Dual port RAM interface debugs NES games

While writing a game for his old-school NES console, Andrew Reitano realized that live debugging on real hardware would definitely be a step up from the usual software-based fare.

The original solution? Firing variable information out the second controller port to serial every NMI. However, Reitano ultimately decided to take a shot at designing a new Atmel-powered PCB to interface with the console.

“The board routes the left port of the dual port RAM (Cypress CY7C136) to the DIP footprint on the NES and the right port to an AVR (ATmega164 MCU), this allows me to read and write any location at runtime without bus conflicts,” Reitano explained in a recent blog post.

“Control is provided through the UART and two additional pins are soldered directly to the 2A03 to control /NMI and /RESET. AVR control code was written mainly in C with some assembly sprinkled across for the memory control portions.”

The ATmega164 – tasked with “waiting” for serial commands – performs a number of functions including:

• Read/write of any memory location
• Quick dump of an entire 256-byte page
• Freezing of memory addresses (rewriting a single value constantly in the busy loop)
• Single frame stepping by controlling the NMI
• Remote reset of console
• Applying auto increment to tables to a single variable (fun for sine waves on x/y positions)

“[I] had pretty great results with using 250000 baud with the Genesis flasher project which is plenty fast for what I’m trying to do here,” he added. “As far as I can tell from the datasheet leaving CE low shouldn’t have an effect on the opposite port but it most certainly does. Next revision could definitely use a few pullups on the AVR side, other than that I’m pretty happy with the layout.”

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

Atmel looks back at Q1 2014 wins and launches

Yesterday, Atmel execs detailed the company’s Q1 2014 highlights. Key launches, collaborative projects and product wins spanned multiple markets, including:

Winning with maXTouch (smartphones) – LG’s G Pro 2, G2 Mini and L Series 3 L90; Verizon’s Lucid 3, Xiaomi’s RedRice 5.5″, Gionee’s Elife S5.5 and ZTE’s Grand S Lite.

Winning with maXTouch (Android and Windows 8 tablets) – Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 10.1,” Galaxy Tab 12.2,” Galaxy Note 12.2″ and HP’s EliteBook 1000 G2.

Collaborating with Corning – Developing ultra-thin, next-generation capacitive touchscreens using Gorilla Glass and XSense.

Working with Mentor Graphics – Accelerating development of next-gen IoT devices using Atmel’s ARM-based Cortex M3 and M4 based microcontrollers under the auspices of the Embedded Nucleus Innovate Program.

Launching maXTouch 1066T and 1068T – Extending product leadership in the large screen capacitive touch market with devices targeted at 7″ – 8.9″ high performance tablets.

Introducing the new automotive maXTouch S lineup – Targeting touchscreens up to 14″ in center consoles, navigation systems, radio interfaces and rear-seat entertainment systems.

Debuting the SmartConnect platform – Integrating Atmel’s ultra-low power microcontrollers (MCUs) and wireless connectivity solutions into turnkey solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Introducing new low-power ARM Cortex M0+ microcontrollers (SAM D21, D10 and D11) – Offering Atmel’s peripheral event system, support for capacitive touch button, slider and wheel user interfaces, multiple serial communications modules, along with a full-speed USB interface, as well as additional pin and memory combinations.

Unveiling new $79 SAMA5D3 Xplained evaluation kit – Providing a low-cost, fast prototyping and evaluation platform for microprocessor-based design built around Atmel’s SAMA5D3 ARM Cortex-A5 processor-based MPU.

Xplaining 8-bit development– Offering a development board for Makers and engineers based on Atmel’s 8-bit AVR technology.

Launching the ATPL230A – Introducing a Power Line Communications (PLC) modem designed to implement the physical layer of the PRIME standard (Power Line Intelligent Metrology Evolution).

Rolling out Atmel Studio 6.2 – Upgrading the popular integrated development environment for Atmel AVR and ARM based microcontrollers.

Ramping up with LIN – Extending Atmel’s automotive in-vehicle networking leadership position with the launch of next-generation, low-power local interconnect networking (LIN) systems.

An elegant AVR holocron for a more civilized age

A holocron, short for holographic chronicle, is defined by Wookiepedia as an organic crystal-lattice device used to store large quantities of data guarded by the device’s gatekeeper.
 In the Star Wars Universe, holocrons typically stored information on Force techniques, beginning with the Sith and the Jedi approximately three thousand years later.

Up until now, most of us Star Wars fans could only stare wistfully at the holocron rendered on our HDTV screens. Fortunately, NoMuse – aka The Starving Theater Artist – has meticulously created an AVR-powered holocron Instructables thumb drive replica for the masses.

Key project components include:

• Atmel ATtiny85 microcontroller (MCU)
• 
1/8th Acrylic sheet in pale blue and dark blue transparent
• Primer
• 
Rustoleum Hammered-Finish metallic
• Thumb drive
• 
USB cable
• Super-bright LED

NoMuse kicks off the project by building a shell consisting of 6 pieces of laser-cut acrylic which, in the original kit, are identical in size.

“If you are making your own, you make them in three different sizes — which makes assembly much simpler. I chose to create the ‘overlap’ on this build by gluing little strips of 1/8″ acrylic rod to selected edges,” he explained.

“Since lasers don’t cut at pure right angles (the cut opens up towards the bottom), [this] meant I had to sand the pieces flat again after gluing. And then sand the whole assembly for quite some time after the box was built. Following gluing, and flat-sanding to as clean as possible, prime it, then address remaining seams and divots with Bondo Spot Putty. Sand again, prime again.”

Next, NoMuse painted the shell, fitted it with translucent plastic, laminated the diffused panels with cut-out patterns and engraved his creation. He then chopped up a USB cable, pried the housing off a thumb drive (the wires from the cut-off end of the USB cable were soldered directly to the exposed pins of the thumb drive), fitted the LED lights, inserted a LiPo battery, swapped in a tilt switch and installed Atmel’s ATtiny85 MCU in a specially designed 8-pin DIP socket.

“The AVR chips can do capacitance sensing natively. Atmel even has a free library. But you can also do it through the Arduino IDE, using the capsense library from the Arduino Playground,” said NoMuse.

“The way the library works, the ‘send’ pin is used to trickle a charge to the receive pin through a large resistor. The time it takes that pin to reach threshold is dependent on the RC value; hence, adding the capacitance of a human body changes it. With a resistor of 1 meg, actual touch is required. With ten meg ohms, you can trigger from a few inches away, and with more than that, you can push it out to a foot or more… This also increases the sense time, [so] to keep the rest of the circuit running smoothly I found it was better to stay with a mid-range value.”

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

Atmel looks back at Maker Faire Shenzhen

Dale Dougherty, founder of MAKE Magazine and creator of Maker Faire, notes that Maker Faire Shenzhen, held the first weekend of April 2014, celebrated the emergence of the Maker Movement in China and recognized the significance of Shenzhen as a global capital for DIY culture.

“Maker Faire Shenzhen was the first full-scale Maker Faire in China. An estimated 30,000 people walked the tree-lined streets to interact with makers, participate in workshops and listen to presentations,” Dougherty explained in a recent Makezine article.

“[The event] was a showcase for 300 makers who manned 120 exhibits. Organized by Eric Pan and his team at Seeed Studio, Maker Faire Shenzhen was a public demonstration of the robust productivity of China’s makers. The Maker Movement could play a major role in China in transforming both China’s view of itself and the world’s view of China as a center of innovation.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel attended the Faire from April 6-7. Our booth – #4 – was located right next to Center Stage.

In addition, Sander Arts (@Sander1Arts), VP of Corporate Marketing at Atmel, gave a detailed presentation about Atmel microcontrollers, the IoT and Makers.

Sander’s well-attended presentation garnered a significant amount of attention in the local press from a number of journalists, including those writing for CNET, Ifanr, LeiPhone, PowerSystemsDesign (China) and 01EA.

“Various Maker teams demonstrated their projects, ranging from 3D printers to open-source vehicles, VR and wearable devices at Maker Faire 2014 in Shenzhen, highlighting the extensive possibilities of the Internet of Things,” wrote Cui Qiwen, Ifanr.com.

“As the robust brain behind all these maker projects, Atmel was also present at the convention.”

Xia Hang of LeiPhone, expressed similar sentiments.

“… Atmel accounts [for a] significant role that drives and inspires various projects in different categories such as LED, 3D printing and Arduino. Atmel’s MCU-based Arduino development platform enables more entry-level [projects],” Hang explained.

“Through Maker communities, Atmel has constructed close relationships with Makers in mainland China, not only by providing technology support, but also offering opportunities to present their maker projects through holding AVR Hero Contests. [As Sander says], ‘we are the Makers’ enablers, but the power is with you.'”

Meanwhile, CNET’s Tao Jingjie confirmed that Atmel maintains a close relationship with Makers via its AVR-based 8-bit MCUs and ARM-based 32-bit MCUs/MPUs.

“Atmel powers Makers to convert innovative ideas into actually commercialization-possible products, including LED projects, 3D printing projects, Arduino projects, and so on,” said Jingjie.

“It also held the global AVR Hero design contest, in which the products [that won] the award will achieve funding from Atmel [along with help] to enter the market in the future.”

Interested in learning more about the Maker Movement in China? You can check out our article archive on the subject here.

Making music with the open source Kyub

The Kyub is a Maker friendly, open source MIDI keyboard kit that can be easily assembled by just about anyone.

“Capacitive sensing gives the Kyub extremely sensitive action, [while] an internal accelerometer allows the volume of each note to be precisely controlled for versatile musical expression,” a Kyub rep explained in a recent Kickstarter post.

“You can attach multiple Kyubs to a computer synthesizer or digital audio workstation for solo play, jamming with friends, or composition.”

Key Kyub features include:

• One Teensy 2.0 AVR-based board (ATmega32u4 MCU) with native USB MIDI support.
• 11 fully programmable feather touch keypads on five surfaces of a 3-inch wooden cube.
• Three-axis 3G accelerometer controls note volume, after touch or pitch bending.
• Three open source programs for immediate experimentation and playing.
• Compatible with most software synthesizers, including Propellerhead Reason.
• Provides access to hundreds of high quality synthesized instruments.
• Easy to assemble laser cut wood housing accepts a variety of finishes.

So, how does the Kyub work?

Well, the internal circuitry monitors each of the keypads to immediately detect even the lightest finger touch reflected in a capacitive disturbance. 

Meanwhile, acceleration of the Kyub housing associated with a finger touch is converted to a note loudness, which, together with a pitch determined by the keypad, is transmitted over a USB cable in standard MIDI format. It should also be noted that the Kyub offers low latency (on the order of 3 ms), providing a highly responsive musical experience.

On the software side, Kyub can be easily modified in various ways, including changing the notes assigned to each pad, altering the MIDI channel, changing chords assigned to the chord pads, moving notes to make them easy to play, swapping an instrument from guitar to klaxon and playing almost any chord progression.

“We give you super-documented source code using the popular Arduino programming environment (simple C personalized for the Teensy) that will let you set the scale, tweak the note velocity curves, even map different instruments to different pads (say, drums and fife) to get exactly the musical experience you’re looking for,” added the Kyub rep.

“[Plus], our hyper commented source code should give you the tools you need to completely change the Kyub DNA. Make a loop recorder, a drum machine, an arpeggiator, assign pads to play musical phrases, tap into the accelerometer for after touch, pitch bending, or scale changes, squeeze the final bit of latency out.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out Kyub’s official Kickstarter page here.

1:1 Interview with Marcus Schappi of MicroView

The Atmel-powered MicroView – which made its first official Kickstarter appearance last week – has already raised nearly $547,925 from over 6,666 enthusiastic backers.

Essentially, the MicroView is a chip-sized platform with a built-in OLED (64×48) display that allows Makers to see what the Atmel-based board is “thinking” without having to link with a PC.

 The device, designed by the Geek Ammo crew, is built around Atmel’s versatile ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU).

Recently, Atmel’s Tom Vu sat down with MicroView creator Marcus Schappi to discuss the project’s Kickstarter success.

Tom Vu: What are the origins of Project MicroView? How did it all start? Given your success with Ninja Blocks, what motivated you to do this project?

Marcus Shappi: This is the first time you can see what your Arduino is thinking! We’ve always tried to make learning electronics easier. We started by creating an Arduino with LEDs on each output pin so you know when the pins are being turned on. We next built Ninja Blocks, an Internet of Things (IoT) system that removes the impediments of needing to know electronics, networking and programming. To cap things off, we asked ourselves how can we make this even easier, and [then] came the MicroView.  We’ve put an incredible amount of time into the MicroView Arduino Library, with only a couple of lines of code makers can dispay images, text, widgets, graphs and gauges. MicroView embeds the power of an Arduino or dev board, onto the size of a chip.

TV: What is Geek Ammo core philosophy and mission?

MS: At Geek Ammo we want to make awesome open source gear (hardware) for Makers and Geeks.

TV: Obviously, this compliments the Arduino environment. Why does achieving the smallest form factor matter during the phases of development and engineering process?

MS: When Makers are building projects, often size is a consideration (the MicroView is a tiny 26mm x 26mm x 16mm); this is especially so with wearable and airborne projects where size and weight are a constraint. When holding a MicroView in your hand you’ll instantly notice that it has standard spacing (bread board compatible), but not only that it’s also DIP compatible, making it easy to include in projects with just a couple of headers. Meanwhile, users can also appreciate the smooth ergonomic surfaces on the underside which make it easy to remove the MicroView from a prototyping breadboard.

TV: What can you do with a packaged OLED on microcontroller? Can you provide some use-cases where the display is useful during the Maker Build or Prototype process toward achieving MVP?

MS: The OLED on the microcontroller really makes it easy to quickly understand what’s going on inside the Arduino. As part of our Arduino library we’ve included code to easily render text, widgets, sprites, graphs and gauges. This is great for displaying information on what your project is doing. Every project has some level of debugging and the MicroView makes this so easy. This could be in a wearables project or even robotics.

TV: Tell us about why education is important in getting newbie younger and Maker-aspiring audience more involved? How are you helping facilitate this early start?

MS: Yes, naturally education is important for the next generation of Makers, and the MicroView helps to make electronics more accessible. By virtue of having the built in OLED display we’re able to show tutorials on how to use the hardware, and that’s cool, but what is really special is the ability to interact with a project and get live feedback on the OLED display. MicroView can help teach you electronics and Arduino. The MicroView comes preflashed with built-in tutorials that are displayed on its OLED screen.

TV: What versions of development platforms can be used with MicroView?

MS: The MicroView support Arduino today.

TV: Can MicroView be used inside some connected items? IoT? Wearables? Drones? Robots? Please describe some imaginative projects?

MS: Yup, it sure can. Anywhere where you can use an Arduino you can use a MicroView. We’ve used it to display weather and [other] information. We’ve [also] used it as the brains of a robot, showing the motor status and even a wearable project that displays a heart beat.

TV: What does can MicroView do better for an inspiring engineer or ideate builder looking to help sculpt the world of IoT?

MS: The MicroView make it easier to get started, you can very quickly see what’s happening. This is especially important for IoT projects where you traditionally don’t have one.

TV: Why doesn’t your project consider multiple rewards or tiers for crowd funding patrons? What you are getting if basic funding goals are met? Stretch goals?

MS: Reward tiers for direct multiples are not possible due to Kickstarter’s terms and conditions. We have a number of tiers starting from $45, with the most popular Tier being the “Learning Kit Tier” which includes parts to create 11 different circuits. We’ve decided to not do stretch goals as they tend to add risk to a project. We want to ship the MicroView on time!

TV: Why is SparkFun your choice in distribution and build?

MS: SparkFun are the experts at manufacturing products like the MicroView. Previously, they’ve manufactured and shipped a Kickstarter project called Makey Makey. We know they can do this, and do it well! Beyond Kickstarter, SparkFun has, by far, the best distribution in the industry.

TV: Does this statement embody “I am a software company or hardware company” matter in the age of IoT where innovation lies beyond the core?

MS: Didn’t the venture capitalist, Brad Feld say “hardware is just software wrapped in plastic?” So yeah, in 2014 hardware is software and vice versa.

TV: How do you see and why you chose the AVR (MegaAVR)?

MS: We primarily chose AVR for it’s compatibility with Arduino. We’ve seen other projects try to port Arduino to other chipsets, and whilst on the whole they’ve done a good job, there always seems to be some bugs. We don’t want any bugs!

TV: What do you especially like about AVR MCU in your projects?

MS: When you’re designing projects, it’s critical that you have: parts availability, a part that has been field tested (tried and true), and for the type of projects we’re doing power consumption is also a big priority.

TV: What is the differentiator of the Library? Tell me about the enhanced frames per second (FPS) performance in the OLED? Why? What could be a potential use or engineering feat of this speed?

MS: The Arduino library our amazing EE JP Liew has created makes it super easy to do things that would normally be difficult on a microcontroller, like showing on the display, images, text, graphs and gauges. With JP’s library, creating a widget is only a line of code, and updating it another line. When we first started the project we used a 3^rd party library, but we found that the performance was sluggish. JP rewrote the library and was able to get 200FPS (more than needed for the human eye). However, this is important on an AVR because you’re doing all your work in a single thread, so if the uC gets bogged down trying to render the screen, it can’t do other things like data-acquisition from a sensor like an accelerometer.

TV: What is the advantage of a combined small form factor OLED display for creative building and prototyping?

MS: You no longer need to connect your Arduino to a computer to see what it’s thinking. No more cryptic LED blink sequences to working what part of the code your Arduino is running.

TV: In the spirit of open source, when can I access the 3D CAD design files, PCB source files, and project’s open source code?

MS:  We’ll make the source public as soon as the Kickstarter funding period is over.

 

EELive! Conference a big splash in Silicon Valley

I went to the EELive! Conference in San Jose last week and it was a blast. This is the new incarnation of the old Embedded Systems Conference (ESC). Last year it was branded Design West, but I suspect that was too generic, since it is not aimed at mechanical engineers that might read Design News. Another problem with the word “design” is that in the semiconductor industry, only IC engineers are considered “designers.”

I was delighted to hear that UBM, the folks that run the show are considering moving it to Santa Clara convention center next year. I like Santa Clara better since the parking is free, it’s easier to get to, and its right near my house.

So following are some snaps I took on the show floor. Bear in mind that another big part of the EELive! is the conference part, where you can learn about the latest secrets and tips and tricks from technical experts. You have to pay for the conference, but they were nice enough to give a single-class pass to regular shmucks like me that were just attending the free show on the exhibit hall.

As you entered the show floor there was this great theater (or should I say theatre) set up. Here we see show runner Karen Field and EETimes editor Max Maxfield doing a fun give-away. I ran into Max later that evening and he gave me his business card, which lists his title as “Editor of all things fun and interesting.”

There was always a healthy crowd at the theatre, and they were always having a good time. It’s really great to see this combination of social and technology at technical conferences.

If you work with RF, you know that Rohde & Schwarz makes some of the best test equipment on the planet. They are best known for their spectrum analyzers, but now they are making oscilloscopes and hand-held instruments.

Where Rohde & Schwarz really stands out in my mind is network analyzers like this baby. They have some of the lowest-noise units in existence. A network analyzer is like a spectrum analyzer that also measures the phase change of a signal. So rather than just read the spectrum, the unit sends out a signal you connect to your circuit, and then you can get a gain-phase plot, or in this case, you can see a Smith Chart displayed right on the screen. Note the frequency range for this instrument—9 kHz to 6 GHz. That is 9,000 to 6,000,000,000, or nearly 6 decades of range. That is quite an accomplishment. Those N-type connectors on the front belie what a fast beast this is. BNC connectors are not suitable for multi GHz frequencies.

Here is Rhode & Schwarz account manager Steve McMoyler in front of a display of a bunch of cool test equipment he sells. I complained that Rohde & Schwarz stuff is so good we can never find a cheap deal on eBay. He laughed, and pointed out a lot of their new stuff is really cost competitive. I put this to outfits like Rigol selling 400-dollar scopes that, while not the greatest, will actually trigger and show you a waveform. These cheap scopes have put pressure on all the test equipment manufacturers. Then again, the Maker movement has increased the market for these inexpensive products, so the manufacturers can archive high-volume cost efficiencies.

National Instruments had a great booth at EELive! this year. This pic was as the show opened on Thursday, but before long, the booth was swamped with engineers interested in everything from Labview visual programming to the MultiSim Spice simulation program so loved by colleges around the world.

Element14 was at the show, the folks previously know as Newark Electronics. Everything from game controllers to motor control was on display.

One nice feature of EELive! are these little classes put on in glass booths throughout the show floor. You can see this one was packed, standing room only. There is a real hunger to learn the expertise to design and program embedded systems.

The Segger folks were there. Atmel uses Segger debugging technology in a lot of their eval boards. Here we see James Murphy and Shane Titus ready to answer any questions.

Here is the Atmel SAMA5D3 evaluation board with Seggar technology running their emWin graphics library.

The PCB fab companies were there, including the PCB-POOL folks my buddy Wayne Yamaguichi liked so much.

Here we see Tony Shoot from PCB-POOL showing some of their capabilities, as they segue into a full prototype shop.

The LeCroy folks were at the show. I can’t get over how beautiful the display is on these modern scopes. I bought one of their $60k units when I was at National Semiconductor. The engineers used to Tek or Agilent would complain the user interface was weird, but once they bothered to learn it, you could not tear the LeCroy scope out of their hands. I myself have a LeCroy 9360 digital scope at my home lab.

Here is a LeCroy serial data analyzer on the left and a HDO4000 scope on the right. Its got a 4k screen and 12-bit resolution. Those big 12-inch screens sure can spoil you. Note they have a web-cam perched on top of the scope with a real-time video displayed on the top right of the screen. They are piping the scope screen to the TV, talk about reducing eye strain when you debug. Sweet.

The Screaming Circuits folks had a booth. These are the people that will assemble small quantities of your circuit boards. They have special machinery so they don’t need 3 feet of tape and real parts for any build. You can send them your Digi-Key cut-tape parts and they can feed them into their tape and reel machines. That way you can check out your insert file and assembly drawing and have circuit boards made in a real IR reflow oven. Here Scott Pohlmann was ready to answer any questions about protying and their partnering with Sunstone and other fab houses, as well as Digi-Key. They can even have your designed kitted up, get the boards fabbed at Sunstone and delivery you assembled boards.

Atmel had their giant Tech on Tour trailer at right on the show floor. Michelle would buzz you in to checkout all the demos and give access to Atmel applications people that could answer your questions or help with your next project.

One demo that people loved was the MakerBot, which would make items like this while you watched.

Here is a little movie of the Makerbot in action. It is hypnotizing to watch.

Out of ideas? Try the hackable META!

Tim Ellis has debuted the AVR-powered META on Kickstarter. According to Ellis, the Atmel-based platform (ATmega328PU MCU) can best be described as a unique, handcrafted, hackable, retro, open source, Motivational Electronic Text Advisor (META).

“We’ve all experienced the frustration of creative drought. You’re sitting down, trying to come up with your next great idea; that amazing Kickstarter project that will take the Internet by storm and make the world a better place,” Ellis explains.

“But instead of a gushing river of amazing ideas flowing straight from your brain to your computer screen, your mind is a total blank. Brain freeze. Writer’s block. Coder’s collapse. Engineer’s enigma. Musician’s meltdown. Singer’s stoppage. Painter’s Paradox. Before today, there has been no effective remedy for these plagues upon our collective creative consciousness.”

Well, that was clearly then. This is now. This is META, in all its light-hearted, ironic glory.

So, how does this fun platform work? Simply press META’s center button and the custom control code generates a unique idea for you to peruse. Here are just a few arbitrary examples Ellis has come up with:

• GPS-Enabled Programming Calculator for Babies
• Locally-Sourced Weight-Sensing Gypsum Dice
• Animatronic BPA-Free Desk for Cats
• Laser-Cut Hands-Free Aluminum Leggings for Moms
• Augmented Reality Solar-Powered Teak Sunglasses

“META is most effective when kept within easy reach of your creative workspace. Whenever you hit a creative block, just turn on META, press the center button, and boom, instant creative spark,” says Ellis.

“[Remember], this is just a tiny sampling of the over 300 million distinct ideas I’ve somehow managed to cram into this little box to surprise and delight you for many years—nay, decades—nay, eons to come.”

Interested in learning more about this cool little box filled with arbitrary ideas and random juxtapositions? You can check out META’s official Kickstarter page here.

Atmel @ EELive! 2014: Day 1

Atmel kicked off EELive! 2014 with a full schedule of well-attended Tech Talks across a wide variety of topics including the IoT, Maker Movement, battery management, embedded security and Cortex-M (ARM) SAM D20 microcontrollers (MCUs).

Meanwhile, hundreds of EELive! attendees lined up outside of Atmel’s Tech on Tour trailer for the opportunity to pick up a free Atmel XMEGA-E5 Xplained evaluation kit and check out the following exhibits:

• Agent smartwatch (Secret Labs) powered by Atmel’s ARM-based SAM4S and tinyAVR MCU
• Philips Hue Bulbs with Atmel‘s ZigBee and Lightweight Mesh Stack
• Turtle Beach i60 Wireless Gaming Headset with Atmel Wi-Fi
• Direct
Roku3 remote with Atmel’s Wi-Fi Direct
• Venstar Color Touch Thermostat with Atmel’s ARM9-based MCU
• Makerbot 3D printer with Atmel AVR microcontrollers
• ASUS T100 Transformer with Atmel’s MaxTouch T Series Cap Touch controller and XSense Metal mesh touch sensors
• Atmel Studio IDE

Atmel, along with Xively, also co-hosted an Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering Summit at the event.

Atmel’s very own Patrick Sullivan discussed a number of IoT-related subjects, including embedded processing, security, connectivity, interface, as well as software, tools and development.

Super Awesome Sylvia (Atmel booth)

Stay tuned to Bits & Pieces for more EELive! 2014 updates.

MIT wins prize for $20 AVR robot

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) recently received top honors in multiple categories at an international competition focused on designing affordable, classroom-friendly robots.

The team from CSAIL Director Daniela Rus’ Distributed Robotics Lab earned first place in the hardware and curriculum categories for a printable, origami-inspired Segway robot dubbed SEG at the “Ultra-Affordable Robot” competition sponsored by the African Robotics Network (AFRON) and the IEEE Robotics and Automaton Society.

The design by Rus, Ankur Mehta, Joseph DelPreto, Benjamin Shaya and Lindsay Sanneman, allows an individual to build a printable, Atmel AVR-powered (tinyAVR/Arduino Pro depending on version) robot for as little as $20, in just five steps.

The small robot – made of polyester – moves around on two large wheels and is capable of avoiding obstacles with an onboard sensing and navigation system. The team also adapted graphical drag-and-drop software that’s convenient for first-time programmers, while simultaneously developing a curriculum that teaches students some basic control systems to implement with SEG.

“We’re excited to have been able to make some really encouraging upgrades to our prototype in such a way that it is more effective, more intuitive and more affordable,” said Mehta. “With this kind of progress, we envision a future where robots that can help you with important daily tasks could be printed for a few dollars from your desktop printer.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out the project’s official page here, along with the relevant files and instructions.