Maker culture growing in Southeast Asia

After many major tech manufacturers left the area in the early 2000s, many citizens throughout Singapore began adopting an ‘If it can be bought, buy it’ attitude when it came technology. Now, with the help of a strong Maker community, a DIY mentality is growing within the region. There is plenty of evidence that the Maker culture is taking hold within Singapore.

In addition, the ongoing acquisition of tech startups throughout Southeast Asia has attracted the attention of investors who understand the need for continued innovation. According to Assistant Professor Denisa Kera of the National University of Singapore (NUS), the open source movement has been playing an integral role in encouraging new ideas across the region.

“Hackerspaces attract some of the most interesting people you can meet in a city; the pragmatic visionaries who are not afraid to take on any challenge, but jealously protect their autonomy and freedom. They actually preserve the original mission of the universities, which is academic freedom,” Kera told TechInAsia in the context of a wide-ranging interview with the publication.

Testament to the rise in DIY, the recent Maker community event MakersBlock was a massive success — having attracted over 100 Maker participants and hosted more than 50 free workshops in July.

Continuing on the growth of the Movement, individual Makers like the team at Chibitronics has jumped onboard the DIY wave. The Chibitronics team has a goal of offering electronics education to local youth through simplistic circuitry designs. They offer a series of simple, yet informative electronics tutorials on their website and sell kits for electronics projects aimed for the younger generation. The Chibitronics site offers an active community forum where young Makers can share their projects and find inspiration.

Following in these footsteps, groups like the Singapore Makers are growing rapidly in size and contributing valuable knowledge to the community. Singapore Makers have made a concerted effort to connect designers with MakerSpaces where they can develop their ideas in the ideal environment.

“Most people think it is about the freedom to do research, but it is more than that. We need a space or an institution which will enable citizens to develop skills necessary for taking an active part in the public life of their communities. Hackerspaces are the best place to gain such knowledge and skills on your own terms,” Kera expained.

With the economy constantly in flux, it is positive to see the younger generations within Singapore are adopting a DIY attitude. “Innovation takes time. And this time, it seems Singapore is sinking the right roots for the long term,” writes Techgoondu‘s Alfred Siew.

Kera also referenced Shenzhen, China, where she is following the open hardware scene with the help of Bunnie Huang, David Li and Silvia Lindtner; furthermore, the professor described Shenzen as a diverse community of people from all over the world that innovates and works with local companies. She notes, “It’s a wild place for hardware innovation, officially they describe it as a special economic zone, but I think it is more like 1940′s Casablanca, where all connections are possible.”

In terms of Singapore, Kera says Hackerspace.sg and Sustainable Living Lab are her “second homes” in the country, as they were always supportive of her projects. “I like hanging out there, especially now when so much is starting to happen and there are so many fantastic makers you can meet on these Arduino meetups at Silicon Straits. I think now is the right time for people that are curious to join and start some projects in either of these places.”

Looking towards the future, Kera says she would like to see Fablabs and Makerspaces established in universities and local neighborhoods throughout the region.

“It would be best if we can combine them both, so anyone can come and learn some skills but also have access to tools needed for some small startup project. Hackerspaces grant members more space to define concepts, but also to simply find and discuss important issues related to science and technology. It creates a community space that engages and empowers people rather than another rat race,” she added.

The good news is that there has been a rise in Singapore-based companies developing innovative projects in recent months. One example is the TouchPico, a pocketable Android PC cum projector that allows a user to easily interact with games and other programs on a wall, just about anywhere you go. In addition, there has been a budding interest of young attendees inspired to attend Maker Faires. “Any culture starts easier from young, and learning how to program your first robot or interactive postcard is a great start,” Siew explains.

Atmel continues its commitment to inspire the global Maker Movement, as the company’s microcontrollers (MCUs) have been powering nearly every Arduino board on the market today. Our easy-to-use 8- and 32-bit MCUs are powering the worldwide Maker communities, spanning from Silicon Valley to Singapore.

Students develop chess set for the visually impaired

Charles Buxton once said, “In life, as in chess, forethought wins.” Somaiya College’s forethought with their automated chess design provides a clear winner for all parties involved. The automated chess table includes braille pieces, voice recaps of every move, and textural contrasts between white and black spaces. The combination of all these factors allows the game to be utilized by those who suffer from visual impairments.

“There are already board games available in the market that can be used by the visually-impaired, but our board game involves technology that allows one to play the game online as well as on a physical board. The board automatically plays the moves depending on the keys pressed,” explains Gaurang Shetty, Head of the College’s Innovation Center.

The web connectivity of the project enables individuals to play each other from across the globe as the game board provides the player with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) over the Internet, so one person can play over GUI sitting in any corner of the world, while the other plays on the physical chess board.

At the heart of the 64-key membrane keyboard lies an Atmel-powered Arduino that allows the board to communicate with a connected computer. The team behind automated chess will be demonstrating their board at Maker Faire Rome next month.

“While the project is ready, we are also trying to incorporate other features to this chess board for even better results,” Shetty concluded.

 

Channel your inner superhero with The Dazzler bracelet

Maker Michael Barretta was searching for the perfect gift for his girlfriend’s birthday. After some deep thought, he decided to develop a project based on her favorite superhero: The Dazzler. So what happens when the superpowers of the X-Men join forces with the low power of today’s microcontrollers? This DIY Dazzler bracelet.

To best personify the bright lights of the Dazzler’s powers, Barretta worked to incorporate light organs into a wearable bracelet. MAKE Magazine best describes light organs as a simple technology that causes light to pulse in tune with the frequency and intensity of sound.

Much like Marcus Olsson’s Trinket design we featured a few weeks back, this bracelet pulses in reaction to the sound around it. Undoubtedly, these wearables would be a massive hit at any party… or Comic-Con, of course!

Barretta linked an Adafruit GEMMA platform (ATtiny85), a microphone breakout board, NeoPixel RGB LED strips and LiPo battery to establish the dazzling effect. The microphone adapts surrounding music into a sequence of LED flashes. For even further customization and personalization, the Maker 3D printed the bracelet enclosure to perfectly fit his girlfriend’s wrist. The schematics for the bracelet itself can be found here.

If you want to build your own bracelet for that someone special in your life, or just want to channel your inner Dazzler, check out Michael’s tutorial here!

Playing the DIY arpeggiator with an Arduino Mega

Designed by Maker Connor Hubeny, the infraHarp is an eight-tone arpeggiator that uses infrared emitters and detectors, Sparkfun’s Musical Instrument Shield and an Arduino Mega (ATmega1280).

The InfraHarp can play in the keys of A, B, C, D, E, F, G in major, minor melodic and harmonic scales, with two octave choices. Additionally, there are a pair of potentiometers that control both the master volume as well as the tempo of the appegiator.

In order to bring this prototype to life, the Maker recommends the following software and hardware:

• Arduino IDE Software
• 1x Arduino Mega 2560 – R3
• 1x Musical Instrument Shield
• 1x Large Breadboard
• 1x Half-Size Breadboard
• 8x Infrared Emitter Detector Pair
• 4x Push Button
• 2x 10k Potentiometer
• 8x 220 ohm Resistor
• 12x 10k ohm Resistor
• Jumper Wires
• 1x 1/8″ input Speakers

When it came to housing his prototype, Hubeny selected this box from Amazon, along with Panel Mounted Pushbuttons and LED Holders from Sparkfun for the casing.

According to the Maker, the code is pretty straight-forward and the project requires just basic soldering skills, which he explains in more detail on his page.

To access the sketch, code and step-by-step tutorial, you can visit the Maker’s official page here.

 

 

Maker Movement’s impact on developing countries

Writing on behalf of the World Bank, Saori Imaizumi and Samhir Vasdev note that a new model of democratized production is turning consumers in developing countries into innovators, entrepreneurs and manufacturers. Powered by Makers, this new world of digital fabrication leverages machines, such as 3D printers and laser cutters, to spark innovation in education and healthcare among a number of other sectors. Using the power of the Internet and open source principles, products designed with digital fabrication tools can be instantaneously shared, modified and created among collaborators anywhere in the world.

As a result, long distance shipments that were once so heavily relied upon between producers and consumers can be drastically diminished, while Makers equipped with the right machines can now simply download these products’ digital files to fabricate them locally and in a more cost-effective manner. Given the reduction in costs, product design can be customized depending on the availability of local talent, resources and materials and the needs of local customers, on-demand.

Recently, in celebration of the U.S. National Day of Making and the White House Maker Faire, members of the Oslo FabLab made a special present for the President. They adapted their “Grandson Slippers” design to make “Grandma Slippers” for Barack Obama himself. The shoes featured an engraved image of Sarah Onyango Obama, etched from a photo taken when she received the “Grandson Slippers.” What’s promising here is that the same pair of leather slippers with a laser engraved image of President Obama, designed in Japan, can now be manufactured in Kenya with a laser cutter within a day — turning into a present for President Obama’s grandmother, using local materials.

The Maker Movement has already spread throughout several countries and continues to emerge in communities worldwide. DIYers collaborate with a wide variety of people, ranging from designers and engineers to academics and students, on projects to drive positive change. One example of where these groups congregate to help ‘make a difference’ is a Fab Lab, a concept that originated 10 years ago at the MIT’s Center of Bits and Atoms. According to the World Bank, there are approximately 350 Fab Labs spanning across 40 countries, where Makers come together to share designs, talent and know-how amongst each other. The Maker Movement also complements the spirit of innovation that has been credited to developing countries; for example, “Jua kali,” Swahili for hot sun, describes the open-air industry of inventors common in many African cities. This has led to the popularity of Maker Faire Africa, which held its inaugural event in Ghana in 2009, followed by Kenya in 2010, Egypt and Nigeria in 2012 and now in South Africa 2014.

In order to encourage and learn from this growing movement, the World Bank’s Transport and ICT Global Practice team was one of the sponsors of this year’s International Fab Lab Conference and Annual Meeting in Barcelona. The event, which was held during the first week of July, was organized by the Fab Foundation and Fab Lab Barcelona. The conference surfaced various local innovations and provided an opportunity to learn from the Maker themselves about how they were approaching problem-solving with their clients.

For instance in Kenya, the Kenyatta National Hospital — the largest referral clinic in East Africa — teamed up with the University of Nairobi’s Fab Lab to address a problem: The hospital needed equipment for maternity and infant healthcare. Led by its manager Kamau Gachigi, the Fab Lab developed a portal that links with Fab Labs around the world to surface, design and test equipment that could be manufactured locally. By pooling the world’s wealth of brain power to drive towards regional solutions, Makers like Mr. Gachigi are mobilizing the power of the Maker Movement to address local challenge, the World Bank explains.

In the Philippines, Makers confronted a different challenge: in the rural area of Bohol, the plastic recycling process is inefficient, long and costly. Using this plastic waste, such as plastic bags and food packages, a Fab Lab, led by Yutaka Tokushima, housed at a local university is creating products ranging from filament for 3D printers to heat-pressed pipes. These new “upcycled” products are not only helping keep plastic waste off the landscape of Bohol, but also creating jobs and providing a stimulus in the local economy. The same principle is being applied in post-disaster environments, where debris from destroyed houses is repurposed in Fab Labs to create building materials for new temporary shelters.

Aside from these activities, representatives of the World Bank and the clients are participating in study tours of digital fabrication spaces, including Tech Shop, the White House Maker Faire and the upcoming Maker Faire Africa. These engagements offer an opportunity to study an emerging, evolving and relatively undefined field. They also help test the hypothesis that digital fabrication holds the potential to support the Bank’s mission of elevating shared prosperity and reducing poverty by lowering barriers to entry for entrepreneurship, local manufacturing, and providing skills development opportunities.

Recently, there have also been a number of innovations helping to enhance the lives of those in developing countries. For instance, Makers have designed a $25 Arduino-based device that may soon make the rising trend of remote diagnostics an everyday reality across the globe, while another Maker has launched a life-saving inflatable incubator inspired by the harsh living conditions in Syria.

To learn more about how the World Bank is partnering with institutions and networks to explore and support digital fabrication globally, you can check out the entire article here.

Luciferin: A wearable plucked out of the Elizabethan Era

Our friends over at Adafruit have brought to our attention this mesmerizing piece created by lighting student Laura Jade. The Maker has a passion for history, design and technology, and this project is a superb hybrid of all three.

When developing this wearable, Jade looked to everything from the term ‘enlightenment’ to biological organisms that produce their own light. The name Luciferin is actually that of a molecule, which produces bioluminescent light in nature.

The sparkling LEDs across the piece are powered by the ATmega32u4 based FLORA platform. The project also includes an accelerometer that communicates with the microcontroller to direct the lighting to fit the wearer’s movements. The plastics adorning the front are laser cut and accented by EL wire.

It would be easy enough to believe that the Luciferin would be included in the next Hunger Games movie, or was a relic from an era long past. The antique design partnered with the high-tech functionality truly makes this necklace one of a kind. To check out more of Laura’s illuminating designs, we encourage you to browse her Tumblr page here.

Creating a fully-functional data glove with Arduino

A Maker by the name of CyberReality has spent the recent past in search of a data glove that could easily navigate virtual reality worlds. He wasn’t satisfied with the input that a typical USB keyboard or mouse provided, and consumer products like the Essential Reality P5 left much to be desired. Therefore in true Maker fashion, he took it upon himself to create a data gloved designed for exclusively for VR applications.

To begin his build, CyberReality picked up a Pololu MinIMU-9 v2 to fill the role of an orientation tracker. He proceeded to sync it to a PC using an Arduino Uno (ATmega328). After that, he picked up a Spectra Symbol flex sensor (which was also supposedly used in the amazingly awesome Nintendo Power Glove) and used the Arduino Uno to visualize the data it provided on his PC screen.

CyberReality will look to complete his project in the near future by polishing up the sensors and adding a physical glove to the prototype.

To keep up to date on this Maker’s project, you can head on over to his blog to track his progress. For other ingenious DIY projects like CyberReality’s, feel free to browse the Bits & Pieces archives.

Arduino-Flush Less saves more

Amid water concerns growing in his native California, a Maker by the name of TVMiller directed his water saving attention towards the bathroom. TVMiller devised the modest Arduino-Flush Less to provide minimum water levels for bathroom functionality.

The Flush Less gives toilets options it never possessed before. Depending on the user’s restroom needs, the device can provide the minimum amount of water necessary to flush it all away. Choosing between the simplistic “Flush” or “Deuce” can save up to two gallons a day per Flush Less user. If a mere 1,825 hackers installed a Flush Less system, it could lead to over 1 million gallons of water being saved a year! Now that’s what we call ‘making’ a difference!

Over at his initial Hackaday log, TVMiller provides some witty insight into how this project came together. The brains behind the device are based around an Arduino Micro (ATmega32u4) that monitors the water levels and dispenses the necessary amounts to keep the toilet flowing for the user’s current requirements.

For those with sanitary concerns, the lavatory invention even includes a smartphone app, which puts the control of the toilet directly in the hands of the user.

To learn more about how you can join in on TVMiller’s effort to conserve water and change the way we think about the toilet, head over to his entertaining blog.

3D printing your own virtual reality headset

It is without question that Oculus Rift has become the gold standard of the VR headset market; however, for those where a Rift headset is a bit out of reach, you can always devise your own in true Maker fashion. Noa Ruiz over at Adafruit has published a complete tutorial detailing how to do just that — create your own virtual reality headset with the help of some 3D printing and old-fashioned ingenuity.

To complement an instructional video, Ruiz’s comprehensive guide features a full materials list as well as an extensive breakdown of each step throughout the development process. “In this project we’re building a wearable HD monitor. This is great for anyone looking to make their own a personal display,” the Maker wrote in his introduction.

The design of the DIY VR headset is similar to that of the VR2GO mobile viewer, including a 5.6″ display. The main components of the headset consist of a four-piece design that “keeps secured with machine screws.” The Arduino Micro (ATmega32u4) and 9 DOF are mounted to the back frame with four screws, while a pair of aspheric lenses are mounted inside the frame panel. When mounting the monitor to the Arduino board, Noa compels fellow Makers to, “remember you can choose which way the (HDMI + Power) wires will connect into the monitor, either from the top or from the bottom.”

As for the 3D printing portion of the project, Ruiz has made the STLs readily available for download so that you can quickly load them up into the printer and be on your way.

Writing for Hackaday, Matt Terndrup notes that “it would be interesting to see if this design in the future can eliminate the wires and make this into a portable unit. Regardless of which, this project does a fantastic job at showing what it takes to create a homemade virtual reality device. And as you can see from the product list after the break, the price of the project fits under the $350 DK2 amount, helping to save some money while still providing a fun and educational experience.”

If you are interested in following Noa’s guide and creating your own VR headset, you can see the full guide over at Adafruit. For more innovative 3D printed designs, take a look at our archives here at Bits & Pieces.

Transmit tunes anywhere in your house with Arduino

Thanks to one Maker’s ingenious thinking, you will no longer need to strategically place separate iPod docks throughout your house. In a recent Instructables post, Kameo3155 has devised a multi-zone audio system that be controlled by any device with a web browser.

“This system solves the seemingly ubiquitous problem of being able to listen to your music from anywhere in your house,” the Maker noted. An extensive materials list was required to assemble this device, yet still only costs a fraction of what a typical house-wide audio system would to install. Our Maker details the key components below:

• Speaker wire run from a centralized location
• Speakers of your choosing for each zone
• 6 channel amp or multiple small 2 channel
• Power supply for the amp
• Spare 3 prong AC power cable
• SPST Relay
• Arduino Uno (ATmega328) with Ethernet Shield
• Male to female jumper wires
• Custom PCB for the PT2258
• The PT2258 IC
• 10uF Capacitors
• 100 kOhm resistors
• 5mm through hole jacks
• Male .1″ spaced headers
• A microSD card
• Google Chromecast
• HDMI audio extractor (I used this one)
• RCA to 3.5mm cables

Kameo3155 began by soldering the PT2258 board and then connecting it to the Atmel-based Arduino Uno. Once the wires were attached and the Uno was hooked up to a home Ethernet connection, the Maker set out to install the code that would enable the machine to pipe music throughout his home speaker setup. “This is where the magic happens,” the Maker describes the integral step.

Once the code was installed, a system to control the actual music was required. This Maker thought a Google Chromecast would be an ideal technology to utilize in order to obtain the desired results. “This allows us to take the audio the Chromecast outputs and plug it into our PT2258 control board,” he believed. “We can simply cast our favorite Pandora station or music from Google Play Music to the Chromecast and control the volume from our Arduino.”

To read through the full tutorial for this cost-effective home audio control unit, check out the original Instructables post here.