Creating a water-squirting, Twitter-enabled Super Soaker

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What’s better than a motorized Super Soaker? A motorized Super Soaker that can blast water when it detects motion. 

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As fun as water balloon fights may be, when it comes to summertime fun, nothing beats a good ol’ Super Soaker battle with friends. That is unless, of course, you decide to up your outdoor H2O warfare arsenal with some motion sensing water guns.

Instructables user “aderhgawen” has developed a water spraying intruder alarm based on a LightBlue Bean (ATmega328P) along with a PIR motion sensor. Not only does the modded Super Soaker Thunderstorm automatically squirt water when it detects movement, it also triggers a nearby computer to snap a photo of the victim and tweets it. This is accomplished through the combination of Node-RED and Python to link the MCU to Twitter.

In order to pull off this project, the Maker tore down the original Soaker’s casing and cut one of the battery wires. He then lengthened the exposed ends and ran them out of the gun to his control circuit. Beyond that, he connected a protection diode to help prevent any reverse EMF from damaging his more sensitive electronics. Since this gadget has a motorized pump, he used a MOSFET on a breadboard to drive its motor, allowing it to be controlled by the Bean.

The system itself runs on a computer and monitors the Bean’s serial output. If motion is detected, it triggers a Python script and captures a photo via the webcam. A second script will upload that photo to a Twitter account. The Node-RED server can also monitor the Twitter account for incoming direct messages. If it receives a message with a verified password, it can use the rest of the message as one of four commands to enable or disable the Super Soaker.

Are you looking to take your water gun fight to the next level? Check out the Maker’s entire project on Instructables here.

Build your own activity monitor with Arduino

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RetroBand is an open source, ATmega328 powered activity tracker that pairs with your smartphone.

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Over the last couple of years, the wearable technology market has experienced tremendous growth, particularly when it comes to health and wellness. When thinking of the latest and greatest fitness bands, companies like Jawbone, Fitbit and Nike typically pop into mind. However, despite its surge in popularity, the cost of owning such a device has become as a major barrier in adoption. That’s exactly why an Instructables user “GodsTale” has decided to take it upon himself to create a DIY activity tracker using an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), a Bluetooth module, an accelerometer, a LiPo battery and some custom software from his smartphone, all housed inside a 3D-printed case. Total cost: Less than $30.

The Maker, who recently designed the RetroWatch, says that the device he calls the RetroBand has only one feature: collecting data through its built-in accelerometer and relaying it to his smartphone. An accompanying mobile app (available on Google Play) then analyzes the accelerometer data and provides an output of calories burned as well as steps taken to the user. Subsequently, GodsTale urges that “this shouldn’t be called a ‘smart band’ since it has only simple features.”

The Android app is comprised of four parts: an Android UI, a Bluetooth manager, a background service and an algorithm section.

“The Android app check steps using collected data provided from RetroBand Arduino. The algorithm of the app is not that complicated. If you have much experience to this area, you can replace it with your own algorithm. The app saves the calorie data, so you can see the progress it in a monthly/daily/hourly graph form,” GodsTale explains.

The Maker has established a system where the accelerometer data is checked 20 times a second by the device. The gadget then transfers data to the smartphone application once a second. From there, the Android app receives the information in a matter of two seconds and determines an interval that the user’s movement increases dramatically — the number of movement increases is the step count. Beyond that, the app calculates calories burned based on user’s weight and steps, along with accumulated monthly, daily and hourly data.

At the brains of the operation lies an ATmega328. The Maker selected the Pro Mini board as “it works well with 3.7V lithium-polymer battery and its size.” He also employed a USB-to-UART converter to upload its source code.

One drawback of the RetroBand is that it cannot save data given its limited memory capacity, which is the reason for pairing it to a smartphone. GodsTale has made his code available on GitHub, while its Android app can be downloaded from the Play Store. Want to save some money on your next wearable? Head over to the project’s official page here to get started.

IoBot is a 3D-printable, Internet-controlled robot for Makers

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This DIY robot can be controlled by mobile and computer application via LAN or USB.

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Today, young Makers looking to start tinkering have more options than ever before when it comes to DIY robotics kits. Among those available is Zygmunt Wojcik’s open source project, IoBot.

The IoBot is an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) based, Rockem Sockem-like bot that can be controlled by both a mobile device and PC via LAN or USB cable. A companion application is capable of running on Android, Windows and Mac OS while the Arduino is written in Python/Kivy. Wojcik notes that while knowledge of programming languages isn’t necessarily required, any prior experience will certainly help in further developing the code should a Maker want to update an Arduino sketch or customize a particular robot command.

Beyond its Arduino brain, IoBot consists of about $70 of electronic components (an Ethernet shield, servos, LEDs and resistors) that can be reused in other projects, while the rest of the parts are 3D-printed. These include a right and left arm, a head, an upper and lower back, a front body, a base for the bot and another for the Arduino. For those without access to a 3D printer, these pieces can be created using 3D Hubs.

Once its parts have been sourced, the project — like many other Arduino-powered gizmos — is pretty straightforward from there. With the accompanying app, Makers can use the IoBoT to do everything from move its arms, head and body to control other DIY gadgets,  on/off LEDs, and a plethora of other programmable tricks.

“When you control the robot over a LAN, you can view LAPP messages on Arduino serial monitor, just connect the robot with your computer using USB cable. Check out what messages are sent to the robot by pressing each application button, and by moving each slider. You can use these data to control your own project with IoBot application. These messages, as well as ranges of sliders, can be changed in the source code of the application,” Wojcik writes.

Know a young one who may be interested in building their own robot? Head over to IoBot’s Instructables page here. Meanwhile, check it out in action below!

Creating a mesmerizing DNA lamp for under $30

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You can’t help but stare this project. 

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Year after year, the Dark Room at Maker Faire Bay Area showcases some of the most engaging and stimulating visual presentations we’ve ever come across. Between the glorious glowing of lamps, the dancing of robotic lights and the brilliantly embedded garments strutting the runway, the room is a sight to be seen. And, well, this recent project from Portuguese Maker João Duarte would certainly fit right in.

With the help of 3D printing, Duarte was able to bring the mesmerizing DNA Lamp to life for less than $30 in supplies. A vast majority of the device’s parts were 3D-printed in black PLA filament with the exception of its acrylic tube and the electronics housed inside its base. He also used white glow in the filament for the helix in order to make it stand out more under UV light, and of course, to give it a nice green glow in the dark.

Merely a beginner when it comes to 3D design, the Maker turned to Autodesk’s Tinkercad software to help devise the project. Duarte employed two 3D printers for the job, his Prusa i3 that he had built himself and a LulzBot TAZ 4 from his local Makerspace. In total, the helix lamp took roughly 14 hours from start to finish.

As for the electronics, the Maker implemented an electric motor to provide the slow rotation of the DNA helix inside of the acrylic tubing. UV LEDs are embedded at the top and bottom of the tube, creating a fading effect when the lamp is turned on. Meanwhile,, a barebones Arduino Uno (ATmega328) handles the motor and the LEDs.

Beyond that, the Maker wanted to be able to manage the LEDs, power and the rotation of the helix. To accomplish this, he added a push button that selects the operation mode of the lamp, which of course is powered by the ATmega328.

In the end, Duarte wrote some code that enabled the UV LEDs to produce its slick visual effects, as the helix fluctuated between fluorescent hues to “give it the weird feeling of a mysterious evil experience or that it is alive somehow.” As you can see in the video below, the LEDs offer a pretty hypnotizing blue and purple glow.

Want one of your own? Head over to the project’s Instructables page here.

Turn off this Arduino alarm clock by flipping it over

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This DIY alarm clock even senses a user’s presence and saves power when they’re not around.

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When it comes to Makers and their alarm clocks, we’ve seen some pretty nifty ideas in recent months. Added to that growing list is the latest project from Devdhar Patel with his clever take on the age-old timepiece.

Chronobot is a wireless analog clock that consists of a TFT screen, an RTC module for keeping time, a 3.3V battery and an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328) as its brains, all housed inside a custom 3D-printed case. An embedded sensor allows the device to sense its own orientation, providing users with the ability to turn the alarm on and off by merely flipping it. Impressively, the gadget even detects presence and powers down when no one is around.

“The alarm setting can be changed from the code. The colors can also be changed from the code, only they have to be in 16-bit format,” Patel reveals.

Is it time to make one of your own? Head over to its Instructables page here.

Coffee cups and Arduino come together to make this musical instrument

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Illumaphone is a light-based, spatial musical instrument comprised of six coffee cups.

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Just when you thought Anna Kendrick’s rendition of “When I’m Gone” was the most impressive piece of cup-generated music, in comes Bonnie Eisenman. The Maker had been in search of a final project for her electronic music class, and being a software engineer by trade, decided to think outside — or well in this case on top of — the box. The Illumaphone is a light-based spatial musical instrument that can be played by simply waving one’s arms over a series of paper coffee cups to produce organ-quality acoustics.

Resting on a cardboard box to hide its wiring, the six to-go cups serve as the inputs with each one keyed to a different note, while fluctuations in light levels are used to determine volume and vibrato. Based on the amount of light measured by the cup, data is then translated into a harmonic sound.

In order to accomplish this, an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) powers the electronic instrument and receives information from a set of six photoresistors, one in the bottom of each cup. The Arduino retrieves and reads the data from the light sensors, and relays it to the laptop, which runs the musical programming language ChucK to synthesize the notes accordingly.

Inspired to create one of your own? Head over to the project’s Instructables page to get started.

This 3D printer is made of LEGO bricks

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Don’t let its appearance fool you, this LEGO machine will work just as good as any Prusa i3 printer.

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Reminiscing about your earliest years as a Maker will surely conjure up some memories of interlocking multi-colored plastic bricks. Since its debut in 1949, LEGO has remained synonymous with DIY, especially for the younger crowd. As of late, we have been seeing quite the convergence of the 3D printing and toy worlds, ranging from Disney to Mattel, with hopes of delivering customizable items on demand. And who’s to say that it only has to be for child’s play? One Maker has proven just that by devising a fully-functional 3D printer comprised of, well, LEGO pieces.

The brainchild of Gosse Adema, the so-called LEGO 3D Printer is based on the framework of a Prusa i3 printer. Originally conceived as an A4-plotter with stepper motors from an old HP printer, the Maker had decided to upgrade to Nema 17 stepper motors and transform it into a slick X, Y and Z axis machine.

Though a quick online search may reveal a number of LEGO-based 3D gizmos, none of them may be as impressive as this one. Made up of default-sized bricks (four by two studs at 32mm x 16mm x 9.6mm), this innovative contraption is capable of extruding plastic like any other desktop device. The printer boasts a base of 34 x 64 studs (19.2cm x 51.2cm), which determines the exact location of the Y axis, along with a height of 44 blocks (42cm) and a sturdy L-frame that’s 36 blocks tall. This, of course, dictates how high a printed object can be.

Keep in mind, as with any LEGO project, the taller the structure, the more unstable the frame becomes. For support, the Maker ensured that every fifth piece was a technic brick. And unlike the X axis of a Prusa i3 consisting of a separate left and right side connected by two rods, Adema instead implemented one large X axis using long technic bricks for enhanced stability. Beyond that, Nema 17 steppers are attached to the technics using a felt damper/isolator and M3x15 bolts, giving it a robust base.

Adema makes it known that he did not use any Mindstorms product for this build. Whereas most LEGO printers employ servos, this design worked quite nicely with stepper motors. As with any Prusa i3, this device was powered by the incredibly popular combination of an ATmega2560 MCU with a RAMPS 1.4 shield. The motor responsible for driving the entire operation is held in place with technic bricks at the back. In terms of software, the gadget uses Marlin for the ATmega2560, while running Pronterface on his laptop to control the printer.

In his Instructables post, Adema explains in great detail as to how he assembled the frame, completed the X, Y and Z axes, added each of the three endstops, attached the threaded rod and installed the Geeetech MK8 extruder. What’s more, the heat bed is capable of reaching 110° C, while the printhead starts at 170° C. The Maker notes that prior to installing the Marlin software, a few changes to the printer and its configuration were necessary.

“My first print had some problems with the amount of filament but everything worked. The main problem was the difference in filament settings and extruder nozzle. This was caused by the Pronterface settings,” the Maker writes. “This resulted in feeding too few filament. Next error was the default nozzle size is 0.5 mm with a layer height of 0.4 mm. The actual nozzle is 0.3 mm.”

This simply meant that he had to adjust the settings a tad, aside from calibrating some of its parts.

“Although the printer needs to be further calibrated everything is working properly,” Adema concludes. “By ensuring that all axes move smoothly, no steps are skipped by the stepper motors. This was one of the problems during the first print.”

As with any LEGO project, having the ability to modify the gadget after it’s constructed is certainly an advantage. While it may look like a toy at first glance, this 3D printer can actually create some credible 3D models. Sound like a unit you’d love to try? Head over to the Maker’s elaborate tutorial on Instructables here, or watch it in action below!

Make the perfect cup of tea with Arduino

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Arduino will keep you from over-steeping your tea.

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While coffee has been the fuel of engineers for years, others like Brian McEvoy sometimes prefer tea for their daily jolt in the morning and afternoon pick-me-up. In order to receive the maximum amount of caffeine, however, mastering the brewing time is imperative. Over-steeping tea sometimes can lead to a bitter taste and a reduction in caffeine levels, and as someone that gets easily distracted, this tends to happen to the Maker more times than not. In order to prevent this from occurring on a regular basis, as any DIYer would do, he decided to automate his tea cup to perfect every brew.

While tea timers are nothing out of the ordinary, McEvoy was determined to “(over)engineer something” using inexpensive hobby-grade electronics, and more importantly, something that would differentiate his project from countless others on sites like Instructables. This included incorporating a text display and having the cup (which as any Star Wars fan would agree, his choice was awesome) clip onto the machine.

In order to do this, the Maker devised a 3D-printed, tea-bagging mechanism that employs a 9g servo motor to control the amount of time that the leaves attached to the arm spends dipping into the mug. Meanwhile, another 3D-printed enclosure houses an Arduino Mini (ATmega328), a potentiometer to properly set the brewing process, an LCD screen to reveal the time and a start button to, well, get things going. A USB charging cable with its wired ends cut was soldered to the Arduino for power supply.

Sound like a simple device to solve your troubles in the morning? You can check out his detailed blog posts and follow along with his step-by-step tutorial on Instructables.

Creating a wall-mounted, 3D-printed automatic pet feeder

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Driven by an Arduino, this DIY system will make sure your pup gets one cup of dry food twice a day. 

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Whether it’s due to long work hours, frequent vacations or purely one’s absent-mindedness, it can sometimes be difficult to ensure that dear Fido is fed on time. But thanks to one Maker, it may get a whole heck of a lot easier.

Created by Maker Mark Bissey, the 3D-Printed Automatic Pet Feeder is a wall-mounted device that is capable of dispensing exactly one cup of dry food twice per day. While its feeding times and the number of increments are adjustable, the amount of food is not. Meaning, if you have a smaller pup or a cat that requires only a couple of ounces of food daily, it looks like they may be getting a bit more than the recommended serving size.

Additionally, the Maker decided to implement an early feeding feature for training purposes, which can be activated through its embedded infrared or touch sensor. Bissey notes, “I firmly believe for obedience training dogs should work for their food. So if you catch the timer before it goes off you can make your dog do a trick or two and feed them manually.”

The project is comprised of seven 3D-printed parts, including its housing, a top, internal and bottom funnel, a cylinder and two caps. Meanwhile, enclosed within the system are an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), a stepper motor, a touch and infrared sensor, an SPDT switch, a 10K Ohm resistor, among a few other electronic components.

At the brains of the operation, the Arduino is tasked with checking to see if the opening of the cylinder is upright. The mechanism will continue to turn until it hits a limiting switch, thereby letting the food fall. A four-digit seven-segment display is also employed to reveal an ongoing countdown in between feeding times. When it reaches zero, a stepper motor starts to rotate and the food dispensing process begins. If the early feeding feature is used, the system will take the remaining time and add it to the next feeding cycle. This way, it will never be off schedule.

For those wishing to construct a DIY system of their own, Bissey has provided all of the necessary codes, schematics and a step-by-step breakdown of the build on his Instructables page here.

Tracking Alzheimer’s Disease patients with Arduino

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This DIY GPS tracker will let you know when a loved one with Alzheimer’s wanders off.

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Anyone who has ever had a loved one suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease is all too familiar with the significance of taking the necessary steps to ensure that person’s well-being. As the disease progresses, those with the disease experience worsening memory loss, difficulty in responding to their environment, and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. In fact, a number of patients tend to wander from places of safety.

So in an effort to help solve this problem, Maker Logan Prasser — in collaboration with Sean Halloran and Gvozden Suvajlo — has devised a GPS device that can track a sufferer’s movements and send an alert to a caregiver if and when they leave a pre-defined range. The gadget, which consists of a 3D-printed case, can be easily slipped inside a pocket by a caretaker, who can then monitor the patient’s movements from afar. While there are a few commercial solutions on the market today, most are a bit complex and costly when compared to this DIY project.

Housed within the device’s 3D-printed shell is an Arduino Micro (ATmega32U4), an Adafruit FONA board, a GPS breakout board and antenna, along with a 9V battery. The Maker programmed the Micro to communicate with both the cell and GPS modules. When the GPS module is not within its specified boundary, the tracker notifies the caretaker via text.

Though not required, Prasser suggests using a solar board for charging the 3.7V battery and using solar panels. Another optional step includes adding a button and LED to the device.

Have a loved one who could surely benefit from this DIY solution? Check out the Maker’s step-by-step breakdown on Instructables here.