The central gimmick of the new Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game is the construction system, which is a lot of fun. You can fuse simple objects to build structures, but you can also add Zonai Devices to increase their functionality. One of those devices is the Stabilizer, which forces any attached vehicle or structure to stand upright. It seems like magic, but James Bruton set out to create a Stabilizer in real life.
There are many robots and vehicles available today that are capable of balancing themselves, with the Segway being the most famous example. These all rely on mass and inertia to stay upright, but most do that through either moving the base (like a Segway) or with a reaction wheel. Bruton went a slightly different direction for this project and chose to use gyros. When spinning, a gyro resists any motion that pushes it off its axis. By using two gyros, Bruton figured that he could keep the stabilizer upright.
Bruton built those gyros with automotive disc brakes for the mass wheels. Those rotate in frames constructed using aluminum extrusion and 3D-printed parts. An Arduino Mega 2560 controls the motors, including the brushless DC motors that spin the gyros and the geared DC motors that rotate the gyros to counteract tipping.
This doesn’t work quite as well as it does in the game — there are limits to what anyone can achieve with physics. But it is still cool to see in action!
While many users get them confused, microcontroller development boards and single-board computers are very different things. Single-board computers can run full operating systems, like your desktop PC or laptop does. Microcontroller development boards, like those from Arduino, are usually limited to simpler firmware. But as microcontrollers become more powerful, the line gets blurrier. To prove that, Naveen Kumar built an ultra-low-powered portable Linux computer based on the new Arduino Nano ESP32 development board.
By modern PC standards, the ESP32-S3 microcontroller in the Nano ESP32 board lacks both processing power and memory. But just a couple of decades ago, the 240MHz clock speed and 512kB of SRAM would have been considered respectable for a lightweight operating system. Clearly, that is still enough to run an operating system today. But there are other challenges that Kumar had to overcome to make that work.
On the hardware side, Kumar used a Nano ESP32 along with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi, a CardKB mini keyboard, and a 2.8″ Adafruit TFT touchscreen. The Nano ESP32 acts as a headless computer, while the UNO R4 WiFi, keyboard, and touchscreen act as a terminal to access that computer’s command line. Most Linux distros wouldn’t run on an ESP32 microcontroller, because they expect a different architecture and instruction set. But Max Filippov already ported Linux to work with the Xtensa instruction set used by the ESP32.
Kumar explains how to compile the kernel for that port and flash it to the Nano ESP32, as well as the UNO R4 WiFi sketch. Hardware setup is quick and easy. You won’t be able to use this to run the latest triple-A games, but you will be able to work with a real Linux OS through the terminal.
Electromagnetic Field (EMF) detectors are popular pieces of ghost hunting equipment. The idea is that paranormal apparitions emit a noticeable EMF that proves their existence. But in reality, those EMFs come from electric and electronic devices. And an EMF from you microwave may, for example, interfere with your Wi-Fi network and cause performance problems. So you may want an EMF detector to diagnose such issues and Mirko Pavleski designed a DIY unit you can build.
This DIY EMF detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation and will indicate the strength of any detected fields. A display shows the relative strength of the detected radiation and a buzzer sounds at different frequencies that correspond to the strength, kind of like a Geiger counter. There is almost always some ambient EM radiation around us at all times, so this device adjusts itself at startup to set that as the baseline. Only EM radiation stronger than that baseline will trigger the device.
To keep the build as simple as possible, Pavleski chose an Arduino Nano board. The antenna, which is just a small piece of copper pipe, connects directly to an analog input pin. Other than that, the only components are a buzzer, an OLED screen, and a 9V battery wired through a power switch. Any EM radiation will induce a tiny current in the antenna, which the Arduino’s analog pin can detect. The stronger the EMF, the greater the voltage on that pin.
Most EM radiation is very weak and this isn’t the most sensitive device, but it should still be enough to, for instance, detect a live wire in a wall.
This kit also has 32 guides from Elecrow with things you can make with the components using the more standard MicroPython language on Pico – and credit to the team, there’s not a huge amount of overlap with the types of projects as well.
Advanced learning
Despite being called an Advanced Kit, it does let you start from the very basics – getting your Pico to blink its own LED. Then other LEDs. Then switches. Before you know it, you’re measuring distances with ultrasonic sensors, creating Catherine Zeta Jones-style laser traps, and even building a robot arm. The difficulty curve for the projects is fairly good, and tutorials will concisely explain how different components work to better your understanding.
At the end of the book you’ll build a robot and program it, but it really doesn’t stop there. With all the different things you’ve made, it’s very easy to get ideas to create new projects or combine other ones to extend their functionality.
Much like this magazine, the guides list the code example and allow you to download it separately in case you need to check it (or just don’t feel like typing it up from scratch).
With the price and number of components, this really is one of the best ways to help a curious maker learn a ton about electronics, Pico, and coding. You could even upgrade a lot of the projects with a full Raspberry Pi. It’s something we’re definitely keeping close to us for future projects, although we may need to make a Toby Sensor using parts from the box to keep it safe.
Verdict
10/10
Packed full of projects at a very reasonable price, this starter kit will follow even an experienced maker around.
The traditional method for changing a diaper starts when someone smells or feels the that the diaper has been soiled, and while it isn’t the greatest process, removing the soiled diaper as soon as possible is important for avoiding rashes and infections. Justin Lutz has created an intelligent solution to this situation by designing a small device that alerts people over Bluetooth® when the diaper is ready to be changed.
Because a dirty diaper gives off volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and small particulates, Lutz realized he could use the Arduino Nicla Sense ME’s built-in BME688 sensor which can measure VOCs, temperature/humidity, and air quality. After gathering 29 minutes of gas and air quality measurements in the Edge impulse Studio for both clean and soiled diapers, he trained a classification model for 300 epochs, resulting in a model with 95% accuracy.
Based on his prior experience with the Nicla Sense ME’s BLE capabilities and MIT App Inventor, Lutz used the two to devise a small gadget that wirelessly connects to a phone app so it can send notifications when it’s time for a new diaper.
Dr Sue Sentance, Director of our Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, shares what she learned on a recent visit in Malaysia to understand more about the approach taken to computing education in the state of Sarawak.
Dr Sue Sentance
Computing education is a challenge around the world, and it is fascinating to see how different countries and education systems approach it. I recently had the opportunity to attend an event organised by the government of Sarawak, Malaysia, to see first-hand what learners and teachers are achieving thanks to the state’s recent policies.
Raspberry Pis and training for Sarawak’s primary schools
In Sarawak, the largest state of Malaysia, the local Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development is funding an ambitious project through which all of Sarawak’s primary schools are receiving sets of Raspberry Pis. Learners use these as desktop computers and to develop computer science skills and knowledge, including the skills to create digital making projects.
Sarawak is the largest state of Malaysia, situated on the island of Borneo
Crucially, the ministry is combining this hardware distribution initiative with a three-year programme of professional development for primary school teachers. They receive training known as the Raspberry Pi Training Programme, which starts with Scratch programming and incorporates elements of physical computing with the Raspberry Pis and sensors.
To date the project has provided 9436 kits (including Raspberry Pi computer, case, monitor, mouse, and keyboard) to schools, and training for over 1200 teachers.
The STEM Trailblazers event
In order to showcase what has been achieved through the project so far, students and teachers were invited to use their schools’ Raspberry Pis to create projects to prototype solutions to real problems faced by their communities, and to showcase these projects at a special STEM Trailblazers event.
Geographically, Sarawak is Malaysia’s largest state, but it has a much smaller population than the west of the country. This means that towns and villages are very spread out and teachers and students had large distances to travel to attend the STEM Trailblazers event. To partially address this, the event was held in two locations simultaneously, Kuching and Miri, and talks were live-streamed between both venues.
STEM Trailblazers featured a host of talks from people involved in the initiative. I was very honoured to be invited as a guest speaker, representing both the University of Cambridge and the Raspberry Pi Foundation as the Director of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre.
Solving real-world problems
The Raspberry Pi projects at STEM Trailblazers were entered into a competition, with prizes for students and teachers. Most projects had been created using Scratch to control the Raspberry Pi as well as a range of sensors.
The children and teachers who participated came from both rural and urban areas, and it was clear that the issues they had chosen to address were genuine problems in their communities.
Many of the projects I saw related to issues that schools faced around heat and hydration: a Smart Bottle project reminded children to drink regularly, a shade creator project created shade when the temperature got too high, a teachers’ project told students that they could no longer play outside when the temperature exceeded 35 degrees, and a water cooling system project set off sprinklers when the temperature rose. Other themes of the projects were keeping toilets clean, reminding children to eat healthily, and helping children to learn the alphabet. One project that especially intrigued me was an alert system for large and troublesome birds that were a problem for rural schools.
The creativity and quality of the projects on show was impressive given that all the students (and many of their teachers) had learned to program very recently, and also had to be quite innovative where they hadn’t been able to access all the hardware they needed to build their creations.
What we can learn from this initiative
Everyone involved in this project in Sarawak — including teachers, government representatives, university academics, and industry partners — is really committed to giving children the best opportunities to grow up with an understanding of digital technology. They know this is essential for their professional futures, and also fosters their creativity, independence, and problem-solving skills.
Over the last ten years, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel widely in my capacity as a computing education researcher, and I’ve seen first-hand a number of the approaches countries are taking to help their young people gain the skills and understanding of computing technologies that they need for their futures.
It’s good for us to look beyond our own context to understand how countries across the world are preparing their young people to engage with digital technology. No matter how many similarities there are between two places, we can all learn from each other’s initiatives and ideas. In 2021 the Brookings Institution published a global review of how countries are progressing with this endeavour. Organisations such as UNESCO and WEF regularly publish reports that emphasise the importance for countries to develop their citizens’ digital skills, and also advanced technological skills.
The Sarawak government’s initiative is grounded in the use of Raspberry Pis as desktop computers for schools, which run offline where schools have no access to the internet. That teachers are also trained to use the Raspberry Pis to support learners to develop hands-on digital making skills is a really important aspect of the project.
As for what the future holds for Sarawak’s computing education, at the opening ceremony of the STEM Trailblazers event, the Deputy Minister announced that the event will be an annual occasion. That means every year more students and teachers will be able to come together, share their learning, and get excited about using digital making to solve the problems that matter to them.
Modern integrated circuit (IC) chips can have transistors as small as two nanometers, which is only about 10 silicon atoms laid end-to-end. At that scale, fabrication looks more like chemistry than any kind of physical manipulation — a machinist isn’t carving tiny transistors into silicon wafers. For many types semiconductors, the fabrication process requires a very powerful furnace. If you’re interested in creating your own ICs, then YouTuber ProjectsInFlight has a video explaining how to build your own furnace.
This is a design for a tube furnace that can reach 1200°C, similar to the kind that labs buy for many thousands of dollars. Producing that much heat in a controllable manner is not a trivial task and this is much more complicated than constructing a furnace for something like aluminum casting. The heating element is a coil of nichrome wire, which wraps around a quartz glass tube that can withstand the heat. A ridiculous amount of insulation surrounds the tube and wire to contain the heat.
Nichrome wire heats up through resistance when a current passes through, so you could just connect it to a power source. But that wouldn’t be controllable, so ProjectsInFlight created a control board based on an Arduino UNO Rev3 board. Like a 3D printer controller handling hot end temperature through proportional–integral–derivative (PID), this uses a closed-feedback PID loop to modulate power to the nichrome wire in response to readings from a thermocouple. The control interface has a dial for setting the target temperature and a 16×2 character LCD to show the current temperature detected by the thermocouple. The Arduino uses a solid-state relay (SSR) to modulate the power going through the nichrome wire.
A simple sheet metal enclosure houses the tube and, in a separate area, the control electronics. The furnace seems to be capable of safely reaching the desired temperature, so ProjectsInFlight can now use it for semiconductor experiments.
Phil set about designing a method of detecting bats that did not fall foul of frequency issues. His several decades of coding experience and, in particular, his expertise in music synthesis, proved ideal when it came to designing a low-cost device based around Raspberry Pi Pico.
Tuning in
The first challenge was working out whether there were any bats around. Bats echolocate using ultrasonic frequencies, well beyond human range, but they can’t be heard and are hard to see: “uniquely for mammals, you need technology to detect and study bats,” says Phil. His approach was to have Pico’s sensors scan all the frequencies and seek out the strongest ultrasonic signal. It took him just three weeks to design a Pico-based bat detector that included an operational amp (one which amplifies weak signals), an ultrasonic microphone, a button, and enough software to detect bats and perform speech synthesis.
However, the working prototype board was “an ugly mess and too fragile to take out on surveys,” says Phil, who then turned it into both a printed circuit board and an ultrasonic recorder, adding the ability to record 384kHz/16-bit WAV files to an SD card. This extended the project’s usefulness and meant he could move on to perfecting the surprisingly challenging ultrasonic recording features. Not one to shy away from a technical challenge, Phil chose 128-bit FFTs (fast Fourier transforms) to ensure even the highest frequency bats could be detected. Pico offers exceptional functionality for its size. “Its rich feature set and programmable GPIOs meant that I needed to add the bare minimum of hardware to the design beyond the Pico,” Phil comments “while offering a combination of low cost, low power consumption and the ability to handle 100% duty cycles when processing 128bit FFTs.” This efficiency means Pipistrelle can be used as a passive recorder for four or five nights, “sleeping during the day, listening during the dark, and triggering recordings whenever bat candidate sounds are heard.” These, he likens to music.
“To hear the bats’ true calls – the bird-like whistles, the peeps, chirps, and high-pitched screams of the Horseshoes – is remarkable.”
Double duty
Two years on from his original prototype, there are now three models: BatWalk, a detector to take on bat walks; PippyG ultrasonic recorder; and Pipistrelle itself, which offers both functions. The recorder can either be used manually for on-demand recording, or set to record overnight whenever a bat call is heard. “Overnight recording lets me shut down more of the Pico to get cleaner recordings,” says Phil, an audio purist keen to banish even the slightest operational sounds of the electronics caused by the need to write to the SD card. Each of these can be bought via his Omenie website, and integrated into your bat detection project. A full bill of materials and instructions are provided.
Though he continues to tinker with the audio, Phil finally feels the project is mature enough for someone to potentially create an Android version of it (since the software is open-source) and sees its further potential for studying other ultrasonic creatures, listing cetacean research, since dolphins use ultrasound, along with small mammals and insects.
While a solar panel installed on the top of a roof, lamp post, or the side of a building will produce power, it is nowhere near optimal for achieving the maximum efficiency possible. To get better results, panels are often mounted to pivots and linear actuators/servo motors that continually move to always face the sun. But as Fulvio points out, these motors can be heavy and require extra batteries to function, which is what inspired him to create the mysoltrk to address this shortcoming. Fulvio built his “reinvented” tracker to be small, solid, and sturdy enough to survive outdoors on a balcony or any other space-constrained area like a garden.
Mysoltrk relies on a pair of very simple yet robust actuators that are each based around a 6V 30RPM geared DC motor, which spins a threaded rod to move an M3 nut closer or further away. When placed in the same plane and connected via a ball joint at the top, this triangle of is able to maneuver the panel in three axes.
Both motors were then wired to an L298N motor driver which is controlled by an Arduino Nano. Having to incorporate Wi-Fi or a GPS receiver would have introduced far too much complexity, so these components were replaced by a matrix of four photoresistors and a tracking algorithm that, in essence, attempts to balance the readings across all of them in order to point directly at the sun. Perhaps the most incredible part of this project is how no batteries are required thanks to the low-power motors.
The launch of the Arduino UNO R4 marks a huge leap forward for our community. For us, it’s also the chance to celebrate the people who bring our ecosystem to life with their bright ideas, radiant enthusiasm, and shining insight.
That is how the UNO R4 Stars blog post series began: to highlight makers who have not only created amazing projects with Arduino, but who are giving back to the community by sharing as they go and helping others make anything they wish.
We invite you to discover each profile, hoping you might find a North Star to navigate around an expanding galaxy or venture into completely new universes.
Born and based in Barcelona, Spain, Monica Rikic is an award-winning artist who has chosen coding and creative electronics as her expressive media. Currently a PhD student at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s Network and Information Technologies program, she first encountered Arduino at school and quickly realized the platform would open up infinite opportunities for interactive works capable able of perceiving inputs from the physical context and generating different actions in response.
“Being a maker means not simply consuming technology, but taking on an active role in the dynamic where, every day, we are in contact with devices and applications that have become our gateways to relate to the world around us, to other people, and to ourselves as well,” she says.
Over the years, her philosophical and artistic approach have translated into projects such as Hipertèlia, of which she has recently set up a 2023 iteration at the Sala Apolo club in Barcelona thanks to a brand new Arduino UNO R4 WiFi: 20 “balloons” with LEDs inside, interacting with visitors thanks to a camera that tracks their position and communicates it to the system via Wi-Fi. The installation will be on-site until early November — if you are in Barcelona, check it out!
Rikic has also already developed a new project leveraging the UNO R4 Minima variant: “It’s a weird machine that generates infinite classical music, in collaboration with Rodo. Visitors at the Palau de la Musica can modify the output as they get closer to the installation, speak or even sing to it.”
What’s next? She is working on Hipèrbole, a new conceptual project for her EMAP European Residency with Hexagram at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, exploring the intersection between art and AI from an original standpoint — not to test machines’ creative possibilities, but to experiment with the characteristics that artificial cognitive systems must have to be considered sentient organisms.
We asked Rikic, “What’s your favorite part of UNO R4?”
The 24V tolerance: “Being able to connect to a single power source, even when controlling multiple motors, makes my work a lot simpler.”
The built-in mechanism that detects and prevents runtime errors: avoiding short circuits that could potentially harm the board and ruin a whole project is great, especially to keep students motivated.
The Qwiic I2C connector: because it allows you to connect different sensors and actuators without soldering.
The LED matrix: having a form of direct output helps you immediately see what you can create with electronics.
To find out more about Rikic’s artistic research and keep an eye out for the new installations she is setting up around the world, bookmark her website or follow her on Instagram.
“I had designed a few other projects using Raspberry Pi, so I had extra Raspberry Pi’s laying around,” Barry explains. “[I] decided to put my extra Raspberry Pi 3B+ to good use as the +5 V power source [of the] automatic timer for the phone ring killer circuit.”
In the lab
We feel like everyone needs some kind of maker room if they can manage it. Barry though is a professional.
“I have my own electronics lab in my house,” Barry mentions. “Including lots of spare parts, and very sophisticated test equipment, having worked as an independent consultant engineer for many years. That makes building these tiny projects a breeze for me.”
The tiny project involves a little more hardware than software, as it is connected directly into the phone. You can follow along to Figure 1 for the explanation by Barry on how it works.
“The telephone line attaches to the Ring Detector (components C1, D1, D2, D3, R1, and the input to IC1 the optocoupler). Zener diodes D1 and D2, combined with capacitor C1, allow only high-voltage AC signals to reach the input of the optocoupler. Normal voice and dialling tones don’t affect the ring detector at all. The Ring Signal satisfies these high-voltage AC requirements as it is an 80 V RMS (113 V zero to peak) AC signal superimposed on the 47 V DC idle phone line voltage.
“When the phone rings, the input of the optocoupler gets activated. The output of the optocoupler then turns on driving R2 to nearly 5 V DC into the gate of the MOSFET Q1, which momentarily loads down the telephone line with 680 ohm resistor R3 signalling the phone company to shut off the ring signal. This happens so fast that you don’t even hear the phone ring. This describes the operation of the circuit when it is in the ‘Sleep’ mode.”
The Raspberry Pi controls switching sleep mode on or off via powering GPIO pins with a Python program that gets the time from NTP (Network Time Protocol). There’s also a manual toggle in case you’re going to bed early.
Like a baby
“I get a much better night’s sleep just knowing that I will not have my slumber interrupted by another annoying telemarketing call at six in the morning,” Barry tells us.
When we asked about the success of the project, Barry seems not to think there’s much mass appeal for a project like this, as everyone just uses ‘do not disturb’ on their smartphones. While perhaps true, we still think there are plenty of folks who would love to have some manual control over their old landline.
With its bright color scheme and generally upbeat tone, the recently released Barbie movie evokes many of the same feelings as the toy brand. In keeping with this idea, Jaimie and Jay of the Wicked Makers YouTube channel decided to take it in the opposite direction by transforming a Barbie dollhouse into a haunted mansion for Halloween — complete with all of the requisite eerie effects and lighting.
The duo started by disassembling the interior and repainting the structural components, outside walls, and several other movable objects such as the door and various props. Once this had been completed, the next step involved finding LED filament, many small, discrete LEDs, and a miniature fog machine for creating an additional spookiness factor. The individual LEDs were placed into SLA printed skull lighting fixtures, custom-made clay candles, and inside of the previously pink chandelier where they could then be controlled by an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi.
Beyond these effects, a strand of LED filament was laid into the upper floor to produce a glowing ring for summoning spirits. While a pair of iPads and a phone were placed behind acrylic windows on the second floor and on the ceiling in order to play high quality videos of ghosts and a portal opening up above the summoning ring.
To see more about how Jaimie and Jay’s Barbie dreamhouse conversion using an UNO R4, watch their video below!
As with the Galactic Unicorn, it comes preloaded with Pimoroni’s own brand of Pico MicroPython firmware and an auto-running demo program that lets you press one of four tactile buttons to choose from four graphical effects: burning flames, eighties supercomputer (random pixels), cycling rainbow, and nostalgia computer prompt.
Again, the Pico W RP2040’s PIO state machines are used – along with 12 FM6047 constant current LED drivers – to control the 3.5 mm pixels at around 300 fps at 14-bit resolution, so there’s no sign of any flicker.
Sounds good
At the rear you’ll find a small 1 W audio speaker along with two Qwiic/STEMMA ports (JST-SH) for connecting breakouts such as sensors. There’s also a battery connector (up to 5.5 V). Positioned at the right-hand edge of the front is a phototransistor to detect light levels. Two metal legs are supplied to use as a stand.
Programming is relatively simple using the PicoGraphics library for shapes, sprites, and a selection of fonts. Check out the full function list in the Cosmic Unicorn MicroPython reference guide. Inspiration can be found in several code examples, including a neat web-server-based paint program for drawing on the display from a computer.
Verdict
9/10
The larger display area opens up more possibilities for projects, such as a weather dashboard, as well as for playing impressive graphical effects and animations.
Specs
Display: 32×32 matrix of RGB LEDs (1024 in total)
Features: Pico W on board, 10 × push-buttons, mono I2S amp and 1W speaker, 2 × Qwiic/STEMMA ports, battery connector, 2 × metal legs
“I originally saw someone post a flight tracker using an Arduino but it only displayed overhead flights – when there were no planes, it was a blank screen,” Adam explains. “Myniceaccount posted his own project in the comments on Reddit and it included a clock and a flight tracker using Raspberry Pi, so I followed the instructions and built one.
“Afterwards, I kept looking at the empty space and thinking it could be utilised so much more, especially since it was already pulling data from a weather website and flight tracking website. With some help with the coding, more functions were slowly added.” The result is a constantly useful device.
Raspberry Pi in the sky
Rather than use a screen, the project incorporates a 64×32 RGB matrix panel. “I liked the way it looks,” Adam says. “It’s very low key and old school while being easier to read (I think). If you had a screen, you could add more information, but it would become too cluttered. This one is simple and to the point.”
An Adafruit Bonnet controls the panel, which is covered with black tinted acrylic and housed within a case. Once the casing was cut and glued together, Adam set up his Raspberry Pi 3A+ computer and began working on the software.
“Originally the display showed the time, date, and current temperature on the main screen and the flight route, call sign, and aircraft on the other,” Adam continues. “I had the idea to add a weather forecast on the main screen and to add the airline logo, distance, and direction on the flight screen. I just needed help from someone who knew Python to put it all together.
“I found someone, but he didn’t have the setup to test it, so we spent weeks going back and forth – him sending code and me running it, then sending error reports or feedback on what was working and wasn’t working.” After making the time and date smaller, Adam dabbled with a four-day forecast only to realise three-digit temperatures messed up the screen layout. He chopped a day away.
Is it a bird?
Flight tracking remains a very important part of the project. Adam is a keen plane spotter and a device to aid his hobby was his primary motivation. To ensure accuracy, flight information is sourced from FlightRadarAPI.
“When a plane enters a predetermined ‘box’ made from two lat/long points in the config file along with a minimum altitude, it pulls the flight info and lat/long of the plane and compares it to the lat/long of your location,” Adam explains. “As the plane flies through the box, it updates its distance and direction until it’s out of the box, where it switches back to the clock and weather.”
The device now takes pride of place beneath Adam’s TV, allowing him to quickly view its information. “With this device I can hear a plane outside and I can discover what it is,” Adam says. “This project was also my first involving an actual display and casing so it was definitely a new experience for me.”
Now throw into the mix inspiration from a book entitled An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Ed Yong), and Bjørn’s thinking gets even more fascinating. The book explores how animals perceive the world differently from humans, and a specific story about the star-nosed mole resonated with him. The book describes “an intelligent hunter and explorer that navigates its world not through sight, but through touch. This creature, living in darkness, has developed a unique way of ‘seeing’ its environment using its star-shaped snout.” This story illustrated to Bjørn “how different forms of intelligence perceive the world in ways that are almost unimaginable to us.”
Challenge your perceptions
The fallout from all of this was the design and development of Paragraphica, a context-to-image camera that uses data, not light, to create images, and which offers “a different way of seeing the world, one that is based on data and AI interpretation rather than human perception.” Bjørn feels that it’s a tool that falls “somewhere between critical art and consumer product,” allowing users to explore the ‘dreams’ of AI as he sees it, “providing a glimpse into a form of intelligence that is fundamentally different from our own.”
Perhaps the most striking thing about the camera is the design of the cover on the front, where typically on a camera you’d find a lens, and we have the star-nosed mole to thank for that. Nature plays a key part in a lot of Bjørn’s designs, and this small burrowing mammal’s antenna-like snout was “the perfect inspiration for the camera.” In addition, Bjørn wanted the front of the camera to evoke a “data collector”, such as a radio antenna or satellite dish.
Bjørn’s camera works by collecting data related to its location using open APIs, including OpenWeatherMap and Mapbox. This data is used to compose a paragraph (hence the name of the camera) that details a representation of the current place and moment, and this description is then used as the AI image prompt.
“In a way, you can think of this process as filling in the blanks of a template paragraph,” Bjørn suggests. “I then send this paragraph as a prompt for a text-to-image AI model to convert the paragraph into a ‘photo’.” Some of the resulting images have been surprisingly accurate, “but they never look like the real place – it helps to think of the resulting ‘photo’ as a data visualisation.”
Bjørn wrote the software for the project, which uses a mix of a local Python script to simulate key presses, and a web application running in a browser. The web app was made using the Noodl platform, “and essentially gathers key parameters from the web, like weather, date, street name, time, and nearby places, and recomposes them into a template description.”
Dial development
A Raspberry Pi 4 powers the device from within a 3D-printed shell. “Using a [Raspberry] Pi for the project gave me the freedom to prototype fast and explore some ideas for how it would work,” Bjørn explains. “And I also had a Raspberry Pi 4 with a screen already attached to it laying in my workshop, so this felt like a good starting point.”
As with most projects that we showcase, there were challenges to overcome during development, including 3D-modelling and 3D-printing the unique mole-inspired casing, and setting up the code and API pipeline for Raspberry Pi.
Bjørn has also been tweaking the dials on the camera, which enable the user to control the data and AI parameters, thus influencing the final ‘photo’. “I have recently updated the two dials to affect the photo styles and years,” he explains. “Changing the year the photo should be taken at is particularly fun, as you get to picture your street in the 1960s, or 2077 into the future.”
View-finder
Bjørn describes the feedback received thus far as “mixed”, with the area of AI igniting a range of reactions and opinions. Some people saw it as a product, but “struggled to connect it to a problem that needed to be solved.” Others have understood the concept and absolutely loved it.
However, Bjørn feels that it “defiantly shows that the concept and manifestation hit a sensitive point.” He’s clear that his creation was intended to highlight and encourage discussion around AI perception, along with “the increasing use of AI in creative domains and technologies we use daily to capture reality. I think it did the job perfectly.
Most makers start their initial electronics prototypes on a breadboard, which is great for quickly setting up temporary circuits. But forming the connections requires jumper wires and even a basic project quickly becomes a rats’ nest of wiring that is difficult to manage. Tracking down issues within that tangle of wires is a massive headache, which is why Architeuthis Flux designed this jumperless breadboard to make prototyping a breeze.
In some ways, the aptly named Jumperless is similar to an FPGA. That’s because it allows for real hardware connections that the user can reconfigure with the push of a button. But Jumperless trades the power and flexibility of an FPGA for ease of use. Instead of the thousands of logic blocks you get in an FPGA, Jumperless gives you just enough to mimic a traditional breadboard. The benefit is in the user-friendly setup. Using a simple netlist file, users can specify which rows on the breadboard should connect to each other and which should connect to the pins of an Arduino Nano board.
This works using a whole bunch of analog crosspoint switches set by an RP2040 microcontroller based on the netlist file. The PCB contains a plethora of RGB LEDs to indicate which connections are active, as well as information about those connections. To use Jumperless, you simply plug in your components and then enter the connecting rows or Arduino pins via a Wokwi CLI (Command Line Interface) that creates the netlist file for you.
Great news for Arduino enthusiasts! The new Nano ESP32, just released on July 17th, is now officially supported by the Arduino Cloud. This powerful combo brings MicroPython and IoT capabilities right to your fingertips, simplifying all your smart devices projects.
The Nano ESP32‘s native MicroPython support empowers you to code in Python effortlessly. It opens up a world of possibilities for all skill levels, from simple scripts to complex IoT applications.
Nano ESP32 and Arduino Cloud, the power couple of IoT
Pairing the Nano ESP32 with the Arduino Cloud enhances your projects even further! The Arduino Cloud expands its existing ESP32-based hardware compatibility by including the Nano ESP32, allowing you to publish data from your Nano ESP32, monitor and control your devices from anywhere with ease, and update their firmware wirelessly.
About Arduino Cloud
The Arduino Cloud is the next exciting journey for IoT enthusiasts to bring their projects to life quickly. It is an all-in-one intuitive IoT platform, supporting a wide range of hardware and backed by the vibrant Arduino community. The Arduino Cloud removes complexity to enable users from all levels of expertise to create from anywhere, then control and share their projects with stunning dashboards.
Sign up for the Arduino Cloud now and unleash the full potential of your Nano ESP32 board.
At Arduino, we embrace security as an integral part of the development lifecycle in order to provide secure hardware, software, and digital services to our customers. That’s why we are happy to announce that Arduino Cloud services are now certified for ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (ISO 27001).
ISO 27001 is an internationally recognized standard that provides a framework for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an Information Security Management System (ISMS). The standard sets out the requirements for managing information security risks and protecting sensitive information within an organization. ISO 27001 takes a systematic and risk-based approach to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information assets.
In the words of our CIO Stefano Visconti: “This certification and the review from an external auditor are helping us to ensure that our internal security processes are robust and complete, fully aligned with the ISO27001 standard, so that we can offer secure and reliable services in Arduino Cloud.”
“We are all experiencing the crucial importance of information security, and we can only be pleased to give the ISO 27001 certification to Arduino Cloud,” says Massimo Alvaro, Italy Managing Director for Business Assurance at DNV. “Our audits confirmed that Arduino Cloud is proactively managing and protecting their information assets and to managing and mitigating security events.”
Our compliance with ISO 27001 demonstrates that Arduino is committed to the best possible security posture for Arduino Cloud services, thus ensuring the best possible protection from cybersecurity risks for Arduino Cloud users.
Vacuum tubes used to be the building blocks of computation and the drivers of screaming guitar amplifiers, but they’re rare today — so rare that there are virtually no manufacturers producing new units. If you shop for vacuum tubes, most of what you’ll find is either used or NOS (new old stock). That has led to boutique vacuum tube manufacturing, but that is a substantial undertaking. To make the process just a little bit easier, Nick Poole created this custom vacuum controller.
As the name suggests, a vacuum tube requires a sealed chamber under vacuum. That vacuum is necessary to provide “clean” space between the anode and cathode, so electrons can flow freely. It is practically impossible to achieve a perfect vacuum, but vacuum tube manufacturers try to get as close as possible to get the best performance. Evacuating the tube before sealing is a tricky task, which is why Poole wanted a controller to streamline the process.
This requires two vacuum chambers: one for rough vacuum and one for hard vacuum. The new tube connects to the evacuation port, which connects to those vacuum chambers through specialty valves. This controller, based on an Arduino, needs to control the operation of the vacuum pumps and valves. It also needs to monitor the pressures/vacuum, drive gauges, and provide indicators. There is a lot that can go wrong in a hurry when you’re working with hard vacuum, so the Arduino ensures that each step occurs in the proper sequence so Poole can focus on forming the glass when he fabricates vacuum tubes.
If you are young, you may not remember the turbo buttons of the 1990s. These existed for backwards-compatibility with older games and software that wouldn’t run properly at the blazing-fast processor clock speeds of the time. The turbo button simply told the CPU to run at a slower clock speed that would work with that older software. Joshua Woehlke uses an old PC with a 486 processor and decided to add his own useless turbo readout to complement the turbo button.
Woehlke’s computer uses a vintage ATX case from the ’90s that does, in fact, have a turbo button. But that case lacked the kind of clock speed readout that was popular when it was new. Those readouts were usually three-digit seven-segment displays and the implication was that they would show the processor’s current clock speed. Except that was all a farce and, in reality, they just switched between two preset numbers: one for the faster speed and one for the slower speed. Woehlke’s project mimics that non-functionality.
The hardware for this project includes an Arduino Mega 2560 board and a small OLED screen. Woehlke chose the Mega because he had it on hand, but any Arduino board would have worked. The Arduino receives power from one of the power supply’s 5V rails. And like the real turbo readouts of the ’90s, the Arduino doesn’t measure clock speed at all. It just looks at the LED above the turbo button to see if it is active, then uses that state to determine which number to display on the OLED. For extra flair, Woehlke added a starfield “screensaver” that appears on the OLED 10 seconds after pushing the turbo button.
Due to an ever-warming planet thanks to climate change and greatly increasing wildfire chances because of prolonged droughts, being able to quickly detect when a fire has broken out is vital for responding while it’s still in a containable stage. But one major hurdle to collecting machine learning model datasets on these types of events is that they can be quite sporadic. In his proof of concept system, engineer Shakhizat Nurgaliyev shows how he leveraged NVIDIA Omniverse Replicator to create an entirely generated dataset and then deploy a model trained on that data to an Arduino Nicla Vision board.
The project started out as a simple fire animation inside of Omniverse which was soon followed by a Python script that produces a pair of virtual cameras and randomizes the ground plane before capturing images. Once enough had been created, Nurgaliyev utilized the zero-shot object detection application Grounding DINO to automatically draw bounding boxes around the virtual flames. Lastly, each image was brought into an Edge Impulse project and used to develop a FOMO-based object detection model.
By taking this approach, the model achieved an F1 score of nearly 87% while also only needing a max of 239KB of RAM and a mere 56KB of flash storage. Once deployed as an OpenMV library, Nurgaliyev shows in his video below how the MicroPython sketch running on a Nicla Vision within the OpenMV IDE detects and bounds flames. More information about this system can be found here on Hackster.io.
Whether it’s budget issues, lack of time management, or simply not having any ideas for solving the issue at-hand, dealing with coworkers who bring up these problems is a pet-peeve of element14 Presents host Mark Donners. In response, he built a simple wall-mounted ornament consisting of a series of magic wands that prods coworkers to think first in a tongue-in-cheek way.
The holder itself was inspired by a scroll-shaped wand holder, and Donners was able to recreate it by sculpting clay around a bent sheet of metal, adding some wand-holding eye hooks, and painting the entire thing a parchment color. For the electronics, Donners designed a custom PCB that works with an Arduino Nano to emit sounds from an MP3 module, adjust the backlighting behind the scroll, and even shut itself off after a present amount of time via a clever power delivery circuit. A total of four audio recordings were taken and subsequently loaded onto a microSD card which tell the user to, among other things, pick up a wand and wish for their budget/workforce increase request to be granted.
On the programming side, the Nano starts by initializing the SD card, beginning a rainbow animation on the LED strip, and randomly selecting one of the sound files. From here, the sound plays until the timer expires, at which point the whole system shuts off. To see more about how Donners made this project, be sure to watch his video below!
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