Designed by math teacher Dan Alich, the Atmel-basedDuinoKit Essential Project (DEP) is a cost effective development system for aiding the learning of electronics and programming.
The DuinoKit, which recently made its Kickstarter debut, includes all components necessary to build numerous projects, as well as easy to understand diagrams and part specifications.
According to Alich, potential DEP projects include:
Digital Alarm Clock
Countdown Timer
Infrared Signal Recorder / Repeater
Digital “Dice” or random “move” prompts for board games
Motion Sensor / Alarm Data Recorder / Logger
“I have developed this kit as a safe and easy method of learning electronics and programming. After gaining a little experience in electronics, users will be able to move the projects away from the kit and build them into a stand-alone project,” Alich explained.
“With this kit you will learn how to read and gather data from input sensors (such as an acceleration sensor, light sensor or temperature sensor), process this data and interact with various other output devices (such as LEDs, Liquid crystal displays and the serial port on your computer). When these skills are combined, the number of projects and ideas are virtually limited only my ones imagination.”
Arduino has debuted two new shields for use with the company’s wildly popular lineup of Atmel-based boards.
First up is a USB host shield based on the MAX3421E. This USB peripheral/host controller contains the digital logic and analog circuitry required to implement a full-speed USB peripheral or a full-/low-speed host compliant to USB specification rev 2.0.
Next up is the ArduinoISP (AVR-based in-system programmer) based on David Mellis’ project FabISP and useful to anyone needing more space on their Arduino board.
Designer Jaap de Maat of London’s Royal College of Art recently debuted an exhibit titled “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
As GizMag’s Adam Williams reports, the exhibit is essentially an autonomous filing cabinet designed to follow people around.
“In the digital age it has become easier to look back with great accuracy,” de Maat explained in a project description.
“But this development contains hidden dangers, as those stored recollections can easily be misinterpreted and manipulated. That sobering thought should rule our online behavior, because the traces we leave behind now will follow us around for ever.”
According to Williams, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is built around a modded filing cabinet fitted with an electric wheelchair (+ battery), an Atmel-based Arduino board, a BT2S Bluetooth interface and HC-SR04 distance sensors.
So, how does it work? Well, the cabinet is linked to a webcam via Bluetooth, which scans the room for movement.
“When the webcam finds a person, it sends the relevant location to the Arduino, which in turn controls the wheelchair motors and directs the cabinet toward that person,” Williams added.
While perusing my latest copy of American Motorcyclist magazine, I was pleased to see an article on how vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication might make roads safer for motorcyclists. V2V is where vehicles have their own dedicated micro-controller and wireless chip and security chip. Atmel makes all three, both as separate parts and combined into one. The vehicles will have a wireless RF “bubble” that travels with them. When two vehicle’s bubbles “touch”, then they will authenticate it is not some hacker on a bridge embankment. Then the vehicles can exchange information. It is anticipated that the system will have GPS, so each vehicle will know its exact position.
While drunk driving fatalities have plummeted, distracted driving is killing twice as many people.
As a guy with a broken collarbone that got hit from behind while my motorcycle was stopped for a red light, I think this is great. If vehicles can communicate they can warn each other of impending collisions. Auto manufacturers anticipate verbal and “shaker” warning for the cars, or so-called “cages” as we motorcyclists call them.
The AMA publishes the magazine and I am a proud supporter. One thing I disagree with is that the AMA wants motorcycles to be nearly silent. Now I hate open pipes, that is a moron thing to do since you can’t tune the motor because of the reversion pulses coming off the end of pipes. But silent bikes are too far in the other direction. With half the driver’s noses stuck in a smartphone while they drive, a little noise alerts them to my presence.
This V2V technology may make all this moot. I won’t need loud pipes if vehicles actively work to avoid collisions. I touched on this in an earlier blog post—Car-to-car communication.
Designed by the Big One, Stubby started out as a simple 2DOF version, although it quickly morphed into a 3DOF iteration with a full inverse kinematics engine.
“What sets it apart from other hexapods is that it a) is controlled controlled by a single AVR chip (ATMega 1284), including movement and PWM,” The Big One explained in a recent HackADay project page.
“[It] is [also] designed in such a way that it can be driven by very cheap, micro servos (I am currently using $2, 9 gram servos). [Plus, Stubby] has a wooden (MDF) frame cut on a scroll saw [and] is designed with budget in mind; you can make one for around $150 worth of supplies and minimal simple tools.”
The completed project features three 9g servos per leg, all controlled with an AVR-based custom board and an XBee interface to an old Playstation controller.
“You can move in any direction on the XY axis, translate the body on the XYZ axis and roll the body on the XYZ axis,” the BigOne added.
The act of authentication is very straightforward. Essentially, it is making sure that something is real.
There are two parts to authentication:
Identification
Confirmation of identity
Authentication in the “crypto-verse” typically happens on a host and client basis where the host wants to ensure that a client is real. A typical use case occurs when a client device is inserted into a system, while the host asks (“challenges”) the client to confirm its identity. This can occur when an ink cartridge is inserted into a printer, or a water filter is put into a refrigerator. a battery is put into a phone, and numerous other applications. Firmware and software can be authenticated too, but that is a topic for another article.
Think of the challenge as when the castle guard in an old movie asks, :Halt! Who goes there?”. The guard expects a suitable response to prove confirm the identity of the approacher.
Getting back to the real world, authentication is accomplished using a process focused on calculations involving cryptography keys, and that is true for both of the major types of authentication; namely, symmetric and asymmetric. We will focus on the symmetric process here.
With symmetric authentication, the host and client both have the exact same key, which is in fact how symmetric got its name. Note that is critical for both keys to be kept secret to ensure security. Keeping secret keys secret is the main touchstone of authentication and data security of any type. The best way to do that is using a secure hardware key storage device.
The basic idea behind symmetric authentication is that if the client is real then it will have the exact same key as the host. Challenge-response is a prescribed methodology to prove it.
The host controller sends the client a numerical challenge to be used in a calculation to create a response, which is then compared to a similar calculation that is performed on the host.
To describe the process in more detail we can look at a typical symmetric authentication architecture using Atmel ATSHA204A devices on both the host and client and a microcontroller in the host. (Another article will explain how this is done with the crypto device on the client only, which is the fixed challenge methodology).
Step 1: The process kicks off when the host sends a random number to the client which is generated by the host’s ATSHA204’s random number generator. This is the“Challenge”and is illustrated above.
Step 2: The client receives the random number challenge and runs it through a hash algorithm (i.e.SHA256) using the secret key stored there. The result of the hashing function is called the “Response” and it can also be called the “Message Authentication Code” (or MAC). A MAC is technically defined as the result of a hashing function involving a key and message. The response is sent to the host.
Step 3: The host internally uses the same challenge (i.e. the random number) that it sent to the client as an input to its internal hash algorithm. The other input to the internal hash is the secret key stored on the host side. Then the host compares the hash value (MAC) calculated on the host side with the response hash-value (MAC) sent from client. If the two hash values (MACs) match – then the keys are indeed the same and the client is proven to be real.
Note that the secret keys are never sent outside the devices, as they always remain securely stored in protected hardware and invisible from attackers. Stated very simply: “You can’t attack what you can’t see.”
Benefits:
The benefits of a symmetric architecture with secure key storage crypto engine devices on both sides are:
Symmetric authentication with crypto devices on both sides is quite fast.
Secure hardware storage on both sides increases security.
Ensures a very low processing burden on the microcontroller.
For more details on Atmel CryptoAuthentication™ products, please view the links above or the introduction page at CryptoAuthentication.
The open source Ai.Frame – which recently surfaced on Kickstarter – is a versatile miniature robot powered by an Atmel-based Arduino Mini (ATmega328 MCU) paired with infrared and ultrasonic sensors.
“The Apollo [model offers] 16 degrees of freedom, while the Rex has 9. Operated by an efficient controlling system, the Ai.Frame executes your commands almost instantly.”
AI.Frame can be controlled via a smartphone or tablet, gamepad or even a wearable harness that accurately captures upper torso movements.
“As experienced engineers, we have a thorough understand of robot configuration and construction, [so] we incorporated rich body details into the Ai.Frame to simulate the structure of the human body,” said the rep.
“The Ai.Frame Apollo’s skeleton contains 109 pieces and its outer shell contains 12, while the Ai.Frame Rex consists of 98 pieces. We also made made a concerted effort to optimize the molding and screws for the strongest possible structure. Nonetheless, you can choose to either build an Ai.Frame from scratch or to have us assemble it for you.”
According to CNX-Software, Acme Systems, the company that manufactures the board, is now considering designing an open source hardware baseboard for the module.
If produced, the baseboard would likely feature:
Arietta G25 SoM connector (Vertical mount)
1x USB Host port
I2C Sensors – temperature, humidity sensor and light
Mosfet output for RGB led strip
2x relay output
1x filtered dry input
2x servo RC motors output
Audio interface with embedded microphone and jack for PC speakers using Wolfson WM8731 codec
More than 30 years ago, “vagrearg” learned 6802 microprocessor programming on a dev-kit system. After a few weeks of tinkering, vagrearg designed a One-Armed Bandit (slot-machine) program on 7-segment displays.
“If I remember correctly, the dev-kit had 6 displays in a matrix, 4 to display address and 2 for data, and an 4×5 keyboard matrix for input and a speaker,” he explained in a recent blog post.
“Any user-code could take over the system and do whatever. The program was written in 6802 assembly and took up 2..3kByte of memory.”
Earlier this month, vagrearg was feeling nostalgic and decided to reconstruct the One-Armed Bandit with the following components:
“Two hours of soldering later I had a board capable of reliving old memories. The system runs on 3xAA batteries which should last for about 24 hours of continuous play. The batteries hold several months when the system is in sleep mode,” he said.
“No real optimization has been performed to reduce power consumption. A later version may revisit that part in the firmware, especially sleep-mode power reduction could be improved.”
On the software side, the One-Armed Bandit is capable of implementing the following features:
Four reels with symbols
Random positioning
Animated reel movement
Sound when reels are moving
Hold any reel
Start rolling/subtract credits
Detect winnings/add credits
Bonus button (double cost/win)
Music
Scrolling text
Sleep mode
“Music is generated by the AVR processor using a timer to toggle an output-pin. This has the advantage that it can run asynchronously from the rest of the code,” vagrearg added. ”The timer is also useful to generate the correct pitch over several octaves. The melodies are then simple tables with a pitch and a duration.”
