L’agenda #maker di questo mese (now on…) ha un appuntamento in più: il primo evento popupmakers a Milano, ovvero una opportunità di condivisione di esperienze hand-on sulla tecnologia ed il design, intesi nel senso più allargato del termine (come funziona?)

In questa prima edizione, diverse partecipazioni interessanti, come quella dei DotDotDot, di Denis Santachiara e di Recipient.cc. Infine Josef Prusa porterà la sua esprienza di ricerca e sviluppo del progetto RepRap e della Prusa I3, seguito da Massimo Banzi che ci preparerà alla Call of Makers e alle ultime notizie su Arduino.

L’evento fa anche da introduzione al workshop  Arduinotour di Milano del fine settimana successivo (23-24 febbraio).

[iscriviti all'evento// condividolo]

This entry was postedby Davide Gomba on Monday, February 11th, 2013 and is filed under events.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.

View the Original article

Ever wondered about the extent of diversity in electronics? Been to a theatre and wondered at the sophistication of the live stage set? Welcome to the world of theatrical electronics. An exclusive inteview with this engineer in Arts – Ben Peoples

Priya: What is theatrical electronics? I always thought that theatres bought standard stuff off the shelves.
Ben: Theatrical electonics is a field of science where we try to rapid prototype electronic items on the stage to make things appear more real. Of course, it is a huge field. With 25 different theatres around the place where I live, my plates are generally full!

P: Interesting! How long have you been associated with electronics to capture such prototyping skills? What are the general tools that you use?
B: I have been prototyping electronics for over 20 years. I have been an ardent user of Arduino for the past 6. I loved the community so much that I even teach it to other people.

P: Oh teach too? Like classes for theatre prototyping? I would like more details on that.
B: (Smiles) Well not much, they are just getting started on how to rapidly put things together and program it using an Arduino to give it an “appearence” of more complex stuff like Time machine on stage.

P: Sounds fun. What are the theatre-specific whacky things that you teach them to build in the workshop? What are the general tools needed to attend your class?
B: I teach them to build Reed-candles, an elevator, wireless fireplace, wireless-dimmer, using Xbee radios for the lighting console and more things like that. I typically teach them inside a theatre wherein they need to bring their own laptops and software. They are seated inside a rehersal space so that they get the exact feel of designing things for a theatre. Other than that, its the usual arduino boards, gear motors, LEDs and of course, loads and loads of scotch tape! (Laughs)

P: Woah! How long does it take for you to teach them these?
B: 2-3 hours to teach math and the basics, 5 hours to explain the basic expriments and seeing them prototype their first objects. So yes, in total, 8 hours.

P: What according to you, is the advantage to pick electronic skill in the field of theatre?
B: There is theatre in colleges, the person could rise up to be a technical director, there is huge demand for lighting design, scenery design and of course in this age of television and movies, every drama theatre wants to stand out and do something extra. I see a huge future for it!

P: Okay one question that intrigues me after all this conversation is how different is theatre electronics from electronic arts?
B: Interesting question! For starters, Electronic Arts is very finished and polished. Theatrical electronics is well.. more raw and duct-taped at the back. They are two entirely different industries.

P: What are the things that interest you other than prototyping and what would be your ideal birthday present?
B: I love Ariel photography. Ideal birthday present is anything photography related. For work, I have to shoot digital, but for art I shoot 100% film, and just love it.

P: Any advice for youngsters?
B: Don’t be afraid to try anything new. Ship early, ship often.

(Ben can be contacted from his blog here. Also he is the author of a very cool book speaking on the same topic and yes, I contacted him via reddit. )

This entry was postedby Priya Kuber on Friday, January 25th, 2013 and is filed under Interview, Prototyping, workshops.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.

View the Original article

Anne Mahaffey is an engineer with Analog Devices and was one of the beta testers for the Arduino Due. Anne’s been an ardent advocate for Arduino at Analog, and recently contacted us about a workshop she was planning with the Iron Yard, an accelerator in her hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. The workshop was to introduce kids to programming in Scratch, and to let them build their own game controller with Arduino. She had plans to do it the way many Arduino workshops go: introduce the kids to a little electronics, then a little code, then get them building. She happened to reach us about the time we were putting the finishing touches on the new Esplora, and since we had a good reationship with her as a beta tester, we suggested that she try the Esplora instead. We had a good feeling about it, but no one had used it for a class yet. But Anne’s game for anything, so she said yes.

Anne Mahaffey teaching with the Esplora. Photo: Chris Brank

When she got the boards in hand, she was a bit skeptical:

“I won’t lie. The Esplora was not at all what I had in mind… what about the breadboard? The wires? The hookup diagrams? Isn’t that the fun part? Is it possible likely certain that my perceptions/opinions are being colored by my extremely specialized professional experience as an Analog/RF-centric Electrical Engineer?”

But she gave it a try. The results were promising:

“My first class was last night. I had 17 kids, mostly aged 10-12, if I had to guess. Each child (or sometimes, pair of siblings) had a parent. I had 5 or so volunteers, as I anticipated the first class would be the most challenging.

“It only took about 10 minutes to hand out Esploras, connect them, select correct board and port, and upload EsploraBlink. We had two Windows machines that we had to work with b/c they had many COM ports, so we needed to investigate which COM port was associated with the Esplora.”"

“In an hour and a half, I was able to send everyone home with a known working Esplora, which had run EsploraBlink, EsploraAccelerometer, and EsploraMusic; knowledge of how to select board, port, open example, upload to board, and open serial port; my e-mail, and a link to my tumblr… with the ability to ask me questions via both…

“Everyone, including parents were very engaged. They were very attentive, and I think everyone had a really good time!”

The Iron Yard Arduino Class. Photo: Chris Brank

We’re excited about this because it bears out what we’d hoped would happen with the Esplora: sometimes you want to learn about microcontrollers only a little bit, without a lot of time spent on the electronics. After her second class, Anne notes:

“It’s interesting now, to look at the differences in the approach that I’m able to take with the Esplora, vs. the approach I would have to take with [other boards and an electronics kit]… when working with breadboards, wires, etc, what’s you’re teaching is the hookup, and then you’re just loading an example, and hitting upload.  [you don't] really go into much detail on the program, and how it works.

Alternatively, I’m teaching the Esplora class with minimal focus on the “electronics,” and am able to focus on the programming.  I think this is going to work out well in the end… when we move on from the Esplora, the kids will have a much stronger understanding of all the programming aspects, and can focus on the electronics.”

We’re thankful that Anne was willing to take a risk with a brand new product, and we’re eager to hear more about her classes as they go along. We’re hoping this opens the doors for teachers who want to get students thinking about the relationship between software, physical interface, and hardware without having to run an electronics class. Keep an eye on Anne’s blog posts on the Iron Yard blog for further updates.

This entry was postedby tigoe on Friday, January 25th, 2013 and is filed under Community, Education, Esplora, game controllers.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.

View the Original article

It’s always nice to see how creative makers approach communication issues in DIY projects, and today we would like to highlight the approach followed by Alex, from InsideGadgets.

On his website, he provides a detailed tutorial on how to use an old Nokia 6110 (or any derivatives) to send SMS messages by exploiting the Nokia’s F-bus, a simple bi-directional and full-duplex serial protocol.

After considerable reverse engineering work, made possible by useful online documentation, Alex finally managed to send a SMS from his Arduino board, connected to the phone, thanks to AVR libraries made available by AVRFreaks.

More information can be found on InsideGadget.

[Via: Inside Gadgets]

This entry was postedby Alessandro Paganelli on Saturday, January 19th, 2013 and is filed under Hacks, Hardware, Projects, Protocols, reverse engineering, 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.

View the Original article

Al periodico appuntamento con l’elettronica amatoriale presso Modena Fiere, che oggi e domani (19-20 Gennaio) ospita Expo Elettronica, i makers e gli hobbysti emiliano-romagnoli non possono rimanere delusi per il calibro degli ospiti in programma. Officine Arduino, assieme ai ragazzi del FabLab di Reggio Emilia, offrono un’occasione unica per confrontarsi con il mondo dei makers e con la prototipazione DIY, grazie a numerose varianti di stampanti 3D esposte e funzionanti, assieme alla possibilità di provare e “toccare con mano” alcune delle novità più interessanti del mondo Arduino, come l’Arduino DUE.

Lo stand del FabLab di Reggio Emilia.

Alcune delle novità più interessanti riguardano i prossimi eventi in programma, fra cui troviamo l’importante “Makre Faire – The European Edition”, che verrà ospitata per la prima volta in Italia nei giorni 3-6 Ottobre 2013 a Roma e che vedrà coinvolta l’intera comunità di makers provenienti da tutta Europa. Fra gli eventi in programma vi saranno conferenze, workshop hands-on e numerosi speech, in aggiunta alla fiera “vera e propria” che si terrà nel week-end.

Per partecipare come espositori, a partire dal 18 Febbraio si aprirà una “Call for makers” alla quale chiunque sia interessato potrà inviare la propria candidatura e i propri progetti, che verranno accuratamente selezionati per costituire il programma delle numerose esposizioni previste. Stay tuned sull’home page della fiera per i prossimi aggiornamenti!

Costantino e Davide presentano la Maker Faire di Roma.

Fra gli imminenti eventi in calendario elenchiamo il prossimo Workshop Base di Arduino che si terrà i giorni 26-27 Gennaio a Reggio Emilia, presso il FabLab “Spazio Gerra”. Le iscrizioni sono ancora aperte, ma i posti ancora disponibili sono limitati! Accorrete numerosi!

This entry was postedby Alessandro Paganelli on Saturday, January 19th, 2013 and is filed under arduino, around the world, Community, conference, events, Exhibition, MakerFaire, press, 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.

View the Original article

Arduino at EHSM 2012

We mentioned earlier about the very special geek way of entering new year 2013. So here is a first hand, un-altered account of Tricia Blickfeldt who participated in the Arduino workshop for kids held there. We now are richer by one more arduino user! Yay!

“Before I tell you about the conference, I have to say that I work in Special Education at an elementary school. I am surrounded by children all day every day. Many of them with disabilities. I am not an engineer. I am not a hacker. My gifts do not include technical things. I came to the conference as a friend of one of the presenters. Many of the presentations were foreign to me. I felt very welcomed though and learned a lot. The staff were all very helpful and kind.

I was excited and nervous to participate in the arduino workshop. My friend told me that the class was created for kids with no experience. This was comforting. Kid things are right up my alley. And I certainly had no experience. There had been some last minute changes in teachers for the class, but I was very impressed with the guys who presented the workshop. It was clear that they knew and were very experienced in what they were teaching. When we arrived and there were no kids and, much to my dismay, they changed up what/how they were going to teach. I was soon put at ease though as they began at the beginning and explained what arduino is, what it does, and why it is so amazing and useful. They adjusted to their audience without making it more complicated.

I got really anxious again as they started handing out several little parts for us to build on the arduino board. The directions however were clear and precise. Illustrations were shown and questions were welcomed and answered. I set up an LED light and programmed it to go! The programming was not difficult because we just had to look up the codes for the task we wanted and apply them to what built. To do this we had to name the light in the program so it knew where to apply the command.

Then we added a button and programmed that to make the light go when we pushed it! We had to make some modifications to the code to add the button. I was so excited. We had some time to add more lights and see what we could make them do. I lined them up and programmed them to flash in a row and then back! This was a little trickier to program because we had to name each light individually and tell it to go in sequence. Who knew that I was capable of that?

Finally, we added a knob to control the speed of the blinking. This was definitely the hardest for me to understand. We had to set a delay that corresponded to the position of the knob. I was so excited that I took pictures and videos to prove that I really did it and that it really worked!

I was very impressed at how professional the presentation was. It was given in a way that created meaning and understanding without being overwhelming. It allowed me to create things that I hadn’t ever imagined myself doing. I am motivated now to find a project to work on using what I learned in the arduino workshop.

The entire conference seemed to be a lot like the workshop. It was very pleasant and friendly to all who were there regardless of background or expertise. It was professional and the presenters were all very knowledgeable. I learned a lot and enjoyed my time at the conference.”

PS: Many many thanks Tomek and his friend, for filling in the last minute!

This entry was postedby Priya Kuber on Sunday, January 20th, 2013 and is filed under Education, Hardware, workshops.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.

View the Original article

When we released the Arduino Kit, we knew that we are equiping the closet-wannabe-makers to start planning for world domination. Now it has the stamp of approval from MakerLab too!

Make Noise With The New Arduino Kit is a project by Alessandro Contini (@CNTLSN) and Alberto Massa (@nkint)

The above video explores the basic components of the kit and things that a new-maker would want to start with, including a light controlled theramin, and by theramin, I really mean exploring every possibe way to make impressive noises from one simple experiment.

Sounds fun? Do write to us, what you made out of your starter kit. We may feature you next

Via:[MakerLab]

This entry was postedby Priya Kuber on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013 and is filed under Audio, Review, StarterKit, 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.

View the Original article

One of the best capabilities provided by Arduino regards its very high modularity, which helps users to quickly translate ideas into physical artifact, as practically demonstrated by Mauro, which shows on his blog how to build a simple data-logger by properly combining different shields. By using few additional components (mainly resistors and buttons) a fully-functional data logger can be easily implemented.

More information can be found here.

[Via: Mauro Alfieri's blog]

This entry was postedby Alessandro Paganelli on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 and is filed under Projects, Prototyping, RTC, shield, 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.

View the Original article