This personal wire delivers the news you want in real-time

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The Pound Nine Wire is real-time newswire that sits on your desk, continually streaming headlines from your content sources.

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Do you like to know what’s going on while at work, but hate reaching for your phone or having to open a new browser? So did Brad Warezak. That’s why he and his team at Pound Nine have come up with a solution to this all-too-common conundrum.

The Pound Nine Wire is a Wi-Fi-enabled, battery-operated device that conveniently sits on your desk, allowing you to keep your phone in your pocket and Internet tabs closed at all times. The tabletop-friendly gadget will continually stream up-to-the-minute information from your preset list of sites. This can be anything from the day’s breaking news, to shopping deals, to social media updates, to stock quotes, to sports scores to the latest Hollywood gossip. You  even add your own compatible RSS feeds.

How it works is pretty straightforward: First, you select from a menu of sources on the Pound Nine website via your PC or smartphone. The updates are then aggregated and streamed to your device in real-time. It’s as simple as that! Just glance at your own personal newswire to stay informed while you stay focused on the task at hand.

And should you want to know more information about a particular update that scrolls on by, the Pound Nine Wire provides you with quick access to additional content. By pressing the ‘notify’ button on top of the device, you’ll instantly receive a notification message on your phone via its accompanying mobile app.

Based on an ATxmega256A3U, the unit is equipped with a Wi-Fi module for connectivity, a 3.2” color touchscreen for a display and a lithium-ion battery for power. It can also be plugged into any standard wall outlet. Although the electronics in the current prototype are housed within a 3D-printed enclosure, the final product that ships to backers will be comprised of injection molded plastic. Measuring only three inches tall and four inches wide, the Pound Nine Wire will be a welcomed novelty to any desk, table or nightstand.

Want one of your own? Head over to its Kickstarter campaign, where the Pound Nine team is seeking $40,000. Delivery is expected to get underway in May 2016.

This sound-reactive LED wall is groovy

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Now you can install an Ex Machina-inspired, music-responsive light fixture in your home.

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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.

The movie-inspired project consists of two parts: sound sensing software and the actual hardware installation. To make the embedded LED strip react to the tunes, he employed a sound detection sensor along with an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) programmed to sink or provide current to the LEDs.

Additionally, Chen kicked it up a notch by putting together a more advanced version. For this, he mapped the sound in Max MSP and applied a low-pass and high-pass filter to generate different colors. This signal is sent to the Arduino (or any ATmega-based board, for that matter), which reads the number and then maps the value to the number.

All that was left was creating the geometric wall. Chen was able to reproduce this by using a still from the film to trace and cut the pattern out of cardboard. He proceeded to paint it white and bend it over a cylinder surface for some curvature. The project was then mounted to the wall with a piece of light-diffusing paper sandwiched in between.

Whenever Chen is ready to get down, he just has to sound the music and the lights will move to the beat in red, purple and blue.

Intrigued? Check out the entire project — including its code and wall pattern — on its page here. In the meantime, see it in action below!

 

3D printing an Arduino-controlled stepper motor

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As a way to help teach others how stepper motors work, this Maker designed one of his own. 

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Normal DC motors are fairly easy to use. Connect the propper voltage across the positive and negative leads, and one of these motors should spin. Stepper motors, however, are somewhat more complicated, both in how they are controlled and how they are constructed.

Maker “Proto G” decided to not just learn how to control one of these mechanisms, but actually built one from scratch. To achieve this, he 3D printed a stator (body of the motor) as well as a rotor that he could attach six permanent magnets to. These magnets were then sequnetially pulled by eight electromagnets on the outside, each made out of a nail wrapped with 25 feet of wire. You can see his hand drill wrapping process at around the 1:30 market in the video below.

Control is handled by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), along with some other electronic components, nicely enclosed in a project box. The motor is turned by energizing the electromagnets in a counterclockwise direction to spin the rotor clockwise, and clockwise to spin in the opposite direction. It is capable of 15-degree full steps, as well as 7.5-degree half steps, accomplished by energizing two pairs of coils at the same time.

As linked toward the end of that video, Proto G has made a version 1.1 version of his motor with a NeoPixel LED ring to show which coils are activated. The results are visually quite interesting, though the video also notes that he’s working on a second version!

Interested? You can check out the entire project on its Instructables page here.

Maker converts his TIE Fighter toy into a flying drone

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Can you ever get sick of Star Wars projects? Didn’t think so.

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Just in time for December 18th’s release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one Maker has successfully converted his Hasbro First Order TIE Fighter into a fully-functional, flying quadcopter.

Impressively, Imgur user “woodpiece” was able to accomplish this feat with only a few tweaks. The Star Wars enthusiast threw a couple of rotor arms onto the toy and cut out a slot on the radiator for the propellors. The rest of the modification process involved disassembling the device and installing a quad motor attached to 3D-printed mounts. The Maker glued the wings to the main body, while ensuring that all the wires remained inside the frame through its existing holes.

All the electronics were able to fit comfortably, with no additional cosmetic enhancements necessary. The brains of the operation is a Flip MWC Flight 1.5 Controller (ATmega328) which sits at the base of the cockpit, along with the motor controllers and battery.

As awesome as this all may sound, you have to see it in all its glory as it soars through the sky. The end result was a remote-controlled unit with rotors on both front and back of the wing panels. You can find a step-by-step breakdown of the Maker’s build here.

[h/t Daily Dot via Toyland]

Maker dad builds a MIDI-enabled highchair

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This IKEA highchair hack is tray-mazing!

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We’ve seen Maker parents mod their children’s odds and ends in the past, but this highchair may have taken it to a whole new level. That’s because Phil Tucker has hacked his baby’s $20 IKEA dining accessory into pro-gamer training rig and then some.

To make the aptly named Highscore Chair a reality, Tucker scavenged a pair of joysticks and buttons for true arcade aesthetics, as well as an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) to trigger samples loaded onto an Akai MPC1000 synthesizer via the MIDI interface. There’s also a battery supplying some power. These electronics will be, if not already, housed inside an enclosure underneath the tray for enhanced safety.

“I’ve added MIDI out, which amounts to 10 MIDI triggers, eight for each joystick and one for each button. The Highscore Chair now triggers samples loaded onto an Akai MPC1000, but with MIDI out it could be used as any sort of control surface now,” Tucker explains.

Gaming aside, what’s really cool about this project is that it can become modular with various trays for different activities. (This particular IKEA piece enables you purchase extra interchangeable tabletops.) Think Graco meets LEGO.

Sound like something you’d love for you or your child? Head over to the Maker’s project page here.

Control your home theater with any IR remote

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This Maker’s sketch emulates a USB keyboard to control Plex when it receives button presses from a remote.

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Once you have a home theater PC (HTPC) set up in your living room, how to elegantly control it is a huge priority. A wireless keyboard is an obvious solution, but the limited range and general “largeness” of many of them can make this less than ideal. Of course you could always buy a tiny keyboard meant for this type of use, but if you’ve got an Arduino Micro (ATmega32U4) and an infrared receiver, you can simply use your existing remote!

A Maker by the name of “Ep1cman” decided to do just that since he had the parts available, as documented the setup on GitHub. In his case, the Arduino receives IR signals from a NOW TV remote and translates it into a keyboard press from a virtual USB keyboard. His sketch will take any unknown IR codes it receives and output them on a serial port. This would, of course, be extremely useful for soemone that wanted to adapt this to his or her own remote control.

One thing that the Arduino does not support by default is waking a sleeping PC. For this, he used NicoHood’s library. He also employed the IRremote library to properly receive signals. Finaly, to complete his control package, he wrote an EventGhost script that allowed him to switch between Plex and Steam.

Maker builds a scrapyard truck simulator

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Have you ever wanted to play a truck simulator with a real dashboard on your PC? Now you can. 

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As much fun as flight, truck or giant robot simulators can be when played with a keyboard and mouse, having a realistic cockpit to go with it certainly would enhance the realism. Jeroen vd Velden, who works in tech support at a home automation distributor and is also a licensed truck driver, decided to take this to the next level, using an actual truck dashboard and components with a PC simulator.

As documented on Hackaday.io, this was accomplished via an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) along with a CAN-BUS shield. CAN-BUS is an interface standard that allows one to “pull codes” when a car or truck is broken, and Velden is using this with his new cockpit.

In addition to the CAN-BUS, an Arduino Leonardo and a Pro Micro (both of which are powered by an ATmega32U4) are used to sense other inputs, like handbrakes and switches. When they receive signals, the Atmel chip translates them into virtual keyboard presses that go into the PC simulator, Euro Truck Simulator 2.

One interesting aspect is how Velden modified the handbrake to output electrical signals. You can see the process documented in the video below. The project is ongoing, and Velden will be updating the documentation as things progress. As Velden puts it, “The Scrapyard is a great place to start with Arduino!”

mBot is an Arduino-compatible educational robot for young Makers

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Now part of the Arduino AtHeart program, Makeblock is looking help children learn how to program through a user-friendly kit, software and interface. 

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Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a number of easy-to-use robotic kits become available for young Makers in hope of inspiring them to pursue STEM-related fields. Among the more notable companies looking to spur this initiative is Shenzhen startup Makeblock with their low-cost educational robot. 

In the company’s pursuit of an O.R.P.K (or “One Robot Per Kid”) world, mBot was designed to be a comprehensive solution that would provide children with a hands-on experience around graphical programming, electronics and robotics. With simplicity in mind, the kit is comprised of only 45 or so pieces, enabling a sense of achievement for kids to quickly assemble in 10 minutes.

Given the popularity of Scratch 2.0 as a graphical programming software in the classroom setting, the Makeblock team has developed a new line of Scratch-based software — aptly named mBlock — that uses a similar coding style to configure Arduino and robots. The drag-and-drop software is entirely free and supports both Window and Mac operating systems. Beyond that, mBlock supports wireless communication, allowing Makers to use either Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless serial to ‘talk’ with its accompanying mBot. The program is also compatible with Arduino Uno (ATmega328) and Leonardo (ATmega32U4) boards, as well as Makeblock’s own Arduino variant, the mCore.

Powered by an ATmega328, each mBot board features intuitional color labels and four easy-to-follow RJ25 connectors. This lets Makers wire the unit in a matter of seconds, and more importantly, provides them with a hassle-free way to focus on actually devising all sorts of interactive projects — ranging from robots that can avoid walls and follow lines to play music and duke it out in a fight.

The friendly blue robot is currently being offered in a pair of models based on its communication capabilities. The Bluetooth version, which is equipped with a Bluetooth module, is suitable for individual or team use; whereas the 2.4G version, which features two 2.4G wireless modules, is intended for the classroom. Aside from that, each kit consists of a chassis, two motors, an ultrasonic sensor, a line follower, a remote controller, a buzzer, some RGD LEDs, an mCore, and a few other electronic components. mBot can be powered by either a rechargeable lithium battery or four-1.5V AA batteries.

“We designed specially two available wireless communication instead of wired USB cable, so users can enjoy wireless programming to control robots without the limit of USB cable,” the team explains. “The chassis is compatible with Lego and Makeblock parts. And you can use on-hand Raspberry Pi or standard Arduino boards to learn more about electronics or bring kid’s more ideas to life.”

Not only did it garner more than $285,00 from 2,500-plus backers on Kickstarter earlier this year, Makeblock’s mBot has now become a member of the growing Arduino AtHeart program.

Introducing the Adafruit Feather M0 Basic Proto

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The Feather M0 Basic Proto boasts a bunch of on-board prototyping space.

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And just like that, the Adafruit Feather family continues to grow. The latest addition? The Feather M0 Basic Proto board. Unlike some of its siblings, Adafruit has swapped out the ATmega32U4 for an Atmel | SMART SAM D21.

At the Feather M0’s heart is an ATSAMD21G18 clocked at 48MHz at 3.3V logic — the same one used in the Arduino Zero. This MCU has a whopping 256K of FLASH (8 times more than the ATmega328 or ‘32U4) and 32K of RAM (16 time as much)! What’s more, it comes with native USB support so it has USB-to-Serial programming and debugging capability already built-in with no need for an FTDI-like chip.

As Adafruit notes, they’ve gone ahed and added a connector for a 3.7V LiPo and a 100mA battery charger. However, the Feather M0 will run just fine via microUSB and will automatically switch over to USB power when it’s available.

“We also tied the battery through a divider to an analog pin, so you can measure and monitor the battery voltage to detect when you need a recharge,” the team explains.

The Feather M0 Basic Proto boasts the same form factor as the rest of its family, measuring only 2.0″ x 0.9″ x 0.28” (without headers soldered) and weighing merely 4.6 grams. Beyond that, the Feather M0 has 20 GPIO pins with PWM outputs on each of them, six 12-bit analog inputs, one 10-bit DAC, four mounting holes, a power/enable pin and a reset button.

With a little extra on-board space remaining, Adafruit has provided you with a tiny prototyping area (hence its name). If you just need to attach a button or sensor, you may be able to skip out on a breadboard and wire it directly on there.

As always, the M0 Basic Proto comes fully assembled and tested, with a USB bootloader that enables you to easily use it with the Arduino IDE. Sound like the super lightweight, $20 board you’ve been looking for? Head over to its page here and let your ideas fly. Also, you can check out the entire Feather lineup here.

This door sensor plays Seinfeld classic riff

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Each time someone enters the room, this door emits some iconic Seinfeld tunes.

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Everyone who has watched even a little TV instantly recognizes the iconic bass notes from Seinfeld. Well, YouTuber Caliixxs has paid homage to the hit sitcom using an apartment door.

The setup is rather simple: each time someone enters the room, one of the familiar riffs begins to sound. To make this possible, the Maker employed an IR motion detector, an Arduino and an Adafruit Music Maker Shield which enables the board to play audio from an SD card.

“It reads from a microSD card and randomly picks one of however many MP3s found,” Caliixxs explains.

Once the system has been activated, a user must wait seven seconds before it can be triggered again. The clip was initially uploaded to YouTube back in March, but took until now to go viral with nearly 500,000 views.

Luckily, the real apartment door in Seinfeld didn’t feature its own special chime given how often Kramer came busting in and out. Giddy up!