Watch a robot solve a Rubik’s Cube in one second

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This Arduino-driven robot will unfix a Rubik’s Cube before you could even finish reading this sentence.  

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Last November, 14-year-old Lucas Etter set a new world record for the fastest time to solve a Rubik’s Cube, becoming the first person to ever break the five-second barrier for unravel the iconic 3 x 3 x 3 puzzle. As impressive as that may be, nothing may compare to this duo’s latest project. That’s because software engineers Jay Flatland and Paul Rose have devised an automated mechanism that can crack it in just over a second.

With an Atmel chip at its heart, the system is comprised of stepper motors, some 3D-printed parts and four webcams all connected to a Linux-based computer. The software engineers used the Kociemba algorithm to solve the puzzle, and have modified the Rubik’s Cube by drilling four holes into the middle of each of its six sides so the robot could manipulate it. Since the robot needs the cameras in order to function, the webcams are covered with a piece of paper until the cube is properly scrambled.

The team is now in the process of applying for the Guinness World Record. Pending all goes to plan, the robot will crush the current record holder’s time of 3.253 seconds.

Adafruit Feather M0 WiFi combines a SAM D21 and ATWINC1500

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Oh my, an Adafruit Feather with Wi-Fi! 

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Makers, meet the Adafruit Feather M0 WiFi. As its name would suggest, the all-new board is Adafruit’s latest take on an Arduino-compatible, ‘all-in-one’ platform with high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity, USB support and a built-in battery charger.

Equipped with an Atmel | SMART SAM D21 and ATWINC1500 SoC at its core, Makers will find it super simple to connect their Feathers to the Internet. The 802.11bgn-capable Wi-Fi module is the ideal add-on to existing MCU solutions bringing wireless and network capabilities through UART or SPI-to-Wi-Fi interface.

“This module works with 802.11b, g, or n networks and supports WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption,” Adafruit writes. “The datasheet says it can do Soft-AP mode but we don’t have any code to actually use that. You can clock it as fast as 12MHz for speedy, reliable packet streaming. And scanning/connecting to networks is very fast, a few seconds.”

The ATSAMD21G18 Cortex-M0+ processor at its heart — which is the same chip used in the new Arduino Zero — is clocked at 48MHz and at 3.3V logic. It boasts a whopping 256K of Flash (eight times more than the Atmega328 or 32u4) and 32K of RAM (16 times as much). The MCU comes with native USB, as well as a USB bootloader and serial port debugging.

With portability in mind, Adafruit has included a connector for any 3.7V LiPo battery along with an integrated charger. Even without a battery, it will run just fine via microUSB. The Feather will even 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,” Adafruit writes.

The ‘M0 WiFi features a similar form factor as many of its other Feathers, measuring 2.1″ x 0.9″ x 0.3” in size and weighing 6.1 grams. (Note, however, that it is 0.1″ longer than its siblings.) Beyond that, the board has 20 GPIO pins with eight PWM pins, 10 analog inputs, a single analog output, a power/enable pin, four mounting holes and a reset button. Plus, there are a couple of LEDs and is compatible with a wide range of FeatherWings, including OLED, NeoPixels, servos, relays, seven-segment displays, etc.

Have any more questions? Watch below as Lady Ada herself unveils the Feather M0 WiFi, or stay tuned on its page here.

 

21 smart crowdfunding campaigns you may want to back this week

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Every Friday, we take a look at some of the smartest, most innovative projects that caught our attention on Kickstarter and Indiegogo over the last seven days. 

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ComfyLight

This bulb simulates how you and your family move around the house, giving the impression of a lived-in home. ComfyLight is currently seeking $54,407 on Kickstarter.

SmartyPans

This intelligent skillet can track nutrition in real-time, while teaching you how to cook. SmartyPans is currently seeking $40,000 on Indiegogo.

SprayPrinter

This wireless device converts images from your smartphone into Banksy-like wall art. SprayPrinter is currently seeking $20,000 on Indiegogo.

Smartbe

This connected stroller offers more than 10 safety, security, comfort and convenience-enhancing functions, all managed by your smartphone or smartwatch. Smartbe is currently seeking $80,000 on Indiegogo.

DreamScreen

This set of colored LEDs attach to the back of your TV and react to the color pixels on your screen to enhance movies, games and shows. Rakesh and Kate Reddy have already well surpassed their goal of $25,000 on Kickstarter.

ALEX

This wearable gadget discreetly sits on the back of your neck to correct your posture. NAMU is currently seeking $50,000 on Kickstarter.

OneCook

This robotic chef streamlines the entire cooking process, and can adapt its style to your personal preferences. Team TNL is currently seeking $100,000 on Kickstarter.

Spritely

This wake-up system uses a special sensor and an accompanying mobile app to guarantee you get out of bed in the morning. Dylan Brodsky is currently seeking $100,000 on Indiegogo.

ACTREK

This wearable monitors your favorite exercises and fitness status, logs your daily nutrition, and improves your sleep quality. Entanti is currently seeking $100,000 on Kickstarter.

Intrvl Band

This personal training band comes with programmed interval timing functions to optimize your exercise routines. Intrvl Band is currently seeking $12,000 on Kickstarter.

Pavilion

This wireless speaker features a concrete base, a copper spiral bass port and an American white oak top with capacitive touch-enabled controls. Hult Design is currently seeking $1,000 on Indiegogo.

AllerGuarder

This Bluetooth wristband can help the 1-in-13 children with food allergies. Avram Weissman is currently seeking $25,000 on Kickstarter.

SCIO

This device is designed to teach you how to program objects for the IoT, with no experience necessary. MakerThreads is currently seeking $50,000 on Kickstarter.

EVO

This ultimate keychain gadget combines all the essentials you could possibly need for your smartphone — charger, battery, remote, storage and much more. Team Evolu2ion is currently $44,761 on Kickstarter.

Torch

This rechargeable heater fits right inside your coat to keep you warm. Anthony DeVito and  Luke Cesarz are currently seeking $20,000 on Indiegogo.

SmartCharge 2.0

This LED bulb continues to work up to four hours during a power outage. SmartCharge Light is currently seeking $50,000 on Indiegogo.

REDS.box

This box safely stores your data at home, while you enjoy all the benefits of the cloud. Flowy Apps is currently seeking $54,474 on Kickstarter.

Noah

This small unit connects to your 3D printer and controls slicing, filament disruption, queue management, power outages and more. Kentstrapper is currently seeking $49,112 on Kickstarter.

eBlocker

This plug-and-play solution anonymizes your online behavior by blocking all ads, stopping all trackers and hiding your IP for true privacy. Christian Bennefeld is currently seeking $81,700 on Kickstarter.

Pomocup

This simple yet practical device for ski mountaineers measures data that matters, providing real-time feedback during ascent and analytics back at home. Pomocup is currently seeking $49,905 on Kickstarter.

Did you happen to miss last week’s notable campaigns? If so, you can check them out here.

This tennis racquet grunts like Sharapova (and others) when you swing it

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A racquet that makes quite the racket.

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Conventional wisdom says that tennis players grunt because it helps them apply the maximal force when they strike the ball. However, don’t be fooled, these noises are totally unnecessary and downright annoying. In fact, there are top names in the game like Maria Sharapova whose screams routinely top 100 decibels. This has led many, including the legendary Martina Navratilova, to call into question whether or not the behavior is actually a form of cheating.

Cognizant of this, Maker Seiya Kobayashi has come up with a hilarious solution for this problem: a racquet that does the grunting for you. You simply select one of four notable noisemakers — Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal — and the aptly named Grunting Racket will take care of the rest.

This allows you to focus on your footwork and hitting the ball, while the combination of an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), an accelerometer and speaker emits the obnoxious sounds. Additional components include a LiPo battery, an Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board and a button on the grip that lets you choose the player. These electronics are all housed inside the racquet’s handle. Kobayashi employed both Arduino and Processing sketches along the way to prototype his idea.

How it works is fairly simple: When a value from the accelerometer exceeds a particular threshold, the sound board will play one of the four tones. You can see (and hear) it action below!

[s/o to fellow tennis players Artie Beavis and David Scheltema]

This giant drone lifted a record-setting weight of 134 pounds

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One team of students from Norway built a massive Megacopter that set the record for the heaviest payload lifted by a remote-controlled drone.

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The University of Oslo’s Department of Informatics has aspirations of one day using drones to transport people. (Not unlike the Ehang team, which debuted its person-carrying, helicopter-ish aerial vehicle at CES 2016.) Taking a step closer to a Jetsons-like future, one team of students led by Henning Pedersen has developed a giant aircraft which has set a new Guinness World Record for lifting the heaviest payload by a remote-controlled ‘copter.

The aptly named Megacopter is essentially a series of several small drones attached to a larger frame comprised of aluminum and plywood. There are a total of 48 motors and 13 propellers arranged in eight groups, as well as 24 LiPo batteries. A separate onboard controller kicks in if signal from the pilot is lost in order to help it float back down to the ground.

As you can see in the video below, large exercise balls were used as landing feet. Meanwhile, gyroscopes and accelerometers were employed as motor control and horizontal stabilizers.

A limited battery capacity gave the team five attempts to lift the weight, with the first two tries unsuccessful in achieving the 30-second minimum. Eventually, the Megacopter was able to raise its 134-pounds and 7.6-ounce load in the air for 37 seconds to claim its stake in the record books.

According to its creators, the drone only flies for three to six minutes but they hope to extend that time by adding more batteries in the near future. Currently, the Megacopter is registered to heft up to 330.5 pounds, but it is unknown for how long or how high.

 

KATIA is a robotic arm that can scan, 3D print, laser cut and even decorate a cake

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KATIA brings the functionality of an industrial robotic arm to mainstream consumers. 

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Will robots replace humans? This is a question we have speculated for decades, and the World Economic Forum released a report this week predicting the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2020. While the thought of robots taking over can be daunting, one San Francisco-based startup offers a positive near future where robots can work with us.

Meet KATIA — short for “Kick Ass Trainable Intelligent Arm” — the brainchild, or shall we say brain arm, of Carbon Robotics. Behind this great name is an even greater product. KATIA is a robotic arm that is modular, open source and can be manually trained for those not fluent in code, making it incredibly versatile and easy to use. Co-founders Rosanna Myers and Dan Corkum sought to create a robotics platform designed for the consumer market. Ordinary people can make use of KATIA, no programming skills or roboticist required.

KATIA is hackable, modular and customizable for each use and environment. It was built on an open platform so users can access its API via tools like Arduino and Python. Add-on attachments can be swapped on and off the robotic device, allowing KATIA to be more than a just an arm that can grab and move objects. It can be transformed into a 3D scanner, 3D printer, laser cutter, and even a cake decorator.

KATIA can be taught new movements if you simply guide the arm as it will replicate the desired motion, or you can draw a path for it to follow in the accompanying app. So if you wanted to decorate a cake, for example, KATIA can squeeze the icing in the design of your choosing.

The Carbon Robotics team recently presented at TechCrunch’s Hardware Battlefield finals back at CES 2016, where Myers said in the presentation, “The problem is that [robotic arms] are expensive. They’re difficult to use, and quite frankly not that safe. And that’s where we come in.”

KATIA can carry up to 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) and moves with sub-millimeter precision. This powerful robotic arm also ensures safety. Enclosed in its carbon fiber frame are sensors that can detect humans and things that come within close range.

Marketed as having the capabilities of an industrial robot at the price of a laptop, KATIA will be selling for $1,999 starting this March. To stay up-to-date, be sure to check out the Carbon Robotics website here.

ATtiny85 helps breathe new life into a broken scale

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Rather than toss out a broken bathroom scale, this father-son duo decided to refurbish it with an all-new electrical system.

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What do you do when your scale breaks? If you’re like most people, you either buy a new one, or don’t weigh yourself hoping that you didn’t actually gain any weight over the holidays. If, however, you are Oxford doctoral student Ilias Giechaskiel, you simply design a new electrical system for it, then build it with the help of your dad.

As the Maker puts it, “The obvious solution…was to get rid of the internal components, reuse the case and the sensors, and build everything from scratch.”

One of the more interesting techniques employed in this project is the use of a Wheatstone bridge in conjunction with a load cell to measure weight. As the voltage change in this type of setup is quite small, a separate chip was needed to amplify the signal before it was passed to an ATtiny85’s analog input. Another neat design choice was the use of the ATtiny85 with its limited input/output (IO) capability (5 IO pins plus a reset pin).

Giechaskiel explains his selection of MCU,“I like its small form-factor, and did not want to have unused pins.” However, he does admit that more I/O would have been useful to implement more functionality in the scale.

If that wasn’t enough, he programmed the ATtiny with an Arduino, as outlined in these instructions, and his new display is a nice bright red. This would seem to be an improvement over the boring gray, though if you’re not happy with the reading, it might be harder to conceal!

There are several neat concepts in this build, so be sure to check out his code, library, and schematics on GitHub. if you think you might be able to use some of these ideas!

 

 

Adafruit’s new breakout board will connect your Arduino to the Internet

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This 802.11bgn-capable module is the best new thing for networking your devices, with SSL support and rock solid performance.

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Makers wishing to connect their Arduino Zero (or Uno) to the Internet can now do so with Adafruit’s new ATWINC1500 Wi-Fi Breakout Board.

The ATWINC1500 found at its core is the ideal add-on to existing MCU solutions bringing wireless and network capabilities through UART or SPI-to-Wi-Fi interface. The Wi-Fi module features a fully-integrated power amplifier, LNA, switch and power management, as well as internal Flash memory.

“This 802.11bgn-capable WiFi module is the best new thing for networking your devices, with SSL support and rock solid performance — running our Adafruit.io MQTT demo for a full weekend straight with no hiccups (it would have run longer but we had to go to work, so we unplugged it),” Adafruit explains. “We like these so much, they’ve completely replaced the CC3000 module on all our projects.”

The Adafruit ATWINC1500 Wi-Fi Breakout uses SPI to communicate, and supports a range of security protocols including WEP, WPA and WPA2, TLS and SSL encryption.

“Right now the Atmel-supplied library works great with Arduino Zero, and seems to work OK on Uno but may not work on other Arduinos. You can clock it as fast as 12MHz for speedy, reliable packet streaming. And scanning/connecting to networks is very fast, a few seconds,” Adafruit adds.

Since this is the Adafruit crew’s new favorite SPI-protocol Wi-Fi module, and rightfully so, they’ve gone ahead and created a little breakout for it. This 1.3″ x 1.1″ x 0.16” board comes with level shifting on all the input pins so you can use it with 3V or 5V logic, a 3.3V voltage regulator, and a trio of LEDs that can be controlled either over the SPI interface (part of the library code) or by the Arduino library. They’ll light up when hooked up to an SSID, or transmitting data.

Interested? Head over to Adafruit’s official page to get your $24.95 board today!

This 3D printer on wheels wants to fix potholes

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Addibots are self-driving and remote-controlled 3D printers that can smooth over roads… or skating ponds at the very least.

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When it comes to 3D printing, who says you can’t think (and create) outside the box? Clearly not Robert Flitsch, a mechanical engineer and Harvard graduate who recently founded his own New York-based startup Addibots.  

An Addibot is a four-wheeled robot that can be either autonomous or remote-controlled, and holds an array of printheads on its undercarriage that enable it to 3D print with various materials as it drives.

Breaking free from the restraints of conventional 3D printing, Addibot can move its printing components to any desired location and produce items of any size. Unlike most machines where an object is built inside the print area and then removed for use, this platform can turn any surface into a workspace.

“A central limitation of current 3D printing methods is the fact that they operate inside a workspace of finite dimensions,” Flitsch explains. “For many household 3D printers, these dimensions are merely a few inches in each direction. For these printers, larger objects can only be manufactured with larger printers, making the fabrication of sizable industrial products either incredibly expensive (due to astronomical equipment costs) or downright impossible (for objects, like buildings or bridge trusses, just too large for a printer of this type).”

Flitsch’s first prototypes were equipped with inkjet cartridges, designed to show off the Addibot’s concept in 2D. And since water possesses similar fluid characteristics to ink, the engineer  — who also happens to be a lifelong hockey player — turned his attention to repurposing the bot as an ice resurfacing tool for skated-upon rinks. Like a mini Zamboni, the Addibot poured water that was cooled just above its freezing point into the slices and chips made by the blades, which would freeze on contact with the surface.

While the team notes that there are endless possibilities for Addibots, they are initially focusing their efforts on road repair and construction. They are working towards a new distribution array that can use asphalt materials, with hopes of fixing cracks, large potholes and eventually the resurfacing of our roadways altogether. The robot’s ability to streamline this process could potentially help public works departments and municipalities across the nation meet the massive demand for improved streets.

The robot operates much like any other 3D printer, just scaled down. Housed inside its chassis are multiple nozzles that lay down materials layer by layer, as needed. Impressively, the technology may even be able to one day “print” sensors into roads, which would be used for communication by self-driving vehicles.

“All the storage for material, all the chemical processing could be done on board the Addibot,” Flitsch told Popular Science. “Tar materials, which have to be kept at a high temperature, can be done in a tank with a constant heat source added to it. Power sources could be various kinds, depending on the size of the robot.”

Intrigued? Head over to its page to learn more, or see it in action above!

Build a $200 laser engraver with Arduino

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This DIY machine can engrave designs into wood, opaque plastic and leather.

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Many people have a nice assortment of tools in their garage or Makerspace, but once you get into computer-controlled implements, both your capabilities and, normally, the price of them goes up a notch. Instructables user Macinblack20 decided to step into the world of laser engravers with his project, and according to his how-to article, it can be built for less than $200.

His machine uses an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) running grbl, an open source CNC controller, to actuate two stepper motors. They move a one Watt laser in the X and Y axes on a gantry made out of OpenBuilds components. These parts, as well as a few others, are listed in the “materials” portion of his Instructables page. OpenBuilds appears to be an interesting option for Makers trying to source mechanical parts that can be hard to find or expensive.

Admittedly, employing a laser meant for engraving can be hazardous to your eyes, so you’ll definitely need a pair of laser safety glasses meant for the type of beam you’re using. Although an interesting build, don’t attempt something like this unless you’re absolutely confident that you can be safe with it.

For a seemingly less hazardous build, you may want to check out the CNC EtchABot, an Etch A Sketch with knob controls as well as an automatic erasing mechanism.