Upload and pick up your design with this 3D printing vending machine

Unveiled at the University of Texas, Cockrell School of Engineering students have launched a cutting-edge 3D printing vending machine. The Innovation Station is believed to be the third machine of its kind at a university in the U.S., following in the footsteps of both Virginia Tech and UC-Berkeley.

Led by Associate Professor Carolyn Seepersad, a team of mechanical engineering students designed and constructed the Innovation Station, with hopes of providing students the opportunity to build objects for a variety of purposes through a web-based portal and queue system. UT students can use the machine for free by simply uploading their own CAD designs to the printer and then receiving a message to pick it up at a public bin.

“The vending machine lowers the barriers to 3D printing,” explained Seepersad. “It will help encourage all UT Austin students to take their ideas from the classroom and their extracurricular activities and bring them to life. This tool will inspire our students to think like entrepreneurs.”

The team built the Innovation Station by modifying a pair of Atmel powered MakerBot Replicator 2 printers, adding several unique components and hardware of their own, and optimizing it to print two jobs simultaneously. The team also developed the infrastructure that holds the 3D printers, as well as the mechanisms that make it operate like a vending machine.

“The Innovation Station gives students the opportunity to create. There are few feelings as rewarding as coming up with an idea and making that idea a reality,” Kuhn said. “It has been amazing to see the Innovation Station start as a cool concept and transform into a project that students can really benefit from. I really enjoyed the experience of taking a concept, prototyping, testing and then manufacturing the final product.”

Created to provide on-demand 3D printing, the concept hopes to remove barriers to learning about 3D printing, inspire innovation and creativity, and ultimately encourage future Makers and engineers.

After an object is printed and before it is moved into a retrieval drawer for the creator to pick up, the object is removed from the surface using a patent-pending process that the team created. On a typical 3-D printer, objects are printed on an acrylic surface that allows the design to stick firmly in one place. As a result, removing a finished product from the printer can require a lot of manual force. So, Seepersad and her team discovered a solution that allows parts to be safely and automatically removed from the printer without manual assistance.

According to the university’s website, Innovation Station designs are printed on a glass surface with an aluminum panel underneath, rather than an acrylic surface. The aluminum heats the glass during printing, and once the design is finished, the aluminum separates from the glass surface. A fan cools the glass and the object so quickly that the object pops off the glass and is ready to be pushed into the retrieval drawer.

“Moving forward, we expect that students will be able to save and share their designs with one another. I hope the Innovation Station serves as a way for all students to collaborate, inspire one another and spark conversations about new ideas for designing and creating,” Seepersad concluded.

Don’t forget to join the Atmel team in Queens this month for the 5th Annual World Maker Faire. Undoubtedly, this year will be amazing as an expected 750+ Makers and 85,000+ attendees head to the New York Hall of Science to see the latest DIY gizmos and gadgets, as well as AVR Man in the flesh. Once again a Silversmith Sponsor of the event, Atmel will put the spotlight on everything from Arduino and Arduino-related projects to the latest in 3D printing. See you soon!

Qtechknow is on a roll with this Robot Obstacle Course

As we’re sure you already know, 13-year-old CEO and whizkid Quin Etnyre has already become quite an accomplished Maker changing the world — one Atmel powered board at a time. During Maker Faire Bay Area 2014, the young Maker hosted the “Qtechknow Olympics” robotic challenge featuring Arduino, XBee and of course, his award-winning FuzzBots. Quin’s latest project, an obstacle course that aspires to educate others around NFC, RFID and Arduino, has since then been published on Instructables.

The obstacle course is a culmination of his original FuzzBot design, a Pololu ZumoBot chassis kit, a SparkFun NFC Shield, XBee Series 1 wireless modules, and some Adafruit NeoPixel sticks and rings. Quin’s build features three parts:

• The Hacked FuzzBot: An adaptation of a fully-autonomous, Arduino Uno (ATmega328) powered “Mini Roomba,” the robot is comprised of an XBee module, NeoPixel stock, and a hacked NFC shield.
• The Controller: Created with an open source Bukobo 3D printer, the enclosure (whose design can be found here) houses an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), another XBee shield, a joystick and a NeoPixel ring, giving it the “full effect” with a flashing LEDs.
• NFC tags: These are affixed throughout the course.

As you’ve seen in the Atmel booth at a number of Maker Faires — Bay Area, Washington, D.C. and soon New York — the impressive project has won a number of Editor’s Choice Awards, not to mention the Maker of Merit Award at the White House Maker Faire.

Quin’s primary goal was to create a fun game that had recorded the number of times a robot drove over a series of NFC tags laid across a flat surface, i.e. a table. Points are shown in the form of blinking lights that illuminate when the device goes over the sensors, keeping track of the score.

As with all DIY projects, there is always some degree of trial-and-error. Quin highlights some of this latest challenges and modifications event-by-event on his page, but says it “works perfect now!” For a step-by-step breakdown on how to create your own robotic obstacle course, you can visit Qtechknow’s official Instructables post here.

A World Maker Faire calls for a world-record breaker. Think you’re up for the challenge? Be sure to swing by our booth and see if you can beat 24 points in 30 seconds.

During a recent interview with Quin, he expressed, “To be a Maker, you have to think outside of the box, and come up with new ideas on your own.” His new robot obstacle course is certainly a testament to that.

Through his latest and greatest innovations, the 13-year-old continues to open up many doors in the Maker community, while meeting a number of influential people — including the likes of Will.i.a.m., Bill Nye the Science Guy and Massimo Banzi.

Don’t forget to join the Atmel team in Queens later this month for the 5th Annual World Maker Faire. Undoubtedly, this year will be amazing as an expected 750+ Makers and 85,000+ attendees head to the New York Hall of Science to see the latest DIY gizmos and gadgets, as well as AVR Man in the flesh. Once again a Silversmith Sponsor of the event, Atmel will put the spotlight on Arduino and Arduino-related projects. See you soon!

The Maker Movement is shaping the future

It is no secret that the Maker Movement is gaining a foothold in modern society. Writing for Newsweek, Louise Stewart highlights how the blossoming DIY culture is being adopted in schools across the nation.

In her article, Louise highlights High Tech High (you read that right!) in San Diego. The school resembles a set from a Pixar movie more than a typical, drab American high school. With spinning pulley systems turning a massive clock and a glass-covered piano front and center, it is obvious this isn’t your ordinary venue of education. Created 14 years ago, CEO and Founding Principal Larry Rosenstock describes the charter school’s core principal as “kids making, doing, building, shaping and inventing stuff” without the focus of one single subject.

Today, a growing number of schools (and other educational venues such as museums) are creating new programs and spaces to enable a greater convergence of both art and technology. Many would compare this “new industrial revolution” as the combination of the old shop class spirit with modern-day technology in do-it-yourself spaces.

With the High Tech High’s wide-open learning process, projects can revolve around history, engineering, and physics all at once; instead of segmented pieces. Stewart notes that some of the previous displays at the school have included “a World War I–era restaurant and cabaret, an art gallery, a museum-like exhibit on the history and physics of baseball, [and] simulations of faraway ecologies.” Talk about variety!

Tony Wagner, a resident at Harvard’s Innovation Lab calls High Tech High his “favorite” school and that other educational institutions with Makerspaces are the future. The Newsweek piece details how not just charter schools are seeing the benefit of the growing Maker Movement, evident by the widespread audience at Maker Faires throughout the world.

Stewart reveals how one student at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York was so inspired by an in-class 3D printing project that he was motivated to purchase his own 3D printer for use at home. Soon, he was designing and printing iPhone cases and his favorite gadgets from video games.

Even public schools are getting in on the act, as Albemarle County Public School’s Superintendent Pam Moran describes her outlook on today’s education as attempting to “make learning so powerful and memorable” and encourage students to be “constantly looking at the world in terms of problems that they can solve.”

As the global Maker Movement continues to converge education and technology, we have to note the youth aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the DIY revolution.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Anna Clark details the story of Charlie Lindahl, who learned computer programming in ’68 and ’69 with a modem using an interactive terminal back when everyone was using batch processing with punched cards. “Trying to explain this to people was like being an alien.”

Charlie plans to roll out a startup MerryMaker Labs where a “No Fear Electronics” curriculum will be adopted. Charlie’s goal is to minimize any trepidation an individual would have when thinking about taking a step into the Maker world. Have no fear Makers!

Why are we teaching people to make quirky new gadgets out of old and random stuff? “Because it’s fun!” says Lindahl.

As Clark points out, DIY isn’t just for people with nothing better to do; in fact, it’s for anyone and everyone who are intentional about learning, achievement and skills mastery. From the outset of the Maker Movement, coders, knitters, mechanics, electronics tinkerers, masters of the new 3D printing process, apprentices of digital fabrication and even die-hard engineers are turning to Atmel powered devices to bring their ideas to life — maybe that’s a braille printer, a retro robot, a marshmallow canon, or even a prototype of the next big Internet of Things gadget.

When you put it like that, the popularity of the Maker Movement makes perfect sense. “See, when a system stops working — say American manufacturing — doldrums can drag on for years. As certain careers disappear and new roles emerge, folks in transition are wondering, ‘Is there something else out there that I can do?'” asks Lindahl.

Some Makers are constructing new careers as they construct new gadgets. Some Makers are skilled artisans seeking a supportive or collaborative community. Some Makers are hobbyists interested in the robotics wave. Heck, some Makers are even hip-hop artists, musicians and professional athletes. This is what makes the DIY culture so special and ubiquitous.

“And some savvy startups are creating kits to simplify the process. littleBits makes prototyping with electronics simple and fun, like putting together a puzzle. Arduino is an inexpensive microcontroller that can be used for many small DIY or physical and wearable computing projects. Adafruit is a company that sells the pieces and makes the tutorials. Among other things, you can sew your own owl,” the Huffington Post article accentuates.

With more and more creative individuals being given opportunities to explore their innovative habits, the Maker Movement likely won’t be slowing down anytime soon. We can expect to see more people, ranging from hobbyists to embedded designers, turn to creating products instead of only consuming them. This is the future. And, this is fun!

Will you be joining us for World Maker Faire in New York? Don’t miss the panel discussion, “Curiosity, Imagination and Motivation: The Natural Inclinations of Young Makers,” with Atmel’s Bob Martin and Daniel Ujvari, Arduino’s Massimo Banzi, Qtechknow’s Quin Etnyre and littleBits’ Ayah Bdeir, as they explore the ways in which the STEM initiative and Maker Movement are influencing young Makers and helping to create tomorrow’s industry innovators.

ATmega328 controls this hot plate’s temperature in the lab

In a laboratory setting, precision is essential. When heating up liquids, being even a degree off could spell ruin for an experiment. Therefore, Maker BrittLiv developed a DIY programmable heating pad that can run intricate temperature ramps – for only $100!

As a chemical and biological engineering student, BrittLiv was priced out of the market for most laboratory quality heating devices; though, when making her own she did not want to sacrifice quality or functionality. “When you try to develop catalysts for chemical processes, the temperature program and exact temperature control is crucial. You probably do not want to stay in the lab for 16 hours to manually adapt your temperature,” she notes.

With a hot plate and a series of electronic components including a LCD screen, a few solid-state relays, and an Atmel ATmega328 gathered, BrittLiv was ready to assemble her contraption. She began by linking the hot plate and the input device. “It is very advisable to use a ground fault circuit interrupter adapter or a safety socket when working on and with the device,” the Maker advises. The embedded AVR microcontroller monitors the heating process, with temperatures up to 338°F, via an MAX6675 thermocouple interface board.

From there, she programmed her electronics to read temperature scales from an SD card. BrittLiv stressed the importance of scales by saying, “It is not enough to simply hold something at a certain temperature, but the rate at which something is heated and for how long is just as important.”

Once her entire unit was soldered and linked, she placed a heat safe wooden case around the input device and sprayed it with heat-resistant paint.

For a full tutorial on how to build your own programmable heating pad, check out BrittLiv’s original Instructables post here.

Arduino-based turntable uses toy blocks to build beats

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Watch out Tiesto! With simple designs like this being thought of by Makers across the globe, a new wave of DJs is on the way.

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A Swedish designer by the name of Per Holquimst is redefining the use of the old-school turntable. No longer will the instrument solely play music; in fact, his Arduino-based tangible interface turntable will have you forming beats from scratch in no time!

As a graduate student at Beckman’s College of Design in Sweden, Holquimst created the Beat Blox to enable anyone — from a child to an experienced DJ — to reinterpret the way they make music and sounds. Even though the device looks like it was created by a Swedish furniture store, the device will allow music to be assembled with ease.

How does it work? Each machine contains five digital distance sensors in its wooden arm. The instrument can analyze up to 15 different blocks, therefore allowing complex rhythms to be established. These sensors interpret the locations of the blocks and relay that data back through the Atmel MCU powered system, making music based on certain pre-programmed metrics. As the user adds a block to the deck, the distance sensor plays a sound; thus, creating a wildly different melody is as simple as moving a block an inch to the left on the rotating wheel.

This tangible interface instrument is an ideal tool to teach children about sound patterns and musical theories. Holmquist himself notes that Beat Blox is “an interactive music machine that offers free creative expression without requiring prior knowledge.”

In what may be just as entertaining as the giant floor piano at FAO Schwartz, this innovative device uses tangible interface technology and motion sensors to turn child’s play into music.

Student creates 3D-printed prosthetic arm for a classmate

Evan Kuester, a digital fabrication graduate student, didn’t feel completely fulfilled by his coursework. He worked through his studies, but wasn’t necessarily making the impact that he had hoped. After noticing a female student on campus without a hand, he decided to put his education to good use.

In pursuit of his Masters Degree, the California College of the Arts student had the ability to utilize some seriously powerful modeling and printing tools. He immediately knew this was a situation were he could take full advantage of his surroundings. “I’ve always wanted to design a prosthetic arm for as long as I can remember so the contest was the push I needed to finally make one,” Evan told the Daily Mail.

After taking a series of pictures of his new friend Ivania’s arm, Evan devised a 3D model for a visually pleasing prosthetic. The tailored piece featured internal lighting, and as 3DPrint.com puts it, “was quite the attention grabber.” Due to the fragile and intricate nature of the hand, the Maker included a structural framework for further support within the device.

Upon Ivania’s initial use, Kuester noticed that there were several adjustments that needed to be made. He wanted to make the design less bulky and more feminine in appearance.

In his second attempt at creating a prosthetic, “The stability of the model has room for improvement, my first attempt was way to bulky and this one is a hair on the thin side and sacrifices some strength for its aesthetic,” Evan told MAKE Magazine. This time the 3D-printed piece was both feminine and beautiful in appearance.

Still, the arm is fully-functional and has allowed him to foster a friendship with Ivania. Evan plans to continue to work in 3D design and has a series of concept ideas available on his website.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a DIYer utilize Atmel enabled technologies to make an impact in someone’s life. Just recently, a $100 3D-printed design came to the rescue of a handyman who was able to regain some use of his hands following an accident which left him handicapped. Researchers continue to explore the use of 3D printing for body parts, particularly those in which come in contact with the body but don’t enter the bloodstream — these include teeth, hearing aid shells, and prosthetic limbs.

Replicating Doctor Who’s K9 with Arduino

We seem to have a passion for Maker’s that faithfully recreate movie props here at Bits & Pieces. Our latest installment features an Australian teen that has launched an Indiegogo campaign to bring K9 from Doctor Who to life.

K9, the steadfast companion of a past iteration of Doctor Who, holds a special place in the hearts of the show’s rabid fan base. Adam Lloyd explains his decision to embark on this project, “To me K9 was one of the unsung heroes of the long-running BBC series Doctor Who and deserved to be brought back to life.”

As the project progressed, the bills kept piling up in Lloyd’s attempt to bring the robotic dog to life. In true Maker spirit, he has reached out the to robotics, engineering and Doctor Who communities for support in finishing the job.

He dubs the project’s current state as “semi-functional,” currently seeking for $500 to complete the replica. As far as status goes, the prop dog possesses the ability to navigate around, its computer systems (primary brain) are now online and his lights are functioning. The inner workings of K9 include 12 Atmel-powered Arduino boards, which are “probably enough wire to make it to Melbourne and back,” the Maker tells Stuff.co.nz.

In the future, Lloyd hopes to install a 60” projector into the side of the unit so that the dog can display his favorite Doctor Who episodes. He also looks to implement imaging sensors so that the canine will be able to differentiate between humans and objects, thus allowing him to eventually autonomously navigate his surroundings.

Though the Maker may not be looking to mass-produce the K9, he does aspire to bring awareness to the robotics community with this project. “Electronics isn’t as hard as you think. It’s no longer for the nerds and geeks of the school, anyone can create amazing things with a little bit of know-how; and I hope K-9 sparks some interest,” he tells Stuff.co.nz.

If cats have nine lives, how many do time traveling robotic dogs have? Help fund his project and find out! The Maker notes that all donors, despite amount, will receive their name printed on the inside of of the Atmel-based K9.

Lock down your golf cart with ATtiny85

Some of us are lucky enough to live in communities where a typical commute is conducted within the breezy confines of a golf cart. Though, the security on a typical golf cart isn’t necessarily up to snuff.

A Maker by the name of “ramicaza” just happens to live within one of these communities and has a passion for technology. To enhance the security of his own golf cart, he installed a tinyAVR microcontroller-powered biometric fingerprint sensor that initiates his vehicle’s ignition.

Using an ATtiny85 MCU and a “GT-511C1″ fingerprint sensor from Sparkfun, the Maker created a system that enables a driver to simply scan their finger to start their cart. This simple Atmel-based controller then uses a relay to allow power to flow from the cart’s main battery to the motor. The system initiates when a custom-built switch cover is opened and then immediately displays a red LED light. Once the correct finger is scanned, the LED switches to green and the cart is ready to roll. To power down the cart, one more scan is needed and a relay powers down the vehicle. Cleverly, the circuit is designed so that if the cover is pressed while the power is on, the circuit remains active.

Ramicaza successfully replaced his cart’s ignition with home-brewed device and significantly bolstered the ‘cool factor’ of his four-wheeled ride! If you were planning on replicating this project, the Maker has shared his source code and sketches on GitHub that allows the ATtiny85 to communicate with the fingerprints scanner. “This is a sketch that allows the ATtiny line of microcontrollers to interface with the GT511-C1/3 fingerprint sensor from Sparkfun. The advantage of this sketch is that it requires no libraries and thus works on any board that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE. The sketch initializes the connection with the sensor, turns the sensors in-built LED on and continually attempts to capture finger scans. Once one is successfully captured it analyzes,” ramicaza notes.

Students develop chess set for the visually impaired

Charles Buxton once said, “In life, as in chess, forethought wins.” Somaiya College’s forethought with their automated chess design provides a clear winner for all parties involved. The automated chess table includes braille pieces, voice recaps of every move, and textural contrasts between white and black spaces. The combination of all these factors allows the game to be utilized by those who suffer from visual impairments.

“There are already board games available in the market that can be used by the visually-impaired, but our board game involves technology that allows one to play the game online as well as on a physical board. The board automatically plays the moves depending on the keys pressed,” explains Gaurang Shetty, Head of the College’s Innovation Center.

The web connectivity of the project enables individuals to play each other from across the globe as the game board provides the player with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) over the Internet, so one person can play over GUI sitting in any corner of the world, while the other plays on the physical chess board.

At the heart of the 64-key membrane keyboard lies an Atmel-powered Arduino that allows the board to communicate with a connected computer. The team behind automated chess will be demonstrating their board at Maker Faire Rome next month.

“While the project is ready, we are also trying to incorporate other features to this chess board for even better results,” Shetty concluded.

 

An LED dress that is a tribute to the Hunger Games

Leslie Birch of Adafruit was recently nominated for “Geek of the Year” in Philadelphia and figured she needed an outfit to woo the tech-savvy crowd at the event. So what immediately came to mind? Recreating the show-stopping flaming dress from The Hunger Games, of course.

Just like Katniss Everdeen, Birch’s goal was to wow her fellow geeks at the gala. She got her hands on a used wedding dress and a petticoat and got to work. With 7-meters of NeoPixel 30 strips at her disposal, the Maker fashionista “removed the weatherproof casing and then soldered the strips together with tiny pieces of Adafruit’s new silicone wire.”

In her post, Birch notes that she slid the NeoPixel strips into the long casing on the petticoat, which not only allowed for illumination, but also created the modern day ‘hoop’ feeling which is perfect for a ball gown. Leslie knew that she wanted her dress to be motion-activated just as the one in the film. In order for the dress to react to a spin, the Maker needed a gyrosensor. After soldering up the wires and attaching it to the back of the ATmega32u4 based FLORA with foam adhesive tape.

To complete the outfit, she cut out a set of wings from craft foam and then covered them in a series of glue, chrome acrylic, and poly. They were not as stiff as she desired, but would be fully functional for her fiery outfit. Imagine combining this dress with the Luciferin necklace from last week? Whoever donned these creations would undoubtedly be mistaken for an extra from the next Hunger Games sequel!

Unfortunately, Leslie didn’t win “Geek of the Year,” but this design is still award winning in our minds!