Check out yet another (binary) clock by Carl Bredlau a short 6 second film for the Adafruit #adafruit6secs electronic film festival (Youtube playlist here for all the entries on YouTube).

Formlabs Form 1 Teardown @ bunnie’s blog.

What’s the first thing I do with any shiny new gadget? That’s right, I take it apart!

NEW PRODUCT – Standalone Momentary Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout – This breakout board is the simplest way to create a project with a single “momentary” capacitive touch sensor. No microcontroller is required here – just power with 1.8 to 5.5VDC and touch the pad to activate the sensor.

When a capacitive load is detected (e.g. a person touches the sensor-pad area) the red LED lights up and the output pin goes high. You can also solder a wire to the middle pad and create your own capacitive pad if the built-in one isn’t suited to your project.

If you want to save power, the LED can be disconnected from the output pin (cut the trace between the jumper marked as such). We designed this breakout to have the more-responsive “fast mode” which draws about 0.5mA. If you need ultra-low (~50uA) power usage, the mode jumper can be cut on one side & soldered closed on the other to fix it into that mode. Check the datasheet for specific power usage measurements.

Comes with a fully assembled board, and a small stick of 0.1″ header so you can solder and plug it into a breadboard. For additional contacts, we suggest using copper foil, then solder a wire that connects from the foil pad to the breakout.

The datasheet has many details on sensitivity, power usage, etc.

Technical Details:

• Dimensions: 20mm / 0.8″ x 28mm / 1.1″
• Weight: 1.87g

In stock and shipping now!

NEW PRODUCT – Standalone Momentary Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout – This breakout board is the simplest way to create a project with a single “toggle” capacitive touch sensor. No microcontroller is required here – just power with 1.8 to 5.5VDC and touch the pad to activate the sensor.

This sensor is a toggle output type: touch-on then touch-off. That means that when a capacitive load is detected (e.g. a person touches the sensor-pad area) the red LED will alternate turning off and the output pin will go high or low, respectively. This sensor is good for a project where you want to activate something on the first touch, then deactivate it when touching again, like a switch. You can also solder a wire to the middle pad and create your own capacitive pad if the built-in one isn’t suited to your project.

If you want to save power, the LED can be disconnected from the output pin (cut the trace between the jumper marked as such). We designed this breakout to have infinite time-out. The chip does support having the sensor time-out, so for example, if something is turned on, it will eventually turn off on its own. If you’d like to use this mode, cut the TIMER jumper and then connect a resistor/capacitor to the TIME pin. Check the datasheet for how to calculate the TIME pin to match your desired timeout.

Comes with a fully assembled board, and a small stick of 0.1″ header so you can solder and plug it into a breadboard. For additional contacts, we suggest using copper foil, then solder a wire that connects from the foil pad to the breakout.

The datasheet has many details on sensitivity, power usage, etc.

Technical Details:

• Dimensions: 20mm / 0.8″ x 29.35mm / 1.15″
• Weight: 2.03g

In stock and shipping now!

We’ve updated the Adafruit Learning System with a new feature that may be useful to those of you that don’t like clicking!  Single page view is the newest addition to the learning system.  We think the best default is still the guided navigation, as each page in the tutorials are specifically designed as a step in the process, but not everyone learns in the same way.

We hope this latest update to the Learning System will be another useful tool for you to learn all about electronics, wearables, and more.  If you have any suggestions for features, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

The latest version of the Adafruit webIDE now supports the BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black.  We’ve been working out many of the issues with this installer the last few days, and it appears ready to be released into the wild.  The installer is specifically designed to work with the default Angstrom Linux distribution that is pre-installed on the BeagleBone’s.  You may want to update to the latest version of Angstrom prior to installing the webIDE as well.

You can find the instructions on how to install it in the Adafruit Learning System’s webIDE tutorial.  We’ve also created a new installation video to help as well:

If you run into any issues with installing the webIDE on the BeagleBone, or with any issues running the webIDE, please open a ticket in the issues section of our GitHub repository.

MIT Members Invited to Color Nighttime Sky with Pilobolus & UP: The Umbrella Project | CSAIL.

MIT students, faculty and staff are invited to come light up the Cambridge sky during the second performance of UP: The Umbrella Project on Sunday, May 19 at 7:45 p.m. at Jack Barry Field. A collaboration between the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and internationally acclaimed dance company Pilobolus, UP will bring together members of the MIT community to participate in a large-scale live performance piece using umbrellas outfitted with LED lights.
 
Each UP participant will be provided with an umbrella equipped with red, green and blue LED lights. Using hand controllers designed by researchers in the MIT Distributed Robotics Lab at CSAIL, participants will be able to independently change the color of their umbrella. Guided by the Pilobolus creative team, UP participants will traverse the field and manipulate the hue of their umbrellas, creating a colorful and ever-changing display of live art.
 
UP premiered at the PopTech Conference in Maine in October 2012, when more than 300 participants transformed a rainy sky into a sea of changing colors. This is the second collaboration between the Distributed Robotics Lab, led by CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, and Pilobolus; the two organizations first joined forces on Seraph, a performance piece involving human dancers and flying robots.
 
Bringing together a large group of people to participate in a collaborative effort fits well with the overall research goal of the Distributed Robotics Lab.

Whoa! Check the new look for that Adafruit G+ Community “Makers, hackers, artists & engineers“! There are people making amazing things around the world, are you one of them? Join the 51,229 strong! And check out scores of projects they shared this week after the jump!

Don’t miss the chance to catch up with great pieces from the community from this past week! Click the link below!

From the Google+ Community

(Note: Google+ login required.)

Mark Miller shared: “I have made my scraps of acrylic and lexan(3/8″) into torque amplifiers(aka pulleys) and bushings by rough cutting them into circles on the band saw then spinning them down in the lathe to whatever size and bore I need for the project. I make a small hub for each one, drill it for a setscrew and fuse it to the pulley itself. You can make simple or compound pulleys this way. Combine that with a 2$ bag of rubber bands and you can have a party!(making stuff that is) It only takes a few minutes to make a pulley this way, and you get exactly what you want/need. I currently made a bunch in various ratios to produce the clock shown(in progress, still have to paint and finish) all from scraps of plexi, added a stepper motor and calibrated for correct time(now called the DAM clock, for digital and mechanical). It has hour and minute hands so far. I am thinking on clever ways to finish it up.” (read more)

Jay Doscher shared: “Check out my project that uses a Raspberry Pi and PiFace board to turn a PC on and off remotely. The PiFace is very powerful, and leaves rooms for even more mods in the future. Gotta love the +Raspberry Pi” (read more)

Erik Kringen shared: “The ATTINY84 and L298N both fit nicely on this 4X3 PCB board. I even had room for a switch and a programming header.” (read more)

Kris Kortright shared Deidre’s latest project: “Deirdre’s new Lioness/Cat costume using Adafruit FLORA electronics to light it up! We’re still in testing, the whiskers and eyes will be aligned and have additional electronics to make the eyes and ears move, and the whiskers twitch. Only so many hours after work to put into it, hoping we’re 100% done for the next Ask An Engineer show!” (read more) Awesome!

Jeremy Veleber shared 3D renderings of his first PCB project in progress: “So far, so good… so what! How did Megadeth get in here? Just some 3D models of my current project.” (read more)

Oleg Mazurov shared an experiment: “Experimenting with reflow soldering in inert atmosphere. Got incredibly good results – wetting is again as good as in old days of leaded solder and there is no real need to heat up higher than 215C. The joints look like they were hand-soldered. On the down side, the process eats quite a bit of CO2 and the setup is not very convenient. Will try with N2 as well to compare.” (read more)

phenoptix shared a couple of awesome hybrid case he designed from Adafruit projects he had enjoyed: “Spent some time this afternoon combining two +Phillip Burgess designs from the Adafruit catalogue to create a clip together +BeagleBoard.org Beagle Bone Black case http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:88197 Think it still needs a little tinkering to get the port entries right since I don’t currently have access to a Black to test them out on but I’m pretty pleased with the work so far.” And check out his RasPi + Camera case here! (read more)

Matt Morgan shared: “My first arm” (read more)

Matt Heilman shared a number of projects, including: “My custom Wheelbarrow (the art of combining 2 broken things)” (read more)

Robert Svec shared: “Check out my rover. You can control it via Livebots.cc and use it to find points by driving close to the RFID tags in the arena! (Since it’s Mother’s Day the bot will not be live until tomorrow but check out the video)” (read more)

Nick Johnson shared: “Just finished building my Objective2 headphone amp. It’ll have to wait until I get to work with my decent headphones to give any sort of proper assessment, but based on my listening so far, it seems pretty good!” (read more)

Ross Potts shared a quick PSU mod project: “My power supply: from desktop to benchtop. Mocking up the Final shape: not soldered up, though, and the terminal on the left will be painted Yellow or Blue and will be higher than 12v. *I CAN just combine a 12v and 5v for 17v total, right? * I liked Someone’s idea to paint it that “Danger!” yellow and black stripe scheme, but that can wait for when I do one up with a voltmeter.” (read more)

Jaidyn Edwards shared a new robot: “So many people know me as the thrifty robot maker, turning anything into a robot if I can, this time the box that Ferrero Rocher chocolates come in. Hope you like it! Arduino – ‘Ferrero’ obstacle avoiding robot” (read more)

Jon Sanford shared a project in progress: “I have been working on a new project. It is turning out to be more difficult than it should be. Ha Ha what else is new! This just a short howdy then.” (read more)

Bruce Lowther shared a project in progress: “I finally got my thermometer / humidifier mobile. It probably doesn’t look like much, but it is working. The receiver side is in my basement. Just using serial AT mode for now. Next step is to see if I can do this in API mode with the #xbee and drop the #Arduino.” (read more)

Sam Harrison shared several stages of his BO design: track upgrade parts, technical drawings, and 3D renders. (read more)

Matthew Arlauckas pulled apart an old effects pedal and shared photos: “Just found this old project in a box. Simple distortion stompbox built around an LM833 (circa 1991). Going to have to reverse-engineer the board on this one. #goodtimes” (read more)

Jeremy Cook shared some first experiences working with the open source parametric 3d design tool OpenSCAD, from a CNC router perspective: ”
Thought this program was pretty neat” (read more)

Saikat Basak shared an experiment with opencv: “Moving mouse using computer vision.” (read more)

Community Projects from the Adafruit Blog

Check out the winners and many participants from our community challenge: #adafruit6sec Electronics Film Festival! (read more)

Eric and Bret shared: “We took a metal pie late and connected it to MaKey MaKey so that when you touch it, it triggers a hi-hat sound. Then we added masking tape, so that as you slide your finger around it, it plays a rhythm. We also added some copper tape on top of the masking tape, to trigger a bass drum and a clap sound.” (read more)

Check out Pedro J. Arroyo’s ‘LED belt on steroids’ project video. Double-wide LED belt kit with Arduino Esplora. Shared on the Adafruit Forums! “Finally got some spare time to put this together and I got it to work like a charm. Got the sample code to run 64 LEDs. So Stoked! Now I just need to figure out how to address the LEDs with the Esploras varied sensors. Thanks for the help, and for providing such neat things to tinker with!” (read more)

Here’s a great Internet Radio project: “How cool would it be take a vintage 1940′s or 1950′s wooden radio and rebuild it as a modern Internet Radio? That’s the premise I had in mind when I started out on my first Raspberry Pi project. I used the Adafruit Occidentalis Linux distribution and Adafruit python class for the 32×2 LCD display. I found a great YouTube tutorial by MeisterVision that covered the basics of the MPC/MPD Linux Music Player really well.” (read more)

]]> http://www.adafruit.com/adablog/?feed=rss2&p=64457 0 http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2013/05/17/ros-industrial-1-yr-montage-shirt-folding-robot/ http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2013/05/17/ros-industrial-1-yr-montage-shirt-folding-robot/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 17:05:09 +0000 adafruit http://www.adafruit.com/blog/?p=64391

A compilation of ROS-Industrial application videos from the first year of the ROS-I repository.

Via Frederik Lotter

Check out Tiny 3x3x3 LED Green Cube TinyDuino by thithathu a short 6 second film for the Adafruit #adafruit6secs electronic film festival (Youtube playlist here for all the entries on YouTube).

From thingiverse.com:

Another iteration of the Open Box which is the hinged lid variant of the Adafruit Pi Box. This time with a slot and mounting holes for the Raspberry Pi Camera. The holes on the camera fit an M2 bolt.

This and others like it are available at http://www.phenoptix.com/products/openbox-raspberry-pi-model-b-with-camera-mount

Official website here!

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

What happens with Arduino at Maker Faire Bay Area?.

Arduino is ready for Maker Faire Bay Area, the world’s most diverse showcase of creativity and innovation in technology, craft and science.

On 18th and 19th May 2013 at San Mateo County Events Center, in California, Arduino will present a lot of novelties, proving more and more to be one of the benchmark in the maker movement.

A new product – Arduino Robot brings you into the world of robotics. Designed with Complubot, the 4-times 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. You can use it as it is, modify its software and even add your own hardware on top of it. You can learn as you go: the Arduino Robot is perfect for the novice but also for those looking for their next challenge.

As always with Arduino, every element of the platform – hardware, software and documentation – is freely available and open-source. This means you can learn exactly how it’s made and use its design as the starting point for your own robots. 

A new software – Arduino has released the new version of the Arduino IDE and the new TFT screen. TCT LCD library relies on the Adafruit GFX and ST7735 libraries. Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer Limor ‘Ladyada’, Enterpreneur of the year 2012. 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.

Read more.

Via 3ders.org:

This looks brilliant, a team of self-described “lazy hackers” has come up an automated beer dispensing system named RoboKeg, a Raspberry Pi powered, NFC (Near Field Communications) triggered beer tap. A long beer line at a crowded concert or bar is not an issue anymore, with a Robokeg, sort of vending machine, all you need to do is let RoboKeg scans the chip in your wristband.

Read more here!

Realtime Data Plotting in Python. Scott writes -

I love using python for handing data. Displaying it isn’t always as easy. Python fast to write, and numpy, scipy, and matplotlib are an incredible combination. I love matplotlib for displaying data and use it all the time, but when it comes to realtime data visualization, matplotlib (admittedly) falls behind. Imagine trying to plot sound waves in real time. Matplotlib simply can’t handle it. I’ve recently been making progress toward this end with PyQwt with the Python X,Y distribution. It is a cross-platform solution which should perform identically on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. Here’s an example of what it looks like plotting some dummy data (a sine wave) being transformed with numpy.roll().

Creating your own Subnode: Networking with the Raspberry Pi + Node.js:

Created during the Fall 2012 Residency season at Eyebeam, Subnodes (http://subnod.es/) is an open source initiative designed to streamline the process of setting up a Raspberry Pi as a wireless access point for distributing content and taking part in shared digital experiences. The device behaves as a web server, creating its own local area network, and does not connect with the internet. This is key for the sake of offering a space where people can communicate anonymously and freely, as well as maximizing the portability of the network (no dependability on an internet connection means the device can be taken and remain active anywhere).

Reserve tickets here!

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Andrew Holme‘s homemade GPS receiver:

I was motivated to design this receiver after reading the work [1] of Matjaž Vidmar, S53MV, who developed a GPS receiver from scratch, using mainly discrete components, over 20 years ago. His use of DSP following a hard-limiting IF and 1-bit ADC interested me. The receiver described here works on the same principle. Its 1-bit ADC is the 6-pin IC near the pin headers, an LVDS-output comparator. Hidden under noise but not obliterated in the bi-level quantised mush that emerges are signals from every satellite in view.

All GPS satellites transmit on the same frequency, 1575.42 MHz, using direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). The L1 carrier is spread over a 2 MHz bandwidth and its strength at the Earth’s surface is -130 dBm. Thermal noise power in the same bandwidth is -111 dBm, so a GPS signal at the receiving antenna is ~ 20 dB below the noise floor. That any of the signals present, superimposed one on another and buried in noise, are recoverable after bi-level quantisation seems counter-intuitive!

GPS relies on the correlation properties of pseudo-random sequences called Gold Codes to separate signals from noise and each other. Every satellite transmits a unique sequence. All uncorrelated signals are noise, including those of other satellites and hard-limiter quantisation errors. Mixing with the same code in the correct phase de-spreads the wanted signal and further spreads everything else. Narrow-band filtering then removes wideband noise without affecting the (once again narrow) wanted signal. Hard-limiting (1-bit ADC) degrades SNR by less than 3 dB, a price worth paying to avoid hardware AGC.

Schematics, diagrams, code and more here!

Via engadget:

Yes, there’s a fleet of camera-equipped, remote-controlled blimps live-streaming a bird’s-eye view of Google I/O on YouTube, right now. It’s called Google AirShow and it’s taken over the airspace within Moscone Center. We briefly chatted with Chris Miller, a software engineer with AKQA (the company that put the dirigibles together for Google), about the technology used in each aircraft. It all begins with an off-the-shelf model airship that’s flown manually via standard a 2.4GHz radio.

Photos and more here!

Featured Adafruit Products

Raspberry Pi Model A 256MB RAM – The Raspberry Pi® is a single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of stimulating the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. (read more)

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

“Adding to the popular Make line of kits, like ‘Getting Started with Arduino’ the new cobranded product lineup from Maker Media and RadioShack combine Maker Media’s strength in cultivating and growing the maker movement with RadioShack’s strong retail footprint and DIY heritage,” said Dale Dougherty, founder and CEO of Maker Media. “Our new cobranded products are designed to give makers a path to making while they continue to develop their skills and push the limits of their creativity.” The new cobranded product lineup will be available in-store and online exclusively at RadioShack later this year. In addition, MAKE Magazine will join the MAKE book lineup and will be available in stores this fall.

RadioShack jumping completely in to the maker movement and Make as a stand-alone company co-branding with other brands – big moves in the maker business arena!

Nick Donaldson’s new hexapod robot Grinder goes for a skate on the tennis courts at the park. Approximate top speed is 6mph / 10kph when skating, 10x the walking speed. The wheels are passively mounted at an angle to the legs, allowing them to roll on the ground when the legs are spread. Find out more about Grinder at http://www.gotrobots.com/grinder/

Via polyideas.com:

This project focuses on a common area of power usage in the home- the humble PC. Sure, laptops are more efficient- but sometimes only a PC will do. Many of us leave a PC on just in case we need to log onto it remotely. If we’re not using it, it’s just sitting there using electricity- and usually quite a bit of it. The most efficient desktop PCs still use around 35-45 watts when idling. Gaming PCs with big video cards can easily top 200 watts!

The PiSwitch solution lets you hook up a Raspberry Pi to your PC to control your power and reset buttons. The Raspberry Pi only uses about 1 watt of power when on, so it’s more economical to leave it on all the time. In this article, I’ll walk through how to set up the Raspberry Pi from start to finish to do this.

Check out the tutorial here!

Print-a-Tweet 2000. Nial writes -

Another great job by Sir Ben of Phenoptix Towers. He built me the original case in clear acrylic with the old style Phenoptix logo on the front access and cover panel whilst I was setting my Adafruit Mini Thermal Printer up with my Arduino Ethernet to run as a Electronic Fortune Cookie machine. It was pretty cool for a few months till everyone had played with it enough and we had gone through 3x 75ft rolls of paper printing random fortunes from a server.

I have recently been inspired Adafruit once again who brought some new life to its lovely little £40 Thermal receipt printer and created the Python Libs and files to run the Printer from the much more versatile and powerful RasPi which obviously has a far more appeal and range of uses due to being able to connect to any website, server, or database and run far more complex programs due to the almost unlimited space available compared to the measly 32KB of room the ‘Duino allowed and having it all being able to be coded in Python which is far easier to change around and cut and paste pieces.

Anyway with a bit of tweaking of their code for running a standard search f the Twitter API every 30 seconds and printing any matches to the criteria you give it, I went a little further with the API and created some custom searches and set it up so an RGB LED would be lit if a match occurred and then it prints the tweet. I have also just about got it working so depending on which search criteria it matches it displays a different color (Nothing fancy, Just Red, Green and Blue to keep it simple). It also responds to a secondary button push which also lights the RGB LED, this button is as well as the standard as set out in the Adafruit program which gives you Time & Temp printout for a tap and Safe Power Down of the Pi if you hold down for 2 seconds. Now in addition on a further momentary switch the Printer will print the last tweet from each of the 3 criteria I have set it up for depending on how long you hold the button down, each step is 2 seconds and the LED will light each of its 3 main colours for every 2 seconds its held down which match the search criteria result light colour… So hold for 2 secs and the LED Goes Red and Prints out last tweet from criteria #1 (To @RaW_Gaming) once it gets to 4 secs the LED will switch to Blue and print the 2nd criteria last tweet (From @xxxxxx) and then at 6 secs it goes to Green and prints criteria #3 which currently is (Farnell and Camera) – was keeping eye on tweets for the word as soon as Farnell put the RasPi cameras on sale, which worked well as I got the first tweet saying they were up on the Farnell site and immediately went there and pre-ordered one of the first new RasPi cameras in exactly the same way as I managed to get one of the first UK BeagleBone Blacks the week before by having the app run matches for “Farnell and BeagleBone”. After 8 Seconds the Main program kicks in and starts a safe shut down and tapping the other button still prints Weather and Time (Local).

Its a pretty cool setup!

Anyway it was starting to look a mess and I needed to hide alot of fly leads so Ben kindly once again hit the laser and cut me a new front in semi transparent Purple Acrylic (which I bought myself and had shipped to Phenptix for a project I eventually scrapped months ago and has been sitting up there with no use for ages) etched with the Twitter Logo so that its not visible and just a plain purple front when there are no notifier lights lit but the logo lights ups when the LED does with each colour and and looks pretty sweet diffused through the frosted purple!. Also replaced the two side panels with same Purple to hide the mass of wiring bundled inside the case.

Top Job!

Thermal printer, cobbler and Pibow!

PICrouter by tkrworks:

PICrouter is a versatile and prototyping board specialized for Open Sound Control.
The main function is to communicate between OSC and USB-MIDI/HID.

PICrouter will be an useful with the following purpose.

• Develop an OSC/MIDI/HID controller for music or visual.
• Study a PIC32 microcontroller.
• Study a communication with usb and ethernet.

Demos and more here.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

The Good Life Lab is pre-launching at Maker Faire. It comes out in stores everywhere June 5 and can be preordered on Amazon

Bios

Wendy Tremayne was a creative director in a marketing firm in New York City before moving to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where she built an off-the-grid oasis in a barren RV park with her partner, Mikey Sklar. She is the founder of the textile repurposing event Swap-O-Rama-Rama, which has spread all over the world. She has written for Craft’s webzine and Make magazine and, with Mikey Sklar, keeps the blog Holy Scrap.

Mikey Sklar is a digital homesteader, open source hardware developer and anti-griddle master. Mikey has worked for Adafruit, Hack-A-Day and Popular Science.

Wendy & Mikey are giving three presentations @ Maker Faire, San Mateo, CA

Meet the Maker Stage
Saturday May 18, 2013 03:30PM – 3:50

Homegrown Village Stage
Sunday May 19, 2013 11:30AM – 12:20

Swap-O-Rama-Rama – Talk and Book Signing
May 20, 2013 03:20PM – 3:40

Tour Schedule

Holy Scrap Blog

Note from Ladyada & pt @ Adafruit: We’ve known Wendy & Mikey for years, we’ve visited their place in Truth or Consequences and it was one of the best experiences ever. They shared a preview of the book with us and it’s inspirational tale for all makers. If you’re at Maker Faire this weekend, go see them and either way, pick up this book!

Via evilmadscientist.com:

Hey all you Raspberry Pi and Eggbot lovers: over on Instructables, user crgfrench shows how to load Inkscape and the Eggbot extensions on your Raspberry Pi. He even goes so far as to mount the Raspberry Pi on the Eggbot for compact plotting.

See the post here!

Justin Hayes wrote in to say:

I know it isn’t Friday yet, but last Monday’s episode of Revolution 2012 contained a brief appearance of the Raspberry Pi. Thought it would be a good one for the blog!

Thanks Justin!

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Andrew Back posted a great blog about using the new Raspberry Pi camera for time-lapse photography:

A simple time-lapse photography project using the new Raspberry Pi Camera with a Raspberry Pi Model A and a battery pack.

I’d long wanted to try my hand at time-lapse photography and for one reason or another had never got round to doing anything about it, but when I was fortunate enough to be given a pre-production Raspberry Pi camera I no longer had any excuse!

Read more and see how to do it yourself!

Featured Adafruit Products

Raspberry Pi Camera Board – The Raspberry Pi Camera Module is a custom designed add-on for Raspberry Pi. It attaches to Raspberry Pi by way of one of the two small sockets on the board upper surface. This interface uses the dedicated CSI interface, which was designed especially for interfacing to cameras. The CSI bus is capable of extremely high data rates, and it exclusively carries pixel data. (read more)

Raspberry Pi mounted in an Oak case with Monitor by Brett Oliver

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

This is a great project that reuses an LED display found on buses in the 1990s. Translated from the original:

I recently recovered a display bus brand DATA Display (1992, at the sight of datecode components). The display consists of two parts:

• Part of a top, consisting of two green segments 12 of dies (7 × 5 each), or a large array of (2 * (12 * 5)) * 7 pixels.
• The bottom part, a bit the same, but with red pixels

The bottom part is interesting because it seems to contain a RAM, with external connection (and a NiMH battery to retain RAM) can be upload messages to display. By cons, manufacturers do not have the transmission protocol. It will be a bit boring to reverse-engeenirer.

The top part, it is almost identical. Except that it contains a ROM containing the characters ASCII (at least, their representation in matrix 5 × 7) to display the text. It also has a special connection (RS232, but not too much). It’s going to be boring to do. But I decided to disassemble the upper display and watch how it worked.

Source code, photos and more here!

Here’s a great Internet Radio project via http://usualpanic.com:

How cool would it be take a vintage 1940′s or 1950′s wooden radio and rebuild it as a modern Internet Radio? That’s the premise I had in mind when I started out on my first Raspberry Pi project.

I used the Adafruit Occidentalis Linux distribution and Adafruit python class for the 32×2 LCD display.

I found a great YouTube tutorial by MeisterVision that covered the basics of the MPC/MPD Linux Music Player really well.

Source code and more here and check out our own Raspberry Pi WiFi Radio tutorial!

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Google Offers expands to Google+, lets users discover, save and share promotions from their stream @ The Next Web.

Google is expanding its Google Offers service, which reminds users via a mobile app or email whenever there’s a limited-time deal at a nearby business, so that users can now see, save and share promotions from within their Google+ stream.

Only a select number of brands and companies will be able to share Google Offers through their respective Google+ accounts to begin with. NOOK, Hello Kitty, Art.com and Adafruit Industries have already started sharing exclusive deals through the service, although there could be more waiting in the wings.

Woo! Hello Kitty & Adafruit!

Check out scad interaction design student project by Colin Beney a short 6 second film for the Adafruit #adafruit6secs electronic film festival (Youtube playlist here for all the entries on YouTube).

The Adafruit forums are a great place to get help with your projects– and we just added a wearables board! Folks are building so many FLORA projects that we decided customers needed a special place to post (and ask questions about) wearables projects and techniques! Post your queries about any of the tutorials in our FLORA section on the Adafruit Learning System, and build the wearable electronics project of your dreams! Then post pictures of it. See you in the forums!

Introducing Recon Jet: Groundbreaking Heads-Up Display from Recon Instruments from Recon Instruments on Vimeo.

Recon Jet is an activity specific heads-up display with a truly open platform that delivers information instantly, effortlessly and unobtrusively direct to the user’s eye via a microcomputer and high-resolution widescreen display. Jet has a dual core processor, dedicated graphics, Wi-Fi, ANT+, Bluetooth, GPS, HD camera, and a comprehensive suite of sensors. All of this is mounted on a precision-engineered, fashionable pair of sunglasses on par with the best in the world.

In honor of the launch of Star Trek Into Darkness, PCMag 3D printed a copy of the U.S.S. Enterprise on The Cube … like you do!

To boldly go where no 3D printer has gone before. Yes, that’s the pun that came to mind when we decided to make a 3D print of the U.S.S. Enterprise in honor of the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Much like with John Harrison, the villain in the movie, we weren’t sure what we were getting ourselves into….

Printing out the U.S.S. Enterprise proved to be an interesting challenge. Because the surface upon which objects are printed on the Cube is relatively small, we had to print out the ship in pieces that would have to be glued together at the end, rather than a single piece. And it was a little difficult to glue pieces together with the super-glue that we had bought. But in the end, we managed to make it happen.
But, really, you have to see it to believe it. Check out our time-lapse photography video of the Cube as it prints the U.S.S. Enterprise. And have a gander at our other time-lapse video where we print out a Weighted Companion Cube from Portal.

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

The talented MakerBot Design Team staff Matt Kroner (behind the MakerBot Watch and Mixtape), Christopher Boynton (co-creator of the ingenious MakerBot Store Marble Run), and Jason Bakutis (both jeweler and sculptor) received a great complement for their hard work when their recent pieces were added into the MOMA Design Store along with a special edition MakerBot Replicator 2 as a part of the store’s Destination:NYC collection.

As you navigate the Destination:NYC collection, check out great video profiles featuring designers and firms for other products such as Worksman Bicycle and Svetlana Briscella and John Briscella of Aminimal Studio.

From the MakerBot Blog:

We’re proud to announce that some 3D-printed pieces from the MakerBot Design Team have been chosen for a special collection at the MoMA Design Store called Destination: NYC — Made in the USA. For those who don’t know, MoMA is the Museum of Modern Art here in New York. The organization has been shining a light on local designers in cities around the world in its Destination: Design series.

Sometimes pieces in the series become top selling items at MoMA Design Stores. At MakerBot, we hope the innovative artists and designers who see our items will be inspired to use 3D printing in their own work. Here’s the set of items all together, including a customized MakerBot Mix Tape and MakerBot Watch designed just for MoMA, along with a bunch of pieces reflecting iconic places and objects in NYC.

Get your hands on these now! The whole Destination: NYC series, including pieces from other amazing local designers, is available from now through August only at MoMA Store locations in New York and Tokyo, as well as online at MoMAstore.org, MoMAonlinestore.co.kr, and MoMAstore.jp.

Read more.

The Smithsonian is 3D-scanning the past for future generations, from 3Ders:

The Smithsonian has been using 3D printing and 3D scanning for some time now. What can you do to bring some of the Smithsonian’s 137 million objects to life? The Smithsonian decided to use laser arm scanners to preserve its collection.

Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo, two researchers work in the Smithsonian’s 3D Digitization Program Office, lead the project. They work with laser scanners to create high resolution, three-dimensional digital models of these objects.

“The main purpose of 3D scanning an exhibit like this is to have an archive of what an exhibit of this era might have looked,” Metallo says. “This is a documentation for folks in the future to know what a museum experience here was like.”

Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo are working full time to document, in very high three-dimensional detail, these priceless and important collections for future generation. They dream of digitizing all 137 million of the objects in the Smithsonian’s collections. At the moment only 2% of the objects are displayed in its museums. And these 3D digital models could be printed and sent to local museums, or viewed digitally on a computer screen anywhere in the world.

“There’s one specimen that’s on display two stories up in the air,” Metallo says. “Now, instead of a researcher having to get up on a scissor lift to look at it, we can just email him the digital model.”

Watch the video below how the team captured a digital copy of the Philadelphia gunboat, America’s oldest fighting craft.

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

NEW PRODUCT – SEGGER J-Link EDU – JTAG/SWD Debugger – Doing some serious development on any ARM-based platform, and tired of ‘printf’ plus an LED to debug?

A proper JTAG/SWD HW debugger can make debugging more of a pleasure and less of a pain. It allows you to program your devices at the click of a button, read or write memory addresses or registers on a live system, temporarily halt program execution at a given location or condition, and much more. Essentially, it’s a direct window into what’s going on inside your MCU at any given moment, giving you a level of access and control that’s not easy to replicate with other debugging methods.

Of the dozens (and dozens!) of debuggers out there (we have literally drawers full of them!), we chose the J-Link for a number of reasons:

• It’s USB based and uses a high-speed MCU internally, not an FTDI convertor like most low cost debugger. More debugging, less waiting!
• It support both JTAG (ARM7/9/11) and SWD (ARM Cortex), and has you covered for any core: ARM7/9/11, Cortex-A5/A8/A9, Cortex-M0/M0+/M1/M3/M4, Cortex-R4
• It’s toolchain, IDE and vendor neutral, so you only need to buy one tool for all of your ARM needs and be done with it forever:
• Support GDB-based debugging and flash programming on Linux, Windows and the Mac via the free GDB Server
• Supports most major IDEs, including Keil, IAR Atmel Studio, Crossworks for ARM
• It includes flash-programming algorithms for most MCUs, and Segger is very pro-active about updating their drivers to support the newest chipsets.
• It just works, and keeps on working, and it’ll be there for you in several years time.

The J-Link is fast. Stepping through breakpoints and reading memory addresses is quick, as is programming the flash memory on the chips. It’s real strength, though, is that it’s so vendor and tool neutral. Most chip vendors today provde low cost (or free) tools, but they also lock you into their chips and force you to accept the choice they’ve made for you. Segger’s J-Link is a nice change in that respect, since you can be reasonably certain it will work with any chip, in any major toolchain, and you’re free to change camp (or OS or IDE) without having to buy a new debugger every time.

Why Would I Want This?

You can do a lot of basic debugging with just printf and an LED, and you may not need a HW debugger to get started, but once you start to working on more complicated projects, you hit a debugging wall pretty quickly.

Your chip might be ending up in the HardFault handler, for example, but without a debugger it can be very hard to trace back exactly what is causing the problems. A debugger allows you to set ‘breakpoints’ in your code, where execution will temporarily stop, and you can check the value of memory or peripherals at that point in time, and then ‘single-step’ through your code line by line, executing your program until you find the place that causes your fault. There’s a lot more to debugging than simple breakpoints, but you can often solve in a few minutes with breakpoints what would take much longer with printf and instrusive blocking mechanisms you insert into your code without a debugger.

Whether you’re using GDB Server (GNU Tools) or an IDE and a commercial toolchain, it’s also just a big convenience, since the J-Link can program the flash for you at the click of a button, reset the device, start execution, and then ‘halt’ on main(). You can do all these steps yourself — programming the device via free tools over UART or via a USB bootloader, etc. — but when you need to do that 40-50 times a day, it can get old quick, and 15 seconds saved make a huge difference when debugging. You can program a small MCU and break on main in 2-3 seconds with a J-Link, which makes the tools more or less invisible, which is a good thing when you have other problems to worry about.

What is the J-Link EDU?

The J-Link usually sells for a few hundred dollars up to four figures, but Segger makes a special, low-cost ‘EDU’ version of ther J-Link available. It’s feature complete (including GDB Server support, unlimited flash breakpoints, etc.) and the same debugger you’d buy for professional use, but it has the following limitations (source: http://www.segger.com/j-link-edu.html):

You may use the J-Link EDU for non profit educational purposes only! Non-profit educational purposes means that you may not use the J-Link EDU and its J-Link software

• direct or indirect in or for a profit organization or business purposes or other undertaking intended for profit
• direct or indirect in any other commercial environment (e.g. office)
• to develop, debug, program or manufacturer a commercial product (or parts thereof)
• to use it to either earn money or reasonably anticipate the receipt of monetary gain from it.

What does this mean? Basically, if you’re making money (or plan to make money) off your project, you’ll need to order the full commercial version, or find a different debugger that suits your needs and budget better. But if you’re working on personal, non-commercial projects, such as publishing some open source designs you’re not selling yourself, you’re good. You don’t need to be a student, and you can even be a paid engineer during the week, using this on the weekend for personal non-commercial projects. As long are your intentions are non-commercial, the J-Link EDU is an excellent choice!

In stock and shipping now!

NEW PRODUCT – Fabric Ribbon 4-Channel Wire – 1 yard – This lightweight, flexible fabric ribbon channel contains four individual wires, perfect for wiring up wearables where flexibility is key. This ribbon has 4 x 28AWG stranded-core wires, easy to solder but also quite flexible. There’s no risk of accidental shorts since each wire is sleeved, and you can also pass a fair bit of current.

This ribbon is ideal for when you’d like to make soldered connections, a rugged sewable data bus or pass higher current than is possible with stainless thread. This ribbon can handle 250mA continuous load & spikes of 1A.

Features:

• Ultra-low resistance: ~0.25 Ω / m
• 4 Conductor connections
• Power and data applications
• Sewable – we suggest straight-stitching on the edges
• Washable and dryable
• Foldable onto itself without shorting
• 100% Nylon: Black color with two red & white pinstripes
• Sold in 1 yard lengths

Technical Details

• Dimensions: 927.1mm / 36.5″ x 12.5mm / 0.5″
• Weight: 11.11g

In stock and shipping now!

Check out this fascinating installation piece (original text in Spanish, so forgive my Google translation here). Say…I recognize that “golden age” desktop 3D printer!

BIOS collaboration Ex Machina with Jesus Gilder, Bautista and Billy Yair Dept. flowers. Mechatronics Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the UNAM and Fernando Lomeli Digital Lab Cultural Center Tlatelolco, UNAM.

The artificial nature of the seed – seed corn corn plastic – therefore, poses a paradox of no easy solution for the design of the artificial and the natural copy. In the seed represent both the natural and the artificial, the original and the derivative, and she staged the tensions inherent in these distinctions. The seed sown our piece is not “really” a corn seed, but has its origin (material) in it.

The corn becomes mythical origin of several villages just at that moment it ceases to be completely natural, moving to also be a cultural entity, a device eminently defining human activities such as agriculture. Somewhere between the natural and the artificial, the domestic maize both the farmer and to the cornfield. But agriculture staging the polymer Milpa is also artificial in a second sense, mechanized agriculture. The piece itself is a mechanism biotechnology.

In its center, a robot tractor spirals, artificial seed sowing. The sterile seeds gradually fill the space spiral, turning the earth into grow-in economic and cultural artifact, but in a grow sterile plant that never result in any. So is staged the complex relationship between the natural and the artificial, the origin and originated.

Seeds that are printed are polylactic acid (PLA) thermoplastic biopolymer made from corn. Due to its biodegradability and biocompatibility barrier properties, it has found numerous applications biopolymer. While proponents argue that it is compostable, actually breaks down in less than 90 days, carbon dioxide and water, but in a controlled environment, as used by large waste processing plants. In a traditional landfill, there is no evidence to disintegrate faster or more completely than PET or any other form of plastic. Much of the corn used to produce PLA is genetically modified.

The piece seeks to highlight one of the dimensions of the phenomenon biotechnology: its economic dimension, making tangible the intangible aspect of biotechnology. The movement creation / culture is a spiral movement (and, therefore, without beginning, ie without origin) literally dictated by commercial behavior of commercial products of biotechnology – and, in strict sense, by perception market value of these. Instead the farmer driving the tractor, machinery moving it obeys the designs of the market. Without being your engine literally, the commercial aspects of biotechnology guide the tractor, but do not make a direct, but mediated through sound, which makes it tangible, but transitory. Using wireless communication technology, data exchange on the market communicate with the tractor in the field and affect processing and printer engine.

Traditionally, art, nature used to play the role of the original model, which the art piece, epitome of artificial entity, was the copy. Giorgio Vasari art expresses this view as follows: “The Art owes its origin to Nature herself … this beautiful creation, the world, gave us the model, while the divine intelligence was the original master, which created us as beings superior to other animals, more like God himself – if I dare say. “God himself is the first teacher and the first artist, his creature’s primal nature. In the polymer Milpa , by contrast, the nature that serves as a model for the work is not the natural naturans but domesticated nature in a symbiotic relationship with technology. The corn polymer Milpa like corn cornfields of all the country, not the corn “original”, not a corn state of “pure nature”. Is the current corn, field corn technologized, corn biotechnology.
Text: Ex Machina BIOS

Read more.

Check out this post from Pete Prodoehl’s RasterWeb that explores some of the food safety concerns for 3D printing + food. This is an area that I have been exploring extensively — and will be sharing some great techniques in the Adafruit Learning System in the near future — so I was happy to see other people covering this.

As a secret preview, I’ll let you know now that I am finding that rolling up your sleeves and learning mold making techniques from those who work in design kitchens is the best place to start to eliminate some of the difficult-to-guarrantee questions about using your 3D printer for making food.

Without further ado, Printing Violations III!

You loved Printing Violations, and you tolerated Printing Violations (Part II), so we’re back again with another episode of Printing Violations, this time looking more closely at the health issues surrounding 3D printed cookie cutters.

Licensing issues are one thing, but there is a safety concern with 3D printed cookie cutters. Here’s a look at some of the issues. (All assume you are using a home 3D printer like a MakerBot, RepRap, Printrbot, etc.)

Is ABS or PLA plastic filament food-safe?

The answers range from “probably not” to “maybe” in most cases. If you use natural filament it will be free of coloring agents, which is a step in the right direction, but unless you are specifically buying “food-safe filament” don’t expect it to be food-safe. (Keep in mind that “food-safe” is something that will be determined by local health departments, and will vary depending on where you live.)

Then there’s the printer itself, and the environment it runs in. My printer lives in a basement where I do other crazy things like run a drill press, spray glue and paint, and generally make a mess. Would you want your cookie cutter manufactured in such an environment? What has the filament come into contact with before it goes into the machine, and what else has been introduced into the extruder as far as foreign materials? If you’ve ever read up on what it takes to make food in your home and sell it commercially, you’ll have some idea of the restrictions involved. (Wait, we aren’t selling food, right? We’ll get to that, be patient!)

Can 3D printed items be treated to be safe(er?)

If you’ve ever looked at a 3D printed object, you may notice the ridges. Since it’s built up layer upon layer, there are spaces into which food could get stuck. Of course you can try to clean your 3D printed cookie cutter, but don’t put it in the dishwasher! For PLA prints, the heat will either melt it, or deform it, or do some other nasty thing to it. ABS may be better, but you will still need to heat it enough to sterilize it, and hope you can get the crevices clean. It’s been suggested that acetone vapor finishing might be helpful. Helpful enough? Not sure.

Of course you could use your printer to make a mold and then make a food-safe cutter out of another material, but that’s not really a 3D printed cookie cutter. You could also try to coat your printed piece with a food-safe coating, but that’s a lot more work.

So why does all this matter? Because right now, there are people printing cookie cutters and selling them, and there are also people 3D printing cookie cutters, making cookies with them, and selling the cookies.

Check out the rest of the discussion over at RasterWeb!

Chinese Entrepreneur 3D Prints Google Glass at Global Hackathon, Shares Online, from Solidsmack.com:

Missed the early adoption period for a Google Glass? Need to see how they frame your pretty mug without forking over the $$$? Sunny Gao, an entrepreneur from China, showed off his replica Google Glass during the the Global Hackathon this past weekend in Shanghai. He also uploaded the file for your 3D printing pleasure.

3D PRINT THE GOOGLE GLASS

Perhaps this is one of the best examples of personal manufacturing today: take the hottest new tech toy and create an exact replica right in your own home. While the full functionality of running Android with 16 GB of storage space and a WiFi/Bluetooth-connected 5-megapixel camera that records 720p videos isn’t necessarily there, it is a unique application that illustrates the disruptive power of 3D printing today…without the use of shoddy guns or dishwasher replacement parts.

Perhaps the best scenario for this free downloadable model is the ability to print it as a ‘toy’ for kids who will soon want to adopt using their parents’ Google Glass just like they did with their parents’ iPhones. On the FAQ page for Google Glass, Google mentions that the next tech toy isn’t for everyone: “Don’t let children under 13 use Google Glass as it could harm developing vision.” It should also be dully noted that the product itself does contain glass…near the eye….which could have a bad consequence if handled without care. Google Glass is expected to be released in 2014 publicly, however if you…or your kid…want to try on a pair before then, head on over to the link that Gao shared with the public for free (note: Google Translator recommended). The file is an .SKP Google SketchUp file.

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Advances in DSP over these past couple decades have been responsible for some of our  most important technological leaps — MRI scanners, mobile phones, digital  image sensors, etc. — but despite that, it doesn’t always get the attention or interest it deserves.   Unfortunately, the reason for this bad reputation is woefully clear: most of the literature out there on DSP is extremely opaque, heavily focused on the theoretical not the pratical, and  it all tends to be written by domain experts for domain experts, steeped in their own distinct domain language.  There’s room and a need for all of that … but it does make it pretty rough for non DSP people to take advantage of some of the enormous benefits even the simplest DSP algorithms can offer.

Thankfully, people interested in improving the reliability and usefulness of their data have a friend in Dr. Stephen W. Smith, author of “The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing“.  Dr. Smith not only provides an excellent overview of many of the key concepts and filters you’ll use solving problems in the real world day to day, but he does it in an extremely easy to understand and accessible way, with an emphasis on implementation not just abstract theory (though the theory is often explained with clarity and reasonable depth as well).  A lot of the most common DSP ‘filters’ and algorithms are covered — FFT, FIR, IIR, moving averages, etc. — and they are all accompanied with intentionally ‘basic’ implementations in code in … well … Basic.

In an particularly enlightened stance, Dr. Smith also takes the unusual step of letting you decide entirely for yourself if this is the right book for you, since the entire book is available online free or charge, chapter by chapter in PDF format!  You can get printed copies of Amazon, and if you find the book useful it’s worth support the author (I ordered my copy 20 minutes after digging into a single chapter), but if you’re on a tight budget, you’ll be bound to appreciate his generous and open gesture!

Any other good DSP resources for beginners out there that your found noteworth?  Toss them up in the comments below so other people can benefit as well!

The Seattle International Film Festival has launched a new initiative called “SIFFcurious” with ads agency Wong, Doody, Crandall and Wiener (WDCW) that features a festival trailer that recreates scenes from cinema history with hand-painted 3D printed models.

From 3ders.org:

Ad agency Wong, Doody, Crandall and Wiener (WDCW) created and executed the “SIFFcurious” campaign, this is the ninth year that WDCW has collaborated with SIFF. The campaign features a 1-minute trailer produced by Seattle production company World Famous. The trailer follows a young woman who peers into the the knotty hole of a mossy tree. Her curiosity takes her on a fantastic journey through scenes of some of the memorable movies screened at SIFF over the years: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Dr. Strangelove, The Exorcist, Alien, etc.

Each scene was beautifully recreated with 3D miniatures. Some of them are designed in the computer and then made into physical models using a Makerbot 3D printer. And some are sculpted and painted by hand, and others are made using silicone molds and resin.

“There was a bit of a learning curve on how to properly prepare models and, most important, how long it would take to make models on the Makerbot. The higher-quality models required more time and in order to save some time, we had to get creative and hand-sculpt some of the intricate models,” says Anea Klix, account executive at WDCW. “When we had multiples of a character (like the eggs in Alien or the side panels in 2001: A Space Odyssey), we would make silicone molds and cast resin copies. We had quite the assembly line, 3-D modeling, a 3D printer going nonstop for a month, sculpting and painting all at the same time.” In all there were 20 sets, some of the larger ones were 4 feet by 6 feet, which were shot over two days.”

The spot required over 900 hours of modeling, creating and building before a single frame was captured. The theme of curiosity is about how curiosity can pay off in big ways, leading you to new and magical, incredible things.

“It’s based on the thought of a person letting their curiosity run wild and getting transported into a pint-size world of film, in the same way that SIFF hopes to inspire filmgoers to be more curious and adventurous in their cinematic experiences.” says Klix.

20 films from SIFF history are referenced, can you name all of them?

Read more.

Here’s an excellent demo of printing on the Ultimaker desktop 3D printer for those who haven’t yet seen this one in action — with particular appeal to those who love the Legend of Zelda series (so, like everyone, right?). Instead of launching new models, the Ultimaker team have continued to make improvements and encourage community upgrades to their base machine that has been printing happily since 2011, a machine that continues to earn its place in the top rankings of available desktop printers for makers.

From Barnacules Nerdgasm. Via the Ultimaker Blog.

Hey guys, I’ve received a lot of requests to show a 3D print from setup to completion so this video runs a little longer then usual. I will show you in this video how to tape the build surface and level the bed and show you how to print the model using the Ultimaker controller so the printer operates 100% detached from the PC while printing. I also show you how to detach the completed object from the build surface using a custom tool you can make out of any putty knife. I also show you how to cleanup the model and remove the support material after the print is done.

The object I print in this video is the Zelda Hylian Shield which completely kicks ass. I found the model on Thingaverse.com under a Creative Common License. The model was created by ShopBox and the URL to download it from is here. The model is printed at a .15mm layer height with solid fill to produce an indestructible print. This is the second shield I have printed, the first one I chromed and posted pictures of on my Facebook page, make sure you head over there and take a look….

Always accompanying Link’s sword, a shield is a defensive item which has appeared in every game of The Legend of Zelda series to date. The shield is Link’s primary protective defense used to deflect objects, guard from attack, and in some instances, reflect light onto other objects. Appearing in every Zelda title to date, the shield is not only a trademark of the series but completes Link’s hero-like appearance, along with any sword he happens to wield at the time. From defending Link to being the favorite snack of Like Likes, the design and function of the shield greatly differs throughout the series.

The Hylian Shield is the traditional shield of the Knights of Hyrule and a shield commonly used by Link in the 3D Zelda games. Unlike Wooden Shields, the Hylian Shield will not burn upon contact with fire. Throughout the Zelda games, the Hylian Shield has changed little in terms of overall appearance, always bearing the symbol of the Triforce and, beneath it, the Hylian Crest. The first Hylian Shield was a legendary shield guarded by the Thunder Dragon Lanayru, who created a challenge to judge whether someone would be worthy of wielding the shield.

Shield appears in…

• Ocarina of Time
• Twilight Princess
• Skyward Sword
• Super Smash Bros
• Soulcalibur II

Similar Shields in…

• A Link to the Past
• Majora’s Mask
• The Wind Waker

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Jeshua “3DTOPO” shared two versions of a demo for how to cast aluminum parts from 3D printed parts, a complete version (see below) and the highlights version (above). Well worth watching!

From the Ultimaker blog:

A while back we posted a blog about aluminum casting involving 3D printed PLA by Jeshua (3DTOPO). He has used this technique for several of his parts now and decided to post a longer tutorial on youtube plus a shorter video (see bellow) that shows the highlights.

Read more.

Connected product platforms. via Bruce.

Now we’re talkin’. Wow. This is a real service to the internet-of-toys community, though it’s probably omitting a few of the big boys, such as Walmart RFID initiatives, Amazon shipping centers, GE Industrial Internet, IBM urban Smart Things, Cisco whateverness, Google-mapping Android cloudiness and quite likely some under-wraps Internet-of-Stuxnet-Things military projects.

Doc here.

Flying robot perching on walls with gecko adhesive.

In the latest work presented at ICRA 2013 in a paper titled “A Perching Mechanism for Flying Robots Using a Fibre-Based Adhesive”, the AirBurr V11 is shown attaching on walls using a deployable perching mechanism with gecko adhesives. Robots, similar to the AirBurr, capable of exploring cluttered indoor environments have many applications in search and rescue missions: they overcome ground obstacles easily and provide a high point of view. The new perching mechanism allows a flying robot to extend its mission time by turning off its motors while it scans the surroundings.

The video shows the perching mechanism that allows indoor flying robots to attach to vertical surfaces. The gecko adhesive pad is optimized for maximum attachment force and is mounted on a mechanism that stays within the structure of the robot during flight and that can be deployed for perching. The perching maneuver is very simple; the robot starts on the ground, takes off in the middle of the room, and when a perching maneuver is initiated by the pilot, the adhesive pad is deployed and the robot flies directly towards a wall. Once the robot is attached to the wall, the motors are shut down to save energy.

Look, Ma! I’m designing in 3D with no mouse! Check out this paper, which proposes a new means of working in 3D by using tracking software to permit the user to make simple hand gestures to manipulate the design element.

Authors: Vinayak, Sundar Murugappan, HaiRong Liu, Karthik Ramani,

Shape-It-Up: Hand Gesture Based Creative Expression of 3D Shapes Using Intelligent Generalized Cylinders

Abstract:

We present a novel interaction system, “Shape-It-Up”, for creative expression of 3D shapes through the naturalistic integration of human hand gestures with a modeling scheme dubbed intelligent generalized cylinders (IGC). To achieve this naturalistic integration, we propose a novel paradigm of shape-gesture-context interplay (SGCI) wherein the interpretation of gestures in the spatial context of a 3D shape directly deduces the designers’ intent and the subsequent modeling operations. Our key contributions towards SGCI are three-fold. Firstly, we introduce a novel representation (IGC) of generalized cylinders as a function of the spatial hand gestures (postures and motion) during the creation process. This representation allows for fast creation of shapes while retaining their aesthetic features like symmetry and smoothness. Secondly, we define the spatial contexts of IGCs as proximity functions of their representational components, namely cross-sections and skeleton with respect to the hands. Finally, we define a natural association of modification and manipulation of the IGCs by combining the hand gestures with the spatial context. Using SGCI, we implement intuitive hand-driven shape modifications through skeletal bending, sectional deformation and sectional scaling schemes. The implemented prototype involves human skeletal tracking and hand-posture classification using the depth data provided by a low-cost depth sensing camera (Microsoft Kinect). With Shape-It-Up, our goal is to make the designer an integral part of the shape modeling process during early design, in contrast to current CAD tools which segregate 3D sweep geometries into procedural 2D inputs in a non-intuitive and cumbersome process requiring extensive training. We conclusively demonstrate the modeling of a wide variety of 3D shapes within a few seconds….

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