Blinking lights are a welcome addition to any project, but they also provide a convenient way to track RC cars or drones. One Tindarian decided to create a 1:10 scale police light for this exact purpose.
The lights come with a 3D printed ABS enclosure, which works well outdoors. This type of enclosure also won’t bend or warp when exposed to the elements. You can customize the lights to your liking and glue everything together with acetone when you’re done to make it waterproof.
It may be made of wire and lights, but this tulip blooms like a real flower and glows with life.
Last month, Jiří Praus made a big splash on the freeform-circuitry scene with his Arduinoflake — a snowflake ornament he built from LEDs, brass wire, and an Arduino Nano. Now he’s back with another stunner. This time it’s a freeform circuit tulip sculpture for his wife. Its construction borrows many of the techniques and materials he used in the Arduinoflake, but it’s clear he’s upped his game since then.
While the Arduinoflake was basically flat (as snowflakes are), the tulip comes to vibrant life in three dimensions. The stem stretches upward from a simple wooden base, and a single leaf curls gracefully off to one side, but further up the stem is where the real magic happens. Each of the flower’s six petals is attached to the stem through a tiny hinge constructed from brass tubing and wire. The petals are also each connected to a pushrod running down the center of the stem. A hobby servo hidden in the base provides the motive force for opening and closing the petals.
The brain of this flower is again an Arduino Nano, and its capacitive-touch-sensing abilities allow the flower’s owner to send it blooming with a soft caress. Once awoken from its slumber, the petals gently open, and the flower’s RGB LEDs put on a moody light show.
Praus has said he’s not sure if he’ll be making tulips available for purchase, whipping one of these up for your special someone in time for Valentine’s Day would be a stretch to finish, but the design is gorgeous enough that it would make a wonderful gift any time of the year. He’s said he’ll be releasing documentation on the project, so be sure to follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in making your own.
If you’re not quite that handy with bending wire, but you like his aesthetic, stop by his Tindie store, where you can pick up an Arduinoflake, now in PCB form.
Southern California is not known for its harsh winters. In fact, it’s probably safe to head out in flip flops and a hoodie on any given day all winter long. With that assumption in mind, that’s exactly what I was wearing when I headed south to Orange County for my very first Sparklecon. The weather would soon show my folly, but it wouldn’t dampen the fun awaiting me.
If you’re not familiar with Sparklecon, it’s an annual gathering of hackers, artists, tech aficionados, and everyone in between, for a weekend of talks, demonstrations, workshops, games, and socializing. It’s organized by 23b Shop, a makerspace in Fullerton, and its neighbors, the National Upcycled Computing Collective (NUCC), and the Plasmatorium. With doors wide open at all three shops, musicians and deejays performing, and tents, couches, and a fire pit occupying the road between them, Sparklecon felt like the best nerding-out block-party I’ve ever been to.
Day One: Rain, Wind, and Fire
We don’t get much rain here in Southern California, but the week leading up to Sparklecon was decidedly wet. The weekend, and Sparklecon itself, were no exception.
It didn’t take long for attendees to re-dub the event “Sprinklecon.” Nonetheless, many of the outdoor activities, like car hacking with Will Caruana, went full steam ahead.
Saturday also included tips on how to get unruly 3D printers to behave, a discussion on different ways to publish research, and a workshop on social engineering from an information security perspective.
Meanwhile, an open table that the NUCC folks had named Kevin spontaneously emerged as a hub of hardware hacking. Roger Cheng brought out his KISS Tindie band and supplies for others who wanted to try their hand at freeform wire sculpture. Beau Ambur busied himself building a pair of synth kits he brought back from Germany. And Jaren Havell tinkered on a tiny Tesla coil kit he had picked up after arriving in town.
By the time the evening rolled around, the worst of the rain had passed, and the outdoor party came to life. A game of hammer Jenga was as much fun for the players as it was for the spectators.
For those who were brave enough to climb out of bed in the early morning cold, Day 2 kicked off with breakfast at the Mexican joint down the block. After a relatively late night of partying to finish of day 1, I was not enough of an early riser to get there by 7:45. But I did arrive in time for a fireside chat with Barb on how she’s managed to be one of the most amazingly productive makers around. Her ongoing project, the Dodecahedrum, was a hit with the audience.
The hardware hackers from the day before (myself included) reunited at the table they had claimed inside NUCC. This time, I was prepared, and brought my own stuff to hack on. Jaren took a quick interest in my CRT projects, and it wasn’t long until we had The Matrix running on my little green screen.
Sparklecon was an absolute blast. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet a diverse set of people with an even more diverse set of interests and skills, and it was flat-out fun from beginning to end. I didn’t make it out to last year’s event and now I know I wish I had . Rest assured I’ll be there for Sparklecon next year, rain or shine.
For other perspectives on the weekend, be sure to check out the recap video by Barb:
You can also get a deeper look from Roger Cheng’s blog posts for day one and day two of this excellent conference.
It’s crazy to think that we live in an age where anyone can build their own functional robot. Thanks to platforms like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, it’s far less difficult than in years past, but it’s by no means easy. For starters, building a Raspberry Pi-based robot typically requires you to buy all the smaller boards and wire them together.
The new Robot Core V1.2 simplifies the entire process by placing everything you need onto a single board. This includes a DC-DC converter, servo and brushed DC motor controls, analog input ports, and even a breakaway prototyping space for your own circuits or add-ons.
It’s compatible with both Raspberry Pi and the Arduino, not to mention a great platform for STEM education. The support documents are also very thorough, even offering guidance on getting started with python.
People often express themselves through their fashion, which in and of itself is a form of art. Since we’ve already established that PCBs can indeed be works of art, it only makes sense to turn them into accessories for the modern maker.
Enter these Lightning Bolt Earrings. The PCB comes in black with blue LEDs across the surface. The CR2032 battery to power them is also included. They feature an on/off switch and they’re even weather protected against rain.
The battery lasts for roughly a week non-stop, so you’ll find that these earrings are both fancy and functional. And hey, those coin cells are included in the order so they’re ready to wear as soon as the package arrives!
Once you get past LED-like power levels on your microcontroller or single-board computer project, you’ll need a more robust way to control things. Transistors and/or mechanical relays can be appropriate in many situations, and while this type of relay is well proven and, they are relatively slow, and eventually wear out.
Solid-state relays, however, isolate two circuits via an LED signal, This means they can switch loads much faster than the mechanical variety, without mechanical movements that wear out over time. They also don’t make any noise like the electromecanical variety, which can be important in some situations.
For an easy way to use 8 of these relays—at the cost of only two of your IO pins—this 8 Channel I2C Solid State Relay Module presents an attractive option. 8 SSRs are lined up on the board, and each can be used to control up to 2A of AC current. LEDs indicate the status of each SSR module, helpful in troubleshooting situations.
Relay output pins, along with an I2C header ( GND, SDA, SCL, and VCC) are broken out with screw terminals. This means that installation can be accomplished without breaking out the soldering iron, perfect for home automation or even industrial automation applications.
Long road trips are inevitable. Most adults can keep themselves busy with portable devices or smartphones, but what about the kids? If you’re looking to unplug on a long car or train ride, you may decide to bring out a board game, but this presents a problem: how are you going to roll dice in a moving vehicle?
Hammes Hacks ran into this problem when their nieces and nephews kept losing their dice beneath the driver’s seat. And so, the Tiny Dice Kit was born. This SMD soldering kit combines an ATTINY 13 using charlieplexing, and 14 LEDs to create the faces of two dice.
While it is not Arduino compatible, the code comes preloaded onto the microcontroller. You can upload code as needed using a Bus Pirate, an AVRisp mk II or something similar. It may not be a problem you have all the time, but I think we can all agree it’s about time dice went digital.
There are plenty of uses for a reliable GPS tracker, but in order to fully realize them you need two things: a wide range and a long battery life. The LGT-92 Dragino LoRaWAN GPS Tracker seeks to fill both of these roles by offering a combination of an Ultra Low Power STM32L072 MCU and a SX1276/1278 LoRa module into one device.
The inclusion of a 9-axis accelerometer that’s controllable by an MCU allows you to also tweak the energy profile for a variety of different purposes. Thanks to the LoRa wireless tech, users are able to send data across massive distances using low data-rates.
The ultra-long range spectrum allows for easy communication and protection from interference while also keeping power consumption low. The device is powered by a 1000mAh Li-on battery which, combined with the proper programming, will allow the device to last for weeks or even months depending on the use case.
The LGT-92 is open source, based on STM32Cube HAL drivers, with plenty of libraries available for quick and easy development.
Every Modular musician needs a way of putting all their sounds together in one place, to balance the levels of a mix and send it to a stereo output for playback or recording. This superb 8HP Eurorack mixer is newly released and does exactly that – taking up a mere slither of your precious rack real estate, with a skiff-friendly shallow design to boot!
The concept for this mixer is simple; it has inputs for four sound sources, which can be either mono or stereo. It’ll normalize the right channel to the left to ensure you have a perfect balance between the sounds. Each input has an attenuation knob which allows you to adjust the volume from minus infinity to 0dB – with the same control for the output signal (pictured in blue).
Inside the box you’ll get the mixer (obviously!), a power lead and 4 screws to attach it to your case. If you’re starting out in modular, this is an ideal start to mixing a minimal setup which does the job simply and elegantly. It’s the first product from Canada-based JPSynths but we’re hoping for more very soon!
Spinning your own development board is quite the undertaking, but sometimes it’s easier to have a board ready. This ESP32 LCD development board combines a 1.8 inch color LCD, two buttons, an analog stick, and a LiPo battery. The ability to upload firmware via microUSB or OTA using Arduino IDE or MicroPython also makes it easy to get started.
The board also comes pre-loaded with the Demo sketch for Arduino. All of the code, schematics, and board files are also freely available. You can find 3D printable case files with a switch lever, should you choose to build a case for it.
With everything included here, you can dive right into coding and hardware integration. One potential use is to turn the board into a remote for your IoT devices, but the sky’s the limit.
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