The machinegeek has shown us a rather detailed project on how to use the Arduino to float objects via an electromagnetic field.
The machinegeek says:
mekonik has published complete details on his Arduino magnetic levitation project. Not content to settle for a typical “hello world” LED blinker as his first project, he supplemented the Arduino with an electromagnet, Honeywell SS19 Hall effect sensor, MC3401P op amp, NPN transistor and 1N4001 rectifier. The circuit essentially uses the small Hall effect sensor to sense the field of the permanent magnet and uses that information calculated by the Arduino to control the modulation of the magnetic field of the electromagnet. Pretty cool!
The site is loaded with a heap of theory, photos/schematics, code and discussion.
A couple of days ago we asked you to tell us about your favorite math book. Now that the results are in, we must say that while some titles were expected, there are quite a few surprises as well. Quite frankly we were blown away by the great list of math books we compiled with your input.
Know any not on their list that’s great? Post up in the comments here!
Our things can tell us a story…if they have a voice…if they are connected. What can our things tell us? How about how much power they use? How about if someone is in your house? How about your toaster updating Twitter? A new generation of products and services for “connected things” are being created as we speak. Be a part of the story…
ThingSpeak is an open web of things platform to allow devices to interact with web services, apps, and things. ThingSpeak is open to any type of data from devices and applications. ThingSpeak is a cloud service…things-as-a-service (TaaS)? ThingSpeak is open now.
Features:
Open API – connect devices and applications via the Internet to send and receive data
Multiple Data Types – numbers (decimal and comma) and alphanumeric strings
Real-time Data Processing – time scaling, averaging, median, summing, and rounding
Time and Location – localized time, geolocation, latitude, longitude, and elevation
Social Context – augment data with status updates
Charts – instant visualization and embed tools
Apps - built-in apps to connect things to web services
Plugins – sandbox to create mashups, visualizations, and apps
“Infusing unsuspecting whole fruit with gaseous CO2 in the entire Tri-State Area!” In an effort to make fruit fun for the kids, I built a carbon dioxide injector from parts in my garage with the purpose of carbonating whole fruit! With a common house water filter housing, a 16 Oz paintball CO2 canister, an old gas regulator, and some miscellaneous valves and fittings, I was able to bring this fizz fruit apparatus to life, and the kids love the results.
MiniPOV! A simple POV toy for beginners who are looking to learn how to solder, how to program microcontrollers, or make LED blinky toys. Because the programmer is built into the kit, one does not need a special “microcontroller programmer”. This version can be used with PCs (Linux/Unix or Windows) and Macs (running MacOS X and with a USB/serial converter).
So said Yanping Chen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore, as he expertly folded and refolded a 6-inch square piece of paper. Six minutes later, he set down in front of him — what’s this? — a paper crane. Only it did not resemble any crane a grade-schooler might make from a beginner’s origami primer.
Chen’s had five tiny heads and looked ready to fly away at any moment. But then he’s no origami novice, either. Chen arrived at MIT with a sophisticated knowledge of origami design, quickly connecting with like-minded enthusiasts through OrigaMIT, a club for serious paper folders who know how to push the envelope, not just turn one into a paper yacht.
The Enigma machine basically consisted of three or more rotors that had contacts on both sides. The rotors are set to the encryption or decryption “key” then a button is pushed which goes through the wiring in the rotors, then lights up a lamp corresponding to the encrypted output (there’s a lamp for every letter in the alphabet). To decrypt you simply start with the same key that was used to encrypt the data and type in the cipher text. One thing significant about the Enigma machine is that the rotors rotate as each key is pressed, so the encryption key essentially changes with each character.
I was in a thrift store recently and saw a game with a screen and a keyboard and I thought, that would make a good Enigma machine (I’ve always wanted one, but I know my wife would kill me if I bought a real one $$$). In this instructable I’ll show how I gutted an kids game and used an Arduino to hook up to the keypad and speaker. The code’s not too bad (so far). This version is a simple three rotor Enigma machine. You can switch the rotors around and change the letters for the rotors. Future plans are to all for more rotors, allow changing out the reflector, allow for spinning the ring around a rotor, and a plug board implementation. This Enigma machine will be able to encode and decode messages to and from the real, old Enigma machines used during Wold War II.
We’ve just posted a tutorial on upgrading the firmware on the ATmega8U2 on the Arduino Uno and Mega 2560. This should resolve the problems that some of you have had with serial communication between those boards and Linux. The upgrade doesn’t require a programmer or other hardware, just adding a resistor to the board and touching a couple of pins together. It’s a safe process, and if it doesn’t work the first time you can do it again.
We’re in the process of testing the new firmwares on other operating systems so that we can begin to ship them as the default on new boards. So far, though, many Linux users have had success with the upgraded firmwares.
Thanks to Dean Camera (author of LUFA) for his help in fixing the firmware.
Just wanted to say thanks for the awesome kits and information. Here are a couple of photos of my 7 year old daughter Izabel , assembling a drawdio kit she got for a gift. She loves to solder and is good at it!
The main focus of this project is the computer platform, although we do produce the full packaged robot. Lots of small cheap computers exist, but which ones would be good robot brains? For this reason, we are testing a number of small, cheap computers to see which one performs the best. We are very interested in suggestions. If you know of a computer that meets the requirements, please let us know!
Let’s say you are 9 and you want to learn how to program … syntax is hard, and it is usually one of the issues I find when teaching. But also, language is problematic, not everybody speaks/reads/writes English and most programming languages are written in English … Arduino’s is not an exception. The guys at Complubot are into something interesting when it comes to learn programming. They are now in the third iteration of a cardgame (name to be decided) using the Arduino syntax.
Check out the Arduino Blog post for more information and photos.
The folks at Tellart in Providence, RI made this awesome interactive automated bell ringing project, which they call the Love Song Machine. They write:
In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Tellart is launching the Love Song Machine, a musical instrument controlled (by you) through the internet. Visitors to the website can select a song or compose their own, and press play to send the song to the instrument in our Providence office.
The bells are played by a series of solenoids, which are controlled by an Arduino micro-controller. The notes that you submit are processed on our web servers and then sent to the Arduino, while we load up live video and audio so that you can watch your song play. If there are users ahead of you in line, the queuing system will let you know how long you’ve got before you can watch your song.
The bell machine will only be available for a limited time, so start composing!
It has a bunch of premade songs you can make it play, but it’s more fun to figure out your own, so I came up with the ostinato phrase (intro) and verse to Radiohead’s No Surprises:
Printable catalog (PDF)
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