My pal Phil Sittner sent a link to this picture of a rock band made out of electronic components. You have to love the title: L.E.D. Zeppelin.
Apparently that picture inspired this mom to make her own art:
All this creativity is near and dear to my heart, since my dear departed analog pal Jim Williams was also a lover of electronic art. One nice feature of Jim’s art was that it often functioned as a real working circuit as well as being a free-form sculpture.
So if you have an artistic bent, think about soldering up some items from your junk box to make something beautiful and fascinating.
Barobot – powered by Atmel’s ATmega328 and ATmega8 microcontrollers – is an open source device that pours cocktails by mixing alcohol, soft drinks and sodas. It holds up to 12 bottles, and, according to its creators, is capable of pouring a drink with military accuracy.
In addition, Barobot features over 1,000 cocktail recipes, allowing users to create new ones on the fly. All can be easily accessed via a custom coded app on a tablet touchscreen or smartphone.
“The flat-pack self assembly kit requires no advanced skills or tools (it’s great fun to put together by itself!). Barobot is also illuminated with over 100 individually controlled LEDs that might be set to a number of light-themes or even synchronized to music.”
On the hardware side, both the carriage board and main board are based on Atmel’s popular ATmega328 MCU. The chips are tasked with collecting and relaying information from sensors as well as giving commands to actuators (motor and servos). Meanwhile, the other 12 boards are known as “u-panels” and powered by tiny ATmega8 MCUs. Their primary purpose? Operating 96 LEDs on top of the robot (for bottle and Barobot interior illumination).
“All the PCBs communicate via I2C and ISP protocols in a distributed manner. One of the advantages of this setup is that all those independently operated LEDs that can illuminate the frame and individual bottles in a myriad of different ways,” the rep added.
In terms of software, the PCBs run in Arduino C++ code.
The tablet app – written in Android Java – features:
Browsing drink recipes database (shows only cocktails that are possible to create using installed ingredients)
Choosing drinks basing on: flavor, ingredients, color and strength
Proposing random cocktail recipe (“I feel lucky”)
Composing new drinks and adding them to the database
Pouring drinks ordered remotely (Sofa server)
Showing history of drinks orders defining what ingredients/bottles are installed
Defining external ingredients (i.e. not installed in Bartender)
“I’ve always loved watches; not only are they aesthetic and beautiful, but they are functional, precise and useful. An elegant fusion between engineering and art; two normally opposed perspectives, now joined in harmonic unison,” N.fletch explained in a recent Instructables post.
“However, all technologies like the dial-up internet, the CVT monitor and the abacus, inevitably will become relics of our past with the advent of advancing technology and have since become less pragmatic for the typical person to own. Unlike these archaic technologies, the wrist watch still thrives on the wrists of many, standing forever as a testament to one of mankind’s greatest inventions: the measurement of time.”
Aside from Atmel’s ATmega328P, key ChronosMEGA specs include binary time encoding (via 10 Blue 1206 LEDs), a slew of buttons to control time, sleep mode and display, a 32.768kHz external crystal and an 8MHz internal clock source.
Additional key features?
Micro-USB and charge management controller (for 400mAh Li-ion battery)
Draws 4uA in its Deep Sleep mode to last up to 11 years on a single charge
Battery indicator 0603 LED
Boost TI switching regulator for power regulation
Low loss PowerPath controller IC for power source selection
Total form factor of 10mm x 40mm x 53mm
Custom 3D designed case cast in pure polished silver
Genuine crocodile leather watch band
As you can see in the videos above, the layout of the watch configured in a circular array of 10 LEDs. Four of the LEDs account for hours, while six of the LEDs account for minutes.
“The LEDs count in binary to display the time on the watch face. By utilizing a combination of the 10 LEDs, the watch can display any possible time accurate to the minute,” N.fletch continued.
“This is a very clean and elegant way to display time. I also really like this technique because of its esoteric and mysterious nature.”
In terms of the MCU, the ATmega328P is wired in a straight-forward manner, connected to power and ground, with a pull up resistor on the RESET pin. Essentially, the AVR is tasked with driving all the LEDs from its GPIO, although one of the MCU’s AVR’s ADC pin is connected to the battery to detect the voltage level. As such, the watch is equipped with a small red status LED to indicate when battery power is low.
“The AVR has a 32.768 kHz crystal wired to its XTAL pins. It uses the 32.768 kHz crystal to drive its Timer2 module asynchronously for counting the seconds, [while] its internal 1MHz RC clock drives the SW,” N.fletch added.
“32.768 kHz is a very common frequency to drive Real Time Clock (RTC) systems because 32,768 in decimal is equal to 8000 in hex. Therefore, 32,768 can be evenly divided by multiple powers of 2 including 1024. Dividing 32,768 by 1024 yields 32, so configuring the timer to count to 32 with a 1024 pre-scaler will equal an exact second.”
Currently on display at the Hamilton Art Gallery, Terrors of the Breakfast Table is described as an experimental video that “invites participation.” According to curator Melissa Bennett, the story follows a boy on a contemplative journey about life and death.
“Heavily symbolic, it unfolds in an impressionistic way, with interludes of brilliant cinematography and atmospheric sound,” she explains.
“The story is also a dreamscape, as the boy weaves in and out of consciousness, visualizing memories, familiar landscapes and symbolic environments. The piece ruminates on the elusiveness of the mind and body, and the functions of the body—such as breathing—that seem to be invisible.”
Interestingly, Tekatch designed the video installation so that the visitor’s breath causes changes to the visuals and sound. More specifically, subtle technologies sense a viewer’s breath, triggering thought-provoking interactive elements. These include a dream montage, the pace of a scene, ambient sound and the brightness of the visuals.
As Arduino reports, Tyler Tekatch and Kyle Duffield created the interactive video installation using a combination of cameras to shoot the project and capture a number of the super slow motion shots. The film was edited in FCP7, graded in DaVinci Resolve, with effects added in Cinema 4d and 3ds Max.
“For the interactive elements, they used Max 6 for all of the programming, including the Arduino library, AHarker Externals library, Ambisonics Externals from ICST and externals from Jamoma. They [also] experimented with a number of different approaches to the sensor, including sound analysis, but finally settled on an anemometer designed especially for breath by the company Modern Device,” writes Romano.
“The sensor was paired with an [Atmel-based] Arduino Uno (ATmega328 MCU), to which they also added LEDs in order to illuminate the sensor housing sculpture – which were mapped to the viewer’s breath.”
“Push a button and the die will display a random number from 1 to 6 just like a dice! [The kits are] great for board games. [Plus], you get a free CR2032 battery with each kit!” applemount wrote in a description posted on eBay.
“[The kit] uses advanced on-board entropy collection to generate real random numbers. Soldering is required, [although] each part is clearly labeled on the printed circuit board for easy assembly.”
This month, Bits & Pieces is taking a closer look at Atmel’s versatile lighting (MCU) portfolio. First, we discussed the role Atmel MCUs (microcontrollers) have to play in brightening LED ballasts, highlighting the AVR AT90PWM microcontroller which supports the DALI standard and is used to network multiple ballasts to a centralized system for tighter light level control and significant energy savings.
We’ve also talked about how Atmel MCUs are used to light up both fluorescent and HID ballasts. And today? How Atmel tech helps drive television direct backlights.
“Specifically, an external power supply allows for easy implementation of DC-to-DC boost or SEPTIC power supplies to drive 100mA per string for direct-backlight configurations. Atmel LED Drivers adaptively control the DC-DC/AC-DC converters that power the LED strings, using Atmel Efficiency Optimizer technology, which minimizes power use and maintains LED current accuracy,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.
“These high-power LED string drivers use internal current control MOSFETs to sink up to 100mA per string, and offer the ability to drive 16 parallel strings of ten white LEDs each, for a total of 160 white LEDs per device. 16 interconnected devices control up to 2560 white LEDs. Each string can be controlled individually to enable area (zone) dimming for highest dynamic range and significantly reduce power usage. These devices address the direct backlight LCD panel and monitor applications.”
In addition, direct backlight topologies offer the most contrast ratio and richest color quality for LCD Television – although direct backlight is not as popular as edge-lit topologies because of the inherent cost and application complexity. Indeed, direct backlight employs a greater number of LEDs and more complex control for zone dimming, allowing for the widest contrast ratio in the market.
“Direct backlight can be accomplished with white LEDs and RGB LEDs. The RGB LEDs offer color control and white point mixing, not offered with white LEDs. Of course, both types of LEDs can be driven by Atmel LED Drivers to offer zone (regional) dimming up to 512 zones (the most zones offered by TV OEMs),” the engineering rep continued.
“[Plus], LED drivers offer internal current sinks that can sink up to 100mA per string, eliminating the need for external NFETs. External DC to DC supplies are commonly used in direct backlight applications – allowing 4 to 8 LED driver ICs to share a power supply, minimizing component cost and board area.”
