Tag Archives: Arduino

Game On with the Arduino Esplora

Posted on by

Every time the Arduino team is about to release a new board, we expect something great in terms of better specs, more I/Os, a faster processor, more memory—or, well, just something to “fill the gap,” such as small-scale versions. With “Esplora” the Arduino team pleasantly surprises us again!

Arduino Esplora

The brand new Esplora is targeted toward gaming applications. It consists of a gamepad-shaped development board that includes an Arduino-compatible Atmel ATmega32U4, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, an accelerometer, a joystick, push buttons, a slider, an RGB LED, and a buzzer.

The Esplora is as a ready-to-use solution for designers who don’t want to deal with soldering or prototyping by means of discrete components. In fact, it comes preprogrammed with a controller script, so you only have to connect it to a PC, download the free game “Super Tux Cart,” and have fun.

An additional color LCD will be released soon in order to create a portable console. The only drawback is you can’t directly connect standard Arduino shields to it , mainly because of space limitations. Nevertheless, the board itself includes enough features to make it interesting.

The Esplora should enable you to implement a controller for almost any application you dream up. In our case, we’re sure it will bring back nice memories of the time when we were too young for soldering irons but already pros with gamepads!—Jaime González Arintero Berciano, Elektor International Media

 

CC269: Break Through Designer’s Block

Posted on by

Are you experiencing designer’s block? Having a hard time starting a new project? You aren’t alone. After more than 11 months of designing and programming (which invariably involved numerous successes and failures), many engineers are simply spent. But don’t worry. Just like every other year, new projects are just around the corner. Sooner or later you’ll regain your energy and find yourself back in action. Plus, we’re here to give you a boost. The December issue (Circuit Cellar 269) is packed with projects that are sure to inspire your next flurry of innovation.

Turn to page 16 to learn how Dan Karmann built the “EBikeMeter” Atmel ATmega328-P-based bicycle computer. He details the hardware and firmware, as well as the assembly process. The monitoring/logging system can acquire and display data such as Speed/Distance, Power, and Recent Log Files.

The Atmel ATmega328-P-based “EBikeMeter” is mounted on the bike’s handlebar.

Another  interesting project is Joe Pfeiffer’s bell ringer system (p. 26). Although the design is intended for generating sound effects in a theater, you can build a similar system for any number of other uses.

You probably don’t have to be coerced into getting excited about a home control project. Most engineers love them. Check out Scott Weber’s garage door control system (p. 34), which features a MikroElektronika RFid Reader. He built it around a Microchip Technology PIC18F2221.

The reader is connected to a breadboard that reads the data and clock signals. It’s built with two chips—the Microchip 28-pin PIC and the eight-pin DS1487 driver shown above it—to connect it to the network for testing. (Source: S. Weber, CC269)

Once considered a hobby part, Arduino is now implemented in countless innovative ways by professional engineers like Ed Nisley. Read Ed’s article before you start your next Arduino-related project (p. 44). He covers the essential, but often overlooked, topic of the Arduino’s built-in power supply.

A heatsink epoxied atop the linear regulator on this Arduino MEGA board helped reduce the operating temperature to a comfortable level. This is certainly not recommended engineering practice, but it’s an acceptable hack. (Source: E. Nisley, CC269)

Need to extract a signal in a noisy environment? Consider a lock-in amplifier. On page 50, Robert Lacoste describes synchronous detection, which is a useful way to extract a signal.

This month, Bob Japenga continues his series, “Concurrency in Embedded Systems” (p. 58). He covers “the mechanisms to create concurrently in your software through processes and threads.”

On page 64, George Novacek presents the second article in his series, “Product Reliability.” He explains the importance of failure rate data and how to use the information.

Jeff Bachiochi wraps up the issue with a article about using heat to power up electronic devices (p. 68). Fire and a Peltier device can save the day when you need to charge a cell phone!

Set aside time to carefully study the prize-winning projects from the Reneas RL78 Green Energy Challenge (p. 30). Among the noteworthy designs are an electrostatic cleaning robot and a solar energy-harvesting system.

Lastly, I want to take the opportunity to thank Steve Ciarcia for bringing the electrical engineering community 25 years of innovative projects, essential content, and industry insight. Since 1988, he’s devoted himself to the pursuit of EE innovation and publishing excellence, and we’re all better off for it. I encourage you to read Steve’s final “Priority Interrupt” editorial on page 80. I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s no better way to begin the next 25 years of innovation than by taking a moment to understand and celebrate our past. Thanks, Steve.

From the IBM PC AT to AVRs & Arduinos (CC 25th Anniversary Preview)

Posted on by

During the last 25 years, hundreds of the world’s most brilliant electrical engineers and embedded developers have published articles in Circuit Cellar magazine. But only a choice few had the skill, focus, creativity, and stamina to consistently publish six or more articles per year. Ed Nisley is a member of that select group. Since Issue 1, Nisley has covered topics ranging from a video hand scanner project to X10 powerline control to Arduino-based designs to crystal characterization.

In the upcoming Circuit Cellar 25th Anniversary Issue—which is slated for publication in early 2013—Nisley describes some of his most memorable projects, such as his hand Scanner design from Issue #1. He writes:

The cable in the upper-left corner went to the serial port of my Genuine IBM PC AT. The hand-wired circuit board in front came from an earlier project: an 8031-based video digitizer that captured single frames and produced, believe it or not, RS-232 serial data. It wasn’t fast, but it worked surprisingly well and, best of all, the board was relatively inexpensive. Having built the board and written the firmware, I modified it to output compressed data from hand images, then wrote a PC program to display the results.

Combining a TV camera, a prototype 8031-based video digitizer, and an IBM PC with custom firmware and software produced a digital hand scanner for Circuit Cellar Issue 1. The aluminum case came from an external 8″ floppy drive!

The robust aluminum case originally housed an external 8″ floppy drive for one of my earlier DIY “home computers” (they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to!) and I assembled the rest of the hardware in my shop. With hardware and software in hand, I hauled everything to Circuit Cellar Galactic HQ for a demo.

Some of the work Nisley details is much more modern. For instance, the photo below shows the Arduino microcontroller boards he has been using in many of his recent projects. Nisley writes:

The processors, from the Atmel AVR microcontroller family, date to the mid-1990s, with a compiler-friendly architecture producing good performance with high-level languages. Barely more than breakout boards wrapped around the microcontrollers, Arduinos provide a convenient way to mount and wire to the microcontroller chips. The hardware may be too expensive to incorporate in a product, but it’s ideal for prototypes and demonstrations.

The Arduino microcontroller project provides a convenient basis for small-scale projects like this NiMH cell tester. Simple interconnections work well with low-speed signals and lowcurrent hardware, but analog gotchas always lie in wait.

Even better, a single person can still comprehend all of a project’s hardware and software, if only because the projects tend to be human scaled. The Arduino’s open-source licensing model fits well with my column’s readily available hardware and firmware: you can reproduce everything from scratch, then extend it to suit your needs.

Circuit Cellar’s Circuit Cellar 25th Anniversary Issue will be available in early 2013. Stay tuned for more updates on the issue’s content.

Q&A: Andrew Spitz (Co-Designer of the Arduino-Based Skube)

Posted on by

Andrew Spitz is a Copenhagen, Denmark-based sound designer, interaction designer, programmer, and blogger studying toward a Master’s interaction design at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). Among his various innovative projects is the Arduino-based Skube music player, which is an innovative design that enables users to find and share music.

The Arduino-based Skube

Spitz worked on the design with Andrew Nip, Ruben van der Vleuten, and Malthe Borch. Check out the video to see the Skube in action.

On his blog SoundPlusDesign.com, Spitz writes:

It is a fully working prototype through the combination of using Arduino, Max/MSP and an XBee wireless network. We access the Last.fm API to populate the Skube with tracks and scrobble, and using their algorithms to find similar music when in Discover mode.

The following is an abridged  version of an interview that appears in the December 2012 issue of audioXpress magazine, a sister publication of Circuit Cellar magazine..

SHANNON BECKER: Tell us a little about your background and where you live.

Andrew Spitz: I’m half French, half South African. I grew up in France, but my parents are South African so when I was 17, I moved to South Africa. Last year, I decided to go back to school, and I’m now based in Copenhagen, Denmark where I’m earning a master’s degree at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CID).

SHANNON: How did you become interested in sound design? Tell us about some of your initial projects.

Andrew: From the age of 16, I was a skydiving cameraman and I was obsessed with filming. So when it was time to do my undergraduate work, I decided to study film. I went to film school thinking that I would be doing cinematography, but I’m color blind and it turned out to be a bigger problem than I had hoped. At the same time, we had a lecturer in sound design named Jahn Beukes who was incredibly inspiring, and I discovered a passion for sound that has stayed with me.

Shannon: What do your interaction design studies at CIID entail? What do you plan to do with the additional education?

Andrew: CIID is focused on a user-centered approach to design, which involves finding intuitive solutions for products, software, and services using mostly technology as our medium. What this means in reality is that we spend a lot of time playing, hacking, prototyping, and basically building interactive things and experiences of some sort.

I’ve really committed to the shift from sound design to interaction design and it’s now my main focus. That said, I feel like I look at design from the lens of a sound designer as this is my background and what has formed me. Many designers around me are very visual, and I feel like my background gives me not only a different approach to the work but also enables me to see opportunities using sound as the catalyst for interactive experiences. Lots of my recent projects have been set in the intersection among technology, sound, and people.

SHANNON: You have worked as a sound effects recordist and editor, location recordist and sound designer for commercials, feature films, and documentaries. Tell us about some of these experiences?

ANDREW: I love all aspects of sound for different reasons. Because I do a lot of things and don’t focus on one, I end up having more of a general set of skills than going deep with one—this fits my personality very well. By doing different jobs within sound, I was able to have lots of different experiences, which I loved! nLocation recording enabled me to see really interesting things—from blowing up armored vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to interviewing famous artists and presidents. And, documentaries enabled me to travel to amazing places such as Rwanda, Liberia, Mexico, and Nigeria. As a sound effects recordist on Jock of the Bushvelt, a 3-D animation, I recorded animals such as lions, baboons, and leopards in the South African bush. With Bakgat 2, I spent my time recording and editing rugby sounds to create a sound effects library. This time in my life has been a huge highlight, but I couldn’t see myself doing this forever. I love technology and design, which is why I made the move...

SHANNON: Where did the idea for Skube originate?

Andrew: Skube came out of the Tangible User Interface (TUI) class at CIID where we were tasked to rethink audio in the home context. So understanding how and where people share music was the jumping-off point for creating Skube.

We realized that as we move more toward a digital and online music listening experience, current portable music players are not adapted for this environment. Sharing mSkube Videousic in communal spaces is neither convenient nor easy, especially when we all have such different taste in music.

The result of our exploration was Skube. It is a music player that enables you to discover and share music and facilitates the decision process of picking tracks when in a communal setting.

audioXpress is an Elektor International Media publication.

MCU-Based Prosthetic Arm with Kinect

Posted on by

James Kim—a biomedical student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada—recently submitted an update on the status of an interesting prosthetic arm design project. The design features a Freescale 9S12 microcontroller and a Microsoft Kinect, which tracks arm movements that are then reproduced on the prosthetic arm.

He also submitted a block diagram.

Overview of the prosthetic arm system (Source: J. Kim)

Kim explains:

The 9S12 microcontroller board we use is Arduino form-factor compatible and was coded in C using Codewarrior.  The Kinect was coded in C# using Visual Studio using the latest version of Microsoft Kinect SDK 1.5.  In the article, I plan to discuss how the microcontroller was set up to do deterministic control of the motors (including the timer setup and the PID code used), how the control was implemented to compensate for gravitational effects on the arm, and how we interfaced the microcontroller to the PC.  This last part will involve a discussion of data logging as well as interfacing with the Kinect.

The Kinect tracks a user’s movement and the prosthetic arm replicates it. (Source: J. Kim, YouTube)

The system includes:

Circuit Cellar intends to publish an article about the project in an upcoming issue.