: that may be a thing of the past, thanks to Netflix.

The company has created a pair of knitted socks that will automatically pause whatever you’re watching once you fall sleep. An accelerometer detects when you’ve stopped moving for a prolonged period of time and triggers an IR signal to your TV to stop Netflix. When it senses that you’ve begun to snooze, an indicator LED (a Flora NeoPixel) flashes red, alerting you that it’ll soon hit pause — any motion will stop it from firing. An Adafruit Pro Trinket (ATmega328) serves as the brains of the operation.

Aside from a little sewing experience, the socks call for some soldering and programming skills. The electronics are embedded in felt and sewn to the cuff of the sock. Netflix has even provided 17 pattern templates inspired by its most popular shows, including Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None and House of Cards.

This isn’t the first guide the company has released for Makers looking to enhance their viewing experience. If you recall, they introduced the infamous Netflix and Chill switch back in September. Never miss a moment again and head over to the Netflix Socks’ page here.

Rewind: 50 boards you’ll want to know about from 2015

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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! 

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“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.