There are very many cool Arduino projects and project sites in Internet (make Google search to see). Here are some interesting links to check out:
Arduino Projects at indestructables
Top 40 Arduino Projects of the Web
Arduino Rising: 10 Amazing Projects People Are Doing With The Tiny Microcontroller
Electronics For The Everyman: 25 Kick Ass Arduino-Powered Projects
10 Simple-But-Fun Projects to Make With Arduino
Internet of Thing with Arduino
11 Arduino projects that require major hacking skills—or a bit of insanity
I will be posting more links to more interesting projects as comments to this post, like I did in my Cool uses for the Raspberry Pi posting. Some of the most interesting that spend some more time at can get their entire own postings this blog in Arduino section.
3,019 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vale, LOGO creator Seymour Papert, who taught us that code can be creative play
Arduino-fiddling kids, and the rest of us, owe Papert a debt of gratitude
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/25/vale_logo_creator_seymour_papert_who_taught_us_that_code_can_be_creative_play/
Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and I was a kid, I received the gift of a “100-in-1 Electronics Kit” that taught me the basics of electrical circuit design as I strung pre-cut wires between springy posts. At the very centre of this kit – its beating heart – a single transistor could be wired to work in an amplifier, or AM radio, or tone generator.
All of these projects, detailed in the accompanying instructional guide, really only served to whet my appetite. I quickly ditched that book because I’d learned enough to be dangerous and try wiring my own circuits.
A lot of these self-designed projects never worked. But that didn’t matter, because every failure taught me something else: current can only flow this way through the diode; DC won’t flow across a capacitor and; you can make the transistor very hot if you connect it directly to a 9V battery.
Those hours of experiments left me with a lifelong passion for electronics, and I still enjoy assembling a circuit on a breadboard.
Just over a decade ago some clever folks in Italy put together the Arduino, a credit-card sized board powered via USB and programmed with an IDE that borrows a lot from Processing, a programming language designed to make it easy to write interactive applications. As soon as I heard about Arduino, I ordered one, and not very long after Arduino number 435 arrived, I had it blinking an LED – the ‘Hello, World’ of hardware.
Over the last decade probably two million Arduinos have been manufactured – the actual total is unknowable because they released their designs as open source, leading to a range of Arduino clones.
If there’s a device that can talk to a computer, chances are that someone has figured out how to connect it to an Arduino, written the code to control it, then blogged both the circuit design and the code. It’s gotten to the point where – most of the time – you simply need to Google ‘How to connect $THING to Arduino’ to find detailed instructions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Filtering Noisy Data with an Arduino
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/28/filtering-noisy-data-with-an-arduino/
One of the first frustrating situations a beginning microcontroller programmer will come across is the issue of debouncing switches. Microcontrollers are faster than switches, and the switch has yet to be built that can change state in zero time like they can on paper. This hurdle is easily overcome, but soon we are all faced with another issue: filtering noise from an analog signal. Luckily [Paul Martinsen] has put together a primer of three different ways to use an Arduino to filter signals.
Three Methods to Filter Noisy Arduino Measurements
http://www.megunolink.com/articles/3-methods-filter-noisy-arduino-measurements/
Measurements from the real world often contain noise. Loosely speaking, noise is just the part of the signal you didn’t want. Maybe it comes from electrical noise: the random variations you see when calling analogRead on a sensor that should be stable. Noise also arises from real effects on the sensor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Antenna Rotation Arduino Style
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/31/antenna-rotation-arduino-style/
[SP3TYF] has a HyGain AR-303 rotator and decided to build an Arduino-based controller for it. The finished product has an LCD and is able to drive a 24 V motor. You can control the azimuth of the antenna with a knob or via the computer.
http://www.tyfek.republika.pl/Sterownik_rotora_arduino/sterownik_rotora_arduino.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Open Sip And Puff
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/31/hackaday-prize-entry-open-sip-and-puff/
A sip-and-puff device is an assistive technology used by people who cannot use their hands. Being a quasi-medical device, you can imagine this technology is extremely expensive, incapable of being modified, and basically a black box that can’t do anything except what it was designed for. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Jason] is building his own sip-and-puff interface that’s cheaper and more capable than the available commercial versions.
Sip-and-puff devices can be mapped to control a wheelchair, click a mouse, or press a key on a keyboard. You can do a lot with USB, so for this open sip-and-puff device, [Jason] is using the ever-popular ATmega32U4 microcontroller.
openSip+Puff
https://hackaday.io/project/12959-opensippuff
Low-cost, open-source “sip-and-puff” interface to enable new methods of expression for people with and without limited mobility.
The 2016 Hackaday Prize
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Jason Webb
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hardware
ongoing project
assistive technology breath usb ATMega32u4 hid 2016HackadayPrize sip and puff
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Automation
Assistive Technologies
This project was created on 08/01/2016 and last updated 12 days ago.
Description
Commercial sip and puff devices have been available for quite some time but are generally prohibitively expensive, highly specialized, limited in expressivity, require poorly-written and restrictive software and rely on clunky, out-of-date hardware that makes it difficult or impossible to integrate with modern operating systems and even basic software.
Therefore the main objective of openSip+Puff is to provide a cheap, simple, open and modern alternative input method based on the breath of a user that can be easily mapped to a variety of common actions like mouse clicks and keypresses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Custom Articulated Joint
https://hackaday.io/project/13398-custom-articulated-joint
I’m building a robot which requires small, articulated joints. Unfortunately I couldn’t buy any, so I made my own.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chronio
Low power Arduino based (smart)watch
https://hackaday.io/project/12876-chronio
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Max.K
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WAtch arduino display Battery atmega328 RTC 2016HackadayPrize
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Assistive Technologies
This project was created on 07/27/2016 and last updated 19 hours ago.
Description
Chronio is an Arduino-based 3D-printed Watch. By not including fancy Wifi and BLE connectivity, it gets several months of run time out of a 160mAh button cell. The display is an always-on 96×96 pixel Sharp Memory LCD. If telling the time is not enough, you can play a simplified version of Flappy Bird on it.
DIY watches often consist of a pcb and screen wrapped in duct tape. I wanted to change that by designing a 3D-printed case. It is closely oriented on the Pebble Time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not Grbl
https://hackaday.io/project/12818-not-grbl
Well the Grbl Firmware for the Arduino is great. It’s so good that why bother writing your own? Other than for the hell of it!
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agp.cooper
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G-Code GRBL arduino ESP12E
This project was created on 07/23/2016 and last updated 22 minutes ago.
Description
A G-Code interpreter for the Arduino series, uses only vanilla C Code (no hardware specific timers) so it will run on almost anything. The goal was to build a gCode interpreter for the Arduino ESP12E so I could use a webpage to control my CNC machine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Magic Bit-Of-Wire Motion Detector Library For Arduino
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/01/hackaday-prize-entry-magic-bit-of-wire-motion-detector-library-for-arduino/
We’re still not sure exactly how [connornishijima]’s motion detector works, though many readers offered plausible explanations in the comments the last time we covered it. It works well enough, though, and he’s gone and doubled down on the Arduino way and bundled it up nicely into a library.
Detecting Motion With AC/Static Electricity
https://hackaday.io/project/11982-detecting-motion-with-acstatic-electricity
Using only a single wire to increase sensitivity, an Arduino’s ADC can be used to detect motion!
Tomi Engdahl says:
10,000 Lumen Sunrise Lamp Curses the Darkness
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/02/10000-lumen-sunrise-lamp-curses-the-darkness/
[Lincoln Johnson] found the ones he tried were not bright enough to wake him, so he decided to build his own: a 10,000-lumen monster that can wake him up from across the room.
It uses a lot of LEDS: 5 meters of 5630 LED strip, which pulls a circuit bending 72 watts when running at full blast. This monstrosity is powered by an Arduino Pro, which is programmed to slowly increase the brightness over a period of 30 minutes, thus simulating the sunrise.
Blinding LED Sunrise Clock
https://github.com/lincolnjohnson/SunriseClock
Tomi Engdahl says:
Convert Any USB Keyboard to Bluetooth
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/04/convert-any-usb-keyboard-to-bluetooth/
[DastardlyLabs] saw a video about converting a PS/2 keyboard to Bluetooth and realized he didn’t have any PS/2 keyboards anymore. So he pulled the same trick with a USB keyboard. Along the way, he made three videos explaining how it all works.
The project uses a stock DuinoFun USB mini host shield with a modification to allow it to work on 5V. An Arduino mini pro provides the brains.
A standard Bluetooth module has to have HID firmware installed.
HC-05 Bluetooth module
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hand Waving Unlocks Door
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/05/hand-waving-unlocks-door/
Who doesn’t like the user interface in the movie Minority Report where [Tom Cruise] manipulates a giant computer screen by just waving his hands in front of it? [AdhamN] wanted to unlock his door with hand gestures. While it isn’t as seamless as [Tom’s] Hollywood interface, it manages to do the job. You just have to hold on to your smartphone while you gesture.
The project uses an Arduino and a servo motor to move a bolt back and forth. The gesture part requires a 1sheeld board. This is a board that interfaces to a phone and allows you to use its capabilities (in this case, the accelerometer) from your Arduino program.
The 1sheeld reads the accelerometer data and when it sees the right gesture, it operates the servo.
Unlock your door with a hand gesture
http://www.instructables.com/id/Unlock-Your-Door-With-a-Hand-Gesture/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cheap Toy Airboat Gets a Cheap R/C Upgrade
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/07/cheap-toy-airboat-gets-a-cheap-rc-upgrade/
[Markus Gritsch] and his son had a fun Sunday putting together a little toy airboat from a kit. They fired it up and it occurred to [Markus] that it was pretty lame. It went forward and sometimes sideward when a stray current influenced its trajectory, but it had no will of its own.
The boat was extracted from water before it could wander off and find itself lost forever. [Markus] did a mental inventory of his hacker bench and decided this was a quickly rectified design shortcoming. He applied a cheap knock-off arduino, equally cheap nRF24L01+ chip of dubious parentage, and their equivalent hobby servo to the problem.
RC Boat with NRF24L01+ and Arduino
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=8509
Tomi Engdahl says:
evive: a prototyping platform for makers
An open-source Arduino based toolkit to learn, build & debug electronics and robotics projects
https://hackaday.io/project/13091-evive-a-prototyping-platform-for-makers
evive is an opensource prototyping platform. With Arduino MEGA at its heart, it offers a novel way of interacting with your hardware using it’s menu based visual interface. The accurate current & voltage sensing capabilities let you collect and analyze data from your projects. The whole world of Internet of Things, with power supplies and support for sensors & actuators is available in one small portable unit. This all-in-one kit saves your time and allows you to be more creative and innovative. Its just like a maker’s tablet.
Explore more at http://igg.me/at/evive.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Multi-Protocol Infrared Remote Library for the Arduino
http://www.righto.com/2009/08/multi-protocol-infrared-remote-library.html
Do you want to control your Arduino with an IR remote? Do you want to use your Arduino to control your stereo or other devices? This IR remote library lets you both send and receive IR remote codes in multiple protocols. It supports NEC, Sony SIRC, Philips RC5, Philips RC6, and raw protocols. If you want additional protocols, they are straightforward to add. The library can even be used to record codes from your remote and re-transmit them, as a minimal universal remote.
To use the library, download from github and follow the installation instructions in the readme.
https://github.com/z3t0/Arduino-IRremote
Tomi Engdahl says:
Super-small Robotic Joints Don’t Exist? They Do Now!
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/12/super-small-robotic-joints-dont-exist-they-do-now/
[Tim] needed very small, motorized joints for a robot. Unable to find anything to fit the bill, he designed his own tiny, robotic joints. Not only are these articulated and motorized, they are designed to be independent – each containing their own driver and microcontroller.
Custom Articulated Joint
https://hackaday.io/project/13398-custom-articulated-joint
I’m building a robot which requires small, articulated joints. Unfortunately I couldn’t buy any, so I made my own.
Each joint consist of four pieces:
1. The 3D printed joint
2. A 3D printed gear/chain assembly to move the joint
3. A tiny motor to move the joint.
4. An Arduino-based pcb to control the joint.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smith Corona Typewriter to Printer Conversion
https://www.eeweb.com/project/smith-corona-typewriter-to-printer-conversion/
This project is a conversion of a 1960 Smith Corona Sterling 12 electric typewriter into a printer using Arduino and a couple of solenoids. The project uses 48 push-type solenoids and placed into a laser-cut acrylic board as its holder. It is run by a standard Arduino UNO and a custom-made circuit board with cascading shift-register setup where one bit is shifted through until it reaches the proper key, and then hits it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automate Git and Upgrade Your Battle Station With a Custom Peripheral
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/13/automate-git-and-upgrade-your-battle-station-with-a-custom-peripheral/
He first laid out all the buttons, LED lights, and knobs he’d like on a panel to automate away his daily tasks. Using photoshop he ended up with a nice template. He laminated it to the top of a regular project box and did his best to drill holes in the right places without a workshop at his command. It’s pretty good looking!
Since this is the sort of thing an Arduino is best at he, in a mere two tries, wired everything up in such a way that it would all cram into the box. With everything blinking satisfactorily and all the buttons showing up on the serial out, he was ready for the final step.
Being a proficient and prolific enough developer to need a control panel in the first place, like a sort of software DJ, he wrote a nice interface for it all.
The Maven Box: an Arduino Controller for Software Developers
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Maven-Box-an-Arduino-Controller-for-Software-D/
Every job has it’s routine. I am a software developer who works with a Git/Maven based workspace everyday. So when I start working, my daily routine is to update and build my local workspace, pulling changes from GitHub, execute a maven build and execute the updated software. Usually I get my first coffee after that, but because I love coffee so much I thought there must be a faster way to get my system updated and running.
That’s why I build the “Maven Box”. It basically…
selects a branch from several GitHub projects
stashes changes before pulling
pulls the changes
triggers a maven build
shows the status of 6x test systems
has 3x customizeable function keys
What skills do you need? For whom was this instructable written?
For the Arduino stuff, only basic skills are required, especially if you only want to use buttons, switch buttons and LEDs. Components like the 74HC595 shift registers are a bit more complex, but with the help of the related documentation easy to handle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroLisp, Lisp For The AVR
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/13/microlisp-lisp-for-the-avr/
We’ve seen tiny microcontroller-based computers before, but nothing like this. Where the usual AVR + display + serial connection features BASIC, Forth, or another forgotten language from the annals of computer history, this project turns an AVR into a Lisp machine.
The μλ project is the product of several decades of playing with Lisp on the university mainframe, finding a Lisp interpreter for the 6800 in Byte, and writing a few lisp applications using the Macintosh Toolbox.
While this experience gave the author a handle on Lisp running on memory-constrained systems, MicroLisp is running on an ATMega328 with 32k of Flash and 2k of RAM. In that tiny space, this tiny computer can blink a few boards, write to an OLED display, and read a PS/2 keyboard.
The circuit is simple enough to fit on a breadboard, but the real trick here is the firmware.
Tiny Lisp Computer
http://www.technoblogy.com/show?1GX1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chronio
Low power Arduino based (smart)watch
https://hackaday.io/project/12876-chronio
Chronio is an Arduino-based 3D-printed Watch. By not including fancy Wifi and BLE connectivity, it gets several months of run time out of a 160mAh button cell. The display is an always-on 96×96 pixel Sharp Memory LCD. If telling the time is not enough, you can play a simplified version of Flappy Bird on it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino Detects Pants on Fire
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/21/arduino-detects-pants-on-fire/
Hard as it is to imagine, lie detectors have been sold as children’s toys for a number of years. A simple battery-operated device clipped to your fingers and would show the conductivity of your skin. The concept — which is probably not very reliable — observers that lying causes you to imperceptibly sweat which causes a sudden increase in your skin’s conductivity. These cheap toys would have a meter and you’d note the meter deflection to determine if the subject was lying.
You can debate the amusement value of interrogating your friends, perhaps, but they were pretty common and still exist (including some that shock you if they detect you are lying). Seventeen-year-old [BuildIt] has his own modern take on this classic device using — what else? — an Arduino.
Arduino Lie Detector
http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Lie-Detector/
Hey everyone today I want to show you how to make an Arduino-controlled lie detector to see when your friends are lying to you
or to measure the different responses that your bodies skingoes through depending onthe situation you are in or the emotions you are feeling and the coolest thing of all is that we can see all of theses things happen in real time in an Arduino graph.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panel Meter-To-Bluetooth Hack Hijacks The Display Segments
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/21/panel-meter-to-bluetooth-hack-hijacks-the-display-segments/
He simply added a Bluetooth interface to his combined voltage and current meter module by using an ATmega328 microcontroller to capture the signals sent to the module’s display LEDs and interpret them into readings for his Bluetooth module. He details the process of reverse engineering the meter, and his build. The result is an intriguing mess of wires with a DIP ATmega hanging on their ends. But it performs the task requested of it admirably and when mounted in a project box you would not know what lurks within.
Hacking a Cheap Ammeter / Voltmeter to Provide a Bluetooth PC Interface
http://www.swharden.com/wp/2016-09-19-hacking-a-cheap-ammeter-voltmeter-to-provide-a-bluetooth-pc-interface/
I love analyzing data, so any time I see a cool device to measure something I usually want to save its output. I’ve lately come to enjoy the cheap panel-mount volt meters and current meters on eBay, and figured it would be cool to hack one to provide PC logging capability.
https://github.com/swharden/AVR-projects/tree/master/ATMega328%202016-09-15%20CVM
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: LipSync, Smartphone Access For Quadriplegic People
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/21/hackaday-prize-entry-lipsync-smartphone-access-for-quadriplegic-people/
For most of us, our touch-screen smartphones have become an indispensable accessory. Without thinking we tap and swipe our way through our digital existence, the promise of ubiquitous truly portable computing has finally been delivered.
Smartphones present a problem though to some people with physical impairments.
LipSync is a project that aims to address the problem of smartphone usage for one such group, quadriplegic people. It’s a mouth-operated joystick for the phone’s on-screen cursor, with sip-and-puff vacuum control for simulating actions such as screen taps and the back button.
To the smartphone itself, the device appears as a standard Bluetooth pointing device, while at its business end the joystick and pressure sensor both interface to a Bluetooth module through an Arduino Micro. The EAGLE board and schematic files are available on the project’s hackaday.io page linked above, and there is a GitHub repository for the code.
LipSync
https://hackaday.io/project/13424-lipsync
An assistive tech which allows quadriplegics to use touchscreen mobile devices using a mouth-operated joystick with sip and puff controls
https://github.com/igourlay/LipSync-Project
Tomi Engdahl says:
$50 Foot Controlled Mouse
https://hackaday.io/project/13349-50-foot-controlled-mouse
Reimagining expensive commercial accessibility solutions with new prototyping materials
ALS has deeply affected our family, and we have lost 2 friends to the disease already. 2 Years ago, a relative was diagnosed with ALS. He has slowly been losing motor function in his upper body, and thus access to the outside world. After obtaining an electric wheelchair that can be driven using foot pads, I realized that we could do the same thing with a computer.
Commercial solutions, where available, are over $600, and may require special drivers or knowledge. With prototyping technologies available now, including piezo-resistive fabrics and HID-emulating programmable boards, developing a solution at a much lower price point seemed fairly easy.
FootMouseController.ino Arduino code for the controller board. Intended for 32u4-type board.
https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/13349571123616/FootMouseController.ino
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ski Buddy Jacket Uses Arduino to Teach Youngsters to Ski
https://hackaday.com/2016/02/22/ski-buddy-jacket-uses-arduino-to-teach-youngsters-to-ski/
. Inspired by wearable electronics, he took an Arduino, an old jacket, some LEDs, and created Ski Buddy.
The brains in the jacket consist of an Adafruit Flora, accelerometer, and a battery pack. Conductive thread connects to LED sequins. The jacket can help teach linking turns, parallel skiing, hockey stops, and gradual pizza stopping.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino Glasses for BT Multimeter
https://hackaday.io/project/12211-arduino-glasses-for-bt-multimeter
Building an HMD with no special parts, to make work easier and safer
The challenge is, that It should be constructed out of common materials that can be found easily.
The project is more about how to build the optical system for this HMD
I have a few ideas and one of them is to connect it to a Multimeter over Bluetooth to get the Data right in front of my eyes.
The lens was a tricky thing.
The best working lens is an Acrylic Plano convex lens with a focal point of 100mm. If you place the screen at a distance of 73mm from the lens away, you will get a virtual image at a distance between 27-30cm. The magnification factor is x3
That’s perfect, because another important thing is, that your eyes can only start focusing things at +-25 cm
Tomi Engdahl says:
808 Drum Machine In An ATTiny 14-Pin Chip
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/28/808-drum-machine-in-an-attiny-14-pin-chip/
the original Roland TR-808 was the first programmable drum machine and has been a mainstay of electronic music ever since. Hackers have been building their own versions of this vintage device for years, but this version from do-it-yourself synth builder [Jan Ostman] is quite remarkable.
He’s packed the entire device (called the Drum8 Vintage) into a single ATtiny84 14-pin DIP package, including the samples and eight polyphonic voices, plus old-school analog CV triggers, a global tune and an analog global accent input. That won’t mean a lot to non-musicians, but suffice to say that these are the same inputs that the original TR-808 had that allowed you to do all sorts of interesting stuff to trigger and modify the drum sounds. Plus some extras.
[Jan] is offering the chip itself for $20
Drum8 Vintage available
https://janostman.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/drum8-vintage-available/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Minimal Computer and Operating System: One Button, One LED
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/08/minimal-operating-system-one-button-one-led/
DUO BINARY is a very, very small computer system in every possible sense. It runs on an ATtiny84, which has even got “tiny” in its name. The user interface is a single button for data entry and a single LED for feedback, making this binary keyboard look frivolously over-complicated. It uses a devilish chimera of Morse code and a truncated ASCII to enter data, and the LED blinks the same back at you.
= = = DUO BINARY = = =
http://ostracodfiles.com/binary/main.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Homemade E-Drums Hit All The Right Notes
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/16/homemade-e-drums-hit-all-the-right-notes/
In our eyes, there isn’t a much higher calling for Arduinos than using them to make musical instruments. [victorh88] has elevated them to rock star status with his homemade electronic drum kit.
The kit uses an Arduino Mega because of the number of inputs [victorh88] included. It’s not quite Neil Peart-level, but it does have a kick drum, a pair of rack toms, a floor tom, a snare, a crash, a ride, and a hi-hat.
With the exception of the hi-hat, all the pieces in the kit use a piezo element to detect the hit and play the appropriate sample based on [Evan Kale]’s code, which was built to turn a Rock Band controller into a MIDI drum kit.
Homemade Electronic Drum kit with Arduino Mega2560
http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Electronic-Drum-Kit-With-Arduino-Mega2560/
- Sensors. Piezos and a photocell.
Forgotten Rock Band Drum Controller as a MIDI Instrument
https://hackaday.com/2015/07/18/forgotten-rock-band-drum-controller-as-a-midi-instrument/
https://github.com/evankale/ArduinoMidiDrums
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Compact Star Tracking Tripod
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/15/a-compact-star-tracking-tripod/
[Anthony Urbano] has devised a portable tracking setup to keep your photos on point.
When taking pictures of the night sky, the earth’s rotation will cause light trails during long exposures. Designed for ultra-portability, [Urbano’s] rig uses an Arduino UNO controlled Sanryusha P43G geared stepper motor coupled to a camera mounting plate on a small tripod.
Night Sky in Focus
https://nightskyinfocus.com/diyprojects/ultra-portable-tracker-setup/
Due to Earth’s rotation, objects in the sky appear to move from east to west. Taking a long-exposure photo of stars using a non-tracking camera will produce trails. To overcome this (and minimize trailing), a robotic tracker as simple as a geared stepper controlled by an Arduino, can be used.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spectrum Analyser Code
Code for a spectrum analyzer.
https://hackaday.io/project/16615-spectrum-analyser-code
Code for a spectrum analyzer.
The code is to be ported to an ATTiny85 to make a project.
Uses Goertzel’s algorithm with a Hamming window
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dual-boot Your Arduino
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/25/dual-boot-your-arduino/
There was a time, not so long ago, when all the cool kids were dual-booting their computers: one side running Linux for hacking and another running Windows for gaming. We know, we were there. But why the heck would you ever want to dual-boot an Arduino? We’re still scratching our heads about the application, but we know a cool hack when we see one; [Vinod] soldered the tiny surface-mount EEPROM on top of the already small AVR chip!
http://blog.vinu.co.in/2016/10/dual-boot-for-arduino.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Smart Bed Lighting
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/26/hackaday-prize-entry-smart-bed-lighting/
Smart Bed Lighting
https://hackaday.io/project/13207-smart-bed-lighting
Motion activated bed lighting that only turns on between the hours of 9PM and 7AM. Lights your way automatically.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Litter Basket Automation
http://hackaday.com/2016/10/30/litter-basket-automation/
Auto Trash by Arduino
http://www.instructables.com/id/Auto-Trash-by-Arduino/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Minimal Arduino Clock
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/02/minimal-arduino-clock/
Making a clock with a common microcontroller like an Arduino isn’t very difficult. However, if you’ve tried it, you probably discovered that keeping track of wall time is difficult without some external hardware. [Barzok] has a very minimal clock build. It takes a handful of LED arrays with an integrated driver, an Arduino Nano, a real-time clock module, and a voltage regulator.
The software uses a custom 6×9 font and handles addressing the LEDs as one single display.
Led Matrix Arduino Clock
http://www.instructables.com/id/Led-Matrix-Arduino-Clock/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drum on a Chip–Not That Kind of Chip
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/03/drum-on-a-chip-not-that-kind-of-chip/
[Ian H] uses the short Pringles cans to build a drum kit. Clearly, the little cans aren’t going to make very much sound on their own, but with a piezo speaker element used in reverse, the cans become touch sensors that feed an Arduino and drive a MIDI device. You can see a video of the result, below.
Pringle Can MIDI Drums
http://www.instructables.com/id/Pringle-Can-MIDI-Drums/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Hot is Your Faucet? What Color is the Water?
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/06/how-hot-is-your-faucet-what-color-is-the-water/
How hot is the water coming out of your tap? Knowing that the water in their apartment gets “crazy hot,” redditor [AEvans28] opted to whip up a visual water temperature display to warn them off when things get a bit spicy.
This neat little device is sequestered away inside an Altoids mint tin — an oft-used, multi-purpose case for makers. Inside sits an ATtiny85 microcontroller — re-calibrated using an Arduino UNO to a more household temperature scale ranging from dark blue to flashing red
Visual Water Temperature Display
http://imgur.com/gallery/SGkHm
HARDWARE: – PCB prototyping board – 10k ohm, 0.5 Watt NTC type thermistor – AtTiny85- Battery holster – Aurdiono UNO to program AtTiny85 (or other variant that will program it) – 200 ohm. 10k ohm resisitors – common cathode RGB LED – 20 guage wires (ideally different colors) – Soldering equipment- Altoids can to hold it all Breadboard and some jumper wires if you want to prototype before-hand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY I2C Devices with ATtiny85
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/07/diy-i2c-devices-with-attiny85/
[Pawel] has a weather station, and its nerve-center is a Raspberry Pi. He wanted to include a light sensor but the problem is, the Pi doesn’t have a built-in ADC to read the voltage off the light-dependent resistor that he (presumably) had in his junk box. You can, of course, buy I2C ADC chips and modules, but when you’ve already got a microcontroller that has ADC peripherals on board, why bother?
[Pawel] wired up a tremendously simple circuit, downloaded some I2C slave-mode code, and added an LED for good measure. It’s all up on GitHub if you’re interested.
ATtiny85 Light Sensor – I2C slave device
https://quadmeup.com/attiny85-light-sensor-i2c-slave-device/
I love AVR ATtinyx5 series microcontrollers. They are cheap, easy to use, they can be programmed just like Arduinos and comparing to their size they offer great features. For example, they can be used as remote analog to digital converters connected to master device using I2C bus.
Background: few year ago I’ve build a weather station based on Raspberry Pi. It collects various data and displays them on dedicated web page and Android app. Every few months I try to add a new sensor to it. Last time it was a daylight sensor. Raspberry Pi does not offer ADC inputs and I has few ATtiny85 on hand that time. One to another, few hours later: photoresistor based daylight meter sensor connected via I2C bus.
Code driving this rig is also pretty simple: watchdog timer wakes up ATtiny every few minutes, measures voltage, filters it and stores in memory. Every time read operation is requested, last filtered ADC value (10 bits as 2 bytes).
DzikuVx/attiny_photoresistor_i2c
https://github.com/DzikuVx/attiny_photoresistor_i2c
rambo/TinyWire
TinyWire/TinyWireS/
https://github.com/rambo/TinyWire/tree/master/TinyWireS
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home security
Home security project based on atmega and ardunio. MQTT gateway for data gathering.
https://hackaday.io/project/587-home-security
Home security project based on atmega and ardunio. MQTT gateway for data gathering.
This project should replace standard home security alarms, and in future gather statistics from various sensors.
It consists from one main alarm board with atmega 1284P that has inputs for sensors and outputs to relays. Main board also hosts wiz820io Ethernet for configuration and overview, RFM12B for radio remote nodes, communication module to wired nodes (RS485 protocol), UART for GSM modem, Battery backed up RTC, EEPROM for log, I2C expansion connector, and AC supply and battery monitoring.
Main board has 7 analogue inputs that can recognize different events on sensors. And 5 digital inputs. Inputs can be further expended.
Remote nodes act as authentication units and currently they are set to receive iButtons as keys to arm/disarm the system.
Open home security project
http://openhomesecurity.blogspot.fi/2016/11/schematics-for-new-boards.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Not To Build A CPU Hand Warmer
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/12/how-not-to-build-a-cpu-hand-warmer/
Winter is coming, along with mittens, cold hands, snow, and jackets. Now that we’re all carrying around lithium batteries in our pocket, wouldn’t it be a great idea to build an electronic hand warmer? That’s what [GreatScott!] thought. To build his electronic hand warmer, he turned to the most effective and efficient way to turn electricity into heat: a ten-year-old AMD CPU.
Building an electronic hand warmer is exceptionally simple. All you need is a resistive heating element (like a resistor), a means to limit current (like a resistor), and a power supply (like a USB power bank). Connect these things together and you have a hand warmer that is either zero percent or one hundred percent efficient. We haven’t figured that last part out yet.
Stay warm this winter: CPU Hand Warmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw2p-Dmn48U
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not so cool use:
ArduWorm: A Malware for Your Arduino Yun
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/11/arduworm-a-malware-for-your-arduino-yun/
We’ve been waiting for this one. A worm was written for the Internet-connected Arduino Yun that gets in through a memory corruption exploit in the ATmega32u4 that’s used as the serial bridge. The paper (as PDF) is a bit technical, but if you’re interested, it’s a great read.
The crux of the hack is getting the AVR to run out of RAM, which more than a few of us have done accidentally from time to time. Here, the hackers write more and more data into memory until they end up writing into the heap, where data that’s used to control the program lives. Writing a worm for the AVR isn’t as easy as it was in the 1990’s on PCs, because a lot of the code that you’d like to run is in flash, and thus immutable.
In the end, the worm is persistent, can spread from Yun to Yun, and can do most everything that you’d love/hate a worm to do. In security, we all know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and here the attack isn’t against the OpenWRT Linux system running on the big chip, but rather against the small AVR chip playing a support role. Because the AVR is completely trusted by the Linux system, once you’ve got that, you’ve won.
ArduWorm: A Functional Malware Targeting Arduino Devices
http://www.seg.inf.uc3m.es/papers/2016JNIC.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroLisp With Matching Parens
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/11/microlisp-with-matching-parens/
Lisp is a supremely elegant programming language, but you won’t find it around much today. That’s a shame; in the 80s and 90s, all the cool kids were using Lisp machines, computers dedicated to the creation and interpretation of Lisp. While the AI renaissance of the 80s is dead, replaced with the machine learning fad of today, Lisp machines have gotten much smaller. Now, they’ll fit in your pocket, and they have parenthesis matching, to boot.
If this build looks familiar, you’re not wrong. A while back, we saw a similar pocket Lisp computer based around the ATMega328 microcontroller with 32k of Flash and 2k of RAM. That’s not a lot by any measure, and a much more suitable processor for an AVR-based pocket Lisp machine would be the big boys of the ATMega family.
Tiny Lisp Computer 2
http://www.technoblogy.com/show?1INT
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino with a… PIC?
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/13/arduino-with-a-pic/
Before the Arduino took over the hobby market (well, at least the 8-bit segment of it), most hackers used PIC processors. They were cheap, easy to program, had a good toolchain, and were at the heart of the Basic Stamp, which was the gateway drug for many microcontroller developers.
[AXR AMR] has been working with the Pinguino, an Arduino processor based on a PIC (granted, an 18F PIC, although you can also use a 32-bit device, too). He shows you how to build a compatible circuit on a breadboard with about a dozen parts. The PIC has built-in USB. Once you flash the right bootloader, you don’t need anything other than a USB cable to program. You can see a video of this below.
You will need a programmer to get the initial bootloader, but there’s plenty of cheap options for that. The IDE is available for Windows, Linux, and the Mac.
Pinguino Project (a PIC microcontroller based Arduino #No Programmer Required)
http://www.instructables.com/id/Pinguino-Project-a-PIC-Microcontroller-Based-Ardui/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RPUno
Solar Powered ATMega328P Board
https://hackaday.io/project/12784-rpuno
Solar Powered ATmega328P with pluggable connections for a flow (pulse) sensor, six digital I/O, and two analog loop inputs. It is for outdoor projects. It has an LT3652 solar charge controller set for 12V SLA type batteries and 36 cell PV power. It lacks a USB (see RPUftdi) or a LED.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waiting For A Letter? This IoT Mailbox Will Tell You Exactly When It Arrives.
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/15/waiting-for-a-letter-this-iot-mailbox-will-tell-you-exactly-when-it-arrives/
If you’re waiting for a much sought-after letter, checking your mailbox every five minutes can be a roller-coaster of emotion — not to mention time-consuming. If you fall into this trap, Hackaday.io user [CuriosityGym] as whipped up a mailbox that will send off an email once the snail-mail arrives.
The project uses an Arduino Uno, an ESP 8266 wifi module, and an idIoTware shield board — making specific use of its RGB LED and light dependent resistor(LDR).
Smart IoT Postbox with the idIoTware Shield
https://hackaday.io/project/17966-smart-iot-postbox-with-the-idiotware-shield
Smart IoT postbox will keep you informed about new envelopes dropped inside a postbox by the mailman.
In this project, I am going to demonstrate how to build your own IoT aware Postbox with the help of the idIoTware shield in a few easy steps. This postbox alerts you about new envelopes dropped inside a postbox by the mailman.
The LDR ( Light Dependent Resistor) on IdIoTWare shield is used as sensor to detect a letter being dropped into the letterbox. The on board WS2812 Led (addressable RGB LED) on IdIoTWare shield is continuously ON (WHITE Color) which acts as a light source, and reflects light onto the LDR. As soon as a letter is dropped into the postbox, there is an interruption in light – the light intensity on LDR changes due to reflection. The Arduino continuously monitors the change in the value of the LDR and when it notices a change in value, it sends an email. Here we are using IFTTT to send a pre configured email.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EMG Tutorial Lets You Listen to Your Muscles
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/20/emg-tutorial-lets-you-listen-to-your-muscles/
What with wearable tech, haptic feedback, implantable devices, and prosthetic limbs, the boundary between man and machine is getting harder and harder to discern. If you’re going to hack in this space, you’re going to need to know a little about electromyography, or the technique of sensing the electrical signals which make muscles fire. This handy tutorial on using an Arduino to capture EMG signals might be just the thing.
Using MyoWare: a low-cost surface electromyography sensor for developing rehabilitation devices (Tutorial)
https://medium.com/physiatry/using-myoware-a-low-cost-surface-electromyography-sensor-for-developing-rehabilitation-devices-1d04a16f5396#.yqgzkwyt7
Surface EMG is a non-invasive method of measuring muscle activity. Rather than using needle electrodes, conductive gel electrodes are placed on the skin to measure overall activity of a large region of muscle fibers. The voltage measured represents the amount of force a muscle (or group of muscles) is exerting in real-time. Surface EMG is commonly used in biomedical engineering applications to connect human muscles to the outside world, e.g. interfacing a residual limb with a myoelectric prosthesis, controlling a limb within virtual reality, and providing biofeedback for muscular pain.
While state-of-the-art neuroprosthetic limbs are quite expensive, prototype devices using surface EMG can be built quickly for minimal cost. In this article, I will explain how to setup a $38 MyoWare EMG sensor, send its data to an Arduino, and trigger actions using that data.
MyoWare : $38 sensor available on Amazon, Sparkfun, Adafruit.
Arduino Uno: $17 for a starter bundle with useful circuit parts like LEDs, and wires with header pins (durable rigid pins to connect into “headers” for quickly wiring up circuit prototypes).
MyoWare is a small surface EMG sensor developed by Advancer Technologies as a Kickstarter project a few years ago. It automatically analyzes the incoming raw voltage signal and outputs a smooth positive waveform of integer values
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY EKG Using Arduino and Javascript
https://www.eeweb.com/project/diy-ekg-using-arduino-and-javascript/
An electrocardiogram or EKG is a testing equipment used to measure the electrical activity of the heart. Using only an Arduino Shield and a set of electrodes, one can create his own EKG, generate a waveform and plot it in realtime using Javascript just like what Ben did. This project may not be suitable for medical use but it’s worth a try if you are really interested in creating one.
https://github.com/TalkingQuickly/ekg-arduino-chrome
Chrome app based real time streaming interface to the Olimex Arduino EKG Shield. For details see http://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/2015/01/diy-ekg-with-arduino-javascript/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open-Source Time Lapse Camera
https://www.eeweb.com/project/open-source-time-lapse-camera/
This project started as a radio-controlled camera that eventually evolved into an open-source camera that is capable of running for a year making a long time lapse video. The camera stores images on a micro SD card that also holds the config file. This impressive camera consumes less power since it only uses 3.5-4 joules per frame. A single frame takes 3 seconds at 100 mA for the camera to stabilize and take a picture, and 7 seconds at 60 mA to write the picture down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Dual-purpose Arduino Servo Tester
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/23/a-dual-purpose-arduino-servo-tester/
RC flying is one of those multi-disciplinary hobbies that really lets you expand your skill set. You don’t really need to know much to get started, but to get good you need to be part aeronautical engineer, part test pilot and part mechanic. But if you’re going to really go far you’ll also need to get good at electronics, which was part of the reason behind this Arduino servo tester.
I made my own servo tester, ugly but functional
https://np.reddit.com/r/radiocontrol/comments/5dfdu3/i_made_my_own_servo_tester_ugly_but_functional/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny Tunes On An ATtiny13
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/24/tiny-tunes-on-an-attiny13/
When you take a microcontroller class in university, one of the early labs they have you drudge through on your way to, promised, mastery over all things embedded, is a tiny music generator.
It’s a more challenging lab than one would expect. It takes understanding the clock of the microcontroller and its sometimes temperamental nature. It takes a clear mental picture of interrupts, and is likely one of the first experiences a burgeoning designer will have worrying about the execution time of one of their loops. Also tables, data structures, and more. It even requires them to go out of their comfort zone a learn about an unrelated field, a challenge often faced in practicing engineering.
ATtiny13 – tone generator
http://blog.podkalicki.com/attiny13-tone-generator/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quick Arduino Hack Lets Tach-less Car Display Shift Points
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/quick-arduino-hack-lets-tach-less-car-display-shift-points/
A tachometer used to be an accessory added to the dash of only the sportiest of cars, but now they’re pretty much standard equipment on everything from sleek coupes to the family truckster. If your daily driver was born without a tach, fear not – a simple Arduino tachometer is well within your reach.
Arduino car tachometer
https://github.com/deepsyx/arduino-tachometer/
I’m currently driving an old Opel Astra without tachometer. I had a spare arduino and few LEDs, so I made a simple tachometer.
The first LED turns on when engine react 4000 rpm. Below 4000 rpm all LEDs are turned off. If there is Serial attached, it automatically emits rpm data(watch it realtime in arduino serial monitor).