Puppy given the ability to walk thanks to 3D printing

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3D printing lets another two-legged dog run around with his four-legged friends.

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A 3D-printed wheelchair has enabled a dachshund puppy, born without front limbs, to walk again. This heartwarming story is just the latest example of how the additive process is helping our friends from the animal kingdom get a second lease on life. Last year, we saw an adorable Chihuahua nicknamed TurboRoo roll around in his 3D-printed cart, while fellow canine Derby was given modified front legs that let the husky run for the first time.

In this case, the six-month-old dog’s owners Trevor Byers and Elissa Smoak decided to build their beloved pup a wheelchair in an effort to help Bubbles get around in a much easier manner. To do so, the couple used a “combination of carbon fiber, model airplane, and 3D printed parts with the hope that others would be able to utilize the same design for their own dogs in need of a wheelchair,” 3ders.org writes.

Byers uploaded the life-changing design to MakerBot’s Thingiverse for other pet owners in a similar situation seeking assistance. “Bubbles is the reason I bought my printer in the first place and she loves the freedom it has given her,” the Maker explains.

The design features a torso support combined with an axle and two wheels. Once again, the prosthetic creation proved to not only be a more affordable option, but is more accessible than existing wheelchairs on the market today. Additionally, a pet owner can customize the size and weight of the contraption depending on the dog’s needs.

So, whether it’s a seven-year-old boy, Stumpy the turtle, or Quack Quack the duck, 3D printing has the potential to change the lives of humans and animals alike. The latest string of projects merely scratch the surface of the technology’s wide-range of uses, and more impressively, how localized manufacturing will only require one person to create a model and for the entire world to benefit.

This DIY EEG hat can turn brainwaves into light

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You can now make a beanie with lights that change color and intensity in response to your level of attention and relaxation.

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Have you ever wanted to visualize your brain activity in real-time? How about move an object on a screen with just your mind? A Maker by the name of “wavelet_spaghetti” recently devised what she calls Illumino — a recreational EEG hat capable of turning brainwaves into light.

According to the Maker, she wanted her “simple toy EEG device” to be flexible enough to use the data yet inconspicuous to everyone else. In order to bring this mind-blowing creation to life, wavelet_spaghetti employed an everyday winter hat along with an Arduino and Neurosky’s ThinkGear ASIC module.

“The Neurosky chip is connected to an [Atmel based] Arduino microcontroller, which contains the software of Illumino. A USB adapter is attached to the Arduino, to allow easy access to the software from a computer.”

The Maker advises that any tiny ‘duino can be used as long as it features an on-board USB slot, such as the Arduino LilyPad (ATmega168V). To make the wearable device both artistically creative and interactive, she equipped the hat’s white pom-pom with Adafruit NeoPixel LEDs, thereby enabling the wearer to visualize their brainwaves in real-time as an array of colorful light. As the Maker points out, each of the electronic components were discretely embedded “so it looks and feels as though you’re just wearing a comfy beanie.”

The megaAVR powered board (whose software is accessible via a USB slot) converts real-time brain activity into light through the LEDs, which illuminate in various colors and intensities based on the mental state of the wearer, e.g. excitement and relaxation. The variation in colors and brightness of the RGBs can be manually adjusted via a small switch.

In case you were wondering, the brain-reading beanie also works simply as an EEG device without the decorative light show. If you rather not sport the cliché winter pom-pom, you can always place the NeoPixels elsewhere in the hat.

The Maker notes that one option for making beautiful “brain art” with Illumino is through the programming language called Processing, which will allow a creator to write scripts that create unique visualizations and music.

“Simply import the live brain activity data from the hat by connecting the USB cable to the pom-pom (or wireless if you make the hat with Bluetooth). Then customize your Processing sketches so that the levels of ‘attention,’ ‘meditation’ or different brainwave types control the changes in the visualizations (color, opacity, movement, coordinates, rotation speed, etc),” wavelet_spaghetti writes.

What else can be done with this magical hat? The possibilities are endless when it comes to the Illumino, ranging from writing words to controlling moving blobs. See it in action below!

Looking for that perfect winter accessory? Here it is! You can find the Maker’s step-by-step tutorial on the project’s official Instructables page.

Bored in class? Mod turns your graphing calculator into a selfie camera

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“I need to solve the algebraic equation, but first let me take a selfie.”

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Who could ever forget playing Super Mario Bros. or Tetris on their graphing calculators during algebra class? While these number-crunchers may seem to pale in comparison nowadays to other mobile devices, Maker Christopher Mitchell has discovered a new way to entertain oneself using the popular Texas Instruments gadgets: taking selfies.

A project he calls ArTICAM, the graphing calculator mod allows a tinkerer to transform a TI-83 or TI-84 Plus into a selfie-snapping device using a Game Boy Camera and an Arduino Uno (ATmega328). With just a little wiring and ready-made code, you’ll be taking the ultimate pics in no time!

The project calls for an Mitsubishi M64282FP image sensor to capture the 128×123-pixel grayscale images; meanwhile, the “eye” of the Game Boy Camera is removed and connected to an Arduino.

Since TI calculators don’t include a Game Boy cartridge slot, the Maker selected an Arduino Uno to interface the two and built upon the Arduino-TI Calculator Linking (ArTICL) Library to create ArTICam.

“The ArTICL library lets an attached graphing calculator use GetCalc to take a photograph and transfer it as a picture variable directly from the Arduino. The calculator can also fetch and set the internal registers of the M64282FP to adjust parameters such as brightness, contrast, and post-processing settings,” Mitchell writes.

The paring of the camera sensor and Arduino super easy. As the Maker points out, no other components were required to connect the camera to the Arduino, as the ATmega328 based board provides all the necessary power, digital control pins, and analog sensing pin.

While the end result is a grayscale picture that probably won’t win any photography awards anytime soon or be shared on Instagram, the hack is certainly a new way to entertain yourself during those boring lectures.

Do you have an old graphing calculator lying around somewhere? Here’s how to get started with some grayscale goodness!

3DRacers is bringing Mario Kart to life

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The next Hot Wheels? 3D print your own personalized cars and race them throughout the house.

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Who could ever forget waking up on Christmas morning to find a remote-controlled race car set under the tree? Or, how about heading out to the local Toys”R”Us to grab yourself the latest Mario Kart game (or should we say ‘Kartridge’) to slip into your Super NES? Well now, Rome-based 3DRacers is seeking to revolutionize the toy and gaming industries with something that’s even more fun than a simple RC set or video game.

In fact, the Maker duo of Marco D’Alia and Davide Marcoccio is ushering in a new generation of products, ones in which will allow users to 3D print their own smartphone-enabled, Arduino-compatible racing games. Think Mario Kart on your living room floor, instead of your TV screen. Rather than steer your way through Bowser’s Castle, Donut Plains and Mario Circuit tracks, kids can now navigate their way around in-house like rugs, tables, beds and even Uncle Bob’s legs as he snores on the couch. The 3D-printable cars were designed to have exceptional ground clearance from the bottom, which lets them to speed across these fabric and carpeted areas with ease.

With 3DRacers — which was successfully funded on Indiegogo — you can drive small radio-controlled, fully 3D-printed cars with your phone or with a custom-built remote (also 3D-printed). And, what truly sets this product apart from the pack is that each car can be customized to your liking. This opens up a wide-range of possibilities from Jeeps and Corvettes, to tanks and monster trucks, to dune buggies and rally cars, to even a Back to the Future-inspired DeLorean.

While its first beta set was introduced back at Maker Faire Rome 2014, the Italian team has since launched a web-based editor where users can create a car online and 3D print it for free, or through 3DRacers’ official print partner 3DHubs. What makes it even sweeter, in the likelihood that a car is broken or lost at some point, a user can now simply make a new one. No more trips to the toy store! 

Each 3DRacer is driven by a custom-built electronic board, based on an ATmega32U4. With a focus on low-power consumption and adhering to an extremely small form factor, the team’s Arduino-compatible board is making it possible for users put personal touches on the game, as well as design a new type of Bluetooth-enabled vehicle. The board, aptly named 3DRacers Pilot, can control up to two motors and three servos, and is equipped with an embedded RGB LED, a battery charger, a custom-made gate/position detector, and is even programmable through a simple USB link.

“We choose the ’32U4 for the embedded USB, so that it could be programmed and upgraded easily without an external programmer,” a company rep tells us.

But the online editor and free creation of cars is only the beginning for the team. In true Mario Kart-like fashion, 3DRacers comes with a companion app that allows users to compete against each other in battle mode with automatic lap counters and race times, pit stops with simulated tires and fuel consumption gauges, an online scoreboard, and of course, turbo lanes and power-ups. The app is compatible with all Bluetooth Smart mobile devices, including iPhone 4S or later, iPod 5th or later, iPad 3rd/Air/Mini or later, Samsung Galaxy S3, Note 2, Nexus 4 or later.

Whether you’re looking to spark up some nostalgia, have a child that plays with Hot Wheels, or know of a friend that loves RC gadgetry, race on over to its official crowdfunding page here. Pending all goes to plan, delivery is set for this October.

Both friendships and flowers flourish with Air Garden

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Gardening + Arduino = Garduino?

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City dwellers immersed in the daily hustle and bustle seem all too often tend to overlook interacting with neighbors. Drawing on urban gardening practices and the space limitations of community housing, a team of Makers from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design recently created Air Garden as an innovative way to form bonds among nearby tenants.

“We seek to introduce a space efficient environment, a give and take system that nurtures people to emotionally connect to their living spaces. Air Garden aims to foster indirect communication between tenants with the hope of creating a platform for connections and chance encounters,” Maker Amalia Goutaki writes.

How the system works is pretty simple. The edible plants move vertically along a column outside an apartment complex’s windows. Participating inhabitants can summon the plants to their window, pick from them, and assume responsibility for watering.

In order to bring this idea to life, the team created a pulley system based on a pair of Arduino boards: an Uno (ATmega328) for the pulley and a Yún (ATmega32U4) for the interactive portion of the plant. Buttons were placed on the side of its wooden structure, corresponding to each floor of the building. This enables a tenant to call upon the plant. The Arduino Uno is responsible for deciphering the plant’s distance from the ground and translates that information into either “tenant1,” “tenant2” or “tenant3,” depending on from where it is summoned.

The plant is equipped with two screws in its soil, which are connected by wires to the ATmega32U4 based Yún. According to its creators, values such as “watered,” “needs water” or “overwatered,” are then relayed to recipients. Once water is poured, the soil becomes more conductive, causing the values and messages to change accordingly. Both the apartment dweller’s floor and water condition are displayed on the pot’s easy-to-read LCD screen.

Interested in learning more? Head over to the project’s official page here. In the meantime, you can watch the Air Garden system in action below!

Build your own Pebble Smartwatch

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Why buy the latest smartwatch when you can make one yourself with off-the-shelf components and breakout boards? 

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Despite the ongoing craze for wearable technology, most notably smartwatches, a number of young Makers are finding that can sometimes be a bit out of their price range. Rather than having to tirelessly scalvage funds and spend their savings, tinkerers like Jonathan Cook are electing to create their own devices. The aptly named Open-Source SmartWatch combines readily available breakout boards, careful soldering and a 3D-printed frame to make a one-of-a-kind timepiece that displays notifications from your smartphone, not to mention is easily customizable in function and pleasing to the eye. Aside from already being crowned winner of last year’s Arduino Challenge and having garnered “Maker of Merit” ribbons at Maker Faires, Cook recently featured his DIY accessory on MAKE: Magazine.

As the Maker notes, the watch design is pretty straightforward, consisting of four major components housed in a 3D-printed case: a battery charging circuit, vibrating motor for silent alerts, a programmable Microduino Core+ (ATmega644PA/ATmega1284P) with power regulation and BLE connectivity, and an OLED display with push-buttons.

“Breadboarding the project is a snap. Wiring it into a small enclosure meant for the wrist is quite another matter. Break out your fine-point soldering iron and follow these complete instructions.” As for its programmable core, Cook connected the Microduino board to a programming port, a BLE chip for communicating with a wearer’s mobile device, and a voltage regulating circuit.

“A 3.7V 500mAh LiPo battery is wired to a JST connector and a two-position switch. Switched to the right, the circuit is in battery mode. Switched left, it’s ready for LiPo charging via the JST connector.”

Meanwhile, the Open-Souce SmartWatch’s vibrator circuit is comprised of a diode, 1K and 33Ω resistors, capacitor, NPN transistor, and motor. The circuit is then connected to the megaAVR based Microduino, which enables the device to buzz the wrist for an incoming call or alerts. Speaking of which, in addition to the typical time and date functionality as seen on any watch, Cook has sought out to develop an interface that any smartwatch wearer would want such as email access, Facebook notifications, Twitter updates, among a number of other features. Rounding out the design, the Maker implemented an OLED screen and a pair of tiny LEDs that are wired to seven of the digital pins on the ‘duino.

Those interested in learning more about the 3D-printed smartwatch can access a detailed step-by-step breakdown of the build here.

Playing the littleBits Waving Piano

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This is what you get when you add a whammy bar to a piano.

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Created by Maker Gonçalo Silva, the littleBits Waving Piano is an ATmega32U4 based keyboard that was programmed to behave as an oscillator.

How it works is relatively simple: As keys are pressed on the board, they are read by the Arduino module and mapped to the corresponding pitch, as you would hear on a real piano. Meanwhile, the slide is used to “wave” the output pitch just like a guitar’s whammy bar.

Ready to make your own musical piece? Get started by heading over to littleBits’ project page for a step-by-step breakdown. In the meantime, watch it in action below!

 

These synth stairs can play Swedish House Mafia

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If there’s one thing both Tom Hanks in “Big” and Dance Dance Revolution have taught us, it’s that people like stomping on things to a particular beat.

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With the advent of DIY platforms like MaKey MaKey and Bare Conductive, Makers are now finding innovative ways to turn steps into sound. One Maker in particular, Barnaby Stacey, recently transformed his steps into a synth staircase that played tunes from Swedish House Mafia using ATmega32U4 based MaKey MaKey hardware, Logic Pro, VMPK software and a whole heck of a lot of tin foil. The rail was used as an earth point, while each stair (and rail ball) served as a musical note. As you can see from the video below, Stacey was able to piece together different notes by keymapping the steps separately for each melodic part.

Device captures colors and turns them into sounds

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Ever wonder what the color blue sounds like? Or, how about green?

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The Colour Sucker was created by a group of Makers — Johanna Mahonen, Jonathan Simsch, Tomas Gatial and Midas Nouewens — as an exploration into the world of colors through vision and sound. Equipped with a color-detecting sensor, the device can capture colors by pulling its side lever and replay a sound associated to its stored tones by pushing it. Different colors emit their own instruments — blue for piano, green for flute and red for oboe — which are determined by their hue value. Meanwhile, corresponding chords are performed after each other and the brightness of the color denotes the pitch of the sound.

It should be noted that the mapping between color and sound is based on previous studies and connected to the colors’ HSL values. The system itself is comprised of a mobile phone that registers each color through its camera, a Pure Data application running on a PC, several LEDs, and of course, an Arduino Leonardo (ATmega32U4).

Intrigued? Be sure to watch the detailed clip below to learn more about the Colour Sucker and see it action.

Quirkbot lets Makers build robots with drinking straws

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A hackable toy that makes toys! 

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Last January, Strawbees made its debut on Kickstarter. At the time, it was a construction kit that enabled Makers of all ages to create toys by simply connecting drinking straws and pieces of cardboard together. Now a year later, a spinoff project has emerged. The team behind the aptly named Quirkbot is working together with Strawbees to explore a whole new world of robotic creatures.

Using the new DIY platform, young Makers will have the ability to build and program quirky robots, blinking outfits and weird sounding “Qreatures” out of ordinary drinking straws, LEDs and hobby servo motors. Quirkbot itself is based on an ATmega32U4 MCU with an Arduino-compatible bootloader that can be made part of a Strawbees creation without any soldering or breadboarding.

The open-source, hackable tool allows Makers to easily program the bot directly from its website via USB. Quirkbot’s unique drag-and-drop components also enable users to connect and upload their toys with just a click of the mouse.

“Any child or grownup can do it. Let your creations express themselves and interact with their environment through sound, light and motion. Standalone or connected to computers, tablets or musical instruments. You’ll quickly see the potential in learning how to program something physical — the magic of connecting online and offline worlds,” the team shares.

At its most basic level, Quirkbot kits include dual-color LEDs, light sensors, a servo and backpack, as well as a USB cable. Meanwhile, more advanced users can obtain backpack extension sets that feature distance and sound sensors, along with speakers and MIDI capabilities. Adding these components to a project are done through what the team calls “squeeze on electronics.” Just like it sounds, Makers effortlessly squeeze the parts onto the toy’s legs using ordinary drinking straws. So, whether it’s devising a bot that hulas, sweeps, crawls, or rocks out, Makers are only limited by their own imagination.

“The Quirkbot has two ways of doing touch sensing already built-in to make almost anything into an interface. Loop touching for bigger things with water in them like humans and other fruits and capacitive sensing for metallic things. When plugged to a computer, the Quirkbot can work like a keyboard or mouse input. This makes it very easy to program the Quirkbot into a controller for any game or application,” its creators add. “The Quirkbot can also act as a MIDI-device, so it can play with music programs and you can even use it with an iPad.”

Interested in making your own robots with drinking straws? Learn more about and back Quirkbot on its official Kickstarter page, where the team is currently seeking $55,000. If all goes to plan, the first batch of shipments is slated for August 2015.