Maker builds a scrapyard truck simulator

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Have you ever wanted to play a truck simulator with a real dashboard on your PC? Now you can. 

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As much fun as flight, truck or giant robot simulators can be when played with a keyboard and mouse, having a realistic cockpit to go with it certainly would enhance the realism. Jeroen vd Velden, who works in tech support at a home automation distributor and is also a licensed truck driver, decided to take this to the next level, using an actual truck dashboard and components with a PC simulator.

As documented on Hackaday.io, this was accomplished via an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) along with a CAN-BUS shield. CAN-BUS is an interface standard that allows one to “pull codes” when a car or truck is broken, and Velden is using this with his new cockpit.

In addition to the CAN-BUS, an Arduino Leonardo and a Pro Micro (both of which are powered by an ATmega32U4) are used to sense other inputs, like handbrakes and switches. When they receive signals, the Atmel chip translates them into virtual keyboard presses that go into the PC simulator, Euro Truck Simulator 2.

One interesting aspect is how Velden modified the handbrake to output electrical signals. You can see the process documented in the video below. The project is ongoing, and Velden will be updating the documentation as things progress. As Velden puts it, “The Scrapyard is a great place to start with Arduino!”

mBot is an Arduino-compatible educational robot for young Makers

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Now part of the Arduino AtHeart program, Makeblock is looking help children learn how to program through a user-friendly kit, software and interface. 

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Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a number of easy-to-use robotic kits become available for young Makers in hope of inspiring them to pursue STEM-related fields. Among the more notable companies looking to spur this initiative is Shenzhen startup Makeblock with their low-cost educational robot. 

In the company’s pursuit of an O.R.P.K (or “One Robot Per Kid”) world, mBot was designed to be a comprehensive solution that would provide children with a hands-on experience around graphical programming, electronics and robotics. With simplicity in mind, the kit is comprised of only 45 or so pieces, enabling a sense of achievement for kids to quickly assemble in 10 minutes.

Given the popularity of Scratch 2.0 as a graphical programming software in the classroom setting, the Makeblock team has developed a new line of Scratch-based software — aptly named mBlock — that uses a similar coding style to configure Arduino and robots. The drag-and-drop software is entirely free and supports both Window and Mac operating systems. Beyond that, mBlock supports wireless communication, allowing Makers to use either Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless serial to ‘talk’ with its accompanying mBot. The program is also compatible with Arduino Uno (ATmega328) and Leonardo (ATmega32U4) boards, as well as Makeblock’s own Arduino variant, the mCore.

Powered by an ATmega328, each mBot board features intuitional color labels and four easy-to-follow RJ25 connectors. This lets Makers wire the unit in a matter of seconds, and more importantly, provides them with a hassle-free way to focus on actually devising all sorts of interactive projects — ranging from robots that can avoid walls and follow lines to play music and duke it out in a fight.

The friendly blue robot is currently being offered in a pair of models based on its communication capabilities. The Bluetooth version, which is equipped with a Bluetooth module, is suitable for individual or team use; whereas the 2.4G version, which features two 2.4G wireless modules, is intended for the classroom. Aside from that, each kit consists of a chassis, two motors, an ultrasonic sensor, a line follower, a remote controller, a buzzer, some RGD LEDs, an mCore, and a few other electronic components. mBot can be powered by either a rechargeable lithium battery or four-1.5V AA batteries.

“We designed specially two available wireless communication instead of wired USB cable, so users can enjoy wireless programming to control robots without the limit of USB cable,” the team explains. “The chassis is compatible with Lego and Makeblock parts. And you can use on-hand Raspberry Pi or standard Arduino boards to learn more about electronics or bring kid’s more ideas to life.”

Not only did it garner more than $285,00 from 2,500-plus backers on Kickstarter earlier this year, Makeblock’s mBot has now become a member of the growing Arduino AtHeart program.

This door sensor plays Seinfeld classic riff

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Each time someone enters the room, this door emits some iconic Seinfeld tunes.

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Everyone who has watched even a little TV instantly recognizes the iconic bass notes from Seinfeld. Well, YouTuber Caliixxs has paid homage to the hit sitcom using an apartment door.

The setup is rather simple: each time someone enters the room, one of the familiar riffs begins to sound. To make this possible, the Maker employed an IR motion detector, an Arduino and an Adafruit Music Maker Shield which enables the board to play audio from an SD card.

“It reads from a microSD card and randomly picks one of however many MP3s found,” Caliixxs explains.

Once the system has been activated, a user must wait seven seconds before it can be triggered again. The clip was initially uploaded to YouTube back in March, but took until now to go viral with nearly 500,000 views.

Luckily, the real apartment door in Seinfeld didn’t feature its own special chime given how often Kramer came busting in and out. Giddy up!

Maker rebuilds a pizza oven with Arduino

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Who needs delivery when you can create your own pizza oven?

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If you come across a broken pizza oven that you’d really enjoy using, but the control system is broken, what are you to do? If you’re imgur user “maschlue” — or hopefully many of the readers of this blog — the answer is to retrofit it with Arduino guts!

This build starts out with a mechanically sound pizza oven with just one “little” problem, the temperature regulation didn’t work properly. When turned on, the coils stayed on constantly, so it would seem that the pizza would either be badly undercooked or burned. Fortunately, maschlue didn’t give up, and installed two new thermocouples in the oven with an Arduino Nano (ATmega328) for control.

The oven was first gutted, stripping away much of the original wiring and even the back insulation. The new thermocouples were then installed, and the insulation was replaced. After the replacement, the new circuit — including relays, the Arduino, potentiometers for temperature control, and a Nokia 5110 display unit — were installed in its place.

Once the new electronics were implemented, a beautiful faceplace sourced from Schaeffer AG was installed. Switches and lights were recycled, and along with new knobs and the Nokia display, the end product “Doctor Thunder Cook” looks really great. The resulting pizza looks quite tasty as well!

Instantly print art onto your fingernails with your smartphone

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The Nailbot prints instant custom nail art, while inspiring girls to explore creative technology.

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If you’re tired of the same ol’ one-color manicure and rather decorate your nails with smiley face emojis, logos or even selfies, one Menlo Park-based startup has just the thing for you. The brainchild of Preemadonna, the aptly named NailBot is a nail art device that instantly prints custom designs onto your nails via your smartphone.

With aspirations of providing girls with a fun way to explore creative technology, the Nailbot uses your smartphone’s vision capabilities and processing power to print photos from either your camera roll, a preloaded image gallery or (eventually) from your social networks directly onto a nail in less than five seconds.

First, you must prep your nail with a basic white polish and then open its accompanying app on your smartphone. Select the picture of choice, place your hand inside the cradle and hit print — it’s as simple as that! The resolution of the Nailbot is the same as traditional thermal inkjet products, reaching up to 1200 dpi.

The idea was initially conceived after co-founder Pree Walia was unable to find an easy DIY solution to rock unique nail art. And so, like any true Maker, she decided to invent her own system along with fellow co-founder Casey Schulz. The original prototype, which the duo had mocked up in 2013, employed an Arduino along with a resistive touchscreen.

Through Preemadonna’s platform, Nailbot users will have the ability to express themselves in unique fashion by devising, sharing, selling and printing their own designs, photos and art. A smaller, more portable version of the Nailbot prototype will be shipped to Indiegogo backers next year. The team hopes that the next iteration of the device will feature Bluetooth connectivity, swipe-to-print capabilities and will employ a smartphone’s back-facing camera to size an image onto a fingernail. Beyond that, the gadget will be battery-powered, making it much more portable. (The current version must still be plugged into a wall outlet.)

And that’s not all. As a way to inspire young girls to pursue STEM disciplines and build things of their own, Preemadonna is offering a Maker Kit, too. This includes an Arduino-powered handheld unit that will teach users how to program a graphical touchscreen interface and how to print their own creations. It should be noted, however, that this device is not for use on nails. Instead, it can print on paper or stickers.

Ready to say goodbye to the nail salon? Head over to the Nailbot’s Indiegogo campaign, where the Preemadonna team is seeking $150,000.

 

Optimizing crop irrigation with Arduino

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To optimize crop yield, this group of Makers developed an Arduino-based irrigation system that uses sensors and a weather station.

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As part of a recent hackathon in Madrid, one team of Makers created a grid system to optimize crop field irrigation through an array of soil moisture sensors and a weather station.

Crop Squares (inspired by alien crop circles) was initially conceived as a way to make the irrigation process both sustainable and efficient by continuously reading and sending sensor data. However, the ultimate goal is that that one day, the system can implemented in developing countries and rural areas with scarce resources.

For its prototype, the group employed an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328) along with moisture sensors in potted plants to detect moisture levels, and a Raspberry Pi was used to garner weather data for the area under surveillance. Meanwhile, data was wirelessly transmitted through an ESP8266 Wi-Fi module. As a way to show off its automated potential, an Arduino Leonardo (ATmega32U4) was tasked with reading another moisture probe and activating a servo motor that pushed up a water bottle to perform the irrigation process, whenever levels dipped below a predefined threshold.

The project features a graphical touchscreen user interface running Dizmo software that shows a map of the field along with collected sensor measurements. Rectangles assigned to each soil sensor change their colors (green, yellow and red) depending on moisture levels. According to its creators, the display could even share weather station results for that area in real-time.

On the backend, the Makers compiled Node.js runtime and installed the Node-RED workflow tool to deliver sensor information via the IBM Bluemix IoTF MQTT Broker. They also wrote Python scripts based on Adafruit’s libraries to read data from the weather station sensors and broadcast them through MQTT.

Intrigued? Check out their entire project here.

Don’t try this at home: A knife-wielding tentacle

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Now, who wants to take a ‘stab’ at turning this off? 

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While some Makers like to think outside the box, others prefer to mount a servo-driven tentacle to a box. In what may surely be one of the most abstract (and dangerous) DIY gadgets of all-time, YouTuber “OutaSpaceMan” has developed a mechanism that flails a Swiss Army knife around in the air.

We all know what you’re wondering, why a knife bot? According to his video description, he built the device “to amuse those who may be bored. Just right now I think the world needs a laugh.”

The aptly named littleBits Arduino Knife-Wielding Tentacle consists of an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560), a littleBits Proto Module and a servo motor, which together create a mechanical arm that randomly slashes and stabs through the air. Meanwhile, the project is running the Blink Without Delay Arduino sketch.

Okay, so now the better question: How the heck do you turn this thing off? Kids, don’t try this at home. 

This autonomous robot feeds on filthy water

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The Row-bot is a self-powered robot that can eliminate pollutants and contaminants from water.

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Don’t expect to find the tiny robot pictured below swimming in any bathtub or pool anytime soon; in fact, you won’t probably won’t find it in any clean body of water. That’s right, the Row-bot thrives on pollution — the more, the merrier.

Inspired by beetles and other insects like the water boatmen bug who feed off nutrients found in the dirty water it swims in, researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have developed an autonomous machine with hopes of eliminating pollutants and other dangerous contaminants.

When it is hungry, the Row-bot opens its soft robotic mouth and rows forward to fill its microbial fuel cell (MFC) stomach with nutrient-rich dirty water. It then closes its mouth and slowly digests the nutrients, before using the bio-degradation of organic matter to generate electricity via bio-inspired mechanisms. That same electrical energy keeps the Row-bot propelling to a new location for another gulp of H2O.

In order to produce the most efficient movement possible, the researchers tried to mimic the water boatman whose legs are covered by swimming hairs that span laterally to maximize drag during the power stroke and collapse to minimize drag during the recovery stroke. But whereas the insect has hair-covered legs, the Row-bot’s propulsion mechanism is comprised of a 3D-printed paddle powered by a tiny 0.75 watt brushed DC motor.

Row-bot consists of a 3D-printed composite structure with a rigid frame supporting an elastic membrane — each paddle is stretched out to increase the paddle surface area during the power stroke. The membrane has a hinge that changes the angle of attack on the part of the paddle that remains underwater during the recovery stroke to reduce its frontal area, and therefore, its drag.

This robot has plenty of practical applications, such as remote sensing and environmental monitoring. Row-bot can be used in any kind of water, from fresh to salt to waste water. For instance, they can be thrown in a polluted pond and rove for months, while feeding on the filth and cleaning as they go.

“The work shows a crucial step in the development of autonomous robots capable of long-term self-power. Most robots require re-charging or refuelling, often requiring human involvement,” explains Jonathan Rossiter, Professor of Robotics at the University of Bristol and BRL.

Just think of the possibilities… Head over to the Row-bot’s official paper here to read more.

Solar-OSE is an open source steam generator

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One team of Makers have developed a way to create clean, free heat or steam by harnessing the power of the sun.

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Although using solar energy to create steam isn’t exactly a groundbreaking idea, one team of French Makers has its sights set on doing things a little bit different. Created as part of the Open Source Écologie initiative, Solar-OSE is a linear Fresnel reflector that collects clean and inexhaustible energy from the sun to generate heat up to 480°F (250 °C) and eventually vaporize.

Ideally, its reduced size lends itself to applications throughout smaller industries as well as by folks like farmers and artisans. Solar-OSE is designed specifically to power industrial and craft processes such as cooking, sterilization, pasteurization, extraction of essential oils, water purification and heating, to name just a few.

Impressively, the project only takes about a week to be assembled, from start to finish, by a group of four individuals at a cost of no more than $2,200.

Solar-OSE is comprised of multiple mirror strips at the base of its structure, each controlled by an Arduino, to reflect rays onto a central pipe filled with water. What’s more, it can automatically track the sun and ensure that the maximum amount of energy is being captured.

The solar heat energy can be used directly without any conversion, thus allowing a very high energy efficiency. By combining a motor to the Solar-OSE, it could also be used for electric cogeneration, refrigeration and compressed air.

“We dream of a near future where a large part of current industrial production would be performed locally, using renewable energy. Today, heat represents two thirds of the total energy needs of the European industry market. Our Solar-OSE therefore concerns many production processes currently consuming fossil fuels,” its creators explain.

Solar-OSE was recently demonstrated at POC21 — an eco-hacking conference held inside a French castle — and its build process has been made available in an exhaustive step-by-step tutorial.

[h/t MAKE:]

Measure the air quality in your backyard

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Zymbit is measuring the air quality underneath a flight path with a custom sensor board, Arduino Zero and Raspberry Pi. 

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Our friends at Zymbit are located in Santa Barbara, not too far from the county’s municipal airport. Residents of their local community were a bit concerned over how flight patterns overhead affected their environment and overall health. And so, the team decided to develop a system to easily monitor the air quality in their backyards to determine once and for all if their well-being was, in fact, was impacted by airplane departures and arrivals.

For this project, Zymbit built and deployed five air quality stations, each tasked with measuring different air quality parameters using the combination of commercial grade sensors, Raspberry Pi and Arduino. These units were then connected through Zymbit’s proprietary software to generate real-time charts. The data is further integrated into environmental analysis software from Groundswell Technologies, too. This allows the Santa Barbara residents to essentially “see the air they breathe.”

The complete system is attached to a modified solar radiation shield crowned with an IP67 enclosure, while all the sensors are mounted to a custom motherboard. Sensor data is acquired using an Arduino Zero (Atmel | SMART SAM D21) located within the top tier of the radiation shield. From there, data is packaged and sent to a Raspberry Pi via a serial connection, which is external to its waterproof IP65 housing. As Zymbit notes, this way the heat is properly dissipated and does not affect sensor measurements.

Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi acts as the connection gateway and publishes the packaged data to zymbit.com/console. For immediate purposes, data flow is unidirectional — meaning, the unit is not subscribing to any outside streams, though this could easily be integrated. Additionally, with room to spare in the Raspberry Pi enclosure, the Zymbit crew added a PoE (Power Over Ethernet) splitter for versatility. This makes installation simple and improves overall reliability since the unit only requires a single cable connection and POE can handle wide line voltage variations. The user can then choose either a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. Of course, a USB cable will also work to power the unit.

At the heart of the air quality station lies a custom designed sensor board that integrates multiple sensor types, such as particulate matter, carbon dioxide, relative humidity, temperature and barometric pressure.

“The particulate sensor was the primary driver for the board’s design; it uses a small convection heater to circulate air and this requires the module to be oriented vertically,” Zymbit’s Evan Fairchild explains. “The particulate matter sensor has two channels; one for ~ 2.5 micron particles and one for ~ 10 micron particles. Each channel produces pulses which are measured and accumulated over thirty second intervals. The other sensors are managed via I2c bus and are all averaged over 15 second intervals.”

Once data is published, it is stored in the Zymbit Cloud. There, it is easy to interact with using instant dashboards or the Zymbit API. For this application, the engineers at Groundswell Technologies — who also collaborated on this project — utilized the API to pull the raw data into their analysis and visualization software.

At the moment, five Zymbit air quality stations have been successfully deployed and are active in their area of interest. Impressively, each unit only required less than an hour to install and to begin receiving data.

“Data streams from each unit are now being integrated into Groundswell’s geospatial software,” its creators add.

Zymbit hardware is self-contained and designed to operate outdoors in a nominally shaded area. For the initial pilot, connection to the Internet is established via Wi-Fi or Ethernet to host building gateway/router. For subsequent projects, Zymbit has plans to provide options for solar power and cellular connection.

Interested? You can find all of the real-time data here, and learn all about the project on its official page.