Build your own 3D-printed Halo energy sword

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This Halo replica features Bluetooth-controlled NeoPixels.

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If you’re a fan of Halo, at some point you’ve probably thought that having an energy sword would be a good idea. For better or worse, you can’t obtain one of these weapons (yet), but the Ruiz Brothers at Adafruit have come up with the next best thing: a 3D-printed replica that uses programmable LED strips to make it glow.

These strips are controlled by an Adafruit Feather 32U4 Bluefruit LE (ATmega32U4), enabling them to be programmed for excellent effects, like changing colors and powering on the lights in a sort of slow powerup pattern. Since this Feather has Bluetooth capability, the sword can even be controlled with a smartphone with no physical access to the board.

Besides Bluetooth, another neat feature of the Feather is that it has a battery charging circuit built-in. This allows the sword’s 2000mAh lithium-ion battery to be charged without adding any additional hardware. A switch is, however, added to turn the unit off when the owner isn’t busy pretending to pwn noobz with it.

The blades are printed with transparent PLA, and the sword, including the handle, is made in 20 sections attached together with super glue. Despite its 34-inch blade, it impressively weighs under one pound.

If this all seems a little familiar, you might recall either of the Ruiz brothers’ Daft Punk helmet builds — you can find more info on Thomas’ helmet replica here.

This giant LED thermometer scarf shows the temp outside

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With this scarf, you’ll never have to wonder how cold it is when you step outside.

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Winter is well underway in some parts of the country, and if you have to head out into the frigid air, you’ll probably want a comfy scarf around your neck. But what about an accessory that not only keeps you warm, but looks and functions as a giant thermometer as well? That’s exactly what Instructables user “caitlinsdad” has created using an Adafruit FLORA (ATmega32U4), humidity and temperature sensor modules to detect the weather conditions, a NeoPixel ring for the bulb, and an LED strip to reveal the temp in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.

This may be the techiest Christmas sweater ever

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Be the talk of your next holiday party with this epic sweater.

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Got an old, ugly sweater hanging in your closet? Or just an old one in general? Well, now you can breathe new life into the out-of-date garment with the help of a few MCUs and LEDs.

That’s exactly what UK-based Makerspace fizzPOP along with electronics retailer Maplin has done. The wearable — which they’re calling the “techiest Christmas jumper ever” — is equipped with an Adafruit FLORA (ATmega32U4), an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560), four 8×8 LED matrices, as well a bunch of NeoPixels and NeoPixel Minis. It also features a portable 10,000mAh power bank and a pair of electret microphone amplifiers so it can react to those Yuletide jingles.

As you can see in the video below, the RGB matrices allow for some pretty cool graphics to come across the front of the sweater, including a tree, snow, a bird and even some text for the ultimate holiday greeting. And who’s to say that it has to stop at Christmas? With a bit of programming, you can transform your boring pullover or turtleneck into an epic New Year or Hanukah outfit.

Want one of your own? You’re in luck because fizzPOP has put together a nice little tutorial video. If you loved this, then you may want to check out Adafruit’s recent NeoPixel Matrix Snowflake Sweater, too.

This running Christmas tree is spreading holiday cheer in Tokyo

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“An Uber for illuminations.” 

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A British inventor living in Japan has decided to spread Christmas cheer in a rather unusual way this year. Dressed up as a Christmas tree, complete with flashing lights and decorations, Joseph Tame is turning more than just a couple heads throughout Tokyo’s streets, sidewalks, stores, train stations, and even in the back of its pulled rickshaws.

The aptly named Running Christmas Tree costume consists of an aluminum frame wrapped with a pair of backpacks, each stuffed with branches from two fake trees. The attention-grabbing getup — which took two months to build — is equipped with 99 batteries, 1,500 LEDs, 100 feet of wiring, nine microcontrollers (a combination of Arduino and Raspberry Pis), three onboard cameras, as well as a built-in library of 153 Christmas songs. From the looks of the video below, he is even wearing some slick Adafruit Firewalker-like kicks.

Tame says he is taking bookings for personal appearances in the suit, which he is billing as an “Uber for illuminations.”

“The tree is available on-demand via your smartphone using the links below, and from Dec 26th 2015 via our new iOS app. The tree can come to you wherever you are in the world, but please note that depending on your location it may take a bit of time to reach you; with a combined weight of 93kg (68kg of Joseph + 25kg of Tree) it is currently too heavy for delivery by drone, and is not yet available from Amazon Prime due to there only being one of him,” its creator explains.

See the costume in action below!

This DIY BB-8 will have you at beep

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Just in time for The Force Awakens, one Maker has built his own 3D-printed, remote-controlled BB-8.

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Although we’re just days away from the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s safe to say that BB-8 has already become the breakout star of the film. Since first laying eyes on the soccer ball-sized droid in the trailer, it has seemingly captured the hearts of everyone — whether a fan or not.

Instead of rushing to stores and purchasing a mini BB-8 of their own, several Makers have opted to build their own cute metallic orange ball with a beeping head. Take software engineer Jean-René Bédard, for example. His version is entirely 3D-printed, hand-painted and powered by a simple ATmega328 based, Arduino-compatible robotic platform.

The Maker designed his BB-8 in SketchUp and then spit him out using two Dremel Idea Builder 3D printers — a process that took roughly 50 hours to completed and called for over 650 feet (200 meters) of PLA filament.

Although it may not roll like the one in the Hollywood flick, Bédard’s bot can balance itself on a pair of wheels and be controlled with a basic RF remote. It is equipped with authentic sounds and several Adafruit LEDs to give it the full effect along with its orange and silver nail polish exterior. What’s more, the beeping BB-8’s head moves via a micro servo actuated by the Arduino.

This project will surely awaken your Maker forces. See for yourself below!

 

Clara is a smart lamp that helps you stay focused

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Working on a project? Cramming for an exam? This brain-sensing, environment-augmenting lamp uses EEG technology to tell how focused your are and block out distractions. 

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We’ve all been there: It’s late at night, you’re cramming for an exam when suddenly you’re interrupted by the simplest thing. How cool would it be to have a desktop accessory that could give you a kick in the right direction and increase your intensity as you try to finish your studying? Thanks to a group of Makers from the School of Visual Arts, that will soon be a reality.

The brainchild of developers Mejía Cobo, Belen Tenorio, and Josh Sucher, Clara is a brain-sensing lamp that employs EEG technology to tell how focus you are at a task at hand. Embedded with speaker and LEDs, the scene-augmenting device is capable of responding to changes in brainwaves, then reacting to your level of concentration by increasing the ambient music and shifting the light levels.

To bring this idea to fruition, the team used the combination of an Arduino Uno (ATmega328), an MP3 shield, several Adafruit NeoPixels, a SparkFun Bluetooth modem and a Neurosky MindWave Mobile EEG headset to wirelessly measure your “attention” and map the lamp’s color temperature, thereby subtly altering your environment.

As you begin homing in on a specific idea, the light will become crisper and cooler as the volume of the ambient noise emitted from the speaker slowly rises. This helps to enhance your ninja-like focus and block out other distractions.

“The basic structure of the Arduino code is straightforward. The NeoPixel strip is instantiated, then the Music Maker shield is instantiated, then we take advantage of interrupts to listen for, receive and act on Bluetooth serial data while the music is playing,” its creators reveal. “When the MindWave detects ‘activity’ (a number from 0-100 generated via some proprietary algorithm on the Neurosky chip), we initiate the ‘fade’ of the music and the light.”

Looking ahead, don’t be too surprised if you see Clara on Kickstarter in the coming months. Plus, the team hints that they may even migrate to an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) for its next iteration. Until then, check out rather unique project on its page here.

This LED map tracks the MBTA in real-time

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Maker uses an Arduino, Raspberry Pi and LEDs to create a real-time map that keeps tabs on Boston’s trains.

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Inspired by his love for making and public transit, MIT student Ian Reynolds has built an MBTA map into the wall of his fraternity room to show real-time locations of vehicles using bright LEDs.

The Maker employed a few meters of NeoPixels, driven by an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) that takes orders from a Python script running on a Raspberry Pi lying on his floor. The color of the LEDs were specially designed to match those of each transit line (e.g. red line, blue line, green line, orange line, etc.). Every 10 to 15 seconds, the system receives data via the MBTA’s API, which in turn, causes the respective lights to flash based on the trains’ approximate GPS location throughout Boston.

“It maps those to some LEDs, decides which ones actually need to be changed, and then sends that information to the Arduino, which does the bit pushing,” Reynolds explains. “In addition, I’m writing a tiny web app that lets me change visualizations and adjust the brightness for when I need to sleep.”

Intrigued? The Maker has put together an elaborate blog post that breaks down his entire project, from the hardware to the headaches. You can also get a glimpse of it all below!

Maker turns a doorstop into a game with Arduino

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Line Wobbler is an Arduino-powered, one-dimensional dungeon crawler game with a doorstop spring as its controller and an LED strip as its display.

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While we’ve seen plenty of unique video game interfaces over the years, a door-stop may certainly be among the most bizarre. Okay, so it’s not that odd as it does resemble a joystick after all. Inspired by a video of a cat playing with a doorstop, Maker Robin Baumgarten has built a one-dimensional dungeon crawler game running on an Arduino.

Developed as part of a 48-hour game jam, Line Wobbler is played using a unique Wobble controller made out of a doorstop spring placed on a rigid base and a bright LED strip display. All the movement is controlled by bending the makeshift gamepad left and right, while enemies are attacked by wobbling.

“We use a long strip of densely packed NeoPixels, which is both super bright and physically flexible,” Baumgarten writes. “Using selective brightness for specific particle effects, we evoke the retro-feeling of vector-displays. (Remember the bullets in asteroids? Very satisfying!)”

“The flexibility of the strip allows us to incorporate physical space into the game by bending and looping the display around objects and walls, and modifying in-game objects according to the strips’ orientation, breaking out of the rigid linearity that a 1D display imposes,” Baumgarten adds.

In order to transform the everyday doorstop into a joystick, the Maker employed an accelerometer that provides input to an Arduino Uno (ATmega328).

As for the game itself, the character is a green dot that a player must guide to the top of the LED strip. Along the way, it will encounter a few enemies, represented by red dots, that move at varying speeds. The player must battle these enemies by wobbling the spring. Should an avatar get too close and touch one, it will ‘die’ in a colorful explosion and will require the level to be restarted. According to the Maker, there are currently 10 levels which include everything from lava obstacles and a boss fight.

Admittedly, Baumgarten says the one-dimensional game is a bit challenging but interesting nevertheless. Since its inception, Line Wobbler has been exhibited in number of places, like the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC 2015, Burning Man 2015, London, Chicago and Oslo, and has even been the recipient of two AMAZE Awards in Berlin. Looking ahead, the Maker hopes to create more Wobble controllers and introduce multi-player concepts. Until then, you can check it out in the video below!

Maker creates a FLORA-powered, light-up necklace dress

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In her exploration of e-textiles, one N.C. State student has crafted an illuminating necklace dress powered by FLORA.

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Victoria Rind, a Maker studying textile engineering at North Carolina State University, recently devised an interactive dress with one goal in mind: to stand out. How’d she do it, you ask? Using an Adafruit FLORA and NeoPixels to light up its attached necklace.

“People want to be able to customize their style and clothing,” Rind explains. “What’s more customizable than a programmable dress?”

The idea for the dress was first conceived after witnessing other garments with built-in necklaces. Channelling her inner DIY spirit, Rind went out and bought a basic shift dress pattern and beads to create the dress, along with an FLORA (ATmega32U4) wearable MCU, four RGB NeoPixels and some conductive thread.

Once satisfied with the NeoPixels output, the Maker sewed the circuit to the dress beginning with conductive thread, and finishing it off with normal fiber to prevent a short happening in between the wiring.

“Without the extra layer of thread, the lines of conductive thread would constantly touch, and the light pattern would be glitchy and inconsistent,” Rind adds.

So what’s next for the engineering student? In five years, she aspires to bring functionality to textiles.

“I would consider my work a success if I could create clothing that adapted to changes in the environment,” she concludes.

[h/t Adafruit via N.C. State]

These movement-responsive wristbands emit real-life superhero sounds

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Bam! Pow! Zap! Boom!

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If you’ve ever read a comic book, then you’re well aware of the one thing that every superhero has in common: they all have a special power, whether it’s memory manipulation like Professor X, web-spinning and crawling like Spiderman, or x-ray vision like Superman. Unfortunately in print, a reader can’t actually experience the sound effects that coincide with these actions. Instead, they are typically spelt out inside a callout bubble. BAM! POW! ZAP! BOOM! 

Well, Makers Niki Selken and Annelie Koller thought it would be a fun idea to channel their inner superhero by creating what they call Action Bands — wristbands that emit sound and light effects as they move. In other words, these wearable devices bring those callout bubbles to life.

To accomplish this, the Maker duo used an Adafruit FLORA (ATmega32U4), an accelerometer, a piezo, conductive thread, a LiPo battery, some NeoPixels, a headband and laser-cut plexiglass icons. These icons were then attached to a store-bought headband and shaped with a sewing machine to fit the wrist.

From there, the FLORA and accelerometer were connected with conductive thread. The Makers then loaded the code to produce sounds and light effects depending on X,Y and Z coordinates and acceleration. The sounds were compiled from a library created by MIT, while the LEDs employed the Adafruit NeoPixel Library, of course.

“The hardest part was discovering the X-Y-Z access thresholds for the gestures that trigger the sound. We have three unique gesture sets that trigger three different sounds. Part of the fun is finding those gestures and discovering the sounds we programmed,” Selken explains.

Want one of your own? Grab your cape and zoom on over to the project’s page, where you can find its detailed instructions, schematics and more.