Greetings from Trondheim (home of AVR)

Trondheim, home of AVR architecture, is checking into the Maker Movement! This summer there is a lot going on; a few Makerspaces are popping up, a new coworking space and in August Trondheim hosts its first Maker Faire. Although Trondheim hosted a mini Maker Faire at the Pstereo festival last year, we are going for the real deal in 2014 with a featured Maker Faire.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Trondheim is now in company with cities like Tokyo, Senzchen, Kansas, Paris and a few other cities around the world. There is one primary difference between Trondheim and most of the other cities – population. With only 180,000 people living in the city, there is no doubt that Trondheim is the smallest city among the featured faires. Although Trondheim is the smallest city, it is home to a compact and vital community of Makers, hackers and techheads. With almost 40,000 students in the city, a significant number of tech businesses, a well-established creative community and a long cultural history, it all adds up to be a great place for innovation and Making.

In fact, as you are reading this article, there is a group of people transforming an old 1500 square feet basement into a Makerspace. Ragnar Ranøyen Homb, one of the initiators behind this Makerspace and Norwegian Creations, a maker community, describes Trondheim the following way:

“Trondheim is a rather small city if we look at population. So when we combine the population with all the Maker Movement initiatives going on, we get a rather high concentration of awesome stuff!

“The resurgence of this new culture is, among other things, an important catalyst for ‘the open source generation.’ One of this generation’s strongest characteristics is the high amount of knowledge originating from looking into the designs of different open source projects. And it’s not only the hardware creators that take part of this. As we can see in Trondheim now, a new breed of entrepreneurs is also emerging.”

Hackheim, an established hacker space, is currently moving from its old location into new and improved facilities this summer. At NTNU university, a group of students are turning a number of current workshops into what they describe as an “open arena for innovation.”

Alf Egil Bogen, co-inventor of the AVR-microcontroller, did see a need for a stronger culture and community working for innovation and entrepreneurship in Trondheim. In September 2013 Trondheim Makers was established. The organization is working with the schools and initiatives that already exist, in addition to their own events and projects; Maker Faire Trondheim is the first big event held by Trondheim Makers.

So there are definitely some things going around in the tech capital of Norway right now. If you are interested in reading more  about the Maker Movement in Trondheim, please check the links listed below. Some of them are currently only in Norwegian, but as projects receive more and more attention outside Norway, new dual language websites are going live at a rapid pace:

• Trondheim Makers – trondheimmakers.com // https://www.facebook.com/TrondheimMakers
• Maker Faire Trondheim – trondheimmakerfaire.no // https://www.facebook.com/makerfairetrondheim
• Digs (Coworking space with a new maker space in the basement) – digs.no //
• Hackheim – http://hackheim.no
• Norwegian Creations – http://www.norwegiancreations.com

 

 

 

Counting prime numbers with the ATtiny13A

Dave M. has created a prime number machine – TinyPrime – powered by Atmel’s ATtiny13A microcontroller (MCU).

“The ATtiny13A is a neat chip: AVR with 1K of flash, 64 bytes of RAM and 64 bytes of EEPROM,” Dave wrote in a recent blog post.

“I programmed it using a Teensy-2.0-based waldo running Ward Cunningham’s TXTZYME. Every time you push the button, the AVR retrieves the currently-displayed number (which is stored in EEPROM), and then increments it, clicks the counter and tests for primality.”

If the number isn’t prime, says Dave, the machine increments and clicks again.

“When a prime number is reached, it stops and waits for another button press,” he added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out TinyPrime’s official project page here.

HackADay features Atmel-powered Phoenard

Back in February, Pamungkas Sumasta’s Phoenard won Atmel’s AVR Hero design challenge.

According to Sumasta, Atmel’s 8-bit AVR MCUs provide “the best small footprint controllers available in the market – especially when they are coupled with Arduino support.”

Recently, the Phoenard was featured on HackADay, along with a short video interview shot at Atmel’s Maker Faire Bay Area (2014) booth.

“We really like the form-factor but its hackability is where it really shines. Sumasta showed off the menu system which is quite snappy and makes it simple for you to add your own applications,” writes HackADay’s Mike Szczys.

“Software isn’t the only thing you can customize, as there’s a connector at the bottom of the phone. Sumasta showed off a breadboard attachment which was hosting LEDs of various colors. Their intensity can be altered using a simple slider app on the touchscreen.”

ATmega64 dev board surfaces on Electronics Lab

Radek Malina has introduced an ATmega64 development board on the Electronics Lab website.

Interestingly, the hardware was developed in the Czech Republic at a time when Arduino boards wasn’t locally available.

“It can be used to easily develop custom AVR firmware or as an introduction board to microproccessors and programming,” Malina explained.

“A development board is better to be used instead of a breadboard setup as it facilitates the connection of the different components using PCB headers.”

Key specs and features of the dev board include:

• Atmel ATmega64 MCU – all ports available via pins, a different crystal can be connected (optional frequency crystal)
• DS3231 RTC, real-time IC / I2C
• Temp. DS1820 1wire Temp. sensor
• EEPROM 24AA00SN / I2C EEPROM
• USB Port FT232RL USB/RS232 converter
• 
Buttons 8x -16x LED
• Connect LCD Display 16×2 
7segment-LED Display
• N-FET For PWM
• ISP Programming connector

“All module pins are labeled for easy connection with the processor and there are separate connectors and jumpers for all MCU ports so you can easily connect, test and debug your firmware. Also there is an ISP programming connector J2,” 

 Malina added.

“[Plus], the PCB can be powered via the USB connector, or with a voltage regulator through an external adapter.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out the project’s official page here.

Video: Electronic dice go random with AVR

A Maker named Walter recently created an entropy library for Atmel AVR microcontrollers (MCUs) to ensure a reliable source of truly arbitrary numbers.

As HackADay’s Brian Benchoff reports, the electronic dice generate random numbers by taking advantage of the watchdog timer’s natural jitter.

“[This isn’t] fast by any means but most sources of entropy aren’t that fast anyway,” Benchoff explains. “By sampling a whole lot of AVR chips and doing a few statistical tests, it turns out this library is actually a pretty good source of randomness, at least as good as a pair of dice.”

According to Benchoff, the circuit itself employs a pair of 8×8 LED matrices from Adafruit, an Atmel-based Arduino board and a pair of buttons.

Supported modes (11 total)?

• 2d6
• 2d4
• 2d8
• 2d10
• 1d12
• 1d20
• Deck of cards
• Single hex number
• Single 8-bit binary number
• 8 character alphanumeric password

Interested in learning more? You can watch the video above or check out the project’s official page here.

1:1 Interview with Mel Li (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1 …)

TV:  Tell me about the Lab on a Chip?

ML: The lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single chip of only millimeters to a few square centimeters in size. LOCs deal with the handling of extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico liters. The notion of the “Lab-on-a-Chip” generally indicates the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, primarily dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis.  My previous work examined the design and validation of a LOC for screening blood samples to determine optimal personalized drugs and their respective dosages for specific patients to prevent heart attacks. A lot of those techniques were first inspired by the fact that tools requiring the examination, characterization and integration of the sophisticated hardware controls are made available.

TV: Describe your post doctorate work and bio medical engineering?

ML: I worked on research projects that are helping us to better understand and detect early heart disease.  My current research work involves measurements for fluid migration over surfaces then discussing those applications for medical diagnostics. My works also involve motor control for fluorescence microscopy for applications in life sciences.  This work involves spectrum study of fluorescent DNA or proteins. This graduate work is related to the building and diagnostic device which can measure at microscale, pinpoint dosage of drugs to show visibility of early signs of heart disease. The medical application revolves around a low cost infectious disease as well as looking at tuberculosis and malaria. The idea is to provide a breakthrough in what typically required extensive cost, lots of lab work and long examination to be replaced with a low cost and easily administered solution. The application is very similar to taking a sample of mucous or saliva; this is sort of like a pregnancy test. We collaborate with large industrial partners such as GE Healthcare and hopefully we’ll be able to produce a commercially viable product in time.

TV:  How are AVR Microcontrollers being used with the Arduino in your cosplay costume

ML: I use the ATmega168 (via the development and application of the Arduino Duemilanove board) for this costume. The microcontroller is used to control the color, power and timing of the lights on the costume through shift registers. The cosplay costume using this controller chip is the one pictured here.

I also use the ATmega328 (via the Arduino Uno/Uno R3 board) for the lab projects previously described.  Specific tasks for the controller include driving the position and timing of a servo motor and/or linear actuator, as well as switching power on and off from an AC wall socket to a high powered, wide spectrum LED light source. Additionally, it was also used in a costume where it again controlled color, power and timing of LED’s, but these were driven using normal (non shift register) PWM signal controls. My costume using this controller chip is pictured here:

Figure 6: Photos by Mike Vickers

This is the ATmega32uF (via the Arduino Micro board) for my current project (in progress) that will be used for motor control.

 

* Mel’s costume is an original design inspired by a wide range of cyberpunk/fantasy artists including Masumune Shirow, Eric Canete, Joe Benitez and various modern gaming concept art. According to Mel, the process was a lot of fun and took approximately three months of on-and-off planning and building. The assembly is made from over 60 parts designed in Solidworks and sewn/cut/glued/laser-cut/heat-formed using various techniques. The costume includes color changing LEDs on the spine and front that are controlled by Arduino boards with Atmel AVR and ARM microcontrollers and onboard RGB controllers (respectively). The costume is powered by 16 AA batteries, 1 LiPo rechargeable battery, two 2032 coin cells and one 9-volt battery. In total, there are more than 70 LED’s on the entire costume and over 60 parts.

** Part one of this interview can be read here.

 

Video: Mel Li talks robotic exoskeletons

Cyberpunk films and novels are often set in post-industrial dystopias characterized by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original creators.

As William Gibson noted in Burning Chrome, “the street finds its own uses for things.” Although Gibson wrote those words way back in 1981, they more than aptly describe the cyberpunk build designed by Maker Mel Li, Ph.D that was showcased at Atmel’s 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire booth.

According to Mel, the Costume is an original design inspired by the cyberpunk/fantasy genre work of artists including Masumune Shirow, Eric Canete, Joe Benitez and various modern gaming concept art.

More specifically, the assembly is made from over 60 parts designed in Solidworks and sewn/cut/glued/laser-cut/heat-formed using various techniques.

The rather impressive costume includes color changing LEDs on the spine and front that are controlled by Arduino boards with Atmel AVR and ARM microcontrollers and onboard RGB controllers (respectively) – powered by 16 AA batteries, 1 LiPo rechargeable battery, two 2032 coin cells and one 9-volt battery.

In total, says Mel, there are more than 70 LEDs on the entire costume and over 60 parts.

Arduino and Atmel debut Zero dev board

Arduino and Atmel have debuted the Zero development board – a simple, elegant and powerful 32-bit extension of the platform originally established by the popular UNO.

“The Zero board expands the Arduino family by providing increased performance to fuel the creativity of the Maker community,” said Massimo Banzi, Arduino co-founder and CEO.

“The flexible feature set enables endless project opportunities for devices and acts as a great educational tool for learning about 32-bit application development.”

Indeed, the Arduino Zero board packs Atmel’s versatile SAMD21 microcontroller (MCU), which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ core. Additional key hardware specs include 256kb of flash, 32kb SRAM in a TQFP package and compatibility with 3.3V shields that conform to the Arduino R3 layout.

The Arduino Zero board also boasts flexible peripherals along with Atmel’s Embedded Debugger (EDBG) – facilitating a full debug interface on the SAMD21 without the need for supplemental hardware.

In addition, EDBG supports a virtual COM port that can be used for device programming and traditional Arduino bootloader functionality.

According to Atmel exec Reza Kazerounian, the Zero board aims to provide creative individuals with the potential to realize truly innovative ideas for smart IoT devices, wearable technology, high-tech automation and robotics.

“Leveraging more than 15 years of experience since the inception of AVR, simplicity and ease-of-use have been at the core of Atmel’s technology,” Kazerounian added.

“[We are] pleased to see the continued growth of the global maker community stemming from the increasing access and availability to open source platforms such as Arduino. We enable Makers, but the power lies within the Makers themselves.”

Interested in checking out an Arduino Zero prototype? You can get up close and personal with the very first prototypes at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014 in San Mateo on May 17 and 18 at the following booths:

• Arduino booth: #204
• Atmel booth: #205
• ARM booth: #405

We’ll see you there!

Video: Debugging with Atmel-ICE

In the latest episode of Atmel Edge, Analog Aficionado Paul Rako discusses our newest debugger, the Atmel-ICE.

As Rako notes, the Atmel-ICE is a powerful development tool for debugging and programming Atmel ARM Cortex-M based Atmel SAM and AVR microcontrollers.

Key features include:

• Support for JTAG, SWD, PDI, TPI, aWire, SPI and debugWIRE interfaces
• Full source-level debugging in Atmel Studio
• 
Support for all built-in hardware breakpoints in the target microcontroller (number depends on the OCD module in the target)
• 
Up to 128 software breakpoints
• 1.62 to 5.5V target operation
• USB powered
• Offers both ARM Cortex Debug Connector (10-pin) pin-out and AVR JTAG connector pin-out

Atmel-ICE is currently available from the official Atmel store for $85 here.

Atmel-based ChronosMEGA measures time

A Maker by the name of N.fletch has debuted the ChronosMEGA, a beautifully designed wristwatch powered by Atmel’s versatile ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU).

“I’ve always loved watches; not only are they aesthetic and beautiful, but they are functional, precise and useful. An elegant fusion between engineering and art; two normally opposed perspectives, now joined in harmonic unison,” N.fletch explained in a recent Instructables post.

“However, all technologies like the dial-up internet, the CVT monitor and the abacus, inevitably will become relics of our past with the advent of advancing technology and have since become less pragmatic for the typical person to own. Unlike these archaic technologies, the wrist watch still thrives on the wrists of many, standing forever as a testament to one of mankind’s greatest inventions: the measurement of time.”

Aside from Atmel’s ATmega328P, key ChronosMEGA specs include binary time encoding (via 10 Blue 1206 LEDs), a slew of buttons to control time, sleep mode and display, a 32.768kHz external crystal and an 8MHz internal clock source.

Additional key features?

• Micro-USB and charge management controller (for 400mAh Li-ion battery)
• Draws 4uA in its Deep Sleep mode to last up to 11 years on a single charge
• Battery indicator 0603 LED
• Boost TI switching regulator for power regulation
• Low loss PowerPath controller IC for power source selection
• Total form factor of 10mm x 40mm x 53mm
• Custom 3D designed case cast in pure polished silver
• Genuine crocodile leather watch band

As you can see in the videos above, the layout of the watch configured in a circular array of 10 LEDs. Four of the LEDs account for hours, while six of the LEDs account for minutes.

“The LEDs count in binary to display the time on the watch face. By utilizing a combination of the 10 LEDs, the watch can display any possible time accurate to the minute,” N.fletch continued.

“This is a very clean and elegant way to display time. I also really like this technique because of its esoteric and mysterious nature.”

In terms of the MCU, the ATmega328P is wired in a straight-forward manner, connected to power and ground, with a pull up resistor on the RESET pin. Essentially, the AVR is tasked with driving all the LEDs from its GPIO, although one of the MCU’s AVR’s ADC pin is connected to the battery to detect the voltage level. As such, the watch is equipped with a small red status LED to indicate when battery power is low.

“The AVR has a 32.768 kHz crystal wired to its XTAL pins. It uses the 32.768 kHz crystal to drive its Timer2 module asynchronously for counting the seconds, [while] its internal 1MHz RC clock drives the SW,” N.fletch added.

“32.768 kHz is a very common frequency to drive Real Time Clock (RTC) systems because 32,768 in decimal is equal to 8000 in hex. Therefore, 32,768 can be evenly divided by multiple powers of 2 including 1024. Dividing 32,768 by 1024 yields 32, so configuring the timer to count to 32 with a 1024 pre-scaler will equal an exact second.”

Interested in learning more about the Atmel-based ChronosMEGA? You can check out the project’s official Instructables page here.