NEW PRODUCT – iNecklace Valentine’s day edition. And by “edition” we mean that we include a special laser cut plastic red gel that make the necklace glow a wonderful pink color. All orders for the iNecklace until 2/14/2012 will include this nice add-on for that special someone. Give the gift of open-source hardware, give the gift of pulsating blinky.

In stock and shipping now.

NEW PRODUCT – Ada Lovelace, large, oval, color – Sticker! This is the color version

NEW PRODUCT – Ada Lovelace, large, oval black and white – Sticker! Celebrate Lady Ada Lovelace, one of the world’s first computer programmers. Adafruit offers a fun and exciting stickers to celebrate achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a badge is just one of the many ways to show and share.

This is the “Lady Ada Lovelace” sticker for use with educators, classrooms, workshops, Maker Faires, TechShops, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and around the world to reward beginners on their skill building journey!

Here are some Ada-related facts, events and organizations.

Who was Ada? Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase women’s participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and culture. Founded in 2011 by Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Valerie Aurora and open source developer and fellow advocate Mary Gardiner, the organization is named for Ada Lovelace, the “world’s first computer programmer.”

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

A color woodcut-style portrait of Ada Lovelace, based on the nineteenth century A. E. Chaton portrait.
Original watercolor portrait (Ada lovelace.jpg): Alfred Edward Chalon
Woodcut-style graphic (Ada Lovelace.tif): Colin Adams, for the Ada Initiative
SVG conversion (Ada Lovelace.svg): Fred the Oyster
Colorization: Kaldari

Art licensed as: This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Perfect for laptops or the workbench.

These gorgeous stickers are glossy, vinyl and made to last a lifetime. Made with printing/vinyl machines that are solar powered and using the most green friendly supplies as possible.

MADE IN THE USA!

Adafruit’s stickers are manufactured in partnership with AMBRO Manufacturing located in NJ, USA. AMBRO is a family owned and operated business since 1990 that celebrates open-source with Adafruit Industries. You can meet their team here. AMBRO uses non-toxic soy based, water soluble and environmentally friendly printing supplies, threads and more when possible. AMBRO has over 250 solar panels that generate 50,000 Kilowatt hours per year. Their equipment runs solar powered, so the wonderful things AMBRO and Adafruit have worked together on are made with the sun! AMBRO Manufacturing was recognized by Impressions Magazine, a leading trade publication in the garment printing and embroidery business, who published an article highlighting AMBRO and their commitment to their environmentally focused manufacturing practices. Adafruit knows you have a lot of choices as to where you spend your money and time, we hope our open-source values, commitment to green technologies and partners helps make the decision easier and fun!

In stock and shipping now!

The democratization of hardware @ PowerSource | Blog on EDN.

Adafruit got into the parts/kit business with its detailed tutorials that include step-by-step instructions and photographs to lead newbies through the basics of Ohm’s Law and soldering, and on to programming the open-source hardware Arduino platform. Unlike traditional electronic distributors that rely on application engineers, the site effectively crowdsources its application engineering support through its forums and FAQ pages on the kits and parts. This reliance on the knowledge of the site’s fans is part of a well-thought-out business plan: Adafruit’s founder, Limor Fried, detailed the company philosophy in, “15 steps to starting your own electronic-kit business.”

Individual parts offered by Adafruit benefit from its excellent documentation and  tutorials. Speaking from personal experience, a couple of years ago I bought a TLS2561 light-to-digital converter from TAOS Semiconductor (now part of austriamicrosystems.) It seemed like a handy component to have in getting a quick, objective measurement of LEDs. However, although documentation existed for the part, its outputs were hard to interpret and it was not easy to hook it up to a computer for datalogging. I quickly gave up and forgot about it.

Then, last summer Adafruit introduced the a new product, aTLS2561 premounted on a small pc board with a couple of chip resistors and some headers, with a tutorial as well as a software library for the open-source Arduino platform. As theAdafruit tutorial says, “To use this sensor and calculate Lux, there’s a lot of very hairy and unpleasant math. You can check out the math in the datasheet but really, it’s not intuitive or educational – it’s just how the sensor works. So we took care of all the math and wrapped it up into a nice Arduino library.”

My sentiments exactly – I just wanted to start using the sensor. It worked great. (See photo, which shows a boarduino, a slimmed-down version of the arduino.) Adafruit was able to take a part that sells competitively for about $2 each, add a couple of passive components, and a well thought-out online tutorial, and sell it for $12. And it was worth every penny of it to me.

Digi-Key had a similar start back in 1972, selling its “Digi-Keyer Kit” to ham radio enthusiasts and today it’s a $1B company. History could repeat itself with a whole new generation of parts and kits providers.

Read more!

NEW PRODUCT – Arduino Ethernet shield R3 with micro SD connector – Assembled. The Arduino Ethernet Shield R3 (assembled) allows an Arduino board to connect to the internet. It is based on the Wiznet W5100 ethernet chip (datasheet). The Wiznet W5100 provides a network (IP) stack capable of both TCP and UDP. It supports up to four simultaneous socket connections. Use the Ethernet library to write sketches which connect to the internet using the shield.
The new Ethernet shield now includes a micro SD card connector, it is MEGA compatible and an on-board reset controller.

The ethernet shield connects to an Arduino board using long wire-wrap headers which extend through the shield. This keeps the pin layout intact and allows another shield to be stacked on top.
Arduino uses digital pins 10, 11, 12, and 13 (SPI) to communicate with the W5100 on the ethernet shield. These pins cannot be used for general i/o.

The shield provides a standard RJ45 ethernet jack. An Arduino is necessary to use this shield but is not included.

• Dimensions: 73mm x 54mm x 17mm (2.8in x 2.1in x 0.7in)
• Weight: 26g / 1oz

For more information, check out the Ethernet shield page and Getting started guide. We have a tutorial on how to use this shield as a file webserver!

In stock and shipping now.

A.Khan asks:

“I am trying to use IR sensors to detect where someone is sitting in a room. The IR sensor would be placed on a rotating panel where it will send signals to the microprocessor about where it detects people sitting and the microprocessor can then plot in the 360 circle at which angles it received the input.

For this, what do you suggest is the best way to go? I was thinking more about getting IR body heat sensors premade components (~$6-$10) which give out high or low processed signals when they detect heat and sending it off to an arduino board. But it looks a bit on the expensive side. Is there anyway of creating this setup cheap?

Thanks.”

What a fun question!

I spent the past couple of days coming up with what I think would be viable solution to your problem. To start, Adafruit happens to offer a great little PIR that, as you suggested, responds with a high/low signal in correlation to a IR source crossing its path. Adafruit’s PIR also has a 120 degree viewing angle, which is a bit wide if you are trying to pinpoint a person in a room. Because the device relies on the “path” state to change between the two sides of the sensor and you want to pinpoint a heat source, you will have modify the sensor to limit the viewing angle. You can do this by removing the faceted Fresnel lens and attaching a small tube about 1″ long over the sensor or by covering a percentage of it with some non-transparent tape (this certainly would require some experimentation). Ladyada has a wicked tutorial about PIRs work and how to modify/use it.

The next problem is the fact that you want to view in 360 degrees. I came up with three solutions for this. First, which is the most costly, would be to make your circuitry wireless, relaying the data back to a server. This also poses the problem of powering the device. The second would be to keep the sensor tethered and sweep the device clockwise then counter clockwise. Finally, the third, would be to follow the attached diagram. I had the idea that if you used an 1/8″ stereo “headphone” plug & jack you could simulate a slip-ring (commonly found in wind turbines to transfer electrical energy from the generator in the rotating nacelle). This would allow you to isolate the PIR on a rotating platform and transfer signal/power to the device without interruption. You might want to add a little non-conducting grease to the interface to keep it from wearing out.

In order to make the device rotate, I would recommend using a stepper motor attached to a larger gear, which acts as a yaw bearing for the PIR platform. You can easily control the stepper using an H-bridge (for bipolar) or darlington array (for unipolar) to precisely cover your 360 degrees. Now you get to do the math to determine how many steps per rotation, decoding the PIR, etc.

Click here!

Speeding up LPD8806 show() without hardware SPI @ Michael Noland’s Blog.

Hi, I made a method to update LPD8806 strips about 5x faster than the current library on GitHub. It’s about the same speed as the hardware SPI implementation, but can be used when those pins are dedicated to other hardware (e.g., Ethernet boards).

It requires that the clock and data pin assignments are known at sketch.

If you’re using LPD8806 LED strips and you can’t use the hardware SPI port (e.g., when using an Ethernet board), there are two other options in the Adafruit library: the default mode and ‘slowmo’ mode. The default mode is decent, but the flexibility of being able to choose the pins at runtime comes with a cost. However, you can still get a decent speedup by defining your pin usage at compile time in a replacement show() function.

This tutorial is interesting because its the first time we’ve seen the use of compile-time templates to set interface pins via a sketch. Traditionally, Arduino users use digitalWrite() or digitalRead() to interface with the pin registers. Hardk0re hackers sometimes like to use pointers to the registers which still allows for flexible pin numbering in the sketch but this technique takes it to the next level!

Digital Addressable RGB LED with PWM waterproof flexi strip. These LED strips are fun and glowy. There are 32 RGB LEDs per meter, and you can control each LED individually! Yes, that’s right, this is the digitally-addressable type of LED strip. You can set the color of each LED’s red, green and blue component with 7-bit PWM precision (so 21-bit color per pixel). The LEDs are controlled by shift-registers that are chained up down the strip so you can shorten or lengthen the strip. Only 2 digital output pins are required to send data down. The PWM is built into each chip so once you set the color you can stop talking to the strip and it will continue to PWM all the LEDs for you

Built in 1.2 MHz high speed 7-bit PWM for each channel – that means it can do 21-bit color per LED (way more than the eye can easily discern). Once you set the brightness level for the LEDs, your microcontroller can go off and do other things, no need to continuously update it, or clock it. The best part is that compared to the WS2801 which can only run one LED at a time, this chip can drive 2 RGB LEDs which means the price stays the same as the older HL1606 strip, nice!

The strip is made of flexible PCB material, and comes with a waterproof sheathing.

You can cut this stuff pretty easily with wire cutters, there are cut-lines every 2.5″/6.2cm (2 LEDs each). Solder to the 0.1″ copper pads and you’re good to go. Of course, you can also connect strips together to make them longer, just watch how much current you need! We have a 5V/2A supply that should be able to drive 1 or more meters (depending on use)

They come in 5 meter reels with a 4-pin JST SM connector on each end, and are sold by the meter! If you buy 5m at a time, you’ll get full reels. If you buy less than 5m, you’ll get a single strip, but it will be a cut piece from a reel which may or may not have a connector on it.

Digital Addressable RGB LED with PWM waterproof flexi strip!

Adafruit SSD1306 running at over 500 hz frame rate. Greg writes -

Final driver tweeks have raised the frame rate to over 500 hz with the same graphic load. Again, a great display!  Thanks very much for your products. They are fun to incorporate into our designs.

The display is being updated at over 500 hz as can be determined by the on screen counter (it counts from o through 999 then resets) and by the oscilloscope frequency display (it is reading 553.1 hz). The driver is optimized for the display, however, it is ready to drive the 128 by 64 version of the display when it becomes available. The PIC24FJ64GB002 is running at 16mhz. The spi bit rate is 8mhz. The drivers are written in C. No assembly language was required.

Monochrome 128×32 OLED graphic display. These displays are small, only about 1″ diagonal, but very readable due to the high contrast of an OLED display. This display is made of 128×32 individual white OLED pixels, each one is turned on or off by the controller chip. Because the display makes its own light, no backlight is required. This reduces the power required to run the OLED and is why the display has such high contrast; we really like this miniature display for its crispness!

The driver chip SSD1306, communicates via SPI only. 4 or 5 pins are required to communicate with the chip in the OLED display.

The OLED and driver require a 3.3V power supply and 3.3V logic levels for communication. To make it easier for our customers to use, we’ve added a 3.3v regulator and level shifter on board! This makes it compatible with any 5V microcontroller, such as the Arduino.

The power requirements depend a little on how much of the display is lit but on average the display uses about 20mA from the 3.3V supply. Built into the OLED driver is a simple switch-cap charge pump that turns 3.3v-5v into a high voltage drive for the OLEDs, making it one of the easiest ways to get an OLED into your project!

Of course, we wouldn’t leave you with a datasheet and a “good luck”: We have a detailed tutorial and example code in the form of an Arduino library for text and graphics. You’ll need a microcontroller with more than 512 bytes of RAM since the display must be buffered.

You can download our SSD1306 OLED display Arduino library from github which comes with example code. The library can print text, bitmaps, pixels, rectangles, circles and lines. It uses 512 bytes of RAM since it needs to buffer the entire display but its very fast! The code is simple to adapt to any other microcontroller.

Dimensions:

• PCB: 32mm x 23mm
• Display area: 25mm x 7mm
• Thickness: 4mm

Display details:

• Diagonal Screen Size：0.91″
• Number of Pixels：128 × 32
• Color Depth：Monochrome (White)
• Module Construction：COG
• Module Size (mm)：46.30× 11.50 × 1.45
• Panel Size (mm)：30.00 × 11.50 × 1.45
• Active Area (mm)：22.384 × 5.584
• Pixel Pitch (mm)：0.175 × 0.175
• Pixel Size (mm)：0.159 × 0.159
• Duty：1/32
• Brightness ( cd/m2)：150 (Typ) @ 7.25V
• Interface：4-wire SPI

In stock and shipping now!

These are great for doing a little heavy lifting with a microcontroller. Most micros can only source or sink about 20mA of current with each pin. If you’re trying to do something like drive a high-power multi-segment LED display, the current from a microcontroller pin just won’t cut it. You could run the micro outputs in parallel for more current, but then you lose pins for other purposes. Using an external array for the switching lets each pin drive a unique load at higher current, with the added benefit of offloading some of the heat from the microcontroller.

The ULN2003/4 and ULN2803/4 are 7- and 8-element Darlington arrays which can switch up to 500mA (MAX!) per channel at up to 50 volts. Channels can be combined to switch higher current loads (still 50V though). Take note of that “500mA MAX”: while the 2×03′s can switch that much current, they can’t do it forever, because they can’t dissipate the heat. The total amount of switchable current will depend on the number of channels you’re driving at the same time, and the duty cycle of the input signal. See the datasheet (PDF) for more information.

The 2xx3 chips have 2.7k input resistors, so they can be driven from a 5V TTL/CMOS line – if you’re using an Arduino, you should get the ULN2003/2803. The 2xx4 chips have 10.5k resistors for inputs of 6-15 volts.

These are great for driving multiple RGB lines with lots of LEDs, or a bank of relays or motors (they have clamp diodes built in!). The following illustrates how to properly connect the ULN for driving an inductive load like a DC motor.

Purchasing note: these chips were originally (and still are) made by TI. The TI chips are great, but recently I noticed Mouser has begun carrying the Toshiba versions for about 30% less cost. I’ve used both, and they perform equally well.

CHECK ‘EM OUT IN THE PARTFINDER!

Happy Friday!

DIY Chronodot for Bulbdial Clock @ Take a break.

A friend from work gave me a really nice present this Christmas – Bulbdial Clock Kit made by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. This clock is excellent addition to my collection of Ice Tube Clock and Monochron   Clock. I have really enjoyed building it. It looks so cool with all its RGB LEDs. There is an optional component that you can add – a real time clock (RTC) with battery back up. It is called Chronodot RTC. All it does is ensure that clock is still ticking when main power source is removed, that way you don’t have to reset the clock every time power cord is unplugged. A nice feature to have on any externally powered clock. You can buy one, but where is fun in that?!

Read more…

Wow, this is like an electronic version of Alex Grey!

Displaying Android Phone Video on an RGB LED Matrix by Michael at nootropic design.

I bought this awesome RGB LED matrix panel from Adafruit and really wanted to see if I could make it display video from an Android phone.

16×32 RGB LED matrix panel – MASSIVE BLINKY!. Bring a little bit of Times Square into your home with this 16 x 32 RGB LED matrix panel. These panels are normally used to make video walls, here in New York we see them on the sides of busses and bus stops, to display animations or short video clips. We thought they looked really cool so we picked up a few boxes of them from a factory. They have 512 bright RGB LEDs arranged in a 16×32 grid on the front. On the back there is a PCB with two IDC connectors (one input, one output: in theory you can chain these together) and 12 16-bit latches that allow you to drive the display with a 1:8 scan rate.

These panels require 12 digital pins (6 bit data, 6 bit control) and a good 5V supply, up to 1A per panel. We suggest our 2A regulated 5V adapter and then soldering a jack on such as from our extension cord. Please check out our tutorial for more details!

Keep in mind that these displays are designed to be driven by FPGAs or other high speed processors: they do not have built in PWM control of any kind. Instead, you’re supposed to redraw the screen over and over to ‘manually’ PWM the whole thing. On a 16 MHz arduino, we managed to squeeze 9-bit color (512 colors) with 50% CPU usage but this display would really shine if driven by an FPGA, CPLD, Propeller, XMOS or other high speed multi-core controller. The good news is that the display is pre-white balanced with nice uniformity so if you turn on all the LEDs its not a particularly tinted white.

Of course, we wouldn’t leave you with a datasheet and a “good luck!” We have a full wiring diagrams and working Arduino library code with examples from drawing pixels, lines, rectangles, circles and text. You’ll get your color blasting within the hour! On an Arduino, you’ll need 12 digital pins, and about 800 bytes of RAM to buffer the 9-bit color image.

In stock and shipping now!

Squishy Circuits – Sylvia’s Mini Maker Show

Are you curious about experimenting with electronics, but the fear of electric shock or soldering iron burns keep you away? Why not try squishy circuits!  With a special recipe of food-safe, kitchen-made, pliable dough developed at the University of St. Thomas, kids of all ages can easily use their hands to mold their very own simple circuits right before their eyes! Lets go!

Phantom Limb Pain with the Kinect. Ben writes -

This is something I worked on over the summer last year and its finally out from under wraps. The idea is to create a version of the Mirror Box; effectively copying the real limb onto the Phantom Limb in order to relieve the pain that such people feel. This has been done once before with VR but now we have the kinect and cheaper VR goggles and XBee units from Adafruit, we can build a much cheaper rig and begin to investigate what works and what doesnt.

Hack your Hakko FX-888 Soldering Iron!

Dave got fed up not knowing if his Hakko FX-888 iron was left on or not. So hacked the LED to toggle RED/GREEN, so it’s always on.

Genuine Hakko FX-888 (936 upgrade) [FX-888]! Known by engineers for making excellent quality tools & soldering irons! This is a genuine Hakko FX-888. We worked hard to get the best and a great price, these are not knock-offs. This iron is an upgrade to the venerable Hakko 936 – smaller footprint but more powerful for a faster heat up time.

The Hakkos have quality construction, this iron is the last one you’ll need for decades. Heats up in 30 seconds, with a calibrated temperature control knob gives precision heat to minimize cold solder joints. Once you know you’re on the path of electronics, this is the iron you’ll want beside you on your desk.

We got the medium tip on this iron, the most popular size, great for through-hole and some SMT. You can purchase replacement Hakko tips anywhere (we’ll carry some soon)

• 65 Watts
• 200-480 degrees C (392°F – 896°F) with +-1 degree C stability
• Ceramic Heater
• 900M-T-1.6D 1.6mm ‘screwdriver’ tip
• For use in 120V countries only
• UL Approved

Documents:

• Hakko FX-888 Manual
• Calibration procedure
• Tip Tips
• Specifications
• What does Wattage mean?

In stock and shipping now!

Polo Puzzle: What Goes Into a $155 Price Tag? @ WSJ.com.

Every piece of clothing has a story: There’s far more to a $155 polo shirt than a yard of fabric, four buttons and a length of thread.

The tale of a KP MacLane polo shirt offers a rare look inside the planning and global transactions behind the clothes people wear. To begin, though, there is an actual KP MacLane—Katherine, who founded the brand with her husband, Jared MacLane.

Manufacturing clothing, surprisingly similar to electronics – finding the right suppliers, fab house, making hundreds of decisions.

NEW PRODUCT – Mini 3-wire Volt Meter (0 – 99.9VDC). Put a voltage meter anywhere with this very handy display. These are often used by RC hobbyists for keeping track of batteries but we thought it would be great on a breadboard or enclosure. This is the 3-wire version of the volt meter, two wires are used to power it and the third wire is used for measurement. We also have a 2-wire version that measure it’s own power supply.

Simply connect the red wire to a positive power supply from 4.5 to 28VDC, and brown to the common ground to power the display. Finally, connect the orange wire to whatever you want to measure the voltage of. The display has a microcontroller that will read the voltage, compare it to a stable reference and display the voltage with 0.1V precision on a 3-digit 7-segment display. it can read from 0V to 99.9VDC so it will be good for any electronic project! The meter draws 3-4mA to power the microcontroller and display. This particular LED display is a nice vivid green, which we found very readable. Mounting tabs make this module easy to attach to any box or plate.

Dimensions:

• PCB: 30mm x 20mm
• Display: 23mm x 14mm
• Combined Depth: 11mm
• Weight: 5.45g

Power specifications:

• 4.5V to 28V DC power
• 0V to 99.9V DC measurement
• 0.1V precision
• 3-4mA draw
• Green LED display
• For use with positive voltages only!

In stock and shipping now!

Peek offers remaining hardware to hackers: ‘maybe somebody can build something great’ @ The Verge.

Just because the Peek service has been killed off doesn’t mean the devices themselves need to be crushed and swept off into a landfill somewhere. CEO Amol Sarva just dropped us a note to say that he’s got “a few thousand” Peeks still lying around the warehouse that are just waiting for a hacker’s touch: “maybe somebody can build something great,” he says. The notion of a pre-built and tested portrait QWERTY device with a jog dial, QVGA display, ARMv7 processor, and a GSM radio is, in many ways, a hacker’s dream — and Sarva says he can even throw in “some tools” to help them get started. The “operating system sucks but is workable,” he says. Sounds like a challenge to us. Interested folks should contact Amol himself via email — amol at peek.ly — and he says that one of the company’s developers will be in touch.

Online MSP430 Editor and Compiler.

This is an online MSP430 firmware editor. This means that you edit C-code within your web browser without having to install an IDE such as IAR or CCS on your computer. The files are compiled on our server and you download them from there. Using this tool to develop MSP430 firmware from within your browser is very simple, but does not offer as many advanced features as an expensive IDE.

Dan Malec’s Blog: Building an Arduino LCD Clock. Dan writes -

The first step in my Arduino monitored / controlled orchid vivarium is giving my Arduino the ability to track time with reasonable accuracy and display information on an LCD.  I went with a Boarduino for ease of prototyping, but the final build will probably use an Uno or Mega.

This projects uses the Adafruit Boarduino, Adafruit FTDI friend, DS1307 RTC breakout, Blue+White LCD, and I2C LCD backpack!

Developer Wanted: Open-Source Motor Control Board at Parallax Inc @ Adafruit Jobs Board.

Parallax Inc. is looking to expand our external developer team by searching for an outside engineer to design a motor control board compatible with current RepRap hardware. The design should feature the P8X32A multicore microcontroller from Parallax, which supports the current trend of RepRap hardware evolving into cheaper, easier to use and higher quality solutions. The design should be completed by early March 2012 and meet the requirements outlined here.

Read more!

This sounds like a cool job that gets you paid to make great oshw!

“I am also a High school technology teacher, I currently teach electricity and electronics. I have been givin the task of adding a robotics class next year. I have never done any programming what so ever, but have a pretty solid grasp on electronics. what do you suggest I do with my 20 students. I have a full shop: lots of components, breadboards, soldering irons, band saw, drill press, 7 desktop PCs, and even have a LPKF S-42 protmat(got it with a grant!!)
I was thinking about arduino and shields to build some robots that can perform some basic tasks.
Let me know what you think”

Starting a robotics program can be a blast and if you are bringing electronics and mechanics knowledge to the table, you are really mostly there. When I taught high school freshman, we were challenged with this same task. The existing curriculum was old and fragmented, and we wanted to find a way to teach the students the fundamentals of electronics and programming through rudimentary robotics. Each of our classrooms were outfitted with the same shop equipment you have, sans PCB mill , and we were able to establish a robotics curriculum that now lets 450 freshman individually design, construct, program and operate their own robots……oh and its on a pretty tight budget.

The students start off by learning basic electronics and soldering by completing circuits like LED flip flops, playing with 555 timers, etc. until they are ready to understand and solder our micro controller. I designed a carrier board, like Arduino, that uses the PICAXE micro controller, called the Kilroy. (If you are interested in using PICAXE, I will send you my GERBERs for the Kilroy and you are free to make your own, just submit another question and I will respond via email.) Depending on the programming aptitude of your students, PICAXE might be a good initial way to go as it is programmed in BASIC and pretty easy to use. Although honestly, after spending the last couple of years playing with Arduino, it is considerably more fun and capable then the PICAXE.

The students are then given:

1 – 12 x 12 x 1/8″ PVC or ABS sheet (the reason for plastic is they use heat guns to conform it.
2 – CDs
2 – Continuous rotation servos (we used to by Parallax servos until their prices went up. You shouldn’t spend more then about $7 each here)
1 – Micro controller board (whether PICAXE or Arduino)

They are then tasked with designing, constructing, programming and operating their bots through a series of challenges. Two of them are the:

Maze – we made 4′ x 8′ plywood mazes that the students use timed turns to navigate through. You certainly can up the challenge by introducing optical sensing, touch sensors, rotation sensors, etc.

Race – the students have a drag race to see whose bot is fastest. They experiment with running their servos with batteries in series and parallel as well as changing wheel diameter, gearing and adding gripping material to the CDs.

We also have a fantastic robotics program for the upper 10-12 grade students that Charles, another teacher blogger here on Adafruit, has established over the past 5 years. The course initially uses VEX robotics kits to get the students more familiar with structural design, gearing, RF, and sensors. They are then tasked with designing robots for different competitions (things like soccer, alternative locomotion, etc) The follow up course then uses Arduino and our VEXMAS VEX interface shield to construct some much higher level bots. He and I even went as far as to build a scale house in the classroom and tasked the students with designing bots that could enter a structure, climb stairs and save a doll from a simulated disaster situation!

The moral of the story is that teaching robotics in high school is the perfect opportunity for you as a teacher to use your imagination and creativity to engage and challenge students. Have them see how robotics can bridge the gap between programming, circuit design and construction and use those skills together to make some pretty neat stuff.

Cheers and good luck!

Next up is G. Bozovic with a question about teaching Arduino to Industrial Designers!

Don’t forget, everyone is invited to ask a question:

Click here!

Chomp – the Affordable, Open-Source MIDI Controller by Max Justicz.

Hey Phil/Limor, I just posted up my first kickstarter project (I’m a high-school student).  It’s open-source, Arduino based, and awesome! I just wanted to let you guys know that you helped me get interested in electronics in the first place.  After raising $455 in under 1.5 hours, I think I’ve picked a pretty good hobby.

Here’s the link: http://kck.st/xdnUhp

Thanks so much for everything you guys! By the way — I taught a short term class at my school (which is about 4 weeks long) on the Arduino (we bought all of our kits, sensors, and LCDs from you guys) and it went GREAT!!!!  Here’s a project one of my friends made during the second week (having never programmed before):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtwqUQUAPx8. You guys rock! -mjusticz

MIT faculty see promise in American manufacturing @ MIT News Office.

As the United States seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past economic recession, MIT Newsexamines manufacturing’s role in America’s economic future through this series on work at the Institute around manufacturing.

Not long ago, MIT political scientist Suzanne Berger was visiting a factory in western Massachusetts, a place that produces the plastic jugs you find in grocery stores. As she saw on the factory floor, the company has developed an innovative automation system that has increased its business: Between 2004 and 2008, its revenues doubled, and its workforce did, too. Moreover, the firm has found a logical niche: Since plastic jugs are both bulky and inexpensive, it’s not economical to produce them overseas and ship them to the United States, simply to fill them with, say, milk or syrup.

“Is this just an odd little story?” Berger asks. “Actually, no.” While the decline of American manufacturing has been widely trumpeted — manufacturing jobs in the United States have dropped from 20 million in 1979 to about 12 million today — conglomerates such as Procter & Gamble and high-tech firms such as Dow Corning have kept significant amounts of manufacturing in the country. Moreover, 3,500 manufacturing companies across the United States — not just the jug-making firm in Massachusetts — doubled their revenues between 2004 and 2008. With that in mind, Berger asks, “How can we imagine enabling these firms to branch out into more innovative activities as well?”

Read more…

The GeekDad Arduino Guide: Introduction @ GeekDad – Wired.com.

Now, depending on your level of knowledge of engineering, electronics, and other technical topics, you may be a little unclear on the definition of a microcontroller. At its most basic, a microcontroller is a computer on a chip. It has a CPU capable of executing embedded code, RAM for storage of run-time data, and long-term storage for storing the code to be executed. What makes microcontrollers fun is the surrounding hardware that is also on the chip. This surrounding hardware makes it very simple to read signals from the physical world, translate them into something the code can take action on, and then react back out to the physical world. The Arduino is a small circuit board wrapped around one of these microcontrollers that makes it very easy for you to upload new code that you write, in a variation on C++, and access the set of inputs/outputs and interact with your world. This answers this second part of my question above, “How can it help launch me into the world of cool projects?”

Nice series!

This useful lecture handout (from a Stanford electronics course) comes courtesy the always insightful johngineer.  While something inside me died when I read that aesthetics “is a foreign term to EE’s anyway”, it’s a great summary of some of the issues that need to be kept in mind choosing the right capacitor for the right situation, and describes some common situations where you’d use a capacitor and helps you select the right tool for the job. Read Capacitors Demystified for more.

What If Schools Created a Culture of “Do” INSTEAD of a Culture of “Know?” @ The Tempered Radical via freaklabs.

What IF schools created a culture of “DO” instead of a culture of “KNOW?” Doesn’t that action-oriented stance reflect the kind of real-world learning environment that we know resonates with kids? 

More importantly, don’t we WANT kids who see themselves as living, breathing contributors to the world around them rather than simply as little people locked away behind our walls waiting to be released?

Of course, we’d have to work to take active steps to redefine almost everything about our schools if a culture of “Do” is really going to be possible.  Grading will need to change — from a focus on content mastery to a focus on demonstration of an ability to apply content in novel situations.

Read more…

Kyle Machulis (qdot) on Twitter. We’re tweeting Shannon Loftis from Microsoft Game Studios, Studio Head for comment We’re hoping this is not true…

Update!

NEW PRODUCT – Adafruit Beagle Bone Starter Pack. If you’ve heard about the Beagle Bone and you want to hit the ground running, this starter pack is for you. We’ve picked out everything you need to start out, with essential parts and accessories to save on a bundle.

Includes:

• The latest Beagle Bone A4 – fully assembled, tested and ready to rock
• Included 4 GB microSD card with adapter with preloaded Angstrom Linux
• USB Mini-B cable to log in and debug the Bone
• Adafruit Proto Plate for Beagle Bone – holds your ‘Bone alongside a half-sized breadboard for perfect prototyping. Comes with standoffs, hardware and bumpers
• Half-sized breadboard – place it onto the plastic plate, plenty of space for prototyping!
• 5V / 2000mA UL-listed power adapter – the ideal power adapter for the Beagle Bone, with enough power to run the computer as well as additional components or USB add-ons
• Breadboarding Wire Bundle – These flexible wires are great for plugging into breadboards and headers such as those on the Beagle Bone
• Beagle Bone Sticker – This vinyl sticker is excellent quality, sticks to stuff and is weatherproof but won’t damage whats underneath

For technical details, check the product pages of each item.

In stock and shipping now!

The skill badges now have sticker versions! Here are the next 6 hot off the press! (video here).

Android – Sticker!
Circuit bender! – Sticker!
Catapult – Sticker!
HTML 5 – Sticker!
Magic Blue Smoke Monster – Sticker!
Open source hardware – Sticker!

Adafruit offers a fun and exciting stickers to celebrate achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a sticker is just one of the many ways to show and share. Perfect for educators, classrooms, workshops, Maker Faires, TechShops, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and around the world to reward beginners on their skill building journey!

Looks great on the laptop or the workbench.

These gorgeous stickers are glossy, vinyl and made to last a lifetime. Made with printing/vinyl machines that are solar powered and using the most green friendly supplies as possible.

MADE IN THE USA!

Adafruit’s stickers are manufactured in partnership with AMBRO Manufacturing located in NJ, USA. AMBRO is a family owned and operated business since 1990 that celebrates open-source with Adafruit Industries. You can meet their team here. AMBRO uses non-toxic soy based, water soluble and environmentally friendly printing supplies, threads and more when possible. AMBRO has over 250 solar panels that generate 50,000 Kilowatt hours per year. Their equipment runs solar powered, so the wonderful things AMBRO and Adafruit have worked together on are made with the sun! AMBRO Manufacturing was recognized by Impressions Magazine, a leading trade publication in the garment printing and embroidery business, who published an article highlighting AMBRO and their commitment to their environmentally focused manufacturing practices. Adafruit knows you have a lot of choices as to where you spend your money and time, we hope our open-source values, commitment to green technologies and partners helps make the decision easier and fun!

Visit the sticker section - we’ll have DOZENS more shortly!

NEW PRODUCT – Adafruit Proto-Plate for Beagle Bone. Ready to prototype your next BeagleBone project? You’ll certainly want this handy Proto-Plate! Not only is it really good looking, its also very useful, holding your BeagleBone steady alongside a standard half-sized breadboard.

The plate is made of 3mm thick laser-cut clear acrylic with nice engraving showing alignment. There are four 4-40 screws, standoffs and hex-nuts to attach the ‘Bone on and the halfsized breadboard can be stuck on (just remove the paper backing from it). Finally, there are four rubber bumpers you can use to lift the plate off of your table, so it won’t slide around.

BeagleBone and half-sized breadboard are not included! You can pick those items (as well as other BeagleBone toys in the shop

• 3″ x 4″ acrylic plate, laser cut
• 4 x 4-40 1/2″ screws
• 4 x 4-40 hexnuts
• 4 x 4 3/8″ nylon standoffs
• 4 x rubber bumpers

In stock and shipping now!

BACK IN STOCK – PN532 NFC/RFID controller breakout board [v1.3]. The PN532 is the most popular NFC chip, and is what is embedded in pretty much every phone or device that does NFC. It can pretty much do it all, such as read and write to tags and cards, communicate with phones (say for payment processing), and ‘act’ like a NFC tag. If you want to do any sort of embedded NFC work, this is the chip you’ll want to use!

NFC (Near Field Communications) is a way for two devices very close to each other to communicate. Sort of like a very short range bluetooth that doesn’t require authentication. It is an extension of RFID, so anything you can do with RFID you can do with NFC. You can do more stuff with NFC as well, such as communicate bi-directionally with cell phones

Because it can read and write tags, you can always just use this for RFID-tag projects. We carry a few different tags that work great with this chip. It can also work with any other NFC/RFID Type 1 thru 4 tag (and of course all the other NXP MiFare type tags)

The PN532 is also very flexible, you can use 3.3V TTL UART at any baud rate, I2C or SPI to communicate with it. This chip is also strongly supported by libnfc, simply plug in an FTDI cable and use the FTDI serial port device to communicate – this lets you do NFC dev using any Linux/Mac/Windows computer!

Comes with: the PN532 breakout board including a tuned 13.56MHz stripline antenna, 0.1″ header, 2 jumpers/shunts and a 4050 level shifter chip. We also toss in a Mifare Classic 1K card! (You can get more tags from us here) New in version 1.3: onboard power LED, 3.3V regulator and an FTDI header so you can plug in an FTDI friend or FTDI cable and use with libnfc.

In stock and shipping now!

Dangerous Prototypes CadSoft Eagle style guide and best practices.

If you do all these things, you should award yourself an eagle badge!

The IR Shield. falldeaf writes -

Hi Lady Ada! I designed and built a custom Arduino shield and wrote some firmware and software that turn it into a web-connected universal remote…

Office Bling By DairDair

Our offices have these little peek-a-boo sections in the frosted glass. Some people stick post-it notes up describing what’s going on with them, but I wanted something more complex. I had recently picked up the Adafruit “RGB backlight negative LCD” display and was evaluating the X-Bee radios and decided to make an “almost wireless” LCD display for the front of my office. It’s not very complex – using a Boarduino (Arduino) running a little sketch that has a few modes – static text, alternating text describing what I’m working on, plus a mode that cycles through a bunch of “Burma Shave” four-liners just for silliness. The modes and backlight color are controlled from my PC via the other X-Bee. People seem to like it, so I’ll probably commit it to a perf-board and get rid of all those ugly wires.

RGB backlight positive LCD 20×4 + extras [black on RGB]. To match our popular 16×2 RGB Character LCDs (http://www.adafruit.com/products/399 & http://www.adafruit.com/products/398) we’ve now added 20×4 LCDs! Get more text, with an RGB backlight. Both positive and negative type! This is a fancy upgrade to standard 20×4 LCDs, instead of just having blue and white, or red and black, this LCD has black characters on a full color RGB background! That means you can change the display background color to anything you want – red, green, blue, pink, white, purple yellow, teal, salmon, chartreuse. This LCD looks strikingly good in person. This LCD is the most daylight readable character LCD we have and is very beautiful and easy to read no matter what color/brightness you have for the backlight.

One nice thing about these LCDs is that they are an elegant upgrade, but you can use them in existing LCD projects and they’ll still work – just that only the red LED will be used (so it will appear black-on-red). The extra two pins (17 and 18) are for the green and blue LEDs. The LCD has resistors on board already so that you can drive it with 5V logic and the current draw will be ~40mA per LED (there are two LEDs, 20mA each). There’s a single LED backlight for the entire display, the image above showing 3 colors at once is a composite!

Comes with a single 20×4 RGB backlight LCD, 10K necessary contrast potentiometer and strip of header. Our tutorials and diagrams will have you up and running in no time!

In stock and shipping now.

I Heart Robotics: Now available on DVD via Chris.

If you have been wondering where we have been, January has been product development month at I Heart Engineering. We are pleased to announce that ROS (Robot Operating System) is now available for pre-order on DVD. We are currently planning to start shipping on February 7th.

This DVD has a few great features that make it a convenient way to get started with ROS. It can be used as a LiveDVD so you can boot from it and try out things like rviz and Gazebowithout having to format your hard drive. Once you are ready, the DVD installer will take care of the basic configuration to help you get started quickly with Ubuntu 10.04 and ROS Electric Emys.

$10 of every purchase will be set aside to help fund the creation of a ROS Foundation. In the event that things don’t work out and a ROS Foundation can not be established in the next three years the funds will be donated to the EFF.

On our “playlist” – This and Star Trek Next Generation Blue Ray

Seeking Hardware Hacker for Fast-Track Interactive Installation at Damon Seeley at the Adafruit Jobs Board.

Electroland seeks a hardware designer/hacker for a fast-track interactive installation project. Candidates should have significant experience with embedded tactile interaction design using Arduino or similar and familiarity with coding for physical computing. Basic fabrication skills (cut, finish, fasten) are a plus. Candidates should be able to work with us to develop functional pieces that are reliable in the scope of a two week installation. The work will be fun and very fast-paced. We want to make things that illuminate, squawk, wobble, etc.

Read more…

Five minute project: Heart-Shaped Hack Box – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

A hack-box to go, filled with interconnects, LEDs, and love. Because, what better way to say I love you, than with the gift of electronics?

The recent discussion about the “new” 6502 from WDC got me thinking about other old and/or unavailable chips that could use a re-introduction, or perhaps just a process facelift. This post is mainly to solicit reactions and suggestions from viewers like you, but I’ll provide my own example too.

Having recently gotten back in to analog synth design after a long hiatus, I was rather shocked to discover that OTAs (operational transconductance amplifiers) suited to such work are few and far between. With the exception of the NE5517 and the LM13600/13700, there are no other audio OTAs currently in production. TI (via BurrBrown) manufactures other OTA devices, such as the OPA860/861, but these are optimized for high-speed analog (RF and transmission line) and they are rather expensive. For many synthesizers, the OTA forms the heart of nearly every voltage-controlled module and using them greatly simplifies the process vs. building with discrete components (such as a Moog ladder). The best OTA for audio was probably the CA3280, which is sadly no longer in production, due to the process becoming obsolete, among other factors. This 2005 blog post by Don Tillman, which explains the whole problem perfectly, was part of the inspiration for this blog post, and I’m going to throw in with Don and humbly request that someone please update the CA3280 to the latest fab, give it 21st-century specs, and bring it back into production.

If the 3280 is a no-go, for whatever reason, then my second choice would be an update of the LM13700 (originally from National). The LM13700, which was designed by Don Blake, is currently available from both National and NJR, but it’s got its problems. It’s somewhat noisy, for one. It also has an output offset current which scales with the transconductance (a problem when building integrators), and the buffer is just a simple darlington pair. It would be great (read: totally awesome!) if someone were to update the chip to a BiCMOS process, while changing the design to drop the noise floor and increase the dynamic range, reduce the output offset current and replace the darlingtons with FET-input opamps. This might sound like a very involved request, but the expertise is already there to do it — analog devices have come a long way in 30+ years, and the basic design of the 13700 is not very complex, compared to modern opamps.

In case you’re wondering what incentive there is for somebody to do this, I submit that, compared to when I was doing it 10+ years ago, there’s A LOT more information out there now about DIY synths, and the increase in homebuilt synth projects has paralleled the increase in DIY ‘tronix in general. There’s definitely a willing (and growing) market for these things, and with a chip redesign they could certainly charge more per chip. There’s also a resurgence in analog electronic music in general right now, which means these new chips may find their way into commercial products as well.

So anyway, that’s my request. I suspect there are lots of different opinions on the subject, however. If you have a chip you’d like to see resurrected and brought back into production, or just updated to modern spec, post it in the comments! Try to include some info with your suggestion, and reasons why you think such an update would be successful.

An impression of the Ghent Lichtfestival 2012 (video).

Post List[Letters to Earth: Astronaut Don Pettit].

Looking through the cupola windows on Space Station, it’s only natural to reflect upon who we are and where we fit into the world below. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland, this orbital looking glass can be both a window through which to observe the jeweled sphere of Earth and a mirror that (sometimes, depending on your viewing angle) shows you a translucent reflection of yourself superimposed on the planet.

From orbit, the more you know about our planet, the more you can see. You see all the geological features described in textbooks. You see fault zones, moraines, basins, ranges, impact craters, dikes, sills, braided channels, the strike and dip of layered rocks, folding, meanders, oxbow lakes, slumps, slides, mud flows, deltas, alluvial fans, glaciers, karst topography, cirques, tectonic plates, rifts zones, cinder cones, crater lakes, fossil sea shores, lava flows, volcanic plumes, fissures, eruptions, dry lakes, inverted topography, latteric soils, and many more.

More posts here…

Libraries, codecs, OSS @ Raspberry Pi.

There have been quite a few questions in the forums and on the comments about what libraries will be available, what codecs, what is open source etc. This short post will try and give people some idea of what will be available at or around launch time. It won’t be comprehensive – I am sure that for some it will generate more questions than answers, but I hope it will be of help.

Firstly, libraries. Any distribution will need to supply a set of closed source libraries that give access to the GPU acceleration features…

The Open/Closed source debate can become quite heated, as those perusing the comments and forums may have noticed. As stated above, the host side libraries for the graphics acceleration are closed source and are provided by the SoC supplier. The Foundation has no control over the closed nature of these libraries. Since the vast majority of people simply use libraries such as these, it was deeded a trade off worth making to get the high graphics performance.  It’s worth noting there are no other SoC devices with a similar graphics performance that are open source. There is no GPL issue here, these are user side libraries not linked in any way to the kernel.

There are a few drivers for the SoC which are linked in to the kernel, these are GPLed and hence OSS. One of these drivers is the interface from the user space libraries to the GPU. The user side libraries use this ‘driver’ to communicate with the GPU and tell it what to do.

Here’s a handy diagram that may help visualise what’s what.

Read more…

Gallery: Declassified Spy Satellite @ Space.com via BtB.

Gambit 1 KH-7 is one of three formerly classified reconnaissance satellites that went on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, starting Jan. 26, 2012.

ScratchML Data Spec @ F.A.T..

ScratchML, like GML, is an XML-based format for storing information about the position of the record and crossfader during a scratch performance.

This is a “beta” release of the .SML file format, with sample data for 1 turntable and 1 crossfader. The format is designed to accomodate multiple turntables and crossfaders and a wide variety of data capture techniques, but we’ve only field-tested it against the basic 1 deck + 1 mixer scratch setup, which is what we were working with this weekend.

The two most important fields are:

• <turntable> — stores data about the playback position on the record as a consistently sampled stream of floats, with <samplerate> samples per second.
• <fader> — stores data for crossfader movements, ranging from 0 (full-left) to 1 (full-right). This data is stored only when the fader actually moves, and is stored as <p> (position) and <t> (time) tuplets in the field.

Your blog post comes really at the right time!

I work in a kind of “”joint venture”" between a technical school and a design school, we make projects in collaboration between engineers and designers. I myself am an engineer. We are currently in the process of setting up a pilot Arduino course for designers, as they really lack skills in what could be a very useful tool for their projects.

Now, we’ll be teaching these to Media and Interaction desginers, which does not scare me, since they know the basics of coding, and also tinkering with electronics, for some of them. However, we’ll also be teaching this course to industrial designers, who will come with almost no previous knowledge applicable to the Arduino.

I was thinking about starting the course with some hands-on tutorials, making and improving upon some of the example circuits that you can make with the Adafruit experimentation kit for arduino, and then moving towards accompanying the students on a couple of simple projects of their own. My goal would be for them not to become electrical engineers, but at least to have a better grasp of what is possible to do.

Do you have any advice about teaching arduino to people with no previous experience with similar platforms? Did you encounter problems you weren’t expecting, doing that?

Thanks in advance for any advice, it would be great!

I honestly think that you are right on target with designing the course around the Adafruit experimentation kit. It provides enough electronics and prototyping capability to really get you started in the right direction. Once you have had a chance to familiarize yourself with the included “Experimenter’s Guide,” it shouldn’t be very difficult to tailor the included labs to meet your curricular needs.

Another good resource, and one I happen to keep on my nightstand, is the “Arduino Cookbook” by Michael Margolis. Inside are some very good labs, with detailed explaniations that would also make for a good basis for your course.

To answer your question about teaching people with no previous experience with Arduino and similar platforms:

I taught a robotics class for two semesters that was geared toward the introduction and utilization of the Arduino. The students taking the class really had a wide range of skill sets, although often without any programming background. What I discovered was that starting the students off with the simplest task possible, say flashing an LED, was so captivating and engaging that they had no hesitation moving to higher level tasks. This really highlights one of the awesome things about the Arduino platform, in just how friendly it is to both novices and seasoned programmers. What it lacks in some areas, it certainly makes up in its ability to inspire and facilitate project development.

When we did encounter problems, it was mainly on the hardware side. You would be surprised at how difficult it can be to explain to someone how a breadboard works! But with a kit like Adafruit’s, you are starting off with a good base of components and lab possibilities that I don’t think you will have a problem with your designers!

Cheers and good luck with your course!

Next up is B. Smith with a question about teaching which books to use to supplement a programming class based around Arduino.

Don’t forget, everyone is invited to ask a question!

Click here!

N+ew | Rodrigo Alonso.

Sculpture-installation made of electronic waste, epoxy resin and cast aluminum. It is produced in limited editions, or based on specific orders. None is equal to the previous contents. Customizable.

The Rygo via EMSL.

We are combining high technology and high art to create something very special – the Rygo. Standing 2 meters tall, it will be the largest such 3D print of any type in North America (quite possibly the Western hemisphere) and will be installed for all the world to see at Gropp’s Gallery of Vancouver, Canada. Crowdfunding the Rygo reflects the best qualities of Vancouver – organic design supported by a grassroots movement. This is also an international effort! The Rygo will be printed in Italy by Enrico Dini’s DShape, itself the largest 3D printer of its kind, measuring 6 x 6 x 8 meters (20 x 20 x 27 ft). The Rygo was designed by famous 3D designer and sculptor Bathsheba Grossman of California, utilizing esoteric math and an artistic touch to craft a piece that would have been un-makeable by any other means. 

Everyone in this campaign truly believes that 3D printing will shake up everything you thought you knew about design, construction, manufacturing, architecture, sculpture….you name it. We hope you feel the same. Every contribution is going towards a leap in technology that happens only once a decade. 

Read more…

Our interview with Jane and James from sugru (video).

Interview with ColorHug maker, Richard Hughes @ Banu Blog.

For a while now, I’ve wanted Banu to do interviews of makers of things with free and open designs. Being a fan of PingMag MAKE, it was apparent that there was a lot of hard work, learning, fun and satisfaction to be had in making. It’s too bad that PingMag shutdown, but they still inspire. So when the ColorHug comes along—an open hardware product related to graphics—there’s no better time to start interviewing. Solder when the iron’s hot!

The ColorHug is a colorimeter that can be used to calibrate computer displays. It was created by Richard Hughes (hughsie). It is a fully open hardware project, and the design, drivers and firmware are available on the Gitorious code hosting website. From the branches and commit logs it appears that others have taken an interest in its development too, and have begun to contribute to it.

Read more…