At I/O, Google Will Be Tracking Things Like Noise Level And Air Quality With Hundreds Of Arduino-Based Sensors article tells that in the blog post, Michael Manoochehri, Developer Programs Engineer, outlines his team’s plan to place hundreds of Arduino-based environmental sensors around the conference space to track things like temperature, noise levels, humidity and air quality in real-time. This was spawned due to a fascination with wanting to know which areas of the conference were the most popular.
Data Sensing Lab at Google I/O 2013: Google Cloud Platform meets the Internet of Things page has some details on the plans. According to pictures the devices on the field use XBee wireless communications modules. Google App Engine Datastore, along with Google Cloud Endpoints, provides a scalable front end API for collecting data from devices. Google Compute Engine is used to process and analyse data with software tools such as R and Hadoop.
Have you ever wondered where all those magical Arduinos come from? Tour of the Arduino Manufacturing Facility article tells that they come from Torino, Italy, and how they are built. The video below will walk you through the PCB manufacuring and assembly process.
Freeduino is a collaborative open-source project to replicate and publish Arduino-compatible hardware files. The Freeduino Eagle SCH, BRD and Gerber production files allow users to create boards that are 100% functionally, electrically and physically compatible with Arduino hardware.
10 Ways to Destroy an Arduino article tells how you can accidentally destroy Arduino board. Use a sledgehammer, fire a bullet at it, throw it into a pool….that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re going to show you how to electrically destroy your Arduino:
Method #1: Shorting I/O Pins to Ground
Method #2: Shorting I/O Pins to Each Other
Method #3: Apply Overvoltage to I/O Pins
Method #4: Apply External Vin Power Backwards
Method #5: Apply >5V to the 5V Connector Pin
Method #6: Apply >3.3V to the 3.3V Connector Pin
Method #7: Short Vin to GND
Method #8: Apply 5V External Power with Vin Load
Method #9: Apply >13V to Reset Pin
Method #10: Exceed Total Microcontroller Current
When there are problems or potential problems, there are often commercial solutions to them. 10 Ways to Destroy an Arduino article was written by makers of The Ruggeduino board. Besides telling the problems, the article gives ideas how to solve most of those problems (interesting reading).
The Ruggeduino is a ruggedized Arduino-compatible microcontroller board. It’s features include overcurrent and overvoltage protection on all I/O pins and 5V/3.3V outputs, ESD protection on all I/O pins and USB port, total microcontroller overcurrent protection, and operation at up to 24V. I have written earlier on my blog on that board at http://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/08/23/ruggeduino/.
A standard hobby RC servo motor is designed to rotate through only 180 degrees. They are most often used in RC applications (like steering). The servo motor controlling is done with servo control pulses (1-2 ms pulse at around 50 Hz rate). More details on the control signals can be found at Servo protocol web page.
If you wish to use a servo motor for a robot drive system, you want a motor that turns more than 180 degrees. Continuous Rotation Servo is an useful tool for robotics and basic movement projects.
It is possible to modify a normal RC servo motor (at least most of them) so that it will rotate through 360 degrees and beyond and in either direction. It gives you a nice geared motor which is controllable by PWM signals. Modifying Hobby Servo Motors for Continuous Rotation paper details how to make this modification on a Futaba S3003 servo motor, but the principles should work on most other hobby servos. In this modification you need to do a little bit soldering (replace potentiometer with two resistors) and some mechanical modification (remove the end stopper from servo).
I have made some playing with the idea and found that those modification principles work. I opened one Futaba S3003 servo and played with it without doing all the modifications.
The modified servo motor can be an useful tool for robotics application, because it is small and can be controlled with anything that can control normal RC servos (for example normal RC transmitter+receiver pair or for example Arduino board). This kind of modified servo motor works so that when the servo is set to neutral position (center), the motor will be stopped. When you move the position off from it, the motor starts rotating to direction controlled with the change direction. With change from central position first the motor typically start rotating slowly, and with somewhat more off the center the motor reaches the full speed.
The modified servo is not ideal controlled motor, because the exact position which is “neutral” (motor is stopped) is quite small and typically varies somewhat from servo to servo (needs tweaking to get things so what motor stops when you want). Also the speed control is not very accurate.
April Fools’ Day is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year. It is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other.
Lying is awesome way to get people fooled. Here is one idea how to avoid being fooled: use a lying detector. If you’re industrious and don’t have the dough for a legit polygraph, you can make your very own galvanic skin response (GSR) device. DIY Polygraph Machine: Detect Lies with Tin Foil, Wire and Arduino article shows you how you can build your own polygraph with Arduino board. Please note that this device is by no means foolproof.
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. The microcontroller on the Arduino board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring and C) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). This combination of tools have made it a very easy to use platform for all kinds of experimenters to create many kinds of project hacks and even commercial products. Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay article gives you idea why the platform is so popular. Arduino and it’s tool-set started with 8-bit Atmel microcontrollers, but nowdays the tools can also be used to program also ARM based microcontrollers.
Every now and then different sources show another “Arduino-like platform”. Here are pointers to some most interesting looking new Arduino platforms (look interesting but I have not had change to personally test any of them):
EDN magazine article Coin-sized Arduino-compatible computer with Bluetooth LE wirelessly connects to smartphones, tablets tells that about the world’s first ‘Arduino’ compatible open-source micro-computer that can communicate wirelessly with any Bluetooth® v4.0 compatible smartphone or tablet. This ‘RFduino’ is based on nRF51822’s powerful on-board 32-bit ARM Cortex M0-based processor. Open Source RF claims that the overriding focus of the RFduino is on building new wireless applications. The RFduino can be powered by anything from household outlets down to a regular CR2032 coin cell (watch) battery. The RFduino 7 GPIO lines all support, Digital IO, Analog ADC, SPI, I2C, UART and PWM. The RFduino is similar to the Arduino UNO or DUE, except the RFduino is a fraction of the cost and size, in addition has wireless smartphone connectivity built-in! There are several open-source RFduino and iPhone apps which are free to use, extend, and share.
The JeeNode is a small wireless board with an 8-bit Atmel RISC microprocessor. JeeNodes are compatible with the Arduino platform and can be programmed under Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux using sketches created with the Arduino IDE. Kits include the ISM-band 868 MHz radio module as used in Europe for short range wireless communications.
The PICnDuino Review page tells about PICnDuino board. The PICnDuino is an Open Source dual microcontroller development platform built into a tiny direct to USB device. It is compatible with both Arduino (Atmega 328P) and Amicus18 (PIC18F25K20). The PICnDuino provides a fantastic opportunity to learn two programming languages in one device (Arduino which is C and Amicus18 which is Basic). You just plug it in to USB and start coding. The board has LEDss onboard and had bread-board friendly format.
CuteUino: Only use the parts of the Arduino that you need for each project article tells of a new small version of the Arduino that has a fitting within the outline of an SD card. In this design the Arduino platform is broken it up into several modules (that you can stack on top of each other) so you can choose only the components that you need for the project. For more details check Prototyping The CuteUino web page.
FemtoDuino is probably the smallest 328 based Arduino compatible board around. Those things are tiny: foot print is 20.7×15.2mm. They’re an Atmega328 that is arduino compatible. Hands on with the super tiny arudino: FemtoDuino article and this video give you an introduction to those interesting looking small boards.
The downside of them is that they not directly breadboard friendly (hole spacing is 0.05 inch), but if you are planning to integrate them inside small gadgets. Everything needed to make your own FemtoDuino is provided on the website: schematics, kicad files, bill of materials,
