Rubber Duckymeter, you’re the one

This project just quacks us up! Earlier this year at Maker Faire North Carolina, we had the chance to see Maker Raptor_Demon’s Arduino-compatible bathtub unit billed as the “Duckymeter.”

Rubber ducky, you’re the one, You make bathtime lots of fun… …and safe with the ATmega328P-powered #Duckymeter! pic.twitter.com/npxTkcrZ2T

— Atmel Corporation (@Atmel) June 7, 2014

In what appears to be just your average rubber ducky, this contraption actually eases a parent’s stress when it comes to temperature, overflow or bubbles when drawing a bath for a child. The automated Duckymeter handles each of these tasks in a much more fun, safer manner while providing a happy bath for your little one!

The main controller box — which is built around an ATmega328P MCU — monitors incoming water temperature, tub temperature and the amount of time the faucet has been running. As long as pressure on the faucet is constant, the device automatically shuts off when it has been activated for selected period of time.

Also powered by ATmega328P MCU and Arduino bootloader, the charming Duckymeter serves as a remote sensor for inside the bathtub by transmitting the temperature each second back to the main unit, which is then displayed on an easy-to-read LCD. Essentially, the little duck patrols the bathtub to assure the bath experience is as relaxing (or enjoyable) as can be!

Included in this build is a hacked soap dispenser, which releases bubble bath into the water. Using an IR sensor and a photoresistor, the Maker created a system that when a beam is broken by a hand wave, bubble bath is poured directly into the water.

To follow along with the full build tutorial and track future additions to the device, you can visit the Maker’s original Instructables post.

Maker Movement making a mark

With the World Maker Faire just 42 days away, the Maker Movement continues to create headlines across the globe. The drive to customize, create and innovate is becoming a modern mindset adopted by everyone, ranging from students and startups to celebrities and Fortune 500 brands.

“The next industrial revolution is right around the corner, and it’s going to be bigger than the Internet — or so says a growing army of hackers, designers, artists and entrepreneurs.” Writing for USA Today, Tyler Wells penned a piece detailing the rise of DIY culture, contributing its emergence to the low-cost, high-imagination level of makerspaces popping up across the country. “These massive fabrication facilities are like a cross between a business incubator and a manufacturing plant, with sprinklings of academia and community spirit thrown in for good measure.”

The convergence of various forces — a growing community, enhanced visualization, new applications, greater access to tools and increased connectivity — is fueling Makers to create gizmos and gadgets never before conceived, many of which are appearing on display at Maker Faire events throughout the world and crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This new mindset is enabling everyone to embrace their inner tinkerer. Today, the everyday Maker has the ability to turn any ordinary object into an Internet-connected device with platforms, such as littleBits’ recently-unveiled cloudBit kit.

“With the right motivation and time on your hands, you can now go through your own personal industrial revolution in 90 days, and can launch a company or product within those 90 days,” explained TechShop CEO Mark Hatch. Furthering the Techshop CEO’s belief, Gartner’s Jim Tully recently projected that by 2018, nearly 50% of the Internet of Things solutions would be provided by startups which are less than three years old.

The speed at which today’s Maker’s can go from idea to prototype is absolutely thrilling. “The skill level required to produce a usable prototype or usable object has dropped precipitously just in the last five years,” Hatch added. Even more so, the shared makerspace is enabling for innovation to occur at an incredibly low cost. Wells elaborates upon Hatch’s comments around the movement, writing that “most entrepreneurs are able to cut their development costs by 98% through use of a shared space platform.”

Though, it must be said that the Maker Movement would not be garnering so much attention without the loyal and devoted DIY community. Hatch tells USA Today that the Maker Movement was a “community on steroids,” and the devotion to the ideal is something to behold. Of course, this bond between creator and craft will be on full display at next month’s World Maker Faire in New York City.

“The catalog of success stories is proof enough: The Square credit card reader, Pebble smartwatch, Coin all-in-one credit card and the MakerBot 3-D printer all came from makerspaces in different parts of the country.” The thing that makes the Maker Movement a real revolution, not just a passing fad, is the confluence of cheap manufacturing, cultural entrepreneurship and simple economics.

“Collectively, these forces are democratizing innovation,” the USA Today article notes. This convergence has paved the way for a number of Atmel-powered gizmos and gadgets to hit the market, several of which have even been successfully funded on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. In addition, the market has seen the emergence of lesser-known projects, ranging from battery-powered skateboards and low-cost irrigation systems for impoverished farmers to DIY smartphones and 3D printing pens.

But it’s not just about startup costs. Innovation itself is undergoing a fundamental shift, as major corporations like Disney, GE, Ford and even Atmel are now sponsoring Maker Faire events, collaborating with existing makerspaces or building their own to cultivate new ideas. In addition, a number of universities and government agencies are also getting into the action, which was evident by this year’s White House Maker Faire.

To further attempt to ingrain the Maker Movement within society, Noha El-Ghobashy of Fast Company believes the Maker Movement is reenergizing our youth to enter into the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The author writes that newfound “curiosity about how the world works and an appreciation of how determination and excitement can help solve real-world challenges.”

Lo’ and behold, the Maker Movement is clearly beginning to take hold within certain portions of our culture. With a creative and determined mindset, the possibilities for invention are boundless. Mark Hatch concludes that the Maker Movement community is making a serious impact and, “we’ve only just started.”

Close encounters of a wearable kind

Leslie Birch over at Adafruit has put together a tutorial for all of the believers out there. This stylish hat utilizes an Adafruit GEMMA Sensor pack and a basic bucket hat to mimic the sounds of otherworldly beings from the classic film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The lid is features an onboard photocell that can sense when it is dark, once in the right environment, the hat can recite the digital sounds and colors made famous by the film. With NeoPixels sewn into the brim, the hat is equipped with the tiny GEMMA platform attached behind the seam of the lining. To make the spacey digital sounds, a piezo buzzer is onboard to recreate the tones of the classic flick. Also, a battery pack is sewn within the lining to assure that the hat can entertain at any given moment.

The ATtiny85-powered GEMMA platform allows the photocell to spark the hat to life whenever darkness falls. Though, if you’re impatient, you can simply cover the sensor with your hand and the hat’s musical notes will soon follow.

For those looking “surprise their friends with a mother ship on your head, Spielberg style,” you will need the following materials:

• GEMMA main board
• NeoPixels (Total of 10)
• Photo Cell
• Piezo Buzzer
• 500mAh LiPoly Battery and Charger
• Conductive Thread
• Alligator clips
• Soldering iron and Solder
• Heat Shrink Tubing
• Wire strippers, and Flush Diagonal Cutters
• Third Hand Tool (optional but very helpful)
• One stainless steel snap
• Sewing needle and Thread
• Scissors
• Adhesive Velcro
• Bucket Hat (recommend getting one size up to save room for the battery)

For those seeking to create this space-age cap themselves, follow along with the full tutorial at Adafruit. For more wearable designs, feel free to browse the Bits & Pieces archive.

Light up your day with this Trinket bracelet

Maker Marcus Olsson has designed ED bracelets before. Marcus’ last project featured an accelerometer so that the LEDs would react to the wearer’s movement. Now, his newest iteration sports a microphone that allows the illumination to react to the sounds that surround it.

The Maker’s friends began to pester him for a creation that interacted with the soundscapes in their environment, so he quickly got to work on this device. Powered by an uber-mini Trinket MCU (ATtiny85), the bracelet allows a microphone to communicate with a Neopixel strip affixed within the casing.

After an initial test, Marcus needed to make some adjustments to the 3D-printed shell of his bracelet to better incorporate the microphone. After some slight tinkering, foam tape enabled the microphone to be secured.

If you want to rock Marcus’ bracelet design at your next dance party, head over to his blog for a full tutorial on how to put the gadget together. For more stylish wearable designs, you always check out the Bits & Pieces archive.

Making decisions with ATtiny85

A Maker by the name Vicor8o5 was frequently finding himself struggling with important decisions. Instead of toiling over making the right choice, he chose to turn to technology to help him out. He devised this clever tool to aid him in the daily decision making process.

To fix his issue, Victor8o5 set out to make the Decision Box, which makes as its name suggests, makes decisions for you by either showing a green or a red light. Outlined in a recent Instructables post, the Maker started with a small wooden cube and hollowed out a space for the technological components in the center. He wired his circuit, including a red/green light and an ATtiny85.

The code uploaded to the ATtiny85 uses a random function to produce either a red or green light. After running a test of 80 random decisions, Victor8o5 ended up with 44 reds and 36 greens. Even though that sounds like an elementary school math problem, it’s a solid distribution for this handy device!

The next time you find yourself stuck on ordering grande or venti coffee at Starbucks, head over to his original Instructables post to learn how you can make your own device.

 

 

A hitchhiker you may want to pick up…

This summer, hitchBOT is planning on hitchhiking across Canada without a chaperone. The robot designed by David Smith and Frauke Zeller is on a 3,700-mile quest to successfully catch free rides from Halifax to Victoria.

According to Popular Mechanics, the friendly hitchBOT comes outfitted with a rubber hitchhiking hand, speech recognition software, and even its own Wi-Fi network. Those who pick of the traveling gadget can challenge it to trivia, send the robot tweets, and even recharge his batteries.

Powered by a simple tablet and Arduino, hitchBOT has a bucket for a torso, blue swimming-pool noodles for arms and legs and a smiling LED panel for a face, protected by a cake saver. It wears yellow gloves on its hands and rubber boots on its feet. Together, all the parts cost about $1,000; however, the experience of picking up this friendly robot… priceless.

In an interview with Canadian outlet, GlobalNews, the robot’s “family” says that hitchBot’s welcoming exterior was created from a bucket and some pool noodles. But don’t let his low-tech shell fool you, hitchBOT has some serious tech inside. He has Wikipedia’s API built-in to his interface to allow for the processing of world knowledge, as well as boasts 3G and wireless capabilities for his social media needs.

HitchBot has already become quite the social media phenomenon in Canada gaining nearly 19,000 Twitter followers and over 6,500 on Instragram. This social presence is exactly what the creators were aiming for as David Smith notes, “This is an emergent piece of cultural theatre and artwork that’s meant to reframe our thinking about how we adopt and integrate technologies into our social and culture life.”

To follow along with hitchBOT’s journey, you can check its up-to-date location on the project’s official page.

Playing Timberman with Arduino

While playing addictive (and often times repetitive) video games can be fun for some, for others it can be a downright tedious task. That’s why a Maker by the name of Valentin Heun did just what any other hacker would: create an automated system to play the game for him. Set out to accomplish just that, Valentin designed a Timberman-playing device to help attain the high score using an ATmega328-based Arduino Uno.

“We’re used to seeing mechanical touchscreen hacks but this one is electronic, using a couple of pads of copper foil tape and some relays to make it happen,” explains Hackaday’s Mike Szczys. Unlike other creations, Valentin’s project doesn’t require a player to still be touching something with their hand; rather, the device simply relies upon the relays to switch the connection betwen the pads and your body.

The Maker devised his high score-acheiving contraption using the following components:

• JZC-11F RELAYS attached to TIP120 attached to pins 4 and 8.
• OP580DA PHOTODARLINGTON NPN attached to A0
• SWITCH attached to pin 7
• All resistors are 1K Ohm

For those interested in learning more about the project, you can find the entire code and circuit example for the program here.

 

Building an electric go-kart with Arduino

A 15-year-old Maker going by the name of Gizzmotronics has built an astonishing four-wheeled contraption controlled by an Atmel-based Arduino board. The young Maker detailed the build process of this road-worthy device in a recent Instructables post.

Though the creation utilizes the frame of a gas-powered go-kart, our Maker installed an electronic motor for this project. Upon removing its existing gas engine, Gizzmotronics selected a Hobbywing Xerun 150A brushless electronic speed controller and Savox BSM5065 450Kv motor to control his new whip, which can achieve a top speed of around 30 MPH. 3 LiPo batteries that regularly supply 19-20V power the device. Zipping around at a moderate 15 MPH will yield about 30 minutes of driving before needing to be recharged, Hackaday‘s Rich Bremer reveals.

Aside from throttle control, the Arduino is responsible for other operational aspects of the makeshift vehicle such as controlling the LED lights that serve as headlights, tail lights, turn signals, brake lights and even backup light. There is also an LCD display mounted to the center of the steering wheel, which too is powered by the Arduino and displays the throttle value, status of the lights and the voltage of the battery. There is a potentiometer mounted to the steering wheel for controlling the go-kart’s speed; the value of the potentiometer is read by the Arduino board, which in turn sends the appropriate PWM signal to the ESC. The headlights have 3 brightnesses, each controlled via PWM signal provided by the microcontroller.

To assure against any false starts, the Maker has installed a personal security measure. “The throttle is only functional while the right joystick (2-axis) is held down, as a safety measure,” he noted.

If you want to learn more about Gizzmotronics’ creation, the full Instructables post can be found here. To find more Arduino-powered, you can always browse our archives here at Bits & Pieces.

Atmel and the Maker Revolution

I was part of the “original” Maker revolution. This was years ago, in the late 1980’s, and I was a latecomer. We used to make our own circuit boards, but slightly different from the ones today.

There was a 386 computer on my desk. My trusty 386 had ISA ports, extension card space, that most of us used as a basis for our designs. The ISA bus was easy to use, and the connector was large, meaning we could use simple, basic, cheap equipment to make our boards. What did we make? Everything! Digital IO, radio, remote control systems, everything. When I was a student, my flat was controlled entirely by one of these cards. Of course, the brain of my invention was the computer itself, it wasn’t easy to create a computer system.

A computer system requires several components. It requires a processor, and there were quite a few on the market at the time. It also requires memory, but two kinds; random access memory, RAM for short, is where variables are stored, and is the memory that a program uses to copy, calculate and modify data. A computer also requires read-only memory, ROM for short, and this is where the program is placed. Even that was tricky. You see, at the time, in order to “flash” a new program, we had to remove the EPROM device (short for Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and place it in ultraviolet light for up to 30 minutes. That was only the beginning. In order to flash a new program, you had to put it into a programmer, a device attached to the computer that wrote data into the device. Once that was done (it took a few minutes), then you could put the chip back onto the circuit board, and away you went. If you made a mistake, or if your program didn’t work, then you had to redo everything, which took over half an hour.

All of this was complicated, and required multiple components. The processor was one component. The RAM was another. So was the ROM. Interrupt controllers? Digital IO? PWM? They were all external components too. There was a reason why computers used to be that big. So we simplified things. The processor was the PC, and we just made extension boards. Of course, this made making things like robots difficult, but we had lots of fun.

The ISA bus was slow, and users wanted PCs to become faster and faster. The ISA bus was soon replaced by VLB, short for VESA Local Bus. It added an extension to the ISA bus, allowing for faster memory transfers. We had faster computers, better graphics, and we could still use our boards. However, it also sent a clear message; we were soon to find a new way of doing things. VLB was replaced by PCI, which was replaced by PCI Express. This bus is lightning fast, but requires complex electronics, and very good equipment to make boards with connectors that fine. Our trusty ISA cards soon ended up in the dustbin. We could still use the serial port or the parallel port, but it wasn’t the same. Most of us stopped.

It was depressing. We tried making our own computers, but they were complicated. External components, long flash times, prohibitive prices… One company was listening.

Atmel’s ATMEGA328P-PU an AVR 8-bit processor

In 1996, Atmel shipped the AVR processor. It was an 8-bit processor, with a twist. It had internal RAM, and internal flash. No more external components. It could be flashed within seconds, and reflashed. You didn’t even need to take it off the breadboard to reflash it. Founded in 1984, Atmel had already made semiconductor devices for the professional market, but was also very close to Makers. They heard our cry for help, and they delivered. The AVR changed everything.

The AVR chip was an 8-bit device (32-bit devices also exist), but the computer we used to control our ISA cards was 32-bit. The thing is, we didn’t need 32-bits, and an 8-bit microcontroller was perfect for our needs. The AVR was small, cheap, reliable, and really, really easy to use. We flooded back, we redesigned our boards, and we made. We made everything. How good were the AVR chips? By 2003, Atmel had shipped 500 million devices.

Fast forward a few years, and here we are today. Makers are everywhere. We are back. We are making more than ever. And with awesome sponsors like Atmel, we are here to stay. 2013 was the year of 100 Maker Faires, and they were full of Arduinos.

New Breed of Maker Movement Engineers Blooming from Garages, Maker Faire, Hackerspaces, and Makerspaces

What is on the Arduino? Well, most of them have an AVR. The Arduino Due isn’t an AVR-based device, it is an ARM device, but even that is made by Atmel too, and is just as easy to use. 2014 promises to be even more exciting!

New Breed of Engineers – Some Images from Maker Faire Bay Area 2014. There were over 100 Maker Faires in 2013 budding in cities all across the globe

Here’s the Arduino Due – with an Atmel ARM Based Processor

With Atmel as a sponsor, Makers are here to stay. If you haven’t tried to make your own device yet, try it! It doesn’t cost a lot, and you don’t need all the complicated hardware we used to have. You will be up and running in mere minutes, and believe me, it is fun! If you have any questions, go and see Atmel at one of the Maker Faires. If you come by the Maker Faire Rome, come say hello, I’ll be there with Atmel to show you just how much this technology has changed my life, and show you how to start.

Selfie toast, anyone?

Let’s face it, the act of taking photos of oneself has never been as ubiquitous as it is today. From mirrors to drones, you’ve probably thought you had seen just about everything when it comes to snapping a quick selfie. Think again.

No strangers to image-burning toasters, Vermont Novelty Toaster Corporation has debuted what they call ’selfie toast.’ Designed using custom toasters that slightly burn a person’s face onto a piece of bread, the news has spread faster than butter on toast. The company starts by transforming the customer’s high resolution photo into a metal plate with the help of Photoshop and a CNC plasma cutter. The plate is then fitted into a special toaster for the final toasting effect.

CEO Galen Dively had always dreamt of making truly customized designs, including one that would send one’s etched face to the breakfast table. Until recently, it was an impractical dream.

So, just how does one go about getting his or her own piece of selfie toast? Mashable breaks down the process:

1. Start by uploading a digital photo onto the Vermont Toaster site.

2. The edited photo goes to CAD, which figures out what cut lines the CNC plasma machine needs to make.

3. The information is then sent to the CNC machine which uses a combination of compressed air and electricity to create high-heat plasma and blaze its way through metal.

4. Vermont Novelty then polishes all the rough edges off the plate with a hand sander.

5. The finished plates are put in custom-designed toasters that feature special rails to support each plate. The toaster makes two slices and each slice gets one selfie face.

Not in the mood for toast? You can always print your pancake with the open-source PancakeBot, which makes elaborate pancake designs, including portraits (like that of President Barack Obama at the White House Maker Faire). The latest iteration of the platform – which debuted at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014 – comprises an acrylic body packed with Adafruit motor shields, an Arduino Mega (ATmega1280 MCU), two stepper motors, a pair of belt drives and a vacuum pump.