Global Sounds is an interactive installation by Rebecca Gischel. It is composed by a series of pyramids made of acrylic glass installed in a square in Edinburgh and each of them programmed to play different instrumental sections of a song when interacted with.

The composition, which was written especially for the project and includes a mix of instruments symbolic of different cultures such as the kato and didgeridoo, allude to the multicultural richness migrants have brought to the UK and Europe bringing parts of their own culture with them.

The song is combined of 7 instruments and 7 pyramids. At first, none of the instruments plays. When someone is standing beside a pyramid, one instruments starts to play. The more people come together, the more instruments join in. Each pyramid has a light bulb inside which is like an equalizer of one instruments. When there are at least 7 people playing with the installation together, the square becomes a play of sound and light. When all pyramids are working together, they compose an harmonic musical piece in its entirety.

Rebecca wrote us:

I used the Arduino Uno. I have one webcam with a fisheye lens on the top of each pyramid. I used the flob library + processing to detect if someone is standing beside a pyramid. If so, one instrument starts to play and processing gives the digital values of the equalizer to Arduino (photo ‘Arduino picture 1′, this was my first testing of the equalizer with normal LEDs). I wanted to use real light bulb instead of LED’s, so I build a transformer (photo ‘Arduino picture 3′) which translates the Arduino-Input into an 12V-Output for the light bulbs which are powered by a car battery. I used 7 pins, one pin per light bulb.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Wednesday, May 29th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Processing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Steve Spence, an amateur organic farmer in Andrew, South Carolina, has a smart way of irrigating his vegetables. He uses water from his pond and the fish waste to fertilize his plants, a technique known as aquaponics. But the critical balance between the makeup of the water and soil means Spence has to know exactly what’s going on in both. Real-time information about the pond’s make up is imperative to know he’s giving his veggies the best drink of water.

This is the beginning of a post published on ModernFarmer a couple of days ago. Click here to keep reading about nice stories and real examples (+ 5 farm hacks!) on how to use Arduino for farming and what happens when farmers  start  embracing the modern trends of DIY tech.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Thursday, May 30th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Hacks, Hardware.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Are you a student living in a closed dorm? Ever wished for a window on a blank wall but maybe the house owners would not allow you to build? All of you would have seen tutorial about moodlamp with RGB LED strips and Arduino. This seems to be the perfect application for it.

For this tutorial the maker used Superlight LEDs and an Arduino  which provides an effect directly corresponding to the preset daytime light outside.

Arduino time library is the core of the project.

For a very detailed tutorial on how to make it by yourself at home, head here!

This entry was postedby Priya Kuber on Monday, May 27th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Hacks, inspiration, Tutorial.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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(in english below)

Se avete avuto l’occasione di visitarla, concorderete che la Fondazione Achille Castiglioni sia uno dei luoghi più magici di Milano, un luogo vivo, brulicante e allegro dove si respira l’amore per il design, per il progetto e per le persone.

Il 15 e 16 giugno prossimi in una delle stanze della sede della fondazione in Piazza Castello 27 a Milano, Massimo Banzi terrà un workshop di base intitolato “Arduino e la luce”, portando 15 partecipanti alla realizzazione di una lampada interattiva fabbricata digitalmente a partire da un design di studio Habits.

Dopo l’introduzione alle potenzialità di Arduino e ai fondamenti dell’interattività, Massimo guiderà i partecipanti attraverso esercizi guidati alla scoperta dell’abc di Arduino e di alcuni sensori. Nel resto del weekend Massimo lavorerà con gli studenti per rendere interattive le lampade e ogni partecipante porterà a casa la propria creazione al termine del corso.

Il workshop si svolge nell’ambito della mostra dedicata alla lampada Gibigiana disegnata da Achille Castiglioni presentata con bozzetti e prototipi proposti in una nuova chiave sperimentale. Il ricavato del workshop andrà alla Fondazione Achille Castiglioni.

Il corso è dedicato a principianti; non è necessaria alcuna conoscenza di elettronica e di programmazione. È richiesto a ogni partecipante di portare il proprio laptop con sistema operativo Windows, Mac (10.5 o superiore) o Linux. Su richiesta, sarà possibile pranzare in studio Castiglioni (a un costo di 20 euro per il sabato e la domenica).

Iscrivetevi cliccando qui e per ulteriori domande scrivete a fondazioneachillecastiglioni [at] press-office.co.

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Experimenting on light and interaction with Massimo Banzi

If you had the chance to visit it, you’d agree that Fondazione Achille Castiglioni is one of the most charming site of Milan, a lively and inspiring place, where you can breathe the love for design and for the people.

On the 15^th and 16^th of June Massimo Banzi will hold a two-day workshop (in italian) titled “Arduino e la luce” hosted in the rooms of the foundation in Piazza Castello 27 in Milan, bringing 15 participants into creating an interactive digitally-fabricated lamp, designed by Habits studio.

After introducing Arduino and the basics of interactivity, Massimo will guide participants into exploring the sensors and how to make their lamp interactive. Each of them will work on one lamp and is going to bring home the final result at the end of the second day.

The workshop is organized as part of the exhibition dedicated to the Gibigiana lamp, designed by Achille Castiglioni and presented in a new experimental version with sketches and prototypes. All proceeds from this workshop will go to Fondazione Achille Castiglioni.

The workshop will be in italian language and open to beginners, without any knowledge of electronics or programming.

Book your participation at this link and if you need more info write to fondazioneachillecastiglioni [at] press-office.co

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Tuesday, May 28th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Lamp(s), workshop(s).You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Some pictures of Arduino booth at MakerFaire Taipei!

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Friday, May 24th, 2013 and is filed under MakerFaire.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Last month we launched the first of a series of tutorials hosted on our Youtube Channel and created by Max of MaxTechTV in german language.

Today we are publishing the second video called “Pimp-up your camera with an Arduino timelapse“. The video explains how to connect an Arduino UNO with you camera and shoot pictures, for example, every 1, 5, 10 seconds to create wonderful videos of slow processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye.

Enjoy the tutorial below and share with us the results of your experimentations!

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Letzten Monat haben wir das erste einer Reihe von Video-Tutorials auf unserem YouTube Kanal veröffentlicht. Erstellt werden die Tutorials von Max von MaxTechTV für all diejenigen von euch, die Deutsch sprechen.

Heute veröffentlichen wir das zweite Video mit dem Titel “Erstelle tolle Zeitrafferaufnahmen mit deiner Kamera & Arduino”. Das Video erklärt wie man einen Arduino UNO mit einer Kamera verbindet um mit dieser in bestimmten Abständen, wie z.B. 1, 5 oder 10 Sekunden, ein Bild aufzunehmen. So kann man beeindruckende Videos von langsamen Prozessen erstellen, die dem menschlichen Augen sonst verborgen bleiben würden.Viel Spaß mit dem Tutorial und teilt mit uns die Ergebnisse eurer Experimente!

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Saturday, May 25th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Image(s), Tutorial, tutorials, Video.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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In conjunction with the release of the new version of the Arduino IDE and the Arduino Robot, we’re also putting out a TCT LCD screen. The screen was developed in conjunction with Complubot and the library relies on the Adafruit GFX and ST7735 libraries.

The screen lets you do all sorts of fun things, like play games or lose the serial monitor to see the values from sensors.

The Arduino specific library, named TFT, extends the Adafruit libraries to support  more Processing-like methods. You can write text, draw shapes, and show bitmap images on the screen in a way that should be familiar to users of Processing.

The screen works well with all types of Arduinos with a little bit of wiring, and fits perfectly in the Esplora and Robot sockets. In addition to all this other goodness, there’s a SD card slot on the back for storing pictures and other data.

If you want to learn more about the screen and what it’s capable of, check out the TFT library page, getting started guide, and product page.

You can buy the TFT screen from the Arduino store now!

If you have something cool you’ve made with this, let us know!

This entry was postedby Scott Fitzgerald on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 and is filed under Esplora, Hardware, lcd, Processing, robot.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Neil Gershenfeld, fondatore del Center for Bits and Atoms che ha dato vita all’idea di FABLAB, incontra i makers italiani all’Acquario Romano. In occasione di Atoms, Bits & People ci saranno anche Massimo Banzi, Riccardo Luna.  Per partecipare bisogna registrarsi gratuitamente, ma affrettatevi perchè i posti sono limitati e i makers sono tanti e molto interessati a partecipare.

L’evento è organizzato dall’Ambasciata degli Stati Uniti d’America e dal Global Shapers Hub di Roma in collaborazione con World Wide Rome e  Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition

Dove: Roma, Italia
Quando: venerdì 24 maggio ore 18

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 and is filed under events, MakerFaire.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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The Mood Lamp project by Vittorio Cuculo, is a system using interactions to communicate an emotional state to a physical object and receive back  a coherent response. In particular, through your facial expression you communicate your emotional state to an RGB color lamp . The lamp, at this point, will respond to the interaction by changing the color of the light emitted in accordance with the emotional state inferred.

The aim of the systems is to remove the mediation between human and machine typical of classic interfaces. Among the modes of natural interaction we usually have gestures, gaze tracking and facial expressions. The latter are particularly relevant because they play a fundamental role in nonverbal communication between human beings.

Regarding the man-machine interaction, the ability to recognize and synthesize facial expressions allows the machine to gain more communication skills, on the one hand by interpreting the emotions on the face of a subject, and on the other by translating their communicative intent through an output, such as movement, sound response or color change.

An IKEA lamp becomes a Natural Interaction system which senses human emotional states through facial expression. It uses OpenCV for image processing and analysis to identify emotional state through the movements of face’s fiducial points. The lamp, made with an Arduino Duemilanove, changes its color to represent the user’s current emotion.
In particular, it receives via serial communication, the values of pleasure, arousal and dominance, following the PAD emotional state model, as inferred from the facial expression and changes accordingly the color of the RGB LEDs.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Sunday, May 19th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Prototyping.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Some weeks ago I read an article on the New York Times talking about Kickstarter. The author was exploring the logic of the platform and especially in which way backers shouldn’t really be considered like investors. They aren’t because their main aim is not looking for the project that will give them the greatest return on their money.

Kickstarter as a phenomenon is made much more comprehensible once you realize that it’s not following the logic of the free market; it’s following the logic of the gift […] People contribute to them because they’re friends who know the artist personally; they’re fans engaged in a highly personal if unidirectional relationship with the artist [creator]; or simply because they’re intrigued by the project and want some sense of participation in it.

Here we are then, highlighting  two Arduino-based projects because we are intrigued by them and hope you like them too.

After successfully putting the Smart Citizen Kit in the hand of over 150 users around Barcelona in Spain, the team – organized by Fablab Barcelona and involving collaborations from all over the world – is ready for the next, and most crucial step and they need your help. The Smart Citizen Kit infact is an Open-Source Environmental Monitoring Platform consisting of arduino-compatible hardware, data visualization web API, and mobile app, empowering communities to collect data of what’s actually happening in their environment.

GOAL: $50,000

PROJECT ENDS: June 16, 2013
Check out what are their plans in the video!

Many hexapods can’t sense they’ve reached the edge of a surface without a lot of additional hardware expense and complexity and this kit solves the problem! BOT-LOGIC is an easy-to-assemble hexapod kit & controller that enables servos to also act as sensors to control the force applied as well as measuring force at set positions. Robots are thus enabled to sense surface edges and uneven servo load as well as measure and maintain gripper force.

GOAL: $10,000

PROJECT ENDS: July 10, 2013

Check the details in the video below:

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Monday, May 20th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Enviroment, Hardware, Leonardo.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Massimo Banzi announced it some minutes ago during his annual “The state of Arduino” presentation at Maker Faire Bay Area:  Arduino Yún  is the first of a revolutionary family of wifi products combining Arduino with Linux.

Yún means “cloud” in chinese language,  as the purpose of this board to make it simple to connect to complex web services directly from Arduino.

Designed in collaboration with Dog Hunter, a company with extensive experience with Linux, the board adopts the Linino distribution which provides signed packages to ensure the authenticity of the software installed on the device.

Historically, interfacing Arduino with complex web services has been quite a challenge due to the limited memory available and they tend to use verbose text based formats like XML that require quite a lot or ram to parse. On the Arduino Yún we have created the Bridge library which delegates all network connections and processing of HTTP transactions to the Linux machine.

Arduino Yún is the combination of a classic Arduino Leonardo (based on the Atmega32U4 processor) with a Wifi system-on-a-chip running Linino (a MIPS GNU/Linux based on OpenWRT). It’s based on the ATMega32u4 microcontroller and on the Atheros AR9331, a system on a chip running Linino, a customized version of OpenWRT, the most used Linux distribution for embedded devices.

Like a Leonardo, it has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 7 can be used as PWM outputs and 12 as analog inputs), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator and a micro USB connector.

Like any modern computer, it’s Wi-Fi enabled, it has a Standard-A type USB connector to which you can connect your USB devices and it has a micro-SD card plug, for additional storage.

The Yún ATMega32u4 can be programmed as a standard Arduino board by plugging it to your computer with the micro USB connector. And you can also program it via Wi-Fi.

When the Yún is turned on for the first time, it becomes an Access Point, creating a Wi-Fi network named “Arduino”. Open your browser and go to the webpanel: configure the board by entering your Wi-Fi network name, type and password. Click the “Configure” button to restart the board and have it join your home network. Opening the IDE, you’ll see it listed in the “Port” sub menu with its IP address instead of the serial port name.

Using the Bridge library in your sketches, you can link the 32u4 to Linux, launching programs and scripts, passing them parameters (sensor readings for example) and reading their output, thus creating a strong integration between the creativity of your sketch and the power of Linux. The Yún supports Shell and Python scripts out-of-the-box but you can install a wide range of open source software and tools.

For the Linux geek in you, Yún can be reached with SSH:  that means you’ll be able to customize it in whatever way. And you’ll always be able to reset it to its factory settings.

On top of that to make it even simpler to create complex applications we’ve partnered with the innovative startup Temboo which provides normalized access to 100+ APIs from a single point of contact allowing developers to mix and match data coming from multiple platforms (for example Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare but even FedEx or PayPal).

Arduino Yún will be available at the end of June at the price of 69$ + taxes.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Saturday, May 18th, 2013 and is filed under Announcements, arduino, Hardware, MakerFaire, Wifi, Wireless.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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The world’s most diverse showcase of creativity and innovation in technology, craft and science is starting tomorrow in San Mateo, California and the Arduino team will be there with more than a couple of new things to present.

First of all, finally and officially the Arduino Robot will be alive and running around the Arduino tent to bring you into the world of robotics. Designed with Complubot, the 4-time world champions in Robocup Junior robotics soccer, the robot allows for endless hours of experimentation and play. It is a self-contained platform allowing you to build interactive machines to explore the world. As all the other Arduino products you can use it as it is, modify its software and even add your own hardware on top of it: it is perfect for the novice but also for those looking for their next challenge.

As you may have read in the article published on MAKE some days ago, The Arduino Robot is the result of the collective effort from an international team looking at how science can be made fun to learn and we loved to share its story. Connected with this aim, David Cuartellies – head of Arduino Verkstad, the Arduino office in Malmö (Sweden) – during Maker Faire Bay Area will present the Castilla Education Project  aiming at evaluating the use of Arduino and other open source tools in the schools of Spain. He’ll especially focus on the way content was created and validated in an experiment involving 24 schools, 30 teachers, over 500 kids, and a 6-members design team.

On the topic of education also Michael Shiloh — Coordinator of Education materials for Arduino, will be on the Education stage on Sunday  at 4.30pm for a Q&A on how to use Arduino boards and how to prepare material for teaching.

Then we’re happy to announce that Arduino is releasing the new version of the Arduino IDE and the new TFT screen. TCT LCD library relies on the Adafruit GFX and ST7735 libraries.   The Arduino specific library, named TFT, extends the Adafruit libraries to support more Processing-like methods. You can write text, draw shapes, and show bitmap images on the screen in a way that should be familiar to users of Processing.

If you want to hear all these news from the voice of Massimo Banzi, don’t miss the center stage of Maker Faire Bay Area, saturday 18th of May from 1.30 and come to visit us at the Arduino tent (see map below for directions).

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Friday, May 17th, 2013 and is filed under Announcements, arduino, Education, Ethernet, Hardware, IDE, MakerFaire, Processing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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We’re happy to announce the release of a new version of the Arduino software, version 1.0.5. Barring any unexpected bugfixes, this is the final planned release of the 1.0 series of the IDE. Future releases will be from the 1.5 branch that has been in beta since last summer.

With that excitement out of the way, let’s get to the new features :

•  New library import functionality to install libraries directly from a .zip file in the IDE. You can see more information about this on the installing 3rd party libraries page.
• A Windows installer, which will hopefully streamline the process of setting up the IDE and drivers.
• Windows signed drivers. This means Windows 8 will no longer prevent you from installing Arduino drivers.
• The application is signed for OSX 10.8 (this was part of 1.0.4, but we thought it was so nice it deserved another mention).
• Updated WiFi library with UDP support.
• Support for the Arduino Robot and TFT screen. The TFT library is based on a number of Adafruit libraries, and the Robot library relies on many 3rd party libraries.
• Various bugfixes and optimizations, look at the release notes for a complete description.

Special thanks to everyone who contributed on this release. You rock.

Future releases of the IDE will support multiple architectures (like the ARM used in the Due). There is also a new library and 3rd party board implementation being introduced. You can read more about these on the 1.5 library specification and 3rd party hardware support pages

You can download Arduino 1.0.5 from the software page.

This entry was postedby Scott Fitzgerald on Saturday, May 18th, 2013 and is filed under Announcements, IDE, Software.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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As Ken Denmead, MAKE Editorial Director, announced some hours ago we are also thrilled for the monthly column Massimo’s is going to write for MAKE blog. We’ve been brainstorming on the title and the final choice is “MAKE the Future with Arduino” :

Massimo will share his unique perspective on the Arduino platform, including insight on the development of the boards, new products, and exciting projects for Arduino fans to share and adapt. Indeed, today’s first column is a preview of an exciting new Arduino product that will be unveiled to the world at Maker Faire Bay Area this week—the Arduino Robot.

Enjoy the article  and stay tuned for more news!

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 and is filed under Announcements, arduino, MakerFaire, robot.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Nel  weekend all’inizio di maggio  l’Arduino Tour ha fatto tappa a Napoli per una presentazione e un workshop di due giorni in cui i partecipanti hanno sperimentato principalmente su due fronti.

Nel primo, sfruttando della vernice conduttiva BareConductive, è stato creato un disegno su una tovaglia: uno pseudo logo di Riot, lo spazio che ospitava l’evento. Dopodichè questo circuito pitturato è stato collegato ad Arduino UNO, connesso a sua volta ad un pc su cui giravano il software di bridge Serial-Midi (già visto a Verona) e Ableton. In questo scenario, usando il disegno e il proprio corpo (e pure l’altrui!) come un unico circuito, è stato possibile generare una grande varietà di suoni.

A completare il tutto, un vecchio Stylophone hackerato a fare da sottofondo! Qui qualcuno si è dedicato alla progettazione e realizzazione della pittura, altri all’interfacciamento Arduino-Midi, altri alla musica, altri allo Stylophone.

Il secondo fronte era dedicato al monitoraggio di consumi e all’Internet delle Cose. E’ stata realizzata una postazione per il monitoraggio di consumi, temperatura e luminosità e invio degli stessi a Emoncms (progetto OpenEnergyMonitor). In questo gruppo l’intenzione era di realizzare sensori di consumo a partire da materiale di recupero, anche se poi si è utilizzata una pinza amperometrica. Un altro gruppo ha invece utilizzato una nota centralina di monitoraggio wireless di consumi (CC-128), che debitamente hackerata è stata interfacciata ad Arduino. Anche in questo caso i dati recuperati venivano inviati a Emoncms Qui qualcuno si è dedicato al CC-128, altri alla configurazione standard, altri alla dashboard su Emoncms.

Qui sotto potete vedere alcune foto dal nostro profilo di Flickr e nel caso vi venga voglia di partecipare al prossimo workshop, prenotatevi per la tappa di Alessandria il prossimo 1 e 2 giugno!

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Thursday, May 16th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Education, workshop(s).You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Instructables user aaronthomen posted a couple of videos about his ingenious robotic hand and a controller he designed and built for less than $200.  The first video shows the hand in action and the  second one explains how he made it.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Saturday, May 11th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, robot.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Yesterday we spent 8 hours learning and experimenting with Arduino Lilypad and 20 cool participants during our workshop, organized in collaboration with Kobakant! Here you can take a look at some pictures and below a  short video report made by Makerfaire Rome crew.

Are you working at a wearable project and you want to share it with us? Join us on Arduino Projects Flickr group, we are looking for nice projects to feature on this blog.

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Friday, May 10th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, LilyPad, Lilypad, Wearable Computing, workshop(s).You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Il prossimo 1 e 2 giugno i docenti delle Officine Arduino saranno ad Alessandria ospitati da Lab121, un’associazione culturale che promuove il coworking ed il business networking. Nel workshop di due giorni gli iscritti possono assistere ad una esaustiva panoramica degli impieghi di Arduino e realizzare un piccolo progetto concreto a partire dalle componenti contenute nei materiali dell’Arduino Starter Kit.

Chiunque é benvenuto a partecipare al workshop: nessuna precedente conoscenza di programmazione o di elettronica sono richieste! E per saperne di più potete assistere alla presentazione pubblica di Arduino venerdì 31 Maggio nella stessa sede di Via Verona 17 ad Alessandria.

Se abitate a da quelle parti e avete voglia di  creare progetti interattivi e incontrare alcuni protagonisti che animano le Officine Arduino, prenotate uno dei  posti a disposizione!

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, events, workshop(s).You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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As Fritzing guys pointed recently out on their blog

Codemotion is not just another tech conference where developers and engineers attend to compare tools and argue about what’s best and what’s cool. It is a meeting point for many disciplines, hardware meets software and design in a unique and powerful combination.

We’ll be participating to the event, not only with a workshop on wearables (sorry it’s sold out!), but also with

• People over megahertz - a keynote speech by Massimo Banzi opening the conference on friday the 10th, thanx to MakerFaire Rome
• Makers movement and fashion are getting closer than we think - a panel on saturday the 11th with Sam Muirhead (OneYearOpensource), Hannah Perner-Wilson (Plusea), Mika Satomi (Kobakant) and Zoe Romano  exploring  how the use of low-cost devices and machines is multiplying possibilities of participation and is transforming the way we approach our garments.

We invite you to join us with a special 50% discount code available only today! You just need to enter this promocode: love_arduino .

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 and is filed under conference, events, Fritzing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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High-precision air quality monitors are normally very expensive, but Tim Dye of Sonoma Technology is on a mission to change that.  He’s been working with Michael Heimbinder and habitatmap.org to create a low-cost sensor system that when designed properly and integrated into a software platforms can provide valid data.

AirCasting is a platform for recording, mapping, and sharing health and environmental data using Arduino and Android. It combines an Arduino with a set of sensors for air quality measurement; temperature, humidity, and carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter. The system combines the sensors using an Arduino Uno and then sends the data to an Android app using Bluetooth. The plans are all open for modification, so you can add your own sensors as needed. A heart rate monitor and an LED vest can also be linked to the AirCasting app, providing a complete the system for realtime, wearable feedback of your body’s reaction to the environmental air quality.

There are many DIY air quality measurement projects online, but most of them are not calibrated against known standards or professional equipment. But Dye and his colleagues have tested the AirCasting particulate matter sensors against the same equipment Sonoma Technology uses for precise measurement, and they’ve gotten surprisingly good results. Correctly constructed and deployed, the AirCasting shows promise as a low-cost alternative to complement the expensive high-end air monitors.

AirCasting is a collaboration between many groups:  Michael Heimbinder of habitatmap.org manages the project, and Tim Dye of Sonoma Technology consults on design, data evaluation, and field deployment; Dr. Iem Heng and Raymond Yap of the City Tech Mechatronics Technology Center designed and built the hardware; Dr. Andy Zhang designed and built the monitor casings; Valentine Leung designed and built the LED garments, and Brooke Singer has helped guided the project with a mind towards interactivity and public engagement.

The data from your AirCasting air monitor can be uploaded to the AirCasting database, which aggregates data from all AirCasting contributors, or can be sent to your own database and all the code for the project is open source and available through GitHub

The website AirCasting.org provides links to all the software and hardware plans.

This entry was postedby tigoe on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 and is filed under Android, Bluetooth, Enviroment, sensors.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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MakerFaire Rome, for the first time gathering makers from all over Europe, is coming up and the clock is ticking while the Call for Makers closes next 2nd of June.
That’s why we thought to launch a call for collaboration to local hubs, makerspaces and fablab into helping us spreading the word.

If you are one of them and you think that makers from your city in Europe would be interested in  joining the event and submitting a project to the call, we can send you a package full of flyers, postcards, stickers and support you into organizing a local event about it.

To join the team of Proxies fill THIS short form with your name, city, country, name of your local hub and address and we’ll get back to you.

The form we’ll be open until monday 14th of May and then we’ll announce the list of those receiving the kit. We have only 50 kits available so be quick to feedback us

The MakerFaire Rome Ambassador Kit includes:
Posters
Flyers
Pins
Stickers
Tape
Postit
Small stickers

+ an exclusive limited edition Arduino Uno board

Thanks in advance for your help and support, and see you at Maker Faire Rome!

For any question join us in the forum.
hashtag: #c4mrome

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Sunday, May 5th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, events, MakerFaire.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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My friend Jonathan Ward and the rest of the team at Otherfab have posted their new CNC milling machine, the Othermill, to KickStarter. This is a robust, low-cost machine for milling circuit boards, wax molds, wood, aluminum and more. The machine is made from high density polyethylene with an ingenious snap-fit mechanism that’s strong, reversible, and easy-to-assemble (although the machines will come fully assembled). There are lots of other clever features to ensure good alignment, minimal / non-existent slop, and quiet / robust performance. The working area is 5.5 x 4.5 x 1.4″ and the machine itself is only 10 inches cubed.

This is a great tool for milling your own circuit boards, something that’s done a lot in How to Make (Almost) Anything and at the MIT Media Lab and Center for Bits and Atoms generally. It handles relatively fine-pitched components (down to 1/64″ or even 0.010″ between traces) and is great for doing arbitrary shapes and cut outs. Here are some examples from the Othermill KickStarter page.

Jonathan has a long history of making milling machines, and I’m excited to see them get out into the world.

Find out more or support the project on KickStarter.

This entry was postedby mellis on Monday, May 6th, 2013 and is filed under Circuit Milling, CNC, PCB.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Here’s a couple of videos from the Tour! Follow the camper on Twitter with the hashtag #makertour:

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Friday, May 3rd, 2013 and is filed under events, MakerFaire.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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The Arduino Esplora is a ready-to-use, easy-to-hold controller that lets you explore the infinitive possibilities you have in the world of sensor and actuators, without having to deal with breadboards, soldering or cable.

There is no limit to the applications-amusing, educational, useful – you can program. You can even add a couple of extra sensor and actuators if you need them. Add a colour LCD module and you’ll be able to create original game on your very own open-source console!

Buy it from the Arduino Store (you can also have it with the retail package below).

This entry was postedby Zoe Romano on Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, Esplora, Hardware.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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