Defend your personal space with this wearable device

---

Maker builds an over-sized, electro-mechanical backpack with a shoulder-mounted, self-firing Super Soaker. 

---

Don’t you hate when people invade your personal space and get up in your business? What better way to send a message than by squirting them with a water gun? However, having to manually target people with your soaker of choice can be a tedious task, especially if there is an entire army of time-wasting, close-talking friends or colleagues approaching you. Luckily, there’s an automated solution that will do the trick. Introducing the Personal Space Defense System (PSDS). 

The brainchild of DJ from Instructables, the system is described as an “over-sized, electro-mechanical backpack with a shoulder-mounted, self-firing water gun.” While this isn’t the first robotic buffer zone defender, it’s perhaps one of the coolest — and most applicable nevertheless. (Anouk Wipprecht’s Spider Dress is still pretty sweet, too!)

How it works is pretty straightforward: If someone encroaches upon your personal space, an embedded sensor pendant will detect the invader and the Super Soaker Electro Storm will blast a few shots of water towards them.

Aside from the stripped-down water gun, the Maker employed several electronic components to make the project a reality. These included an Arduino Micro (ATmega32U4), an IR distance sensor, a PIR motion sensor, a laser diode, a power switch, an illuminated switch, a 2200mAh 7.4V LiPo battery, a voltage regulator, a MOSFET, a bunch of resistors, a transistor and a capacitor, as well as a number of other off-the-shelf supplies.

The PSDS is comprised of three main parts: a shoulder-mounted water gun, a sensor-laden necklace and a trigger mechanism. As AJ explains, pressing the power button activates system while pushing the trigger button will toggle between armed and disarmed modes. Once the system is armed, the gun will flip up and the attached laser diode will power on.

What’s more, he removed the original case of the Super Soaker to reduce the weight and allow for easy direct electrical control. This enabled him to wedge the water gun and reservoir into a channel bracket and actuate it by a geared servo.

“For ease of mounting and added comfort, I designed the system to be mounted to a regular backpack. The pack provides a sturdy mounting point for the main tube and proto-board for the electronics,” AJ adds. “The gun assembly is a bit hefty, so to balance out its inherently wobbly nature, I created a counterweight that has a mount for a camera. I ended up attaching a GoPro.” (This will surely capture some hilarious clips!)

The program running the PSDS is a basic Arduino sketch, which the Maker has made available, along with the Bounce library that will need to be installed. Those wishing to build a personal space defending wearable of their own can head over to AJ’s Instructables page, where you’ll find a detailed breakdown of the project.

This wearable device gives you an extra sense for better orientation

---

Inspired by birds, TheSixthSense is an ankle device that gives wearers a better sense of direction. 

---

Release a homing pigeon thousands of miles from home, and it’ll find its way back using its innate ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field. Following the same principles, Maker Sebastian Foerster has developed what he calls “an extra sense for a better orientation.”

Initially inspired by his father’s balance disorder, TheSixthSense is an ankle-worn device that uses vibration motors to help guide a wearer in the right direction. Ideally, a gadget like this could one day prove to be invaluable for the visually-impaired, for those with a lack of orientation and in environments where there is limited visibility.

The wearable itself is comprised of a small, two-layer circuit board featuring an ATxmega32E5 at its core, along with an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a LiPo charger, a 2.5V LDO regulator and some MOSFETs to drive the set of vibration motors. TheSixthSense is also equipped with a 700 mAh LiPo battery, which boasts a life of about 30 hours before needing to be recharged. To program the system, Foerster employed Atmel Studio and the Atmel Software Library.

TheSixthSense must be calibrated before wearing. Once completed, the program is ready for magnetometer readings. Simply push its small button and turn the PCB around the different axis; push again and the calibration data is written to the EEPROM section. Beyond that, an accelerometer is used to make a tilt compensated compass, which means the exact position of the PCB on the anklet doesn’t matter all that much.

“However, the inconstant movement speed of the foot is a problem. When you walk the ground vector is moving with the acceleration of your feed. Since the acceleration is raising and falling in one step an additional filter is required to determine the true ground vector,” the Maker explains.

Once the magnetometer output is read, the two vectors can be used to calculate the angle to magnetic north. Afterwards, the correct motors are activated and set to the desired intensity.

“For my first test, I used four motors. As it turns out, four motors don’t work well enough when it comes to exact positioning. The shin isn’t sensitive enough to detect the small differences between two vibration sources. The solution for my second prototype is to use eight motors,” he adds.

“At the time, TheSixthSense works well and it is rather comfortable. I have been wearing it for three days during my time in the office and nobody could hear the vibration,” Foerster writes. “Nevertheless, in a noise free environment, it is loud enough to be heard by other people in the same room. It can be easily washed since all of the electronic parts can be taken out of the belt.”

Looking ahead, the Maker hopes to improve its filter, test adaptive vibration time, create a case for the circuit board and battery, as well as integrate Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity. More on TheSixthSense, which is currently a semi-finalist in this year’s Hackaday Prize, can be found on its project page here.

This smart camera forces you to take unique photos

---

Camera Restricta is a camera that locates itself via GPS and searches online for photos that have been geotagged nearby.

---

Let’s face it, there’s nothing worse than trying to navigate the streets of a city or make your way through a popular attraction filled with tourists snapping pictures. Not to mention, a simple Google search will reveal that the same monuments and landmarks are often photographed multiple times.

That’s why Philipp Schmitt has developed a new type of ‘smart’ camera that determines its location via GPS and then combs through online photos that have been geotagged in the same place. If the aptly named Camera Restricta decides that too many images have been taken at your location, it retracts the shutter and blocks the viewfinder, disabling you from taking any more pictures there. Ideally, this project will inspire you to venture off from the well-beaten path and capture some unique shots.

Not only a criticism of modern-day photography, the project was designed as a censorship tool for “disobedient objects.” Camera Restricta offers feedback in two ways. The back of the device will physically display both how many pictures have been taken in a location and whether photos are “allowed.” Aside from that, the clever smartphone case translates the data into acoustic feedback that’s reminiscent of a Geiger counter. But instead of warning against radioactivity, each clicking noise represents how many photos are detected nearby. The more you hear, the less likely you’ll be able to take a picture in that ‘touristy’ spot.

“The European Parliament recently voted against a controversial proposal that threatened to restrict the photography of copyrighted buildings and sculptures from public places. The camera could be funded or subsidized by public and private sector institutions with an interest in regulating photography in certain places. It’s censorship that doesn’t happen after, but before a picture was taken,” Schmitt explains.

The camera is comprised a 3D-printed camera body that houses a smartphone and a few electronic components, all controlled by an ATTiny85 that moves the shutter. Additionally, the phone itself provides the GPS and data connection, generates the static sounds and doubles as the display revealing a ‘yes’ or ’no’ (‘nein’) when deciding to take a pic.

The phone runs a web app that queries a Node.js server that Schmitt built to browse Flickr and Panoramio photos within a 115-foot radius. Based on its findings, the app synthesizes the camera sound in real-time using the Web Audio API. If the number is above a certain threshold, a photo cell mounted in front of the screen picks up a signal and transmits it to the ATtiny85 which then retracts the shutter.

“The project is not only a piece about censorship in a policital sense, but also questions our photographic practice. With digital photography displacing film, taking pictures has essentially become free, resulting in an infinite stream of imagery,” the Maker concludes. “Camera Restricta introduces new limitations to prevent an overflow of digital imagery. As a byproduct, these limitations also bring about new sensations like the thrill of being the first or last person to photograph a certain place.”

Intrigued? Head over to the project’s official page, and be sure to catch it in action below!

Sort your Skittles with this 3D-printed, Arduino-powered machine

---

Sort the rainbow! 

---

Not a fan of yellow Skittles? Only enjoy the purple ones? Why waste your time sorting through the candy when there’s an automated machine that can do it for you?

That’s exactly what Nathan Peterson has done. The Maker has created a 3D-printed device that can detect the color of each Skittle and then spit them out in different repositories for easy picking. Powered by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), the sorting machine uses a Zitrades color-sensing module to identify the various shades of candy as they make their way through the dispenser.

Beyond that, the project consists of photo interrupters, three DC motors, a photo resistor and an Adafruit motor shield. Peterson employed a small LED to illuminate the Skittle and accurately read its color. From there, the gears rotate, the sorter begins to move, and the candy is released into its respective bin.

While it works for Skittles, the mechanism isn’t quite suitable for M&M’s, though. The reason? “Because M&Ms are a bit smaller and get jammed easier. Also M&Ms have six colors, and this machine is only designed to sort five,” the Maker reveals.

Peterson details the entire process, along with some thoughts on what would have worked better, on his Hackaday.io page here. In the meantime, watch it in action below!

Sense HAT is an add-on board for the Raspberry Pi

---

This Raspberry Pi HAT features an 8×8 RGB LED matrix, a five-button joystick and a number of sensors. 

---

The Sense HAT is a sensor-laden, add-on board for the Raspberry Pi that will soon be headed into space as part of the Astro Pi mission.

For those familiar with the initiative, Astro Pi is a collaboration between Raspberry Pi, British astronaut Tim Peake, UK Space and the European Space Agency that was formed to offer students a chance to devise their own experiments and run them in space. In December, a pair of RPi computers will be connected to a new Astro Pi board and sent to the International Space Station. During the mission, the astronaut will deploy the units in a variety of locations onboard the ISS, load up the winning codes while in orbit, set them running, collect the data generated and then download this to Earth where it will be distributed.

As for the Sense HAT, the board is packed with a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a temperature sensor, a barometric pressure sensor and a humidity sensor, as well as a five-button joystick and an 8×8 RGB LED matrix — all powered by an LED driver chip and an ATTiny88 MCU running custom firmware. By attaching the board to your Pi’s GPIO pins, Makers can use the integrated circuit-based sensors for any number of experiments, apps and games. Raspberry Pi has also devised a Python library for easy access to everything on the HAT.

“The Sense HAT was originally developed around James Adams’ idea to make a cool toy-style board that showed off just how much you could do with your average modern MEMS gyroscope, 64 RGB LEDs and some Atmel microcontroller hackery,” the team writes. “Somewhere between prototype and production, it seems to have attracted extra features like a pressure sensor, a humidity/temperature sensor and a teeny joystick.”

The LED matrix will provide a feedback mechanism and enhanced interactivity for astronaut Tim Peake when he’s tasked with deploying the Astro Pi board on the ISS. One of the winning entries – Reaction Games – has even programmed a whole suite of joypad-operated games played via the LED matrix. According to the Raspberry Pi crew, Snake is hilarious on an 8×8 screen!

“The Atmel [MCU] is responsible for sampling the joystick. We didn’t have enough pins left on the Atmel to dedicate the five that we needed to sample the joystick axes independently, so they’ve been spliced into the LED matrix row selects. The joystick gets updated at approximately 80Hz, which is the scan rate of the LED matrix,” its creators explain. “All of the sensors (and the base firmware for the Atmel) are accessible from the Pi over I2C. As a fun bonus mode, the SPI peripheral on the Atmel has been hooked up to the Pi’s SPI interface – you can reprogram your HAT in the field!”

Intrigued? Head over to the Raspberry Pi blog, where you will find an elaborate log of the Astro Pi mission.

VGADuino is an Arduino VGA graphic shield

---

This small graphic card shield lets you connect your Arduino boards to any kind of TV or monitor with RGB or AV ports. 

---

If you’re like Masih Vahida, the thought of having a large color display connected to your Arduino to show values, text and other information on the screen has certainly passed through your mind. With hopes of making this a reality for developers and hobbyists alike, the electronics engineer has created what he calls VGADuino. It’s a small graphic card shield that enables you to expand your Arduino project to any TV and monitor with RGB or AV ports. 

The shield fits nicely on an Uno (ATmega328) and is compatible with the Arduino IDE as well as any Arduino boards using pins VCC, GND, RX and TX. Moreover, it offers Arduino VGA (DB15) and AV composite ports to link to the display.

“The screen resolution is 640×480 VGA. It has 17 text lines and one text scrolling line. Each line can show up to 27 characters and the scroller line can show up to 60 characters,” Vahida explains.

“You can change the colors from your code and easily can show your text where ever you want on screen. The device support standard ASCII codes for English, Persian and Arabic fonts.”

Interested? Head over to its official Kickstarter campaign, where Vahida has already surpassed his $1,000 goal. With a price tag of only $29, the units are expected to begin shipping in October 2015.

Parse for IoT launches four new SDKs

---

Parse for IoT has expanded its SDK lineup with four new kits built with Atmel and other industry leaders.

---

The Internet of Things is one of the most exciting new platforms for app development, especially as more and more people interact with connected devices every day. But it also poses a host of challenges for developers, as they must wrestle with the complex task of maintaining a backend with a whole new set of constraints. Many IoT devices also need to be personalized and paired with a mobile companion app. Cognizant of this, the Parse team is striving to make it simpler.

At F8 this year, Parse for IoT was announced — an official new line of SDKs for connected devices, starting with an SDK targeted for the Arduino Yún (ATmega32U4). Now, Parse has shared that they are expanding their lineup with four new SDKs built with Atmel, Broadcom, Intel and TI. This will make it easier than ever to use Parse with more types of hardware and a broader range of connected devices. For example, you can build an app for the Atmel | SMART SAM D21 and WINC1500 — and connect it to the Parse cloud in minutes, with nothing more than a few lines of code.

“We’ve been excited to see the creative and innovative things our developer community has built since we first launched Parse for IoT at F8. Already, hundreds of apps for connected devices have been created with the new SDKs,” explains Parse software engineer Damian Kowalewski. “Our tools have been used to build exciting and diverse products like a farm-to-table growing system that lets farmers remotely control their equipment with an app (Freight Farms); a smart wireless HiFi system that syncs music, lighting and more (Musaic); and even a smart BBQ smoker that can sense when meat is perfectly done (Trignis). Here at Parse, we had fun building a connected car and a one-click order button. And we’ve heard that our SDKs are even being used as teaching tools in several college courses.”

As to what’s ahead, this lies in the hands and minds of Makers. From a garage hacker’s weekend project to a production-ready connected product, manufactured at scale — Parse can power them all. Ready to get started? You can download the new SDKs and access QuickStart guides here.

Tunell Monitor stops filament feeding problems

---

This upgrade can save prints that would otherwise be lost to a filament jam, tangle or empty spool.

---

We’ve all been there — you’re just about to finish 3D printing an object and the machine runs out of filament; your filament gets stuck because the spool was loaded incorrectly; or your hot-end gets jammed due to accumulation in the nozzles. When these problems occur, the job is usually lost due to air-prints.

Looking to put an end to such scenarios, the ToyBuilder Labs crew and Aaron Tunell have developed what they call the Tunell 3D Printer Filament Monitor. This device will spot a filament feeding problem right as it happens and pause the machine so that you can fix it immediately, instead of having to throw a partial print away. For long-running prints, this indispensable add-on will pay for itself in no time.

The Tunell Monitor uses a mechanical 24 PPR (positions-per-revolution) encoder to detect filament travel as you print. If the filament stops moving for longer than the (adjustable) timeout period, a fault signal is sent to your printer.

Beyond that, the device features a connection point for an external pause button and an alarm/relay/signaling LED, as well as FlashForge Creator, Wanhao Duplicator, and MakerBot Replicator with a four-pin latching cable. Powered by an ATmega168 MCU, the Tunell Monitor is Arduino programmable via an ISP hardware programmer, like the AVRISP mkII. It is compatible with a number of MakerBot printers running the Sailfish firmware upgrade, in addition to Marlin-based units with an available end-stop and expansion I/O pin, and other printer controllers that support external pause signaling.

Tired of wasted print jobs? Check out the Tunell Monitor on ToyBuilder Lab’s official site here.

Tell time (and more) on this open source, Bluetooth-enabled watch

---

WatchDuino2 is an inexpensive, ATmega328 based smartwatch for Makers.  

---

Last year, Mar Bartolome created an inexpensive, open source wristwatch based on Arduino. The aptly named WatchDuino consisted of an ATmega328, a crystal oscillator, a Nokia LCD screen and a LiPo battery with a life of about a week. As you would expect, the ultimate Maker device displayed the date and time in both analog or digital formats, and came preprogrammed with two all-time classic games, Pong and Snake.

And guess what time it is? Time for the next iteration of the popular gadget! WatchDuino2 boasts a new and improved design that Bartolome built entirely from scratch, taking some of its predecessor’s best attributes (such as its Arduino Pro Mini core) and combining them with enhanced features, namely Bluetooth. Equipped with a BLE module, the watch can now wirelessly communicate with an Android phone, allowing it to rival the likes of other commercial gadgetry.

Thanks to its pairing capabilities, the WatchDuino2 can share phone notifications (SMS, emails, calls and appointment reminders), access Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, as well as receive weather and mass transit alerts. Aside from that, users can even send battery status updates from their watch to the phone and visualize this information in graph form.

“The trick is that all of these apps also require an Android component in the WatchDuino Android companion app, doing all the heavy lifting and simply passing WatchDuino the results to display, via Bluetooth,” Bartolome explains.

Additionally, the WatchDuino2 boasts a much better user interface than its older sibling with a 128 x 64-pixel display. Much like any cellphone, a status bar sits at the top of the screen while contextual symbols located on all four corners indicate the purpose of each corresponding button on the side of its case. These functions change, of course, depending on which application a wearer is using.

“For instance, in the main menu you can move left and right, enter or exit,” the Maker writes. “On the Twitter app, you can request a reload, or navigate between tweets.”

Unlike the first version of the timepiece, the Maker 3D printed a modular strap to house the electronic components — the Arduino, battery, LiPo charger and buzzer/vibrator — within each of its links. This left only the screen and buttons enclosed inside the actual watch case.

As any Maker would say, there’s still plenty of work to be done and revisions to be made. Among those on Bartolome’s list include refining the code and app framework, reducing its form factor and improving its battery life. At the moment, WatchDuino2 can run for about 18 hours after a 20-minute charge.

Think it’s time for an easy-to-build, Arduino-based watch of your own? Head over to the project’s page to get started. WatchDuino2 has also been named a semi-finalist in this year’s Hackaday Prize.

This 3D-printed wearable is part wristwatch, part breathalyzer

---

Maker designs a wearable device that lets you know the time and if you’ve had too much to drink.

---

While it may need some refining before you ever wear it for a night out on the town, this recent wristwatch from mechanical engineer David Ng is pretty cool nevertheless. Admittedly, seeing it takes up nearly five inches of real estate along your lower arm, the device is more of a gauntlet than a bracelet.

The watch is comprised of a seven segment LED display, a three-axis motion sensor, an alcohol sensor, a real-time clock module and an Arduino as its brain. Powered by a USB power bank, the electronics are all housed inside a 3D-printed case and band.

The display is controlled by the motion sensor, which triggers the lights on as he lifts up his arm to read the time. When his arm returns to the resting position, it automatically switches off. Not only can a wearer use the device to check the time as it gets late, but can do a quick breath check before leaving a bar or party to ensure that they are in okay shape to drive home. If the alcohol content in their breath is a wee too strong, an alarm will sound alerting them that it may be best to summon a taxi or Uber ride.