Rewind: 8 Maker projects changing the world


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


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.

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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:

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.

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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

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OpenBionics’ Minas Liarokapis

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Solar Utility Vehicle’s Chris Low

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Gas Sensor for Emergency Workers’ Eric William

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Vinduino’s Reinier van der Lee

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LUKA EV’s Maurice Ward

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FarmBot’s Rory Aronson

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uRADMonitor’s Radu Motisan

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


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


“250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights… 25,000 lights. I dedicate this house to the Griswold Family Christmas…Drumroll, please…Drumroll…Jooooooy to the worldddd.”

Just days before all of your friends, loved ones and Santa arrive, Christmas and its twinkling light spectacles are well underway. And really, what could be more appropriate for Makers than a set of artfully strung, decorative LEDs controlled by an Arduino? For those looking to channel their inner Clark Griswold and adorn the outside of their home with hundreds of bulbs, here’s some holiday inspiration!

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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)

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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…


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


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.

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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.

Modulowo launches Explore boards for Atmel Xplained


Modulowo’s new boards want to make IoT development a breeze.


Development tools are becoming increasingly popular and are often used for prototyping, designing new devices, educating and programming. Well, one Poland-based startup has decided to take it one step further by devising a solution to streamline the process for Makers and engineers alike. Modulowo has announced the availability of their new Explore boards for the Intel Edison and Atmel Xplained platforms.

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The Modulowo Explore E is an IoT dev board for Intel Edison Compute Module (with dual-core Intel Atom, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE), compatible with Arduino, Linux, C, C ++, Python and JavaScript. Meanwhile, the Modulowo Explore X is a dedicated board for Atmel Xplained.

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The Explore is equipped with a connector for Intel Edison platform, two Modulowo duoNECT connectors for expansion modules, GPIO, SPI, UART and I2C interfaces connectors, two microUSB (USB OTG and USB/UART converter), 12-bit ADC (optional 16-bit) for measuring analog signals, logic level translators (tolerates +3,3V/+5V signals), a battery charger (only for Intel Edison) and a connector for additional power supply to the add-ons.

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One of Modulowo’s most notable features is that its modules can be mounted via pin connectors or directly on the board by castellated holes. These add-ons include sensors, tactile switches, motor controllers, LED drivers, GPS, wireless communication and Wi-Fi connectivity with the ATWINC1500.

Intrigued? You can head over to Modulowo’s page to explore the wide range of development boards.

An Internet-connected, voice-controlled robotic bartender


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


If you enjoy mixed drinks, but would rather not have to think about mixing them correctly, a robotic assistant could be quite helpful. Tony Marsico has had a vision of this kind of assistant since he got out of college, and finally got around to building it as his first Arduino-based project.

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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.”

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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


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


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.

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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.

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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 SchmidtMaster 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.

Why connect to the cloud with the Atmel | SMART SAM W25?


The “thing” of IoT does not have to necessarily be tiny. 


The Atmel | SMART SAM W25 is, in fact, a module — a “SmartConnect Module.” As far as I am concerned, I like SmartConnect designation and I think it could be used to describe any IoT edge device. The device is “smart” as it includes a processing unit, which in this case is an ARM Cortex-M0-based SAMD21G, and “connect” reminds the Internet part of the IoT definition. Meanwhile, the ATWINC1500 SoC supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n allowing seamless connection to the cloud.

What should we expect from an IoT edge device? It should be characterized by both low cost and power! This IoT system is probably implemented multiple times, either in a factory (industrial) or in a house (home automation), and the cost should be as low as possible to enable large dissemination. I don’t know the SAMD21G ASP, but I notice that it’s based on the smallest MCU core of the ARM Cortex-M family, so the cost should be minimal (my guess). Atmel claims the W25 module to be “fully-integrated single-source MCU + IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi solution providing battery powered endpoints lasting years”… sounds like ultra low-power, doesn’t it?

Atmel claims the W25 module to be “Fully-integrated single-source MCU + IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi solution providing battery powered endpoints lasting years”…sounds like being ultra low-power, isn’t it

The “thing” of IoT does not necessarily have to be tiny. We can see in the above example that interconnected things within the industrial world can be as large as these wind turbines (courtesy of GE). To maximize efficiency in power generation and distribution, the company has connected these edge devices to the cloud where the software analytics allow wind farm operators to optimize the performance of the turbines, based on environmental conditions. According with GE, “Raising the turbines’ efficiency can increase the wind farm’s annual energy output by up to 5%, which translates in a 20% increase in profitability.” Wind turbines are good for the planet as they allow avoiding burning fossil energy. IoT devices implementation allows wind farm operators to increase their profitability and to build sustainable business. In the end, thanks to Industrial Internet of Thing (IIoT), we all benefit from less air pollution and more affordable power!

ATSAMW25 Block-DiagramThe ATWINC1500 is a low-power Systems-on-Chip (SoC) that brings Wi-Fi connectivity to any embedded design. In the example above, this SoC is part of a certified module, the ATSAMW25, for embedded designers seeking to integrate Wi-Fi into their system. If we look at the key features list:

  • IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (1×1) for up to 72 Mbps
  • Integrated PA and T/R switch
  • Superior sensitivity and range via advanced PHY signal processing
  • Wi-Fi Direct, station mode and Soft-AP support
  • Supports IEEE 802.11 WEP, WPA
  • On-chip memory management engine to reduce host load
  • 4MB internal Flash memory with OTA firmware upgrade
  • SPI, UART and I2C as host interfaces
  • TCP/IP protocol stack (client/server) sockets applications
  • Network protocols (DHCP/DNS), including secure TLS stack
  • WSC (wireless simple configuration WPS)
  • Can operate completely host-less in most applications

We can notice that host interfaces allow direct connection to device I/Os and sensors through SPI, UART, I2C and ADC interfaces and can also operate completely host-less. A costly device is then removed from the BOM which can enable economic feasibility for an IoT, or IIoT edge device.

The low-power Wi-Fi certified module is currently employed in industrial systems supporting applications, such as transportation, aviation, healthcare, energy or lighting, as well as in IoT areas like home appliances and consumer electronics. For all these use cases, certification is a must-have feature, but low-cost and ultra-low power are the economic and technical enablers.


This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Eric Esteve is a principle blogger and one of the four founding members of the site. This blog first appeared on SemiWiki on November 15, 2015.

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


Here’s a look at a bunch of boards that caught our attention over the last 12 months. Feel free to share your favorites below! 


“Hardware becomes a piece of culture that anyone can build upon, like a poem or a song.” – Massimo Banzi

Arduino Zero

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A 32-bit Arduino powered by the Atmel | SMART SAM D21.

Arduino Wi-Fi Shield 101

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An IoT shield with CryptoAuthentication that enables you to wirelessly connect your Arduino or Genuino with ease.

Arduino MKR1000

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A powerful board that combines the functionality of the Zero and the connectivity of the Wi-Fi Shield.

Atmel | SMART SAM L21

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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

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An ultra-low power Bluetooth Smart SoC with an integrated ARM Cortex-M0 MCU and transceiver.

Atmel | SMART SAMA5D2

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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

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An ARM Cortex-M7-based MCU with a floating point unit (FPU) that’s ideal for connectivity and general purpose industrial applications.

ATmegaS128

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A space-ready version of the popular ATmega128.

Adafruit Feather

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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

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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

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A miniature wearable board based on the ATtiny85.

Adafruit Bluefruit LE Micro

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A board that rolls the versatility of the ATmega32U4 and the wireless connectivity of the SPI Bluefruit LE Friend all into one.

SparkFun Stepoko

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An Arduino-compatible, 3-axis control solution that runs grbl software.

SparkFun SAM D21 Breakout

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An Arduino-sized breakout for the ATSAMD21G18.

Bosch Sensortec BMF055

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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

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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

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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

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A tiny, Arduino-compatible board with a built-in battery connector and charger built-in, as well as a fuel gauge.

Tessel 2

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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

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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+

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An Arduino-compatible board that is programmed wirelessly using Bluetooth Low Energy.

Makey Makey GO

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A thumbdrive-shaped device that can transform ordinary objects into touch pads.

Hak8or

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An uber mini, DIY board based on an Atmel | SMART AT91SAM9N12 that runs Linux via a USB drive.

Modulo

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A set of tiny modular circuit boards that takes the hassle out of building electronics.

Microduino mCookie

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A collection of small, magnetically stackable modules that can bring your LEGO projects to life.

The AirBoard

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A compact, open source, wireless and power efficient dev board designed to learn, sketch and deploy prototypes out in the field.

Autonomo

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A matchbox-sized, Arduino-compatible MCU powered by a small solar panel.

Helium

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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

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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

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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

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A cost-effective, Arduino-compatible board with built-in Wi-Fi.

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A little board designed for wearable devices that features a BNO055, an ATmega328P and a CR2032 coin-cell battery.

 XeThru X2M200 and X2M300

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A pair of adaptive smart sensor modules that can monitor human presence, respiration and other vital information.

LinkIt Smart 7688 Duo

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An Arduino Yún-friendly platform powered by an ATmega32U4 and MediaTek MT7688 SoC.

Piccolino

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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

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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

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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

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An add-on board that makes it easy to secure your Raspberry Pi and Linux applications.

Flip & Click

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A two-sided, Arduino-like board with an AT91SAM3X8E for its heart.

ChipWhisperer-Lite

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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

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An Arduino Leonardo-like board with built-in NFC that lets you replace your keys with any smartphone, NFC ring or proximity card.

Neutrino

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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

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An open source, Arduino-compatible board with an ATmega32U4, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module and lithium-ion battery support.

Obscura

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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

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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

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A board that brings sophisticated analog and audio input, output and storage capabilities to the Arduino environment.

NodeIT

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A super small and expandable IoT system for Makers.

Pixel

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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

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An Arduino crammed inside an SD card.

… and how could we not mention this?

The WTFDuino!

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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.

 

This machine can chop veggies like a pro


Simone Giertz is back — this time with a machine that can chop broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and just about anything.


Already equipped with several quirky machines that take care of most of her morning routine (from getting out of bed to brushing her teeth to feeding her breakfast), the innovative and always hilarious Simone Giertz has taken her ingenuity to the next part of the day: lunch.

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That’s because the Maker, who happens to be a lifelong vegetarian, has developed a terrifyingly awesome Chopping Machine. And like her other inventions, the gadget was designed to automate a particular task that would otherwise require spending time and effort.

Why, you ask? “Because I’m lazy (?),” Giertz says. “I’ve spent a significant amount of time chopping, mincing and dicing all varieties of vegetables. Eating healthy is boring enough in itself, why does preparing healthy food have to be such a tedium?”

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The Chopping Machine is exactly what it sounds like: a mechanism that can literally chop veggies. It consists of an Actobotics system, two knives and a pair of servo motors, all driven by an Arduino Nano (ATmega328).

The device itself is relatively simple, yet pretty dangerous nevertheless. (Translation: don’t try this at home!) Two servo motors lift the knife up and a spring at the bottom pulls it right back down. With it, Giertz can now slice broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and pretty much anything else… even the board itself.

Intrigued? Terrified? Fascinated? See it for yourself below!

 

 

Maker creates tiny RC flamethrower


A tiny radio-controlled flamethrower… what can go wrong?


It goes without saying that nothing good can come of a tiny radio-controlled flame thrower, so it’s probably not the best idea to build one. Yet, we couldn’t help but share a recent project from “MAKE-log,” who has done just that.

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Admittedly, its creator does warn operating the 13cm x 4cm x 8cm device at your own risk. The RC Flamethrower is fueled by a 35ml deodorant spray. A micro servo pushes down the can’s lever and actuates its valve, while a SparkFun Spark Gap Igniter (no longer available) helps generate the spark and deterministically spit out flames.

The remote is in the form of a Microsoft joystick, which is equipped with an an MCU, an RF transmitter and an LED to denote that radio transmission is taking place.

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Meanwhile, the flamethrower itself is based on an ATmega328P and features a transceiver, a DC/DC boost converter for supplying 5V, two Li-ion 11mAh batteries in parallel, a pair of 5-bit RGBs and a Li-ion charger set to 300A. The SparkFun igniter is connected directly to the the Li-ion battery via MOSFET.

That all said, MAKE-log’s compact build does boast several safety interlocks and dons an informative interface. A 128 x 64 OLED display shows the flamethrower’s burn time and remaining battery levels, while a two LEDs and a mini 5V buzzer emit visual and audible warnings for the user. Red indicates fire mode, flashing blue lights suggest a loss of signal.

YOU SHOULD NOT recreate this on your own. We repeat, you SHOULD NOT recreate this on your own. However, MAKE-log provides a detailed breakdown of the build below, and shares the AVR-GCC code for the joystick here.