It is difficult to say that the interface of mechanical materials like a keyboard , a mouse and so on is very suitable for man.
So I made the Minamo interface.
“Minamo” means “Surface of water” in Japanese.
Water is the most intimate material for human body.
And I decided to make a touch screen interface on water surface.
NEW PRODUCT – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger – v1.1. This is a Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery charger based on the MCP73833. It uses a USB mini-B for connection to any computer or ‘USB wall adapter’. Charging is performed in three stages: first a preconditioning charge, then a constant-current fast charge and finally a constant-voltage trickle charge to keep the battery topped-up. The fast-charge current is 200mA by default, but is easily adjustable from 100mA up to 1000mA by soldering a through-hole resistor on-board.
This board is great for DIY projects because it has 3 indicator LEDs – one for power, one for charging status and a third that indicates when charging is complete. Keep the battery connected to the charger and pass power through the additional JST connector using the included cable!
Comes assembled and tested with a free bonus JST cable!
5V input via mini-B USB connector
For charging single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries (not for older 3.6/4.1v cells)
200mA charge current, adjustable up to 1000mA by soldering in a resistor
Separate JST connectors for battery and load system so batteries don’t have to be removed for charging
0.1″ (2.54mm) pads next to the JST in case you want to use terminal blocks or connect it to a breadboard
NEW PRODUCT – Lithium Ion Polymer Battery – 1200mAh. Lithium ion polymer (also known as ‘lipo’ or ‘lipoly’) batteries are thin, light and powerful. The output ranges from 4.2V when completely charged to 3.7V. This battery has a capacity of 1200mAh for a total of about 4.5 Wh.
The batteries come pre-attached with a 2-pin JST-PH connector as shown and include the necessary protection circuitry. The protection circuitry keeps the battery voltage from going to high (over-charging) or low (over-use) which means that the battery will cut-out when completely dead. It will also protect against output shorts. However, even with this protection it is very important that you only use a LiIon/LiPoly constant-voltage/constant-current charger to recharge them and at a rate of 500mA or less.
Additional safety notes: Do not use a NiMH/NiCad/lead-acid charger! Also, do not abuse these batteries, do not short, bend, crush or puncture. As with all Lithium ion polymer batteries and with any power source – they should be used by experts who are comfortable working with power supplies.
While PayPal is a great option for getting your business off the ground, most e-commerce businesses can save on credit card processing fees by switching to a more robust merchant account. It’s easier than ever to get an internet merchant account, and many support processing Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express right out of the box with no additional steps or fees.
Anyone use TransFS? The issue we have with the tool is the fees do not seem to be accurate, cute – but not quite accurate. It’s good to manually compare rates against this – at least a good starting point.
There is a Gadget Freak Design Contest at MAKE – we think many of our readers and customers could easily win this!
Can you build a cool gadget that you think you could sell?
Check out the MAKE/Design News Gadget Freak Design Contest, Sponsored by Alibre, Allied Electronics, and Texas Instruments. Create a gadget and document your build. Important: Your gadget must incorporate electronic components and involve sensing, motion, timing and/or networking elements). The Contest winner gets $1000 and a chance to sell their gadget in kit form in the Makers Market (with setup and monthly fees waived for 6 months).
How to Enter
To enter in the Gadget Freak Design Contest, click on the “Enter Here” link below. You will be asked to include a project description/build instructions/bill of materials and visual documentation of your gadget. Please note that video is not required but strongly recommended. Be sure to add your project photos to the contest Flickr group so you can share your awesome ideas with the world.
Amazing Prizes!
Grand Prize (1 Winner) – $1,000 in the form of a pre-paid credit card + A storefront in the Makers Market*
Second Prize (1 Winner) – $500 in the form of a pre-paid credit card.
Third Prize (2 Winners) – $100 Maker Shed Gift Certificate
So you’re pretty fond of your Arduino. You make blinking lights, and beeping noises. You’ve made a robot that was pretty cool. Or maybe you didn’t. Who cares, You’re ready for the next step. You want to extend it. Although you can just plug in wires, there’s something very appealing about making a shield. Instead of a rats-nest of wires piled about and plugged into your prototyping breadboard, you can have a nice clean shield with labeled connections and a smaller footprint. So here I’m going to tell you everything you need to know to make a schematic and PCB layout, and get a beautiful shield that will plug into the top of your Arduino.
There are a couple of things you should know going into this. First, I’m not going to teach you everything about EAGLE. EAGLE is a complex program, and it’s pretty awesome. There’s no way I could cover it all. Second, this tutorial came about as a way of trying to get more people into my local PCB order. We try to fill up our panels so we can get one out every 2-4 weeks, and we recently had to switch production houses. As a result, this tutorial doesn’t have any info on etching your own PCB, just on getting the Gerber files out. So come check out our PCB order, because it’s awesome. Lastly, for the sake of simplification, we’re going to make a board that uses only parts in the SparkFun Library. This is because I don’t want to try to teach you how to make parts on top of everything else we’re going to be doing. It’ll just be easier this way, I promise. Okay, one more thing: I assume you know how to use your computer. This isn’t going to be a “how to use your mouse” tutorial. I’m gonna go with some things that are EAGLE specific, but you need to know basics. At this point, I’d be surprised to find someone who’s unfamiliar with computing, but has a strong enough interest in electronics to be to the point of designing their own PCB.
A robotic jumbo dumbo! 8 feet tall and walking at 27 miles per hour. Mr. Stuart’s handmade Elephant has 9,000 parts, a steel frame and a 10 horsepower motor.
Graffiti Analysis: Sculptures is a series of new physical sculptures that I am making from motion tracked graffiti data. New software (GA 3D) imports .gml files (Graffiti Markup Language) captured using Graffiti Analysis, creates 3D geometry based on the data and then exports a 3D representation of the tag as a .stl file (a common file format compatible with most 3D software packages including Blender, Maya and 3DS Max). Time is extruded in the Z dimension and pen speed is represented by the thickness of the model at any given point. I then have this data 3D printed to create a physical sculpture that serves as a data visualization of the tag. For the Street and Studio exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wein, I collaborated with an anonymous local Viennese graffiti writer and had the GA sculpture printed in ABS plastic. Graffiti motion data of his tag was captured in the streets (for the first time) at various points around Vienna.
The entire schedule for The Next HOPE has been finalized and is now viewable online in either grid or summary mode. We have three scheduled tracks and one unscheduled one which will result in well over 100 hour long presentations. We had more submissions this year than ever before and also more preregistrants so this looks like the biggest HOPE in history. It’s not too late to take advantage of preregistration before it closes within the next week or two.
Outside of New York City’s Eyebeam studio, an artist’s hub dedicated to the convergence of art and technology, two women pause to see a pen doodling across a canvas behind a window. When they touch little circles on the glass, the pen changes direction.
“What’s this?” they ask. Then they read the description. This is a SADbot.
SADbot, or Seasonally Affected Drawing Robot, is a solar-powered, interactive drawing machine created by Eyebeam artists Dustyn Roberts and Ben Leduc-Mills. The contraption was on display this month at Eyebeam’s Window Gallery in Chelsea.
We roll with the open source zen cart shopping cart software here (details on what we use here) – but we’re always looking around at other shopping cart systems, not just for ourselves, for other makers that are trying to sell their goods online. Here’s one called “Goodsie” – looks like Tumblr-ish + shopping cart. If you have shopping cart services and systems you’re interested in post up in the kit biz forums or in the comments!
Printable catalog (PDF) or (EPUB)
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