Tindie

E-paper has been around for quite a few years now, and has been most famously used in e-readers and the odd smartwatch. If you’d like an understated timepiece that doesn’t emit a glow itself, it’d be hard to beat the e-paper-based Agora clock.

This device is part of the Agora Watch Project, described as an “open source, open hardware platform for wrist watch and table watch with e-paper displays.” The project uses an Atmega328 processor to power its black and white screen, and more hardware info is found here.

A neat feature of this clock, and e-paper in general, is nicely illustrated below, where it’s shown as clearly visible in a variety of lighting conditions. Granted, you won’t be able to read it during total darkness, but at least you don’t have to endure red light attempting to penetrate your eyelids while sleeping!

For another take on e-paper displays, be sure to check out the Papyr BLE module discussed here. It displays photos and doodles from your phone in not just black and white, but red as well!

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Food and sauce are a match made in heaven. If you were to build a hall of fame for the greatest sauces, you would be remiss to not include the pure gold that is Chick-fil-A sauce. I don’t know what’s in it, and I probably don’t want to know, but it tastes amazing.

Frequent patrons of their local Chick-fil-A will know the struggle of keeping the sauce still in the car. A maker took it upon themselves to remedy this issue by creating a cupholder mold for the unique shape of Chick-fil-A sauce. This design made the rounds on Reddit.

A fellow Tindarian decided to put their own spin on the design and make it available to the masses. Using their own Prusa MK3S printer, they designed and printed these cup holders out of PLA.

With several colors available, this one is a no-brainer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly have an unrelenting urge to eat Chick-fil-A.

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Modular systems are supremely diverse, often bringing together a number of formats to create their rich and lurid tapestry of sounds. The Betweener is a utility based-device in a customizable and hackable format, mediating between messages, converting signals and providing a central brain for a complex musical system.

The Betweener expands your control capabilities, translating MIDI to control voltages, converting input triggers to MIDI notes and allowing for communication between modular systems and DAWs – amongst many other things!  It utilizes a Teensy 3.2, which can be programmed using the Arduino IDE, and has four on-board CV (control voltage) inputs, four trigger inputs, four knobs, and four CV outputs which can be assigned to suit your setup. You can even convert MIDI-to-CV and CV-to-MIDI via USB MIDI or an add-on DIN MIDI breakout.

Being Teensy-powered, you’ll be able to control your modular with compatible external sensors (such as motion/light sensors) for extreme musical expression. The Betweener can be programmed to modulate any CV-controlled or MIDI-controlled instrument, which opens up so many doors to making new and interesting composition methods!

The Betweener is available from Voidpulse and ships from the USA – read up on the full Documentation here, and see the limitless capabilities it will bring!

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The popular platform If This Then That (IFTTT) allows you to automate all kinds of things by setting up recipes for how you want the process to play out. There’s even a maker channel called Webhooks to integrate the platform into your DIY projects.

The AButton is a WiFi enabled push button that supports the IFTTT platform, giving you the chance to hack it and add all kinds of functionality. It’s actually a spin-off of a smart button project from Noel Portugal.

You can use the ESP8266 Flasher for programming the APixel board stashed inside the button, giving you everything you need to make this button do your bidding.

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It seems like just yesterday that I was standing in the audience at the 2018 Hackaday Superconference. The Los Angeles College of Music was packed, it was standing room only. Mike Szczys, Hackaday’s Editor-in-Chief, stood on the stage and opened the final envelope. The grand prize went to Dexter, an open-source robotic arm. The team won $50,000 to continue their journey.

If you’ve never been to the Hackaday Supercon, you should absolutely attend this year’s event. Similarly, if you’ve never entered your project into The Hackaday Prize, now is the time. The 2019 iteration of this annual event is officially underway!

The Hackaday Prize 2019: Build Great Products

The theme this year is taking your product across the finish line. We want to help the winners go from concepts and ideas, to working prototypes and manufacturing designs. The team that builds the Best Product will take home the grand prize of $125,000.

The winner of each of five sub-categories will also take home $10,000. While the winning announcements are still a ways off, $10,000 in seed funding will be awarded early on. This means that the top 20 entries with the most likes before June 1st will receive up to $500 in seed money each.

As if that’s not enough we are also setting aside $3,000 for each category as a prize for an honorable mention. These are the topics you should focus on as you develop your projects:

• Concept: be creative and original
• Design: work with the user in mind
• Production: ensure it can be manufactured
• Benchmark: develop a viable idea that will have an impact
• Communication: clearly tell the story of your product

Altogether, we’re looking at $200,000 in prize money this year. All it takes is one great idea to change the world. We want to see your ideas, so head on over to the 2019 Hackaday Prize website to submit your project!

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LoRaWAN wireless technology is incredibly useful if you’re looking to connect devices across large distances and still obtain low power consumption. Those looking to create their own Node should look no further than this Arduino Pro Mini LoRaWAN kit.

The kit is easy to assemble and program using the Arduino IDE. For the settings, choose Arduino Pro Mini for the board and the processor as 3.3 V at 8 Mhz. You can also connect to the TTN (The Things Network) via ABP or OTAA authentication.

The Tindie page for this kit also includes information on generating source code and links to various LMIC libraries for Arduino or the ATmega MCU Platform. If you haven’t tried your hand at LoRaWAN, this is a great opportunity to check it out.

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The original Piezoelectric micro air Blower had a good run on Tindie, but now microwavemont is back with version 2.0. The new version has a built-in LDO for more stability in the supply voltage variation.

Since this Piezoelectric Micro Air Blower V2.0 doesn’t have a motor or fan, it instead uses an ultrasonic 26kHz signal and acts as a tiny air pump. Some use cases include water aeration, kinetic actuation, making small items hover, or even using it as a notification for the hearing-impaired (by using air flow).

The lightweight design and small form factor makes it easy to implement into your projects. There’s also no need for a high voltage source or an oscillator circuit. You only need to provide a 3.4V-5V power supply.

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We at Tindie love a bit of retro-tech, and what better way to enjoy the sounds of the late 80s and early 90s than listening to your favorite Chiptunes? The Simple Chiptune Player puts the power of sonic nostalgia in your pocket, with a simple programmable signal generator to load full tracks and sound effects to play back and enjoy.

The player uses Yamaha’s Programmable Signal Generator (PSG) chip, the YMZ294, to generate the sweet bleeps and bloops. An ATmega328 handles the playback and can be programmed over USB using the Arduino IDE.

There’s a built in speaker for standalone playback, as well as a 3.5mm headphone output. Here’s a nice overview of the layout and workings of the player:

The Simple Chiptune Player is sold by microwavemont, coming from Japan and usually ships from there within one day. A selection of example sketches to get you started are available on GitHub.

Check out this video on it, and head over to the product page for more information.

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Pi Wars 2019 is just around the corner! To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, this year’s competition is space exploration-themed. For the uninitiated, Pi Wars is an international, challenge-based robotics competition. Teams are tasked with building Raspberry Pi-controlled robots and competing in non-destructive challenges to earn points.

The Pi Wars obstacle course in 2018

The contest spans over a single weekend and supports up to 76 teams from all over the world. This year marks the fifth iteration of Pi Wars, which takes place March 30th and 31st in Cambridge, UK. Schools and kids clubs will compete on Saturday, while beginners, intermediates, and advanced teams compete on Sunday. If you’re interested in spectating, tickets are still available. You can also follow along on Twitter by tracking the hashtag #PiWars.

Pi Noon, 2018

Tindie & Pi Wars 2019

We are proud to be sponsoring Pi Wars this year by offering a gift card and Tindie Blinky Badge Kit to the 120+ members of the participating teams. While we can’t be there in person this year, last year we had a blast participating in the marketplace and meeting such an inspiring and dedicated community.

Pi Wars Challenge Hall, 2018

One of the prior year’s winners is a fellow Tindarian. Brian Corteil, who sells the Coretec Tiny 4WD on Tindie, also penned a comprehensive list of tips for Roboteers that offers some excellent strategies for building your own capable robot.

Robot based on the Coretec Tiny 4WD chassis

Special thanks to Michael Horne, Tim Richardson, and all of the amazing volunteers and sponsors that make this unique competition possible. And of course, we wish all of the 2019’s teams the best of luck!

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My dad is not quite the gamer that I am, but one thing we’ve always had in common is a mutual love for flight simulators. These hyper-realistic experiences are even better when you have equipment like a joystick or throttle that adds to the immersion.

Another popular role is to handle radio communications from the air traffic control tower. That’s where the Flight Simulation Radio kit comes in. This kit is compatible with X-Plane using ArdsimX, but it’s also usable with Microsoft FSX and Prepar3D (with limited support).

The kit comes complete with everything you need, but some basic soldering skills are required. You can even daisy-chain kits together to form a full radio stack. The radio is programmable for Nav, Comm, Transponder, ADF, Groundspeed, or any other output from the simulator.

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