1:1 Interview with Mel Li (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1 …)

TV:  Tell me about the Lab on a Chip?

ML: The lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single chip of only millimeters to a few square centimeters in size. LOCs deal with the handling of extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico liters. The notion of the “Lab-on-a-Chip” generally indicates the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, primarily dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis.  My previous work examined the design and validation of a LOC for screening blood samples to determine optimal personalized drugs and their respective dosages for specific patients to prevent heart attacks. A lot of those techniques were first inspired by the fact that tools requiring the examination, characterization and integration of the sophisticated hardware controls are made available.

TV: Describe your post doctorate work and bio medical engineering?

ML: I worked on research projects that are helping us to better understand and detect early heart disease.  My current research work involves measurements for fluid migration over surfaces then discussing those applications for medical diagnostics. My works also involve motor control for fluorescence microscopy for applications in life sciences.  This work involves spectrum study of fluorescent DNA or proteins. This graduate work is related to the building and diagnostic device which can measure at microscale, pinpoint dosage of drugs to show visibility of early signs of heart disease. The medical application revolves around a low cost infectious disease as well as looking at tuberculosis and malaria. The idea is to provide a breakthrough in what typically required extensive cost, lots of lab work and long examination to be replaced with a low cost and easily administered solution. The application is very similar to taking a sample of mucous or saliva; this is sort of like a pregnancy test. We collaborate with large industrial partners such as GE Healthcare and hopefully we’ll be able to produce a commercially viable product in time.

TV:  How are AVR Microcontrollers being used with the Arduino in your cosplay costume

ML: I use the ATmega168 (via the development and application of the Arduino Duemilanove board) for this costume. The microcontroller is used to control the color, power and timing of the lights on the costume through shift registers. The cosplay costume using this controller chip is the one pictured here.

I also use the ATmega328 (via the Arduino Uno/Uno R3 board) for the lab projects previously described.  Specific tasks for the controller include driving the position and timing of a servo motor and/or linear actuator, as well as switching power on and off from an AC wall socket to a high powered, wide spectrum LED light source. Additionally, it was also used in a costume where it again controlled color, power and timing of LED’s, but these were driven using normal (non shift register) PWM signal controls. My costume using this controller chip is pictured here:

Figure 6: Photos by Mike Vickers

This is the ATmega32uF (via the Arduino Micro board) for my current project (in progress) that will be used for motor control.

 

* Mel’s costume is an original design inspired by a wide range of cyberpunk/fantasy artists including Masumune Shirow, Eric Canete, Joe Benitez and various modern gaming concept art. According to Mel, the process was a lot of fun and took approximately three months of on-and-off planning and building. The assembly is made from over 60 parts designed in Solidworks and sewn/cut/glued/laser-cut/heat-formed using various techniques. The costume includes color changing LEDs on the spine and front that are controlled by Arduino boards with Atmel AVR and ARM microcontrollers and onboard RGB controllers (respectively). The costume is powered by 16 AA batteries, 1 LiPo rechargeable battery, two 2032 coin cells and one 9-volt battery. In total, there are more than 70 LED’s on the entire costume and over 60 parts.

** Part one of this interview can be read here.

 

DIY quadcopter adoption takes off with Arduino

Analysts at IDTechEx recently reported that the starting point for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is rarely military or law enforcement. Rather, it lies at the other extreme – with DIY hobbyists and Makers.

HobbyKing LCD flight board, powered by Atmel’s ATmega644PA MCU

“As the sophisticated sensor systems in mobile phones migrate to hobbyists’ microcontroller boards, such as [Atmel-based] Arduino boards used in their homemade quadcopters, their uses rapidly widen,” an IDTechEx explained.

Self-learning ‘copter, powered by Atmel’s ATmega644 MCU
 (Cornell University)
.

“Professional quadcopters will also profit from the fact that over one million Arduino boards have been sold in a very short time to quadcopter hobbyists and the designers of wearable technology and Internet of Things (IoT) nodes.”

According to the analyst, equivalent boards sold directly out of China are also getting useful volume headed towards billions each year for IoT, driving down quadcopter costs.

“The last six months has seen many new applications for pure-electric quadcopters. [For example], Amazon proposed delivery of mail by quadcopter, others will use them for aircraft inspection, even indoors and yet others have new agricultural uses,” the analyst continued.

Peter Christian, a geographical information science graduate student, stands with the hexacopter being used to survey California landscapes. The hexacopter is a cheaper and safer way to get photos of California. Photo by Gavin McIntyre / Xpress

“[Meanwhile], easyJet, one of UK’s largest airlines, works with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory to make variants that inspect its 220 airliners. These quadcopters will be programmed to scan and assess easyJet’s planes, reporting back to engineers on any damage which may require further inspection or maintenance work.”

Hex ‘copter, powered by Atmel’s ATMega32u4 MCU.

Last, but certainly not least, the analyst noted that professional quadcopters cost many times the price of toy versions – so they may one day become the bigger market and certainly the most profitable and many will form part of the Internet of Things.

“Advanced military capabilities such as intelligent swarming of small electric craft will also migrate to the civilian sector,” the rep added.

ATmega8 MCU goes guitar pickup winding

Davide Gironi has created a DIY guitar pickup winding machine powered by Atmel’s ATmega8 microcontroller (MCU), a 12V (1200rpm) DC motor and a L298N chip board.

Key features include a wind counter, slow startup, automatic stop, configurable motor speed and configurable winds. 

The unit’s winder is also equipped with an LCD display that shows current motor direction, rotating speed of the pickup and the total, current wind counter.

According to Gironi, users can configure:

• Motor direction – clockwise, or anti-clockwise
• Direction of the wind counter to increase – clockwise, or anti-clockwise
• Motor max speed – from 1(min) to 100 (max)
• Motor startup acceleration – from 1(min) to 100 (max)
• Numbers of wind – from 1(min) to 99999 (max)
• Auto stop mode – manual mode, or stop when all winds are done

“There are three buttons, SELECT, button UP and DOWN. To enter the programming mode, just long press SELECT button. Press SELECT once to change the programming parameter, button UP and DOWN to edit the selected value, then long press SELECT again to save new values,” Gironi explained in a recent blog post.

“If you are in building mode, to make the wind start press the RUN pedal, it will start with a slow startup, to stop the winder release the RUN pedal. The winding machine will automatically stops when the wind counter reach the configured number – and it can goes less than zero. If you disable the autostop mode, the machine will always count wind, independently by the direction chosen.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out the project’s official page here.

Capacitive sensing with ancient keyboards

The Model M keyboard is a designation for a group of computer keyboards manufactured by IBM, Lexmark, Unicomp and MaxiSwitch, starting in 1984.

According to Wikipedia, the many variations of the keyboard have their own distinct characteristics, with the vast majority boasting a buckling spring key design and many having fully swappable keycaps.

As the venerable M keyboards are understandably ancient, there really is no easy method of connecting the device to a modern system. This unfortunate fact prompted a modder by the name of xwhatsit to ultimately build his own controller.

According to Hackaday’s Brian Benchoff, the beam spring keyboards use capacitive switches.

“With 122 keys, the usual method of reading capacitance – putting a capacitor in an oscillator – would be far too slow to be of any use in a keyboard. There is another method of reading capacitance: measuring the current going through the capacitive switch. This can easily be accomplished with an LM339 comparator,” he explained.

“xwhatsit‘s keyboard controller uses this capacitive sensing circuit to read the four rows of keys, with a few shift registers taking care of the columns. Atmel’s ATMega32u2 MCU is the brains of the outfit, running LUFA to translate the key presses to USB.”

Interested in learning more? Well, you’re in luck, because xwhatsit is selling Atmel based controllers for the Model M as well as the Model F using the same basic circuit.

Barobot is an Atmel-based cocktail mixing robot

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.

“Barobots frame – made of either deep black or transparent acrylic glass, comes in either a self assembly kit or an assembled ‘plug and pour’ version,” a Barobot rep explained in its recent Kickstarter post.

“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)
• Setting light themes generating new light themes
• Calibrating all aspects of Barobot operation

Interested in learning more? You can check out Barobot’s official website here.

HackADay talks Arduino Zero with Atmel’s Bob Martin

On May 15, Arduino and Atmel debuted the long-awaited Zero. The 32-bit development board packs Atmel’s versatile SAMD21 microcontroller (MCU), which is built around ARM’s Cortex M0+ core.

Key hardware specs include 256kb of flash, 32kb SRAM in a TQFP package and compatibility with 3.3V shields that conform to the Arduino R3 layout.

 The Arduino Zero board also boasts flexible peripherals along with Atmel’s Embedded Debugger (EDBG) – facilitating a full debug interface on the SAMD21 without the need for supplemental hardware.

In addition, EDBG supports a virtual COM port that can be used for device programming and traditional Arduino bootloader functionality.

During Maker Faire Bay Area 2014, the HackADay crew had the opportunity to go hands on with the new board, discussing the Zero with Atmel’s very own Bob Martin.

“There are two USB connectors; one let you access the board as a device or a host while the other connects the debugging hardware. If you’ve never used an On Chip Debugger before it’ll change your life so do give it a try,” writes HackADay’s Mike Szczys.

“When you do move past the initial prototyping phase of your project you can still use the Zero as a debugging tool. There’s an unpopulated 10-pin header (not sure if the small pitch header comes with it or not) which can be used to interface with a target board. Bob also spent some time talking about the configurable 6-pin header which allows you to choose from a range of hardware protocols (SPI, TWI, etc.)”

Interested in learning more about the Atmel-powered Arduino Zero? You can check out the development board’s official page here.

BlueMatrix: An Arduino-based LED matrix display

Designed by Dentella Luca, BlueMatrix can be controlled remotely via a PC, smartphone or tablet.

Key project components include:

• An Atmel-based Arduino Uno (ATmega328 MCU)
• 
LED matrix display based on the HC1632C controller
• 
Lipo Rider
• 
Lipo Fuel Gauge
• 
HC-05 Bluetooth module
• 5mm plexiglas enclosure

The modules are connected as follows:

“The Arduino Uno is the heart of the project, [as] it manages the display, checks the battery status and talks (using a simple protocol) with the controlling device (Windows application or Android app),” Luca explained in a recent blog post.

“The BlueMatrix is powered by a Li-po battery (1 cell). The battery’s state of charge is monitored by Lipo Fuel Gauge, which sends the actual SoC (State of Charge) value to Arduino via I2C bus. The Lipo Rider module rises the battery voltage to 5V to power all the other modules and allows it to recharge the battery using a simple, mini-USB power supply.”

Meanwhile, the HC-05 module is tasked with managing Bluetooth connectivity.

“After having established the connection with the remote device, it transparently transport the data received/transmitted by Arduino via serial connection,” said Luca.

On the software side, Luca developed two applications to control BlueMatrix: a .Net application (developed in C#) and an Android app.

“BlueMatrix was designed to be portable, therefore I suppose that it will be mostly controlled using a smartphone; this is the reason why the Android app is better designed than the desktop one and it’s also available on Google’s Play Store,” he added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the official BlueMatrix project page here and download the Arduino sketch on GitHub here.

Lil’Bot is the little robot that could

Created by Chris Hakim, Lil’Bot is a low-cost, open-source balancing robot powered by Atmel’s popular ATmega328 microcontroller.

Aside from Atmel’s MCU, key features and specs include:

• Arduino Uno compatible, programmable via USB (Linux, OS X, Windows).
• Front, right and left obstacle detection using IR LEDs.
• Edge detection facilitated by an IR LED.
• Buzzer plays musical tones and astromech droid sounds.
• Wheel encoders for precise odometry-based control.
• Open-source hardware and software.
• Works with standard Arduino shields.

“About half of the memory and three quarters of the processing power are available after the balancing code and all the rest have taken their share,” Hakim explained in a recent Kickstarter post.

“[There is also] an optional shield that allows Lil’Bot to express its emotions through an emoticon-like LED display. Expressions [include] afraid, amused, angry, blissful, cool, crying, disappointed, embarrassed, happy, impatient, naughty, neutral, nonplussed, outraged, proud, resigned, sad, sarcastic, shocked, smiling and very sad.”

On the software side, Hakim utilizes Lil’Blocks, a block-based programming language based on Fred Lin’s BlocklyDuino, a dialect of Neil Fraser’s Blockly for Arduino.

“Blockly is the Hour of Code’s choice language to introduce children to programming. For the younger child, block programming is little more than assembling Lego bricks, yet allows a firm grasp of basic programming concepts,” he adds.

“Lil’Blocks translates all the block code to Arduino C, ready to compile and load into Lil’Bot from the Arduino environment.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out the official Lil’Bot Kickstarter page here.

Catching drops of water with an ATmega48P

Drops of water are often captured in perfectly timed photographs with the help of an optointerrupter, light source and air gap flash.

As HackADay’s James Hobson notes, this configuration is typically expensive or difficult to put together.

Fortunately, a Maker by the name of Michal has come up with a viable alternative using an array of LEDs to illuminate the drops.

“He [uses] a IR diode, a photo-resistor, a few spacers, some plastic and a bunch of hot glue to make up his optointerrupter. When the droplet passes through the IR beam it breaks the signal from the photo-resistor which then triggers his Atmel ATmega48P [MCU],” says Hobson.

“It waits 80 milliseconds and then turns on the LEDs for approximately 50 microseconds. Meanwhile, [the Canon] camera is watching the whole event with a shutter-speed of a few seconds.”

As Michal explains in a detailed blog post, one of the nice things about using an LED configuration is that it boasts rise and fall times considerably shorter than traditional camera flash, which lights up for approximately 1-2 milliseconds, rather than 50 microseconds.

“That’s why most of the motion-stopping photography relies on more exotic air-gap flash units,” Michal concludes.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the project’s official page here.

ATmega32u4 drives Hummingbird Duo robotics kit

BirdBrain Technologies (a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff) has debuted the Hummingbird Duo, a robotics kit powered by Atmel’s ATmega32u4 microcontroller (MCU).

“The Hummingbird Duo is essentially two boards in one,” a BirdBrain rep explained in a recent Kickstarter post.

“It operates as either an original Hummingbird controller or as an Arduino Leonardo with an integrated motor/servo shield and improved connectors.”

According to the BirdBrain rep, the Atmel-based Duo controller will be the core of all new Hummingbird kits, with a second Atmel chip, an Attiny24A, tasked with controlling motors and servos.

“The kits will include various additional components as well: motors, servos, vibration motors, LEDs and sensors,” the rep continued.

“All kit components are soldered with 24′ braided wires and terminate in bare, tinned wire to prevent wire fraying. Securely connecting them to the Duo controller is easy due to Duo’s clear labels and spring-loaded terminal blocks.”

On the software side, Hummingbird supports a wide range of programming environments, including CREATE Lab Visual Programmer, Scratch 2.0, Snap! and the official Arduino IDE. More advanced Makers can also write their own firmware with AVR’s GCC.

Interested in learning more about the Atmel-powered Hummingbird Duo? You can check out the project’s official Kickstarter page here.