@Heart with Atmel-powered Arduinos

Arduino has officially kicked off its @Heart initiative. According to company rep Zoe Romano, the program “allows Arduino to build strong partnerships with products and people we appreciate, [while] bringing forward these relationships [and] communicating them clearly with a symbol visible to a broader audience.”

As Romano notes, numerous companies and individual Makers create products based on Arduino tech and would like to be clearly identified as supporters of the versatile platform.

“Arduino@Heart allows them to show they are part of the Arduino ecosystem while receiving support and recognition from Arduino,” Romano explained. “Arduino@Heart is a relationship of mutual help: Arduino supports makers and companies with visibility; at the same time, interesting products show how Arduino can be used in cool sustainable ways.”

Arduino@Heart is available for any product supported by the Arduino Development environment and currently including the following Atmel microcontrollers (MCUs):

• ATMega328 clocked at 8 or 16 MHz
• ATMega1280 clocked at 16 MHz
• ATMega2560 clocked at 16 MHz
• ATMega32U4 clocked at 16MHz
• SAM3X

Unsupsirisngly, a number of companies have already endorsed the @Heart initiative, including littleBits Electronics, Smart Citizen, Bare Conductive, Aesthetec Studio, primo.io and EarthMake.

“littleBits is thrilled to be a part of the new Arduino@Heart program. An Arduino littleBits module has been a popular request for quite a while and we are huge fans of the Arduino ecosystem and community,” said Ayah Bdeir, the founder/CEO of littleBits Electronics Inc.

“The littleBits Arduino module will simultaneously increase the power of the littleBits library by adding programming capabilities and make the Arduino environment easier to get involved in by eliminating the need for soldering or wiring. We can’t wait to see what people with make with it!”

Filippo Yacob and Matteo Loglio of primo.io limited expressed similar sentiments.

“As a Maker-centric company, we mostly concentrate on ideating and developing products; we believe that this partnership could give us much more visibility through marketing and advertising,” the duo explained.

“Moreover, from our point of view being part of the Arduino@Heart program would increase the visibility in the community and being recognized as ‘Arduino approved’ would stimulate us to improve our processes and products to a quality level that would match the Arduino brand. As a consequence, this makes our product more accessible and user friendly to a community that is already familiar with the technology.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out the official Arduino@Heart page here.

Light Cryptalk is an Arduino-powered Enigma

An Enigma machine refers to a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used in the twentieth century for enciphering and deciphering secret messages. The original Enigma was invented by the German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. According to Wikipedia, early models were used commercially from the early 1920s, although they were later adopted by a number of militaries and governments around the world.

Recently, a young Maker by the name of Michele Lizzit built his own version of the classic cipher machine using an Atmel-powered (SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3) Arduino Due.

“The idea of the Maker Faire project came to me when Google dedicated a doodle to Alan Turing. Reading on Wikipedia his story I’ve learned about the Enigma machine. This project was initially realized to be presented as final project of Middle School (junior high – seventh grade). In the first version I used Xbee to transmit and cryptography was just a table substitution,” Lizzit told Zoe Romano of the official Arduino blog.

“I use Linux for everything I do with my computer and I am very grateful to the open source community and to Arduino for making available online for free a huge amount of documentation. I believe that it is important to share your ideas freely and for free so that others like me can learn and so that the opportunities to know, learn and make do not remain available only to those who can spend more.”

Unsurprisingly, Light Cryptalk isn’t the only modern interpretation of the classic Enigma machine to use an Atmel-based Arduino board. Back in October, the folks at ST-Geotronics created a functioning open-source Enigma (M4) replica powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Mega (ATmega1280).

Designing an ArduMower with Atmel and Arduino

ArduMower can probably best be described as an open source robot lawn mower project powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Mega (ATmega1280 MCU). The goal of the ArduMower crew? Making a new “brain” freely available for every robot mower in the (known) universe.

“Everyone knows them, some already have one: a robotic lawn mower! You can purchase them, sometimes they are ‘intelligent’, sometimes they are simply silly. Very often, they are missing an important piece: adding your own ideas to the robot’s brain,” the ArduMower crew explained in an official mission statement posted on the project’s website.

“This [initiative] isn’t more complicated than other mid-size Arduino projects. If you like to try out new things, then this project is the right one for you. You might learn new things and you’ll see that everything is much easier than you thought.”

Key ArduMower objectives include:

• Ready-made components.
• Low-cost and replaceable (à la RC model: stick together receiver, controller, motor and servo).
• Minimal soldering, simple programming and detailed instructions.
• A DIY construction kit (‘Ardumower-kits’) with all modules and components.
• Open-source Arduino-code.
• A manufacturer for the ArduMower robot chassis.

Interested in learning more? Additional documentation, code and list of components are available on the ArduMower website in both English and German.

Building an Arduino-powered Enigma machine

An Enigma machine refers to a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used in the twentieth century for enciphering and deciphering secret messages. The original Enigma was invented by the German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. According to Wikipedia, early models were used commercially from the early 1920s, although they were later adopted by a number of militaries and governments around the world.

Recently, the ST-Geotronics crew designed and built a functioning open-source Enigma (M4) replica powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Mega (ATmega1280).

“Rather than try to immediately cram everything into the final enclosure, the ST-Geotronics gang painstakingly worked out a prototype to be sure the four 16-segment LED displays had been wired correctly and functioned properly,” explained HackADay’s John Marsh.

“The next step was laying out a swarm of buttons and resistors on a 6″x8″ perfboard. They used charlieplexing to handle the 16-segment displays (which actually have 17 LEDs each), and deceptively disguised each display as a nixie tube by mounting them vertically and encasing them in a transparent dome.”

Aside from the Atmel-powered Arduino Mega, key project components include:

• 26 Alpha Buttons
• 26 1/4″ Jacks Mono
• 10 1/4″ Plugs Mono
• 36 Pushbuttons
• 1 On/Off/On Switch
• 4 16Segment Orange
• 4 Test Tubes
• 1 Case Plywood
• 1 Hinge & Hooks
• 1 Half-Mortise Lock
• 1 Perfboard
• 38 Resistors 470 Ohms
• 40 Resistors 1K Ohms
• 7IRF9Z24N P-Channel MOSFET1 Piece of Metal & Spray paint
• Battery Case
• Rechargeable Batteries
• Battery Charger/Connectors

Interested in learning more? You can check out the hardware side of things on Instructables, along with the relevant Arduino sketches.

Arduino talks, Android listens

How does an Arduino board “talk” to an Android device without OS instructional code? With the Bluetooth-based (2.1 module WT11i by Bluegiga) Annikken Andee – which can be mounted on an Arduino Uno (Atmel ATmega328), Mega (ATmega1280) or Leonardo (ATmega32u4).

“With the free Annikken Andee Library and Android app, you can create your very own monitor and control UI on Android devices from the Arduino IDE,” the Anniken Andee crew wrote in a recent IndieGoGo post. “This means you are NOT required to develop any Android apps at all.”

So how does it work? Well, the shield communicates with Arduino via the ICSP header (SPI) and pin 8.

On the software side, you simply download the Annikken Andee library for Arduino, unpack the content and copy the ‘Andee’ folder into Arduino IDE library folder. This library contains all the necessary functions to create the user interface on your Android device.

You then download and install the Annikken Andee Android Application from the Google Play Store. Connect your phone to your Arduino via the installed app and voila – you now have a smartphone UI for Arduino.

Additional information about the Annikken Andee is available here on IndieGoGo.

This slick Tron bar is powered by an Arduino Mega

Say what you will about Tron Legacy, but the movie did boast some pretty slick special effects along with Daft Punk’s rather memorable soundtrack.

So yes, I think we all can agree that the Grid is a pretty chill place, at least as far as virtual reality goes. Of course I’m not sure I’d want to live there like Kevin Flynn, but I’d certainly like to check out the local vibe along with some bars and clubs.

Unfortunately, the Grid, much like Neal Stephenson’s stellar vision of the Metaverse in Snow Crash is probably light years away. But that didn’t stop Alexander Givens and his friend from designing a Tron-style bar that wouldn’t be out of place at the End of Line Club manned by Shaddix the bartender.

According to the folks at Hack A Day, the rather impressive looking bar – which is powered by an Arduino Mega (ATmega1280) and EL shield – began its life as a half bookcase mounted on the wall.

“Givens and his roommate decided to augment its usefulness as a liquor cabinet by building a bar around it. But why stop there? LED Strips and 120 feet of electroluminescent wire give the bar its inner glow,” writes Mike Szczys of Hack A Day.

“The video showing off its synchronization with the music brings it to the next level. The flashing lights and EL wire put on a quite a show that may make the bartenders feel like they’ve already had a few too many.”

The Tron-style bar is controlled by a rudimentary interface located just under the inside lip of the bar. Pretty impressive, eh? Oh, and yes, more pictures are available here.

Atmel @ the Silicon Valley Maker Faire – Sarge the home patrolbot

So the 2013 Silicon Valley Maker Faire was held this past weekend in sunny California, with Atmel’s microcontrollers taking center stage in many creations, both big and small.

Although it is practically impossible to list all the devices at the Faire with Atmel microcontrollers under the hood, we’ll be taking the next few days to highlight a number of projects we came across while walking the rather expansive Faire grounds.

In this article, we’ll offer up a closer look at Sarge the home patrolbot, designed by the RoboRadix crew. Sarge’s basic function is to roam around a home or apartment, deftly avoiding pesky obstacles and keeping an electronic eye on things when its owners are out and about.

Currently, the good Sarge is a work in progress, but we were able to get a basic rundown from the folks at the Faire. Unsurprisingly, the ‘bot is built around the versatile Arduino UNO (ATmega328) or MEGA (ATmega1280), both of which are powered by Atmel microcontrollers.

Additional specs include two 12 Volts DC motors from an old lawn mower, a Linksys wireless IP camera, one Piezo Buzzer, two 12 Volts DC motors from an old lawn mower, one Pololu dual VNH5019 motor driver shield, one ultrasonic range sensor, two Sharp IR distance sensors, one Breadboard and power supply, one DC/DC power supply single Output 3A 15W 5-pin, one Power-Sonic 12V SLA battery and two 9V battery holders and 9V battery.

Oh, and yes, a special shout-out to the cool R2D2 unit (courtesy of Camp Peavy and their home-brewed robots) that was sharing the same exhibit table as Sarge. Sorry Sarge, we didn’t mean to make you feel inadequate, but we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to gawk at our favorite Star Wars droids.