Building a superhero power plant with Atmel and Adafruit

The Gemma is a tiny wearable platform board neatly packed in a 1″ diameter package. The device – powered by Atmel’s versatile ATtiny85 – is easily programmable with an Arduino IDE over USB. Similarly, Adafruit’s Trinket, a tiny microcontroller board, is also built around Atmel’s ATtiny85.

Although the Gemma only recently hit the streets, the platform been used to power a wide range of Maker projects across the DIY spectrum. And today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at how to use the Atmel-powered Gemma (and Flora) to build a superhero power plant designed by Becky Stern and the Adafruit crew.

“Planning an epic Iron Man costume for Halloween or Comic Con, or looking for that iconic piece that turns a plain t-shirt into Tony Stark? Look no further, for in this guide we’ll show you how to make your own electronic glowing reactor with a cool pulsing effect,” Stern wrote in a recent Adafruit post. “You can even customize it once complete, go for red, purple, green, pink – whatever color will power you up! Or change the pulse rate or effects to add a special touch.”

Although the superhero power plant is a relatively simple soldering+crafts project, Stern recommends that Makers familiarize themselves with a couple of tutorial guides before kicking things off, such as “Introducing GEMMA” and Adafruit’s “NeoPixel Überguide.”

Aside from the Atmel-powered Gemma, key projects components include:

• NeoPixel ring
• Single FLORA NeoPixel
• solid-core hookup wire
• JST extension cable
• 3xAAA battery pack with batteries
• 2x laser-cut/etched acrylic in clear or white (files on Thingiverse)
• elastic
• safety pin or velcro
• E6000 craft glue or hot melt glue
• needle and thread
• tracing/printer paper

The first step? Download the relevant vector files from Thingiverse, and yes, there is also an Iron Man 3-inspired version available.

“Inking the engraved portion with a dry erase marker really brings out the detail. We layer two of these together for a neat 3D effect then later we’ll wrap wire through the provided holes and indents to hold them together,” Stern continued. “Hairline features are vector cuts, everything else is engraved. Our settings using a 60 Watt Epilog? Raster speed 50%, raster power 50%, vector speed 40%, vector power 100%, vector frequency 5000. Have fun!”

Interested in learning more about building a superhero power plant with Atmel and Adafruit? Be sure to check out Becky Stern’s complete tutorial over at Adafruit.

Biometric security with the Arduino Uno

A DIY Maker by the name of Grant Gibson has designed a biometric security box, or more simply, a lockable toy box with fingerprint access used to store his son’s toy car collection.

The heart of the system? An Atmel-powered Arduino Uno (ATmega328) and Optical Fingerprint Sensor from Adafruit. As can be seen in the video below, the electronics are all housed in the lid of the box, neatly protected by a sheet of 2mm clear acrylic.

“The box uses a standard hobby servo as the latch to lock and unlock the lid based on the fingerprint detector. Fingerprints are initially registered directly into the Flash memory of the fingerprint scanner using the free SFG Demo software on a Windows PC,” Gibson explained in a recent blog post.

“In order to give the box a battery life measured in months or years rather than hours, I used a Pololu SV power switch (I got mine from Proto-Pic) between the battery pack and the Arduino. This switch allows a standard hardware button to power the Arduino on and off. But more importantly, a separate logic input on the Pololu allows the Arduino to turn itself off automatically after a predefined timeout in the script.”

According to Gibson, the locking mechanism is simple but effective: a notch carved out of the standard servo horn hooks round a screw mounted inside the box base.

“The servo ‘locks’ at approximately 90 degrees, at which point it is tightly wrapped around the screw. Because the screw head is chamfered, the servo horn gets a really tight grip, pulling the box lid down hard against the base,” he continued. “And because the servo horn is pointing straight down at 90 degrees the box stays ‘locked’ shut even when the servo is turned off.”

Interested in learning more about Grant Gibson’s biometric security project? You can check out his official page here.

Adafruit monitors temp and humidity with Atmel MCU

Adafruit’s Mike Barela has designed a temperature and humidity monitor built around the Atmel-powered (ATtiny85) Trinket. As Barela notes, monitoring sensors are a very common feature in current-gen Internet of Things (IoT) projects.

“While the Trinket does not have a serial monitor built in, it [does] talk over various protocols including software serial, I2C (two wire) and SPI,” Barela explained. “This project can be placed in a very small enclosure and used anywhere environmental monitoring is needed. [Plus], the code and concepts may be used in a number of your own projects.”

Aside from the Atmel-powered Trinket, key components include:

• RGB backlight negative/positive LCD 16×2 + extras
• Standard LCD 16×2 + extras
• i2c / SPI character LCD backpack
• DHT22 temperature-humidity sensor + extras/DHT11 basic temperature-humidity sensor
• Breadboarding wire bundle
• Half-size breadboard

In terms of software libraries, Barela’s project uses TinyWireM (a Trinket-compatible alternative to the Arduino Wire), TinyLiquidCrystal and TinyDHT. Meanwhile, Adafruit’s I2C / SPI character LCD backpack allows Makers to easily control the display by sending data over the two wire I2C interface.

“Standard LCDs require a large number of digital pins, [so] use of the I2C backpack reduces the pins needed considerably,” said Barela. “This project features a 16×2 display, displaying temperature and humidity without using a great deal of memory, which is important on a small microcontroller like the Trinket.”

According to Barela, the I2C backpack may be assembled and placed on the back of the display.

“The color displays have a couple of extra connectors – pins 16, 17, and 18 control the three color backlights. If you connect pin 16, the I2C will control the red light,” he continued. “You can choose to put a jumper from one of the backlight pins to backpack pin 16 to choose a different color or connect the pins high to keep them on all the time. Making the pin choice before soldering on the backpack allows you the most flexibility in choosing your backlight color, or you can just go with a ‘classic’ blue & white 16×2 LCD.”

Interested in learning more about Adafruit’s temperature and humidity monitor built around the Atmel-powered Trinket? You can check out Mike Barela’s detailed tutorial here.

Wearable device revenue – $6 billion by 2018

Analysts at ABI Research have determined that wearable wireless device revenues will grow to exceed $6 billion in 2018. Of the four segments tracked, sports, fitness and wellness are the largest, never dropping below 50% share of all device shipments over the forecast period.

“Fitness activity trackers are quickly gaining popularity in the market,” explained ABI Research senior analyst Adarsh Krishnan. “Different from other more single-use or event-centric devices, activity trackers monitor multiple characteristics of the human body including movement, calories burned, body temperature and sleep tracking.”

More specifically, says Krishnan, activity trackers are expected to grow at a 40% CAGR and overtake the 2013 shipment leader, heart rate monitors, in 2017. Meanwhile, the second largest market – home monitoring devices (primarily for the elderly) – is also slated to witness strong growth over the next five years with overall device revenue growing at CAGR exceeding 39%.

“This segment is also anticipated to see the development of cross-over devices such as personal emergency response devices supplemented with activity tracker features,” Krishnan added.

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel is smack in the middle of the rapidly evolving wearable tech revolution. First off, Atmel’s SAM4S and tinyAVR MCUs are inside the Agent smart-watch which recently hit Kickstarter, while the Amulyte pendant is powered by Atmel’s SAM4L, the very same MCU used to regulate smart (wearable) glucose meters.

Meanwhile, Atmel’s versatile SAMA5D3 eMPU lineup is more than capable of powering fitness and outdoor portable electronic equipment for measuring performance (or providing navigation) of various outdoor activities, including running, cycling, hiking and golf.

Atmel MCUs have also tipped up in a number of Maker projects for wearable tech, as our microcontrollers power Adafruit’s Flora, Gemma and Trinket platforms.

And why not? Simply put, Atmel offers a wide range of wearable computing platforms designed for ultra-low power consumption – both in active and standby modes. Indeed, Atmel’s EventSystem with SleepWalking allows peripherals to automatically connect with each other even in ultra low power modes, thereby simplifying sensor interfacing and further optimizing power consumption. Meanwhile, “Wakeup” times are minimized, facilitating the use of low-power modes without missing communications data or sensor events.

In addition, Atmel devices integrate numerous features to save circuit board space, such as USB transceivers and embedded termination resistors. Many devices are offered in very small form factor packages, a critical characteristic for engineers and Makers designing wearable tech.

On the software side, the Atmel Software Framework (ASF) includes communications libraries to support external Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, mesh and point-to-point networking on Atmel’s 802.15.4/Zigbee AT86RF radios as well as a full range of USB drivers. The ASF also contains libraries and driver functions for many popular third-party sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers.

In addition, stand-alone Atmel controllers support off-the-shelf capacitive buttons, sliders and wheel (BSW) implementations. Plus, all our microcontrollers can directly manage capacitive buttons via provided software libraries, while the maXTouch series of capacitive touchscreen controllers are capable of managing optically clear touch sensors overlaid on LCD displays.

And last but certainly not least, Atmel’s touch platforms may be tuned to function when moisture is present – which is often a key requirement for wearable applications. Interested in learning more? Check out Atmel’s white paper on wearable tech here.

IR control with the Trinket and Gemma

Adafruit’s Trinket and Gemma are both powered by Atmel’s ATtiny85 microcontroller (MCU). Although the duo only recently hit the streets, the ‘boards have been used to power a wide range of Maker projects across the DIY spectrum. Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at how to use the devices to determine the IR codes from your remote and trigger specific events.

“Trinket and Gemma are perfect for small projects needing to receive some external event, triggering your own defined output,” explained Adafruit’s Mike Barela. “[Our] project uses the Adafruit IR Sensor to first receive IR commands from a remote, then to use those codes in controlling a project of your own.”

According to Barela, the above-mentioned project simplifies the process of obtaining codes and using them to scale to the limits of the ATTiny85 processor in the Trinket and Gemma boards.

In terms of wiring, check out Adafruit’s diagram shown below.

As you can see, the IR data pin links to the Trinket GPIO #2 (Gemma Pin D2) and is connected to power and ground. To read codes, you will need to connect Trinket GPIO #0 / Gemma D0 to a serial to USB board such as the FTDI Friend receive RX pin (cross connect).

“To demonstrate how the Trinket or Gemma may process IR commands into an action of your choice, a piezo speaker is connected to Trinket Pin GPIO #1 (Gemma Pin D1) to output a tone when a certain IR code is received,” Barela continued. “Going further, you can use an IR code to change NeoPixels, a servo, a solenoid, or any other output.”

Interested in learning more about IR control with the Atmel-powered Trinket and Gemma? Mike Barela’s official tutorial on the Adafruit website is available here, while additional information about Atmel’s versatile ATtiny can be found here.

A NeoGeo watch for cyberpunks and steampunks

Earlier this month, the AdaFruit crew designed a pair of Atmel-powered goggles dubbed “Kaleidoscope Eyes” and a chic Flora GPS Jacket for cyberpunks, steampunks and yes, even Daft Punks.  Today we’re going to be taking a closer look at an Atmel-powered NeoGeo watch that can be tastefully paired with Adafruit’s futuristic goggles and Flora GPS Jacket for a full cyberpunk/steampunk fashion ensemble.

Designed by Adafruit’s Becky Stern and Tyler Cooper, the NeoGeo watch is based on the wearable Flora platform (ATmega32u4 MCU) and an accompanying GPS module.

“[You can] make your own LED timepiece [that] tells time with a ring of pixels. A leather cuff holds the circuit and hides the battery. [Yes], the watch is chunky, but still looks and feels great on tiny wrists,” Stern wrote in a detailed Adafruit tutorial.

“The circuit sandwich becomes the face of the watch, and you’ll use a tactile switch to make a mode selector. The watch has timekeeping (one LED for hours and one for minutes), GPS navigation (customize your waypoint in the provided Arduino sketch) and compass modes.”

According to Stern, the NeoGeo watch is an intermediate-level project requiring soldering and precision crafting. Key components and equipment include:

• FLORA main board
• NeoPixel ring
• FLORA Wearable Ultimate GPS Module
• FLORA Accelerometer/Compass Sensor – LSM303
• Tactile switch
• Tiny lipoly battery with charger
• Leather watch cuff (Adafruit’s is from Labyrinth Leather)
• Small scrap of fabric
• E6000 craft adhesive
• Binder clips
• Thin-gauge stranded wire
• Double-stick foam tape
• Black gaffer tape
• Multimeter
• Soldering iron (Rosin Core solder), scissors, wire strippers, pliers, tweezers and flush snips

In terms of assembling the circuit, Makers are instructed to kick off the project by soldering small stranded wires to their electronics components, about two inches long each.

“Strip the wire ends, twirl the stranded core to make it more easily pass through the circuit boards’ holes, and solder to the NeoPixel ring’s IN, Vcc, and Gnd pads,” Stern explained.

“It’s best to solder on the back side of this particular board, since the pads are quite close to the leads of the NeoPixels on the front of the board, where a large dab of solder could bridge the two.”

Interested in learning more? Be sure to check out Becky Stern’s detailed NeoPixel tutorial posted on Adafruit here.

13 million wearable IoT devices for corporate wellness

Increasing healthcare costs, coupled with a growing push to extend healthcare services into proactive health management, are rapidly driving wearable wireless devices into corporate wellness programs.

According to analysts at ABI Research, more than 13 million wearable devices with embedded wireless connectivity will be integrated into wellness plans offered by businesses over the next five years.

“Corporate wellness is increasingly being targeted by a mix of specialist and consumer focused device vendors and competition will also extend to software applications on mobile devices,” explained Jonathan Collins, author of a new study on the subject.

“[However], device adoption will not just be about device characteristics. Success will come to the vendors that can meet a range of requirements demanded in the corporate wellness market as well as applying their resources to maximize the value of their sales strategies.”

As previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel is smack in the middle of the rapidly evolving wearable tech revolution. First off, Atmel’s SAM4S and tinyAVR MCUs are inside the Agent smart-watch which recently hit Kickstarter, while the Amulyte pendant is powered by Atmel’s SAM4L, the very same MCU used to regulate smart (wearable) glucose meters. Meanwhile, Atmel’s versatile SAMA5D3 eMPU lineup is more than capable of powering fitness and outdoor portable electronic equipment for measuring performance (or providing navigation) of various outdoor activities, including running, cycling, hiking and golf.

Atmel MCUs have also tipped up in a number of Maker projects for wearable tech, as our microcontrollers power Adafruit’s Flora, Gemma and Trinket platforms.

And why not? Simply put, Atmel offers a wide range of wearable computing platforms designed for ultra-low power consumption – both in active and standby modes. Indeed, Atmel’s EventSystem with SleepWalking allows peripherals to automatically connect with each other even in ultra low power modes, thereby simplifying sensor interfacing and further optimizing power consumption. Meanwhile, “Wakeup” times are minimized, facilitating the use of low-power modes without missing communications data or sensor events.

In addition, Atmel devices integrate numerous features to save circuit board space, such as USB transceivers and embedded termination resistors. Many devices are offered in very small form factor packages, a critical characteristic for engineers and Makers designing wearable tech.

On the software side, the Atmel Software Framework (ASF) includes communications libraries to support external Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, mesh and point-to-point networking on Atmel’s 802.15.4/Zigbee AT86RF radios as well as a full range of USB drivers. The ASF also contains libraries and driver functions for many popular third-party sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers.

In addition, stand-alone Atmel controllers support off-the-shelf capacitive buttons, sliders and wheel (BSW) implementations. Plus, all our microcontrollers can directly manage capacitive buttons via provided software libraries, while the maXTouch series of capacitive touchscreen controllers are capable of managing optically clear touch sensors overlaid on LCD displays.

And last but certainly not least, Atmel’s touch platforms may be tuned to function when moisture is present – which is often a key requirement for wearable applications. Interested in learning more? Check out Atmel’s white paper on wearable tech here.

Keeping time with the ATMega Desk Clock

The Time Desk Clock – powered by Atmel’s versatile ATMega MCU – is a DIY soldering kit now available on Adafruit’s website.

Designed by the SpikenzieLabs crew, the kit features extra digital and analog pins (broken-out), an open serial port and I2C (all easily accessible within the case), as well as an integrated prototyping area on-board.

The chip arrives pre-programmed, so everything is ready to roll once assembled. Plus, the downloadable sketch can be modded, with extra hardware added for an extra level of customization.

Required tools and supplies for putting the kit together? Soldering iron, screwdriver, flush cutters and fine sand paper.

Key features include:

• Easy through hole soldering kit
• Back-up battery for clock
• Time, month, day and date
• Alarm with buzzer
• Re-program with the Arduino IDE
• Free digital I/O pins 4 (of which 2 are used for Serial)
• Free analog input pins 2
• All pins broken in a convenient header
• Two sets of PCB mounting holes
• Optional “break-off” mounting holes

Interested? The Solder: Time Desk Clock is currently available on Adafruit’s website for $90.

The Arduino-powered Iron Man suit

Thomas Lemieux was turning heads as he showcased his rather impressive Iron Man suit at the 2013 World Maker Faire in NYC this past weekend.

“Everything is Arduino powered. There are four Arduino UNOs (ATmega328) in the suit; one for each bionic replusor, one for the sound board, and one for the arc reactor, All of the components are powered by ten 2600 mAh batteries that had to be ordered from Hong Kong,” Lemieux told Electronic Design.

“The sound components for each repulsor and the sound board are wave shields from Adafruit. The SD cards with all of the sound files are located there.”

According to Lemieux, the project actually began with the arc reactor.

“I wanted one to sit on my desk at home and thought it would be cool to build one myself. So I walked the aisles at Home Depot and found any part that would seem to work,” he explained.

“The fins are cut from a solid sheet of metal and I used copper coils to bend around them. I used a sink tap as the center piece. And the rest is washers, rubber tubing and erector set pieces all J-B welded together. I got all of the electronics and LEDs from Radio Shack.”

Lemieux also told Electronic Design that the biggest challenge in designing the suit was fitting all the electronics into such a constrained space.

“It was very much trial and error… I started building on May 2nd, spending about four hours a day plus many all-nighters.”

Lemieux says his next suit will be more streamlined and easier to assemble.

“I also want to make Ultron. I have some great ideas on lighting his face up,” he added.

Interested in learning more about the the Arduino-powered Iron Man suit? You can check out Lemieux’s website here.

These slick shades are also a Larson Scanner

A Larson Scanner can best be described as a set of red LEDs that scan back and forth, recreating the left and right blinking motion of those formidable Cylon ships and Knight Rider’s AI KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand). The scanner is named after Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider television shows.

An example of the popular Larson Scanner was recently featured on Bits & Pieces when we talked about a scanner powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Uno that surfaced on TronixStuff. And today we will be taking a closer look at a pair of Adafruit Larson Scanner shades built around the Atmel-powered Trinket (or Gemma).

“Larson scanners were traditionally red (or yellow in KARR’s case), but thanks to the magic of NeoPixels you can change the software to use any colors you like,” Adafruit’s Phillip Burgess explained.

“This is a soldering project, albeit a small one. You will need the common soldering paraphernalia of a soldering iron, solder, wire (20 to 26 gauge, either stranded or solid) and tools for cutting and stripping wire. You’ll also need some method of securing the electronics inside the glasses. Hot-melt glue (with a glue gun) works well for this – [so] watch your fingers!”

Aside from the Atmel-powered Trinket/Gemma, key components for Adafruit’s Larson Scanner glasses include:

• Visor-style sunglasses – The 1980’s style with a single “unibrow” rather than separate lenses.
• NeoPixel RGB LED flex strip – 144, 60 or 30 LEDs/meter depending on budget and desired look. This project only requires a short section, one can either make several pairs of glasses from the strip or use the leftovers for other projects.
• Adafruit Trinket – Either the 3.3V or 5V version will work the same for this project. A Gemmaboard can also be used.
• 3.7V 150mAh Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery.
• LiPo battery charger.
• JST Battery Extension Cable (not required if using Gemma).

As noted above, Makers can also use a Gemma for the project, meaning, an extra JST cable for the LiPo battery won’t be required.

“The board is a bit wider and might be more challenging to fit, but one option is to show it off rather than conceal it, mounting the board on the outside of the glasses near one temple. Geek pride!” Burgess added.

Interested in learning more about building Adafruit’s Atmel-powered Larson Scanner shades? You can check out Phillip’s detailed tutorial on the official Adafruit website.