Video: 7-year-old boy receives a new prosthetic “trooper” arm

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Add Stormtrooper to the growing list of comic book-inspired, 3D-printed prosthetics.

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In recent months, we’ve come across quite a few miraculous and heartwarming 3D printing stories. And, it looks like that momentum is carrying on into 2015. The Maker Movement has now given a seven-year-old boy, who was born without part of his left arm, a pretty amazing 3D-printed Clone Trooper prosthetic.

First reported by the Augusta Chronicle, Liam received his new limb as part of an international effort to harness new DIY tech to help those requiring prosthetics they otherwise couldn’t obtain. While commercial pieces can cost upwards of $40,000, more affordable options have been made available thanks to recent advancements in 3D printing. In addition to that, many insurance companies do not cover costly prostheses for children because they will quickly outgrow them; subsequently, 3DPs are a practical and feasible alternative.

After learning about E-Nable, a group of volunteers who print prosthetic parts for kids, Maker John Peterson decided to put his skills and acquired printer to go use by crafting a Star Wars-esque arm for the boy. It took the Maker nearly three months to create Liam’s new limb — for only $300.

A huge fan of the flick, Liam had spotted Imperial Stormtroopers marching toward him after leaving a Georgia movie theater. What he didn’t know was that the troopers were there to surprise him with a new 3D-printed prosthetic arm, which was paired with a Clone Trooper helmet and an invitation to join the 501st Legion.

Once Liam inserted it onto his left elbow, he was able to flex the fist and hold a cup. You’ll want to watch the entire surprise below!

Check your heart rate with this Arduino-based sensor

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No more trips to the pharmacy or buying pricey detectors! View your pulse and calculate your heart rate with this simple DIY design.

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With the emergence of wearable trackers today, there seems to be more ways than ever before to electronically detect a heartbeat. However, Maker Orlando Hoilett wanted to create an even simpler approach by using just a few components and an Atmel based Arduino.

His DIY finger-mounted pulse sensor features a light source, a detector and a high gain circuit, which also sports a finger cuff with an integrated IR LED and photodiode. As blood is pumped through the body, the volume of blood in extremities fluctuates with the beating of the heart. This change in blood volume in the finger tips can be sensed by shining a light through the finger and detecting the amount of light that passes in and out of the finger using a photodiode.

“The photodiode produces a current that is converted to a voltage using a transimpedance amplifier (current-to-voltage converter). The signal is then high-pass filtered to remove the DC bias from the signal and then biased at Vdd/2 so that the wave is symmetrical about 2.5 V. We have a final gain stage that amplifies the AC part of the waveform (the actual pulse),” Hoilett shares on his Hackaday page.

The sensor is hooked up to an op amp circuit. Once the current produced by the photodiode is converted to a voltage by an amplifier and read by the Arduino (while the Maker notes that any ‘duino can be used, a Mega (ATmega2560) was selected for this project). This information is then relayed to a computer via serial. Hoilett has written both a LabVIEW and Processing program to plot the data as a waveform.

Want to build your own heartbeat detector? Head over to the project’s official page here.

Playing Tetris in SPARK on a SAM4S ARM Cortex-M4 MCU

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Just when we thought we’d seen the ‘80s game played on nearly everything, a group of Makers have built it onto an MCU. 

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For many, Tetris is simply a tile-matching video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. However, for others, it inspires endless possibilities of Maker projects. Most recently, AdaCore’s Tristan Gingold and Yannick Moy have devised the highly-popular puzzle on an Atmel | SMART SAM4S ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller.

“There are even versions of Tetris written in Ada. But there was no version of Tetris written in SPARK, so we’ve repaired that injustice. Also, there was no version of Tetris for the Atmel SAM4S ARM processor, another injustice we’ve repaired,” the duo writes.

The concept first stemmed from their colleague Quentin Ochem, who had been searching for a flashy demo for GNAT using SPARK on ARM, to run on the SAM4S Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit. Luckily, this kit features an OLED1 extension with a small rectangular display, which surely enough, immediately ‘SPARKed’ the idea of Tetris. Now, throw in the five buttons overall between the main card and the extension, and the team had all the necessary hardware to bring the project to life.

In total, the entire build took approximately five days to complete. Both Gingold and Moy advise, “Count two days for designing, coding and proving the logic of the game in SPARK, another two days for developing the BSP for the board, and a half day for putting it all together.”

For those unfamiliar with SPARK, it is a subset of Ada that can be analyzed very precisely for checking global data usage, data initialization, program integrity and functional correctness. Mostly, it excludes pointers and tasking, which proved not to be a problem for Tetris.

While we’ve seen the retro game played on everything from t-shirts to bracelets, we’ve never experienced the game literally on an MCU. As the team notes, all of the necessary sources can be downloaded in the tetris.tgz archive, while those interested in designing one of their own can find a detailed breakdown of the entire build here.

CoPiino is a credit card-sized adapter board that combines both Arduino and Pi

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A new shield is bringing together the dynamic duo of Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

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Maker Steven Spence has recently unveiled the CoPiino, an ATmega1284 based adapter board for the Raspberry Pi that enables remote editing and uploading of Arduino sketches using a web browser. The symbiotic, credit card-sized shield combines the connectivity of the Pi with the real-time performance of the on-board AVR MCU.

CoPiino is not only designed to cooperate with Raspberry Pi and interface to Arduino shields, but is compatible with official shield libraries as well, such as the the Motor Shield, Proto Shield, Voice Shield, LCD Shield, among a number of others.

Users can access the CoPiino app running on the Pi with a web browser to edit and upload new sketches, before transferring sensor data from the CoPiino to the Pi for display by the Apache Web Server. This is then stored by the MySQL server running on the Pi.

The adapter board can be programmed through any Internet-enabled device, including a PC, tablet or smartphone. Direct ISP flashing makes the use of a bootloader obsolete, which saves memory space, eases the upgrade process, and doesn’t block serial communication channels. The “HAT-like” shield is also equipped with an external battery pack and a USB Wi-Fi dongle, thereby becoming an ideal companion for mobile platforms that can be updated instantaneously. This enables Makers to create a number of projects, like self-balancing or roving Wi-Fi robots.

Using the CoPiino, users can join local Wi-Fi networks, create Wi-Fi access points, or affix a USB or Pi camera onto the platform to stream a first-person-view to any connected device. Intrigued? You can learn all about the CoPiino on its official page here.

 

Brew your own craft beer with the touch of a button

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It’s official: The Internet of Beer has arrived.

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As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to infiltrate our homes, we’re finding a number of new and unusual connected gadgets suited for both the kitchen and man cave, of course. At this year’s CES, we came across countless smart machines including the world’s first fully automatic, all-grain beer brewing appliance, which aspires to do the same for ale as the Keurig had done for coffee.

Imagine that, a product that can easily craft fresh beer right from the comfort of your home, as well as tap online resources and services with just a press of a smartphone button. The PicoBrew Zymatic is shaped like a metal oven — which measures 20.5” x 14.5” x 17” in size and weighs 50 pounds — and is driven by an ATmega1284P MCU running on Arduino-based firmware.

To make beer, a user simply pours their desired amount of malted barley, hops and water, then pushes a couple buttons to set a recipe. In just about hours, that water turns into beer. Fast forward a week of fermentation, and the countertop device produces nearly three gallons of some good ol’ ale.

Developed by Seattle-based veterans of Microsoft and the F&B industry, the team’s goal was to use IoT technology to simplify the brewing process, remove its associated menial tasks, and allow advanced beer making to be more accessible to the masses. Users simply place their beer ingredients (e.g. grains and hops) in a cartridge tray that goes inside the appliance. Once done, the beer can be poured and stored for days, or even a few weeks, while the machine itself cleans itself. Meaning, you can kick back with a brewski without having to worry about cleaning up. While the brewing is automated, the Zymatic also comes equipped with Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, enabling users to control it from a mobile device.

For those with a diverse taste, the machine boasts over 100 recipes in its built-in library with the option for users to add their own customized recipes. So whether you’re a fan of lagers, stouts or ales, PicoBrew has you covered. While one may think this is a relatively niche market, home-brewing is a decently-sized hobby with more than 1 million Americans already crafting their beverages under their own roof, according to the Brewers Association.

What began as a succsesfully-funded Kickstarter project, the automated appliance is now being shipped to its initial backers. Meanwhile, the ATmega1284P powered Zymatic is currently accepting pre-orders for $1,699, with delivery expected in March 2015 — and can be found on its official website here.

Stay thirsty, our friends.

The 30 “smartest” things we saw at CES 2015

Thousands of jam-packed booths, several tech-filled halls, five days, one incredible event. Over the years, CES has become a breeding ground for the wackiest, the wildest and most importantly, the smartest electronic devices to hit the market. And, with the emergence of the Internet of Things, 2015 proved to be no different with the debut of countless new connected products.

While we recently highlighted a few pre-show gizmos, here are some other exciting and eye-catching gadgets we came across over the last week in Vegas.

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Motorola Scout 5000 is a connected dog collar with built-in video, GPS and Wi-Fi.

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Edyn Garden Sensor lets you know when to water your plants.

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Gogoro is a smart scooter that runs on swappable electric batteries.

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IO HAWK is a smart skateboard that will change the way you get around.

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Sleep Number’s new smart bed for kids can adjust as they grow.

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RAYBOT is a water-free solar panel cleaning robot.

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Fogo is a smart flashlight that will pack everything from GPS to Bluetooth.

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Panasonic’s smart mirror can analyze your skin and preview new makeup styles.

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Sengled LED lightbulbs can also serve as a home security system.

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LifeQ is using the human body as a sensor to integrate with wearables.

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Tao Chair lets you burn calories while sitting in the living room.

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Honeywell’s Lyric system is bringing security to the smart home.

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Whirlpool’s Top Load Washer is making cleaning laundry easier than ever before.

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Parrot’s Smart Pot will make sure you never kill your house plants again.

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XelfleX technology can be used to create smarter clothes.

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Sensoria smart socks can track your run or workout.

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Baby GlGl is a smart bottle to keep babies from getting colicky.

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Secure Communicator is a smartphone built inside a watch.

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Ebove’s smart bike system allows you to cycle anywhere.

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Anova’s Wi-Fi sous vide cooker enables you to precisely set temps remotely.

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Digitsole’s smart insoles can track your steps while heating your feet.

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Ring is a Wi-Fi-enabled, HD video doorbell.

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PicoBrew is a connected home-brewing machine for your own craft beer.

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Bionic Bird is a mechanical bird that can be controlled via your smartphone.

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Toshiba’s ChihiraAico is an incredibly life-like robot.

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Keen Home’s smart vent lets you customize and direct heat to specific rooms.

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Edwin is a smart rubber duckie that makes bath time even more fun.

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Cooki is an automated robotic chef for your countertop.

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Raticator is a mesh-networked rodent trap that uses infrared beams to detect rodents.

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JINS smart glasses can tell when your eyes are fatigued.

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What were some of your favorite things from CES 2015? Share with us!

Automate your bed warmer for those cold nights

For many of us, especially those in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is in full swing. This means shorter days, wintry weather, and unfortunately for those without a bed warmer, long, freezing nights. However, even those with such a gadget can still find their slumbers to be interrupted by frigid temps. That’s why, a Maker by the name of “LC” has developed an electronically-controlled and automated enhancement for his bed warmer.

While the original device uses a mechanical potentiometer to set the heat level, LC was able to override the controller’s temperature using a digital potentiometer. So, whenever the Maker was too cold at night, he could simply switch over to full automation using a real-time clock for remote scheduling. Not only would this enable him to take command of the bed warmer, but preserves the original functionality of the controller as well.

“I’m a big fan of not disturbing the functionality implemented in the OEM design, and thereby retaining all of the existing capabilities of devices I am modding. I do this so that I can always turn my enhancements off and continue using the product’s stock functionality. It makes no sense (to me) if the original device breaks or ceases to operate and provide the original functionality if my ‘upgrades’ fail to function. In that case our upgrade could be said to now be working against us instead of for us (1 step forward, two steps back),” the Maker writes.

An Arduino Micro (ATmega32U4) serves as the master control of the project and is responsible for handling the override from mechanical to digital potentiometer when a connected capacitive touch wheel is triggered. This means that when someone attempts to take manual control of the device, the ATmega32U4 based ‘duino can switch the override circuit off.

“Future versions may eliminate the mechanical controller altogether (and the corresponding mechanical pot on the PCB) with a master (interactive) control interface using an LCD with capacitive touch sensing and a custom user interface,” LC adds.

Not only is this an innovative way to find some warmth in your nightly slumber, but can also be quite cost-effective: less heating the room, more the individual. Makers combatting the wintry months up north can learn all about LC’s project here.

Building a sound-activated outlet for your home appliances

Clap on…. clap off! It’s a fair assumption that anyone who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s has come across the infamous jingle for The Clapper at one time or another. Created by Bay Area-based Joseph Enterprises, the device was a simple sound-activated switch that could turn on any electrical outlet in your home with a clap. Nearly 30 years after its debut, MAKE: Magazine’s Jason Poel Smith has shown off a DIY version of the gadget, not only capable of evoking your lights but appliances as well.

In order to bring his idea to life, Smith powered the home-brew Clapper utilizing an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) programmed with certain patterns for each outlet throughout the house. This allowed the Maker to trigger his lamp with a single clap and two claps for his fan.

The Arduino also enables users to program how the outlets are turned on and off.

“For instance, if your Internet router needs to be reset, you could program it to turn your router off for ten seconds and then turn it back on automatically. Or, you could turn a heater on for a few minutes and have it automatically turn itself off,” Smith writes.

In addition to clapping, users can also activate the switch with any other loud noise, like knocking on the wall, stomping on the floor, whistling or any other tone that exceeds the set threshold.

“Users can modify how the output performs by simply rewriting the code to give the desired response. You can have the appliance turn on or off when signaled. You can have an appliance such as a heater or a fan turn on for a set duration. You can also use it to reset your router by turning the power off for ten seconds and automatically turning it back on. The only limitation is your imagination.”

Interested in an ATmega328 powered personalized Clapper for your home? Head on over to MAKE: Magazine’s official project page here.

Spreading holiday cheer with an ATtiny13 and SPI Flash

Those who fail to believe big things can come in small packages have surely never experimented with Atmel’s versatile tinyAVR family. While we’ve seen plenty of Makers turn to the stalwart MCU lineup to bring their ideas to life, none may possess as much holiday cheer as Vinod’s latest project — which was brought to our attention by our friends at Hackaday. 

Using an ATtiny13 with a 512KB SPI Flash, Vinod created an audio player capable of playing an 8K mono WAV file for roughly a minute. At first, the Maker attempted opening up an inexpensive camera pen, but unfortunately, the PCB inside was damaged beyond repair. This left him with a 4Mbit SPI Flash chip.

“This was obviously the time to investigate what could be done with a small microcontroller and a huge amount of Flash, and the ATtiny13 audio player was born,” Hackaday’s Brian Benchoff notes.

“All together 8 pins are required. But the controller have only 5 GPIOs,” Vinod reveals.

The circuit uses one PWM for audio out, and reads audio directly from the Flash chip. In addition to that, four SPI pins were dedicated for interfacing with the Flash memory, while two others for UART communication for song updates. There’s also a switch to choose between play and record.

Impressed by the Maker’s Christmas jingle? You can find a detailed log of the build here, while watch it in action below.

Get notified each time you’re tagged on Instagram — through scent

Created by Instructables Design Studio artist Paige Russell, the Scent-imental Notification System releases a predefined scent whenever you’re tagged by a friend on Instagram.

The project utilizes an ATmega32U4 based Arduino module, a littleBits cloudBit, IFTTT, a few custom hashtags, and of course, scented oils. The housing for the unit is comprised of laser-cut plywood.

How it works is relatively simple. Using the littleBits cloudBit and IFTTT, as its name implies, the system notifies a user whenever a picture of them is posted on Instagram. The device is equipped with scents that are triggered by three different hashtags, which for Russell were #pupsforpaige, #cheekynature, and #snickersnort.

Each tag activates a designated servo — controlled by the ATmega32U4 module — that release a drop of oil onto a heated glass surface. The scent is then diffused up into the air and fanned towards the user by a servo fan behind the glass. The Arduino determines which servo to activate by reading an incoming voltage from the cloudBit.

Watch in action below! Interested in devising a notification system of your own? You can find a step-by-step breakdown of the build on its official Instructables page, as well as read littleBits’ featured write-up here.