This lo-fi display is made of 64 wooden blocks

A Maker and artist by the name of Han Lee has created a slick lo-fi display. Dubbed Wooden Pixel Display 64, the project comprises a series of analog wooden blocks that act as digital pixels.

The lo-fi display is powered by an Arduino Uno (Atmel ATmega328) and four Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Shields tasked with controlling 64 servos. Interestingly, the 64 wood pixels in a 8×8 grid were originally prototyped using LEGO.

“One pixel might make you bored but it gives you something interesting when pixels make a form together. The WPD64 [was] recently presented at a generative art show in NYC recently,” Lee explained. “[I used a] laser cutting service from Pololu.com for the front cover which should have 64 square holes at the perfect grid.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out additional photos and videos on Lee’s official page here.

Building a knock drawer lock with Adafruit and Atmel

Adafruit’s Secret Knock Activated Drawer Lock is designed to conceal traditional lock mechanisms – unlocking only when a secret pattern of knocks is detected. Essentially, a solenoid locks secures the drawer while a piezo buzzer “listens” for knocks.

Meanwhile, an Atmel-powered Trinket (ATtiny85) compares the knock pattern to the stored secret knock. If they match, the solenoid latch neatly retracts and the drawer can be opened. As Adafruit’s Steve Hoefer notes, setting your own custom knock is as simple as holding down a button and tapping the new rhythm. On the software side, the project uses straight-forward Arduino code and the standard Arduino EEPROM library.

In terms of wiring, Hoefer recommends (initially) building the circuit on a solderless breadboard to make sure everything works before soldering it into place.

“Solder the piezo buzzer to the back of the PCB so it can be installed flush against the desk/drawer/etc and hear knocks more clearly. [The] length of wire between the lock and the knock sensor depends on where you plan to mount it,” Hoefer writes in a recently published Adafruit tutorial.

“Measure your distances and be sure to allow some extra for movement of drawers and doors. You should be able to put the lock several feet from the detector without any problems. If you’re installing them close to each other then simply cut the connector off the solenoid lock.”

According to Hoefer, the circuit uses the Trinket’s pin #3, so in some cases, Makers may need to disconnect the 2.2KΩ resistor from pin #3 to program the circuit.

“Note that my sample programs just fine with pin 3 connected, but your mileage may vary. If you want to be extra sure of being able to program it after it’s soldered in place consider using female headers to mount the Trinket, or put a jumper between pin #3 and the 2.2KΩ resistor,” Hoefer added.

Interested in learning more about building a knock drawer lock with Adafruit and Atmel? You can check out Steve Hoefer’s detailed tutorial here.

 

An LED “magic staff” for Halloween

A Maker by the name of Dave Shevett has created an Arduino-driven, LED-lit magical staff just in time for Halloween (aka All Hallows’ Eve).

According to the HackADay crew, Shevett has equipped the staff with 6 LED strips, each containing 55 LEDs. When set to full brightness, the magical staff sucks up an impressive 20A @ 5V. To power the project, Shevett uses a total of 8 NiMH C size batteries (5000mAh @ 1.5V).

“This works out to about 15-20 minutes of runtime at full power (255, 255, 255, LED values) — to counter this he usually runs a sparkly LED algorithm that lasts much longer,” explained HackADay’s James Hobson. “Besides, at full power it’s really quite blinding.”

The magic staff – controlled by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) – currently offers two modes: random and fill brightness. However, Shevett plans to continue modding his project, eyeing a sound sensor (equalizer) and a shock sensor to give the staff a slick ripple effect when walking.

In other Halloween news, the folks at Adafruit have put together detailed build instructions for an Arduino-powered WiFi candy bowl monitor.

Essentially, a simple infrared light sensor detects when the bowl is empty or full, while a CC3000 WiFi chip relays the sensor data via a wireless network. Makers can also telnet to a simple server running on the Arduino, querying the status of the candy bowl.

You can read more about Adafruit’s WiFi candy bowl monitor here.

Building some spook-tacular blink eyes with Adafruit and Atmel

Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, attending costume parties, decorating home exteriors, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories and of course, watching horror films. We at Atmel would like to add one more item to the Wikipedia list above: building Halloween-themed Maker projects like Bill Blumenthal’s Spooky Blinky Eyes.

According to Mike Barela, the original version of the project is built around an ATtiny45 MCU; however, Adafruit’s iteration employs the ATtiny85 based Trinket or GEMMA. Tasked with fading a pair of LED eyes that randomly blink, the Atmel powered platforms offer a more realistic effect than standard “always on” LED eyes.

“The effect is due to come clever programming of the timers available on the ATTiny processors featured on the Adafruit Trinket and GEMMA microcontrollers,” Barela explained in a recent Adafruit tutorial.

“Pins 0 and 1 are capable of pulse width modulation. The timers are set to fade the pins in and out by changing the pulse width back and forth. The blink effect is using an algorithm called a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) to pseudo-randomly turn the eyes off and on quickly.”

As Barela notes, Adafruit’s version of the Halloween Blinky Eyes project adapts the original code for use on the faster ATTiny85 processor and Arduino integrated development environment (IDE). It also adds a Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) photocell to allow the eyes to activate only below a certain light level, helping to save battery power.

Other key project components include:

• 3V Trinket (may be substituted by a GEMMA)
• Cadmium Sulfide Photocell
• Two LEDs 2 56 or 68 ohm resistors (100 ohm will work also but eyes will be a tad dimmer)
• 1-1000 (1k) ohm resistor
• Tiny Breadboard (or other suitable wiring surface)
• 6V coin cell battery pack
• Two CR2032 Batteries
• A prop to put your circuit in

“The circuit is fairly straightforward and can be assembled well within an hour. Headers (included with Trinket) may be soldered to facilitate attachment to a breadboard or proto board. Other parts may be pressed into the breadboard. Ready-made hookup wire or cut to fit wires make the connections,” Barela continued.

“The same circuit with GEMMA. The LEDs go to D0 and D1 with a 56 or 68 ohm resistor (100 ohms is fine also but they will be a bit dimmer). D1/A1 is hooked to the junction of the photocell and a 100 ohm (1K) resistor. If you wish to just rely on the power pack on/off switch, you can eliminate the photocell and 1K resistor. The battery pack works well with wearables, as it has a JST connector to plug directly into GEMMA, [along with] an on/off switch to save power when the circuit is not being used.”

Interested in learning more about the Halloween Blinky Eyes project above? Be sure to read Adafruit’s detailed tutorial here.

And the Wearables Challenge winner is…

element14 has chosen two winners from eight global finalists as part of its “Get Closer” Wearables Challenge. The contest challenged engineers, hobbyists and Makers to design a wearable project using Adafruit’s Atmel-powered FLORA. The two winners, announced earlier this week, developed a unique LED umbrella and ColorCam based on Adafruit’s versatile platform.

The LED umbrella – equipped with LED neopixel strips that change color – was submitted by Leslie Birch of Philadelphia. It features three modes: color match, which uses a color sensor to match colors; a rainbow display; and a simulated rainfall.

Meanwhile, Linda Kaspers of The Netherlands created the ColorCam to help teach children colors. When the user takes a picture of any one of Linda’s felt pictures, they are given three color choices on the back of the camera.

As shown in the video above, one of the choices is the matching color, with a series of green lights appearing if the correct color is selected.

Other notable projects included a navigation glove, a family of suites comprised of colored strobe LED lights and a GPS-equipped hat showing neopixel displays based on checked-in locations.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Adafruit’s wearable electronics platform is powered by Atmel’s popular Atmega32u4 microcontroller (MCU). The device boasts built-in USB support, eliminating the need for pesky special cables and extra parts.

Unsurprisingly, numerous Makers are currently using Adafruit’s FLORA to design a wide range of creations. The wearables trend isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon, either. According to element14, clothing capable of recognizing and relaying the user’s location, environment or status is quickly ushering in a new generation of industrial applications and personal platforms.

Atmel’s ATiny85 powers this IRKey

Adafruit has debuted an IRKey powered by Atmel’s ATiny85 microcontroller (MCU). Essentially, the IRKey can be used to add a IR remote receiver to any computer, laptop, tablet or device with a USB port.

“This little board slides into any USB A port, and shows up as an every-day USB keyboard. The on-board ATiny85 microcontroller listens for IR remote signals and converts them to keypresses,” the Adafruit crew explained in a recent blog post. “We bundle this with our remote with 21 buttons so it controls nearly anything you want.”

As expected, the firmware can be re-programmed and customized, with the relevant files available on GitHub here. However, it should probably be noted that the IRKey is designed for use with Adafruit’s mini IR remote, meaning it won’t work with other remotes.

“It’s great for controlling an XBMC computer, but also nice when you want to make a clicker for watching videos or playing music on your computer or laptop,” the Adafruit crew added. “And since it’s just a USB keyboard, no drivers are required for any operating systems.”

The IRKey offers two modes: ASCII and Multimedia key. ASCII mode is default, which activates a single blink on startup and outputs all ASCII-type characters that any keyboard can generate. Meanwhile, multimedia mode (MM) has two blinks on startup and sends MM keys as seen on some keyboards. This mode allows users to control the volume or media players like Apple’s iTunes – even if it is in the background. The list of basic MM commands includes:

• “Vol-” -> ‘-‘ in ASCII mode or ‘Volume down’ in Multimedia Key mode
• “Vol+” -> ‘=’ in ASCII mode or ‘Volume up’ in Multimedia Key mode
• “Play/pause” -> ‘ ‘ (space) in ASCII mode or ‘Play/Pause’ in Multimedia Key mode
• “Setup” -> Escape key in ASCII mode or ‘Menu” in Multimedia Key mode
• “Stop/Mode” -> ‘x’ in ASCII mode or ‘Stop’ in Multimedia Key mode
• Up/Down/Left/Right -> Arrow keys in ASCII mode or Volume Up/Down and Prev/Next track in Multimedia Key mode
• Enter/Save -> Enter key
• Reverse -> Backspace key
• 0 thru 9 -> ‘0’ thru ‘9’

Users can switch between modes by waiting until the IRKey is plugged in and working, then press down the mini button for one second. The LED will blink, confirming that the modes have switched.

Adafruit’s IRKey with remote is available here for $14.95.

Building an analog meter clock with Atmel and Adafruit

Adafruit’s Trinket is a tiny microcontroller board built around Atmel’s versatile ATtiny85 (MCU).

“We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project – and low cost enough to use without hesitation,” Adafruit’s Limor Fried (aka LadyAda) explained. “[It is] perfect for when you don’t want to give up your expensive dev-board and you aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design.”

Although the Trinket launched in September, the ATtiny85-powered Trinket has already tipped up in a number of projects including a sound-reactive color LED organ, IR control device, Tap Tempo and a temperature/humidity sensor. Today, we’ll be talking about building a Trinket-powered analog meter clock. As Adafruit’s Mike Barela notes, the Trinket is a perfect fit for clock projects, as the platform is small and easy to hide behind a larger display.

“Clocks don’t need a lot of logic, this example only has maybe 20 lines of code, [while] adding a digital display via I2C is possible using seven segment or character-based displays (with the library code posted for other projects),” Barela wrote in a detailed tutorial on the subject. “This [specific] project interfaces Trinket to the the Adafruit DS1307 real-time clock (RTC) breakout board to form a clock. But in a twist, the display is done using two analog meters. One for hours, one for minutes.”

According to Barela, the Trinket is capable of outputting to a meter without digital to analog converters.

“Trinket has pulse width modulation (PWM) on three of its pins. The meter uses a moving coil inductance movement, acting to average the indication of current flowing through it,” he continued.

“If you have narrow pulses, the average voltage it sees is lower, thus the current is lower for the fixed resistance attached to it. For wide pulses, the meter sees nearly the supply voltage and will stay around the full scale. This circuit varies the pulse width sent to the meters proportional to the hour of the day and the minutes after the hour.”

For two meters, says Barela, two of the three PWM pins on Trinket will be used (the third is also an I2C pin connected to the clock module). Although there are many ways to display the finished product, Adafruit decided to go with the meters “free-floating” in a colorful box, rather than a cabinet or plexiglass display.

To kick off the project, Barela recommends Makers first unpack their Trinket. Those using a breadboard or Perma-Proto board will want to solder on the (provided) header pins. After unpacking the DS1307 kit and building the circuit, Makers are instructed to modify the Arduino IDE to work with Trinket by adding the hardware definition file, the avrdude.conf file – while changing the ld.exe program from the 2008 dated version to the 2009 dated version and installing the driver for USBtinyISP appropriate to your operating system.

“To prepare the Trinket for other programs, you will want to first load the Trinket Blink sketch into the Arduino software then load it onto the Trinket to verify everything works well. You must press the hardware reset button on the Trinket then quickly press upload in the Arduino software to upload a sketch,” Barela added. “If you get an error, try the reset-upload process again. If you continually cannot load the blink sketch, check to make sure the Trinket is connected (without any wires connected to pins #3 and #4) and the Arduino IDE software has all the required changes.”

Interested in learning more? Be sure to check out Adafruit’s detailed analog meter clock tutorial here.

Building a sound-reactive (Trinket) LED color organ

A color organ was a staple of the music scene in the 1970s, although the instrument can still be seen today at various concerts and select home theaters. The principle is relatively simple: flash colored lights in step with music or other sounds.

“Color organs sample sound and flash lights based either the sound intensity or frequency. The higher end units use analog or digital signal analysis to determine the sound energy in selective parts of the frequency spectrum and flash the lights accordingly,” Adafruit’s Mike Barela explained in a recently published tutorial.

“The Adafruit Ampli-Tie project, which uses [the Atmel-powered] Flora, has two different algorithms to light a string of Neopixel LEDs according to sound intensity. We will reuse much of the first Ampli-Tie algorithm’s code. The more complex algorithm uses a good deal of floating point math, which is too large to fit on a Trinket or Gemma.”

According to Barela, the simpler algorithm fits with room to spare, using integer math. The code is slightly modified to give the effect one may want in a color organ, although Makers can easily alter the code to produce other effects for their own projects.

To kick off the project, Barela recommends starting with a breadboard and subsequently transferring the circuit to a small perma-proto board when a permanent mount becomes more appropriate.

“You may solder the headers supplied with Trinket to facilitate breadboarding. A small three-pin header was placed on the microphone breakout board for breadboard connection,” he added.

“For a more permanent circuit, you could use a servo extension cable to extend the microphone or wire your own three wires from the microphone breakout to the Trinket, power and ground lines.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Adafruit’s recently launched Trinket is a tiny microcontroller board built around Atmel’s ATtiny85.

“We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project – and low cost enough to use without hesitation,” said Adafruit’s Limor Fried (aka LadyAda). “[It is] perfect for when you don’t want to give up your expensive dev-board and you aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design.”

Fried describes the Attiny85 as a “fun processor,” because despite being so small, it boasts 8K of flash and 5 I/O pins – including analog inputs and PWM ‘analog’ outputs.

Want to learn more about building a sound-reactive LED color organ using the Atmel-powered Trinket? You can check out Adafruit’s detailed tutorial here. Additional information about the Atmel-powered Flora is available here.

Going Steampunk with Atmel and Adafruit

Recently, the Adafruit crew designed a pair of goggles for cyberpunks, steampunks and yes, Daft Punks. Officially dubbed “Kaleidoscope Eyes,” key components for the headware include NeoPixel rings, an Atmel-powered (ATtiny85) Trinket (or Atmel-powered Gemma) and a battery (lithium-polymer or 3x AA battery case).

Now the Adafruit crew is back with another slick goggle design. While “Kaleidoscope Eyes,” targeted a slew of fashion genres, the latest pair of goggles are clearly more Steampunk (from a fashion perspective) than either Cyber or Daft.

“Everyone loves funky goggles and the Adafruit Neopixel rings are perfect for building a flashy pair. To kick it up a notch, we STEAMed up these goggles with some high tech sensors and a bit of applied math and physics,” explained Adafruit’s Bill Earl.

“The goggles are controlled by a Flora microcontroller [powered by Atmel’s Atmega32u4 MCU] with a LSM303 accelerometer/magnetometer to track the motion of the wearer’s head. A simple physics engine implements virtual pendulum display on the LED rings that swings in response to the motion of the wearer. The effect is much like a pair of hyperactive electronic googly eyes.”

In addition to the Atmel-powered Flora MCU, key project components include:

• One pair of Goggles – Any pair of goggles with 50mm lenses will be a perfect fit for the neopixel rings. The prototype for this particular project was built with these German-made safety goggles – using the optional tinted lenses.
• Two Adafruit Neopixel Rings.
• One Adafruit Flora LSM303 Magnetometer/Accelerometer.
• One 3xAAA battery pack.
• Scrap of leather or upholstery vinyl for mounting electronics to the temple.
• One 53mm Watchmaker’s Case to house the Flora & Sensor.

It should probably be noted that the goggles are more for show than anything else (Halloween, COSPLAY), as they aren’t suitable for general use as eyewear and certainly not safe to use as protective lenses.

“The flashing lights are very visible inside the goggles. They will impair your vision and may cause dizziness headaches or even nausea with prolonged use,” Earl cautioned in a detailed tutorial. “The LED rings themselves will severely limit your peripheral vision, making it dangerous to walk-about, much less drive a car, juggle chainsaws or pilot a starship.”

That being said, these awesome STEAM-Punk Goggle Operating System recognizes several “gesture” commands for changing operating modes. To be sure, all it takes is a nod of the head to engage the anti-gravity circuits.

Interested in learning more about the Atmel-powered STEAM-Punk Goggles? You can check out Adafruit’s STEAM-Punk Goggle tutorial here.

Lüme: Wearable fashion with the ATMega32u4

Lüme is an electronically infused clothing collection that stylishly integrates dynamic, custom elements driven from a mobile phone.

Built around Atmel’s versatile ATMega32u4, the design and engineering of the collection is focused on the integration of electronics in such a way that the components can be easily removed and embedded – creating pieces which are easy to wash and maintain.

“The initial objective for the collection was to create a series of garments that could adapt to the users daily life, changing in color depending on the event, location, mood, or even just to match another garment or accessory,” Lüme Collection  staff explained in a recent blog post.

“The garments also can respond to sound, if the user [chooses] to select this option within the phone application. The laser cut piece within each garment can also be customized, to another pattern (other than damask pattern), such as polka dots, flowers, lines, etc.”

The Lüme Collection illustrates how Atmel’s versatile MCUs are positioned in the center of the rapidly evolving wearable tech revolution. First off, our SAM4S and tinyAVR MCUs are inside the Agent smart-watch which recently became a Kickstarter success. Atmel MCUs have also tipped up in a number of Maker projects for wearable tech, such as the LED pocket watch we featured earlier this year, as well as Adafruit’s popular wearable Flora, Gemma and Trinket platforms.

Clearly, wearable tech is getting a long overdue makeover, as Internet-linked computers are deftly woven into formerly brainless attire such as glasses, bracelets and shoes.

“We are heading for the wearable computing era,” Gartner analyst Van Baker told the AFP. “People are going to be walking around with personal area networks on their bodies and have multiple devices that talk to each other and the Web.”

Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at NPD, expressed similar sentiments.

“Traditional technology companies will have to start paying attention to how sensors are enabling us to live… Consumers are ultimately going to become more aware of their data in the digital ether. I suspect wearables are going to disrupt the way tech firms are doing business now.”