Pro Trinket powers this brilliant bike POV display

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Light up your nighttime bike ride with this persistence of vision display from Adafruit.

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In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen numerous Maker projects focused around bicycles. To recount just a few, there’s been a smart helmet with turn signals and automatic brake lights, a smartphone-controlled handlebar lighting system, and most recently added to the list of bright ideas (no pun intended), Adafruit’s persistence of vision (POV) for your wheels.

The brainchild of Becky Stern, this POV display allows riders to illuminate the night as they pedal their way along the road or sidewalk. As the tires rotate, a series of embedded lights flash, ultimately conjuring up an image in the viewers’ minds. The project is comprised of two DotStar LED strips attached to a wheel spoke — one facing in each direction — driven by a 5V Pro Trinket (ATmega328) and powered by a 3xAA battery pack affixed near its hub.

To get started, Stern cut a half-meter strip of LEDs, leaving 36 pixels on both halves. She then tinned the solder pads and silicone coated wires to the input end of the freshly cut piece, alternating sides for each wire to help prevent a short circuit.

“If you have a 5V Pro Trinket to spare, we strongly encourage you to build a prototype of your circuit on a solderless breadboard. Not only will you get a chance to test out your solder joints connecting the LED strips, but you can have a duplicate system for programming where you can easily make changes,” she advises.

In terms of coding, the POV uses the same program as Phillip Burgess’ Genesis Poi project. Adafruit not only lays out the installation process on their page, but has made the sketches for the bike wheel available on GitHub. The bike POV requires the Adafruit DotStar library for Arduino as well.

From there, Stern trimmed off the header pins, and tinned the wires attached to the LED strips. These four wires are soldered to the Pro Trinket. After testing the circuit, it’s imperative to waterproof it before sticking it onto the bike. Those wishing to save power can also employ an optional switch and/or vibration sensor, which will only trigger the lights when in motion.

How do the electronic stay on, you ask? As challenging as it may be, the battery pack is anchored near the hub by steel zip ties, while plastic zip ties keep the LED strip and Pro Trinket tightly onto the spokes of the wheel.

Pretty cool, right? Head over to Adafruit’s official step-by-step tutorial, and watch Stern’s latest work in action below!

Leaf Light is an indoor garden monitor

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Build an Arduino-based monitor that will let you know if your indoor plants are getting enough light and water.

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Does it seem like every plant that you keep inside your house somehow dies? If this is an all too common occurrence, you’re in luck. That’s because Maker Kaia Sievert has built an Arduino-based monitor that lets those without a green thumb know if their pots are getting enough water and light.

Named the Leaf Light, this neat little project uses soil moisture and light sensors connected to an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) to alert you know when your plants are a bit thirsty or need to be moved a little closer to the window sill.

Notifications are done through a NeoPixel that will emit different colors depending on what it detects. Green will illuminate if the moisture and light levels are good. Orange signifies that the plant isn’t receiving enough life, blue indicates that soil moisture is on the decline, while red means that it needs both H2O and sun.

The circuit, which is housed in an acrylic case, runs a leaflight.ino sketch. This enables the Arduino to gather and analyze data from the sensors every 10 minutes, and then change the LED color accordingly. Since the ATmega328 powered Uno doesn’t have an internal clock, Sievert needed to manually input the time and date in the code.

Looking ahead, the Maker notes that there several enhancements she hopes to make, including a mirror to improve the spreading of light, a better enclosure for the electronics, maximum values that can sense overwatering or darkness, and a real-time clock.

Ready to keep your indoor plants alive? Head over to the Leaf Light’s Instructables page here to get started.

Screwduino is an Arduino Uno-like board with screw terminals

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Screwduino takes the Arduino design and replaces the headers/pins with screw terminals. 

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Like countless other Makers out there, Doug Gilliland fell in love with the Arduino Uno for its simplistic functionality and rapid prototyping abilities. However, he quickly grew frustrated with some of their limitations, namely those associated with deploying a final project. What he found was that, as great as these boards may be, they lack useful mounting holes and fragility of pins in sockets, thereby making it difficult to implement in real world applications.

“We find most of the approaches to Arduino breadboarding annoying. They work okay if you don’t know what you want to make and you just want to mess around, but they are painful when you are ready to really make something useful,” its creator admits.

As a way to overcome this challenge, Gilliland did what any good Maker would do and decided to devise a DIY solution on his own. The aptly named Screwduino features four solid mounting holes, allowing for anywhere between four and 40 screws. Aside from that, it has 5mm screw terminal blocks that enable users to seamlessly wire up pretty much anything they’d like.

“We saw a screw shield and it looked like the ideal solution for loose wires and builder frustrations. Easy to connect with just a small screwdriver. No connectors to install for simple wiring but no accommodation for I2C connections. The stackup height has less of the same height problems as a sensor shield. The screw shields got me thinking,” Gilliland revealed when explaining his inspiration. “It’s a great idea, but why add the shield? Why not just take an Arduino design and replace the headers/pins with screw terminals?”

Based on an ATmega328, the Screwduino is equipped with an ICSP header for downloading programs, a reset switch, a recommended input voltage of 7-12V DC, a  power selection jumper (FTDI, regulator, screw terminals), a standard six-pin FTDI connector, as well as a four-pin I2C connector for easy attachment of an LCD display and other sensors. What’s more, Gilliland added 10K Ohm pullup resistors (R3 and R4) from the I2C SDA/SCL to +5V. This way, if the user chooses to forgo the resistors, they can snip them out of the circuit.

Gilliland advises using its through hole parts to make assembly a cinch. He adds, “The sole exception is the voltage regulator which is surface mount for heat transfer.”

Intrigued? Head over to the Screwduino’s Kickstarter page, where Gilliland and the Land Boards team are currently seeking $500.

This MIDI synth lets you create Nintendo-style chiptune music

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Connect this AVR-based board to a MIDI device and make your own NES-style chiptunes.

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Chiptunes are a type of synthesized, electronic music produced by old-school video game consoles, which became ubiquitous throughout arcades and living rooms in the ‘80s. Originally, 8-bit tunes were primarily practiced by game soundtrack composers like Rob Hubbard; yet, it wasn’t before long that tools like Karsten Obarski’s Ultimate Soundtracker were introduced, making the creation of such sounds much easier and widespread. While it mostly remained an underground genre, chiptunes certainly had their moments of moderate popularity, influencing the development of electronic dance music for years to come.

Who could forget the routine of pulling out your Mario Bros. cartridge, blowing into it, slipping it back in, and once successful, being welcomed by its catchy theme song? Well, those looking to spark up some nostalgia will surely get a kick out of the Arcano MIDI NES Chiptune Synthesizer, an AVR-based MIDI device that allows artists to make Nintendo-style chiptune music.

Each Arcano MIDI NES Chiptune Synthesizer is equipped with a 1/8” mono audio output jack, MIDI input through a standard DIN connector, a seven-segment LED waveform mode indicator, a simple two-button interface, and a preprogrammed ATmega328 for its brains. Beyond that, a six-pin AVR ISP header enables programmers to Flash the embedded MCU with their own custom software and create waveforms, envelopes, software low-frequency oscillators and PCM samples.

Unlike many other MCU-based synthesizers which use internal PWM peripherals to generate weak, scratchy audio signals, the Arcano MIDI NES Chiptune Synthesizer employs an auxiliary digital-to-analog converter chip to produce a clear, high-quality audio signal. The synth is capable of generating audio at an output rate of 44.1 KHz; however, for a more authentic chiptune sound, lower output rates are recommended.

“The hardware is capable of up to 8-bit quantization. A software bitcrusher is used to achieve the lower bit depths used in the NES. This bit-crushing effect is most evident in the Arcano NES Chiptune Synthensizer’s reproduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s 4-bit triangle wave channel, often used for bass lines and tom-tom drums,” its creators explain.

What’s more, the latest version of its software features additional white-noise-based percussion sounds, such as open and closed hi-hats, along with additional waveform modes that can emulate the detuned reverb effects characteristic of the music from the Mega Man series of NES games.

Ready to recreate some magical 8-bit music? Head over to the synthesizer’s Kickstarter page, where Arcano Systems successfully garnered well over its asking goal of $1,000. The first batch of units have already begun shipping.

This $100 device can locate, unlock and remote start GM cars

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OwnStar is a device that can locate, unlock and remote start any vehicle with OnStar RemoteLink after intercepting communication between the RemoteLink mobile app and OnStar servers.

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When director Sam Esmail was casting for his latest cyberpunk–thriller TV series Mr. Robot, we’re surprised serial hacker Samy Kamkar wasn’t in the running for the star role. That’s because, in just the last year alone, the 29-year-old has devised a plug-in box capable of tracking everything you type, a 3D-printed robot that can crack combination locks, and his own radio device for online anonymity. Added to that growing list is a tablet-sized unit can easily tap into and wirelessly take control of a GM car’s futuristic features.

Undoubtedly, car hacking will be a hot topic at this year’s Black Hat and DEFCON events. Cognizant of this, the Los Angeles-based entrepreneur has created what he’s calling OwnStar, a device that can locate, unlock and remotely start any vehicle with OnStar RemoteLink after intercepting communication between the RemoteLink mobile app and OnStar servers.

As you can see in the video below, the system is driven by a Raspberry Pi and uses an ATmega328 to interface with an Adafruit FONA for cellular connection. After opening the OnStar RemoteLink app on a smartphone within Wi-Fi range of the hacking gadget, OwnStar works by intercepting the communication. Essentially, it impersonates the wireless network to fool the smartphone into silently connecting. It then sends specially crafted packets to the mobile device to acquire additional credentials and notifies the attacker over 2G about the new vehicle it indefinitely has access to, namely its location, make and model.

First reported by WIRED, Kamkar has revealed that if a hacker can plant a cheap, homemade Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere on an automobile’s body — whether that’s under a bumper or its chassis — to capture commands sent from the user’s smartphone, the results for vulnerable car owners could range from pranks and privacy breaches to actual theft.

With the user’s login credentials, an attacker could do just about anything he or she wants, including tracking a car, unlocking its doors and stealing stuff inside (when carjacking meets car hacking), or starting the ignition from afar. Making matters worse, Kamkar tells WIRED that remote control like this can enable a malicious criminal to drain the car’s gas, fill a garage with carbon monoxide or use its horn to drum up some mayhem on the street. The hacker can also access the user’s name, email, home address, and last four digits of a credit card and expiration date, all of which are accessible through an OnStar account.

It’s evident that Kamkar’s objective here isn’t to help thieves and endanger the lives of drivers; instead, he is hoping to utilize OwnStar to raise awareness around the vulnerabilities of connected cars. Fortunately though, the actual issue lies on the mobile software and not the GM vehicles themselves. The carmaker has already been receptive of this discovery and plans to fix the matter at hand. Until then, the hacker advises owners to refrain from opening the app until an update has been provided by OnStar.

Intrigued? Kamkar says that he will provide more details around this and other hacks at DEFCON, which he will share on his website as well. Until then, you can watch the demonstration that was conducted on a friend’s 2013 Chevy Volt.

NOTE: Kamkar has confirmed that OnStar has indeed resolved the vulnerability and a RemoteLink app update has been released.

NailO turns your thumb into a mini wireless trackpad

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This wearable input device from MIT’s Media Lab is in the form of a commercialized nail art sticker.

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You’ve been there before: Your arms are full and the phone rings. You put everything down only to find out that it was a telemarketer. Or, while in the middle of preparing dinner, you need to scroll down the recipe page on your tablet. With your hands a mess, you first have to wipe them off before proceeding with the instructions. Fortunately, situations like these may be a thing of the past thanks to a new project from MIT Media Lab. Led by Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, a team of researchers have developed a new wearable device, called NailO, that turns a users thumbnail into a miniature wireless trackpad.

Resembling one of those stick-on nail accessories, NailO works as a shrunken-down trackpad that connects to a mobile device. This enables a wearer to perform various functions on a paired phone or PC through different gestures. And for the fashion-conscious, its creators envision a future with detachable decorative top membranes that are completely customizable to better coordinate with a wearer’s individual style.

Along with its use in hands-full activities like cooking or doing repairs, another potential application for the quarter-sized trackpad includes discreetly sending a quick text message in settings where whipping out a smartphone would be rude. After all, running a finger over a thumbnail is a natural occurrence, so a majority of folks would hardly notice this as a deliberate action to control a gadget.

“Fingernails are an easily accessible location, so they have great potential to serve as an additional input surface for mobile and wearable devices.”

Crammed within the small package of the NailO lie a LiPo battery, a matrix of sensing electrodes, a Bluetooth Low Energy module, a capacitive-sensing controller, and an ATmega328 MCU. With an average power consumption of 4.86 mA, the device can wirelessly transmit data for at least two hours — an ample amount of time for those in a meeting, in class, in a movie theater, or while working around the house.

In order to get started, wearers must first power it up by maintaining finger contact with it for two or three seconds. From there, users can move their index finger up-and-down or left-and-right across its surface, guiding the mouse on its synced device. To select something onscreen, simply press down a finger as if it were a mouse or a touchscreen.

“As the site for a wearable input device, however, the thumbnail has other advantages: It’s a hard surface with no nerve endings, so a device affixed to it wouldn’t impair movement or cause discomfort. And it’s easily accessed by the other fingers — even when the user is holding something in his or her hand,” the team writes.

For their initial prototype, the researchers built their sensors by printing copper electrodes on sheets of flexible polyester, which allowed them to experiment with a range of different electrode layouts. But in future experiments, the team notes that they will be using off-the-shelf sheets of electrodes like those found in some trackpads.

The Media Lab crew has also been in discussion with many Shenzhen-based battery manufacturers and have identified a technology that they think could yield a battery that fits in the space of a thumbnail — yet is only 0.5mm thick. In order to further develop the size of a nail art sticker, the Media Lab worked with flexible PCB factories for a slimmer and bendable prototype, which could conform to the curvature of a fingernail.

We’ll have to go out on a limb and say it: looks like this project ’nailed’ it! Want to learn more? Head over to the project’s official page here, as well as read MIT Technology Review’s latest piece on finger-mounted input devices.

Remotely control a Roomba with your laptop

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Maker hacks his robotic vacuum cleaner with an Arduino Pro Mini and wireless transceiver to control it remotely. 

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Like many of us, “Boredman” is the owner of a robotic vacuum cleaner. Despite their convenience, there’s just something about a Roomba that makes us want to tear it down and begin tinkering. So to no surprise, that’s exactly what the Maker decided to do with the help of an Arduino.

Using the seven-pin connector located beneath the Roomba 880’s handle, Boredman was able to take complete remote control over the robotic device with an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328) and a wireless transceiver.

“Naturally, my goal was to make a controlling hardware as small as possible, ideally invisible, fitting under this handle. Got to keep in mind the wife acceptance factor,” he jokingly explains.

Though his Pro Mini was 5V, he needed a 3V board in order to interface with the 3V radio module. Fortunately, the ATmega328 can take any voltage by itself, with restrictions of maximum clock speed. He removed the linear regulator and disconnected LED resistor to save some energy. As a result, the Arduino was able to receive power directly from the 3.3V VCC connection.

“Theoretically, running at 16MHz at 3.3V is outside the specs and is not guarantied. However, I read that other people successfully did it, and it seems to show no problems here,” the Maker admits admits.

Boredman created a small, efficient switch-mode supply based on an LMR14006 regulator IC to power the Arduino. The Maker notes that the Roomba battery voltage can be as high as 20V and that he required a stable 3.3V for controller, while maximizing efficiency.

“The logic level shifter between 5V TTL signals of Roomba and 3.3V levels of Arduino is built based on this application note,” Boredman explains. “I opted for a modular design, where DC-DC power supply and serial port level shifted are built on a separate small board, connecting to Arduino Mini through a six-pin header connector.”

When completed, he was able to use the keyboard of his laptop to remotely control the gadget’s movements. For instance, the shift button allowed him to select between commands, while the left/right arrows dictate direction and up/down adjust its speed. With a little soldering, the circuitry was also able to fit nicely right under the Roomba’s handle. Maker tested, wife approved!

Thinking about hacking your vacuum? Head over to the project’s page here.

This is what happens when geocaching goes steampunk

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Instead of investing in an ordinary GPS module, one Maker put his own punky twist on geocaching.

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After reading about geocaching, Folkert van Heusden decided that it was a hobby worth exploring. However, the Maker didn’t want to invest in one of those run-of-the-mill, walk around GPS modules. Instead, he wanted to create his own steampunk-inspired unit.

To bring this idea to life, van Heusden rounded up an inexpensive GPS module, a 6600mAh LiPo battery and an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), along with pair of analog meters on eBay to serve as distance and directional indicators. The meter on the left shows the angle to the destination, while the other reveals the proximity. An embedded beeper emits a sound that increases in frequency the closer one gets to the geocache.

Beyond that, van Heusden employed a couple switches for turning the beeper and power on/off and two quad seven segment displays for the interface, which he used to select and check both the longitude and latitude coordinates, as well as set a new target.

All of the electronics are housed inside an antique wooden box, and are situated on a laser-cut wooden panel to give it that authentic steampunk look and feel.

Want one of your own? Check out the project and its necessary code here.

Hit this target with a NERF dart to change a song

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This group of Makers turned a NERF dart target into a “skip track” button for their Sonos system.

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While not everyone may have the same taste in music, there are just some cases where we can’t help but to all agree that a tune is godawful. And with the countless stations on Internet radio, it’s bound to happen. This is what inspired the Neo-Pangea crew to dream up their latest creative project, the Boombox Blaster, which adds a gamification element to their music selection by turning a NERF target into their “skip” button.

Now whenever one of those dreadful tunes emits through the speakers of their multi-room Sonos system, team members can take aim at a small hot air ballon suspended from the ceiling, which prompts the streaming service to skip the song when hit.

Aside from the Sonos and NERF blasters, the system was created using the combination of a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), some orange LEDs and a medium vibration sensor to detect if the balloon is struck by a dart. The sensor is connected to the Arduino, which communicates with the Raspberry Pi over a serial connection. The Pi employs a Python script to monitor the vibration sensor. If hit, the the balloon raises into the air by a servo while its LEDs light up to simulate flames.

Additionally, the Raspberry Pi interfaces with the Sonos. The team tapped into the Sonos API by writing a Node.js script that runs on the Pi and sends commands to control the system.

“The end result of the Boombox Blaster is that we didn’t just create a cool remote for our Sonos system; we also democratized and gamified a task that was a frustration point in the office and further experimented with practical computing,” the team writes. “Bringing the control into the physical space makes it easy for anyone to quickly change the aural atmosphere and have a little fun doing it.”

Feeling inspired? Check out the project’s official page here.

Hacker builds an impressive ProxyHam alternative

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ProxyGambit boasts twice the radio range of the ProxyHam, as well as unlimited reach with GSM.

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While many of us have been scratching our heads as to what happened to the ProxyHam following its sudden disappearance, Samy Kamkar has surfaced with his own take on online anonymity. The hacker has created what he calls an “advanced resurrection of ProxyHam,” also known as ProxyGambit — a device that enables users to access an Internet connection from anywhere on Earth without ever revealing their IP address or location. 

The news of ProxyHam demise came over Twitter when Rhino Security, the consultancy run by the project’s creator Ben Caudill, announced that the was being pulled from the DEFCON agenda. The tweet stated, “Effective immediately, we are halting further dev on #proxyham and will not be releasing any further details or source for the device.”

The $238 ProxyGambit has one-upped its predecessor, given that its direct line-of-sight point-to-point link boasts a range of up to six miles, more than double ProxyHam’s two-and-a-half miles. And impressively, it can work anywhere on Earth via 2G. It can use a reverse-tunneled GSM bridge that connects to the Internet and exits through a wireless network anywhere in the world.

“While a point to point link is possible, the reverse GSM bridge allows you to proxy from thousands of miles away with nothing other than a computer and Internet with no direct link back to your originating machine,” Kamkar explains.

Both methods proxy connection through local Wi-Fi networks near the gadget, shielding and making it more difficult to determine one’s true whereabouts, IP and identity. The ProxyGambit consists of two Adafruit FONA GSM breakout boards, any two ATmega328 Arduino boards and two Raspberry Pis. The FONA uses a SIM800 chip to link the Arduino to the GSM to produce a 2G Internet connection. Meanwhile, the Arduino serves as a serial connection over a reverse TCP tunnel and provides a software proxy layer between the Raspberry Raspberry Pi’s UART and the FONA. One of, if not, the most vital parts of the project is the Pi, which drives the Linux serial link and bridges the public Wi-Fi and radio connection.

Beyond all that, Kamkar employs a 2.5A USB hub, an SD card to host the operating system and data, a Wi-Fi card depending on how far a user would like the ProxyGambit to reach, and a LiPo battery to power the FONA.

When all is said and done, the hacker does emphasize that this is merely a proof of concept and recommends that any potential builders proceed with extreme caution.

“The fragmentation of data through alternate mediums is a useful and effective concept and those interested in privacy, anonymization, or deanonymization should explore this area further. Entropy is both gained and lost with these methods and many risks are involved when deploying any system of this nature,” he concludes.

Intrigued? Head over to Kamkar’s page, where he has made all of the ProxyGamit’s source code and instructions available.