Schlagwort: 3dprinted

  • Is your house secure? 4 common threats and how home automation can keep you safe

    Is your house secure? 4 common threats and how home automation can keep you safe

    Reading Time: 7 minutes

    If there’s one place in the world you want to feel safe, it’s inside your home.

    And yet, the unfortunate reality is that our homes can sometimes be a source of danger. From burglaries to fires, it’s important to take precautions to make sure your house remains a sanctuary and not a deathtrap.

    Home automation can be a huge help here. Today’s homeowners (and renters) have a ton of tools at their disposal to stay safe from a range of hazards and risks. Some of these tools you can even build yourself, with minimal cost and effort.

    In this article, we’ll look at some of the main dangers people face at home, and how automation can minimize the risk.

    5 common home security threats

    What are the biggest dangers facing us at home? Apart from dropped Lego pieces and precariously-stacked crockery, here are some of the main dangers facing our homes and why they’re so serious.

    Burglaries

    Home burglaries are actually decreasing in frequency as time goes on, but they’re still a threat.

    In the U.S., for example, over one million burglaries take place every year, and property crimes are the most common type of crime. Burglars use a range of techniques and methods to gain entry and steal your hard-earned possessions, and often leave behind a legacy of trauma and shock — even when you weren’t at home.

    Fires

    A house fire is a nightmare scenario, but this is also a very real concern.

    Research shows that 24.2% of all fires worldwide occur in residential buildings. Some of the main causes include:

    Even when you manage to escape a house fire, the damage can still be enormous. On top of the financial cost, you have to deal with the loss of items that can never really be replaced. The best option when it comes to house fires is to do whatever it takes to prevent them.

    Environmental dangers

    Extreme weather events are on the rise around the world, and this is a problem for the safety of your home.

    Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and wildfires can be devastating, and wherever you are in the world there’s almost certainly some kind of environmental risk facing your home. Repairing a damaged home can become extremely costly, and can cause massive disruptions to your life.

    Cybersecurity threats

    One of the biggest downsides to an increasingly tech-savvy world is the rise in cyber crime, which is much more widespread than it was in past decades.

    The days of clumsy spam emails being the biggest threat to ordinary people are long gone — cyber attacks are now incredibly sophisticated and constantly evolving.

    With the rise in smart home devices, typically as part of the Internet of Things, cyber criminals now have a new avenue to exploit. Many home automation systems aren’t properly protected, in fact one study found that many had major design flaws putting them at risk of cyber attacks like data leaks and break-ins.

    Home automation as a solution

    Although home automation can be a target for attackers, it can also function as a highly effective defence against many of the threats to your home.

    The home automation market is growing fast, and is predicted to reach $163 billion by 2025. As this technology becomes more advanced, more possibilities for protecting your home keep emerging. 

    Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can harness the power of home automation to keep your home safe from multiple dangers.

    Enhanced security features

    The best place to start with smart home security is with the basics — the locks, keys, and alarms we’ve been using to keep our houses safe since time immemorial.

    With home automation, you can take these security features to the next level, adding a new layer of safety and convenience to your home, such as:

    • Smart locks and keyless entry systems, for instance based on biometric data like your fingerprints, eliminate the need for keys (which are easily lost), and make it much harder for an unwanted visitor to gain entry to your home.
    • Surveillance cameras and video doorbells allow you to see who’s at the door without going to check, even when you’re not at home. Research suggests that homes with security cameras are 300% safer from burglaries than those without.
    • Motion sensors and alarms. While they might not be cutting-edge smart home tech, these time-tested devices have been in use for decades and are still very much around because they work so well.

    Fire and environmental safety

    House fires and environmental disasters are often treated as freak accidents — something we have no control over and that we should simply hope never happens to us.

    However, we’re not powerless here, and home automation can actually offer some solid defences against the raging elements. Some examples include:

    • Smart smoke detectors. Like traditional smoke detectors, these pick up on unusual smoke in your home and issue an alert. But these smarter models can also send warnings to your smartphone, wherever you are. They can detect the difference between, for example, carbon monoxide and smoke, and some can tell you where the smoke is coming from.
    • Flood sensors and leak detectors can help you locate and identify water leakages while they’re still small and fixable, before they turn into destructive and expensive problems.
    • An uninterrupted power supply (UPS) can ensure the lights and power stay on even when the main grid has been disabled by a storm or other natural disaster, so you can keep your essential functions running.

    Cybersecurity measures

    While home automation tech is becoming more advanced all the time, there are also vulnerabilities here though, and some cyber criminals target IoT and smart home devices.

    To keep your smart home as secure as possible, it pays to take security seriously here. Let’s take a look at some basic steps everyone can take to keep their devices safe from cyber attacks.

    • Make sure your WiFi network is secure, with a strong password and encryption. Try to find a router with a security protocol of WPA2 or ideally WPA3.
    • Regularly update the firmware that runs on your smart home devices — this will ensure they’re protected against any new threats and have the most up-to-date security features installed.
    • Replace any outdated technology including routers.
    • Change your passwords frequently, and don’t use common or easily guessed passwords.

    DIY vs. professional installation

    When it comes to smart home security, it’s common to wonder if you should pay for a professional to take care of your needs, or do it yourself.

    Security is, of course, a serious matter. It’s not an area you want to leave to chance, or risk leaving your home with safety flaws because you did something wrong. 

    If you’re a beginner to building and maintaining your own home automation devices, it’s best to leave the important security jobs to a trusted professional. And even if you have some experience with these jobs, it might still be a good idea to use a specialist for the really important stuff — things like alarm systems and smart locks.

    However, it’s possible to take the DIY approach to many smart home safety devices, with only a handful of easy-to-acquire components and some basic coding and design knowledge. The Arduino Project Hub has plenty of examples here. Let’s take a look at just a few.

    RFID card door lock

    Arduino user mehmetefepekerr created this project — a radio frequency identification (RFID) card designed to add an extra layer of security to their home. The card enables you to unlock your door by tapping the card on your way in. RFID key cards are typically safer than magnetic cards since they’re more resistant to the elements, and unlike traditional locks they can’t be picked by thieves.

    Ultrasonic security system

    This system by theridgeguy is meant to keep your home safe by detecting the presence of intruders and sounding an alarm.It employs an ultrasonic distance sensor to detect how far someone is from the doorway, and then uses flashing lights and noises to deter them from getting any closer. Trusted guests and family members can enter a four-digit code to disarm the alarm.

    Smoke detector using gas sensor

    When it comes to preventing house fires, time is always of the essence. This smoke detector, developed by srajandikshit147, picks up on any unexpected smoke in the environment and then warns the user by sounding a buzzer and flashing a red LED if the smoke density is higher than the safe limit.

    These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using Arduino to make your own smart home devices, including ones that protect you from various risks and dangers in your home.

    By tapping into the power of home automation, you can build your own devices to do all kinds of things. You don’t need to be a coding mastermind or have access to expensive gear — pretty much anyone can get started with their own basic projects today.

    Get in touch with us to learn more about what’s possible with home automation and get started on your own journey.

    The post Is your house secure? 4 common threats and how home automation can keep you safe appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • The KhordUino is a DIY badminton racquet stringing machine

    The KhordUino is a DIY badminton racquet stringing machine

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Tennis and badminton racquets look pretty simple; just string woven around a hoop like a basket, right? But those strings are under massive tension, which is necessary to get good rebound on the ball or shuttlecock. Maintaining string tension while weaving the string usually requires a big and expensive machine. But the DIY KhordUino is both compact and affordable, making it realistic for hobbyists and even small businesses to string badminton racquets on a budget.

    The KhordUino is a designed specifically for stringing badminton racquets, though the process seems fairly similar for tennis racquets. Antoine Colin took care to make the machine as flat as possible for easy storage and it uses mostly 3D-printed parts, keeping the cost down. That is possible because Colin put the tensioning mechanism inline with the clamps that hold the hoop in place. This directs all the stress along the long axis of the machine, which is a compression force that the 3D-printed frame and clamps can handle.

    An Arduino Nano board tensions the string using a stepper motor that drives a lead screw. That provides a lot of torque to get very tight strings. To keep it from breaking strings or the machine itself, the Arduino monitors a load cell from a luggage scale through an HX711 amplifier. The user can set the tension to apply, then press a button to start the mechanism. It will pull the string taught, then the user can clamp it in place, loop it around, and repeat.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KywN38xlIk?feature=oembed&w=500&h=375]

    If you want to string your own badminton racquets, then the KhordUino would be very helpful.

    The post The KhordUino is a DIY badminton racquet stringing machine appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • A gorgeous escape room puzzle with an Alien theme

    A gorgeous escape room puzzle with an Alien theme

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Alien is an icon of the sci-fi horror genre and it owes its status to the legendary design work of H. R. Giger. He was responsible for the very original xenomorph and much of the set design throughout franchise. Alien and its sequels have a distinct visual aesthetic that inspired Redditor Wired_Workshop to build this escape room puzzle.

    Wired_Workshop attended the Maker Alliance Summer Camp event in Kentucky and was tasked with contributing a puzzle to that event’s ’80s-themed escape room. Being a massive Alien fan, Wired_Workshop chose to borrow the design aesthetic and some of the effects from that franchise. The puzzle itself takes sequences from the films and even has a Predator Easter egg, since both franchises exist within the same cinematic universe.

    This project required several different fabrication techniques, including 3D printing, CNC routing, and welding. An Arduino Mega 2560 board controls LEDs and monitors user input through a keypad, a huge switch lever, and glowing canisters that the player must lift. There’s also a fog machine to produce a smoke effect, driven by an Arduino Nano. Because this is a puzzle, the player has to complete those in the right order by following the available clues. And because this is just one part of an escape room, solving this puzzle provides a clue for the next puzzle developed by another attendee.

    Be sure to watch Wired_Workshop’s full video on this project to learn about all the details and to see the various Alien references. Eagle-eyed viewers should be able to spot some homages to specific scenes and props from the films.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4frV1Wf_0?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post A gorgeous escape room puzzle with an Alien theme appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Old meets new with these three Project Hub entries from August

    Old meets new with these three Project Hub entries from August

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Everything old is new again! Arduino users always amaze us with how they put a fresh spin on the most common objects around us: a clock, a board game, a computer… anything can inspire the exciting new entries they share on Project Hub. These are the three builds we selected from August’s uploads to highlight our community’s advanced skills, resourcefulness, and creativity.

    3. Have the time of your life with this advanced Nixie tube clock

    As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” if you have the electronics knowledge to work in total safety, assembling this fun retro clock is a great opportunity to show off your skills and ingenuity at the same time. Using an Arduino UNO and a Nixie tube – which, unlike an LED, operates at high voltage and therefore must be handled with care – you can read the time off a unique display, even from across the room. Combine multiple tubes to showcase different information!

    2. Learn to play a classic game in a modern way

    To make or not to make was never the question! We have no doubt you can follow this tutorial to create your own digital version of the traditional Othello game: learn to play, practice, and win – even with minimal hardware. In fact, you can get away with only the Arduino Nano Every board, the Arduino IDE, and a cable to connect the two.

    1. Build a computer so portable it fits into your pocket 

    It’s the stuff of vintage spy movies, but blends into today’s reality – where custom technology can truly be at your fingertips at all times thanks to new, accessible components. Based on two 2023 releases from Arduino – the Nano ESP32 and UNO R4 – yokonav’s debut contribution to Project Hub demonstrates how to stack hardware to form a small, functional computer that runs on Linux.

    For your chance to be selected for a $100, $300 or even $500 gift card to spend on the Arduino Store, submit your best project on Project Hub! We will be awarding three new entries every month, as detailed in the complete terms and conditions. Good luck! 

    The post Old meets new with these three Project Hub entries from August appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Join us at Maker Faire Rome, and make our day!

    Join us at Maker Faire Rome, and make our day!

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    With some 100,000 attendees a year, Maker Faire Rome has been Europe’s biggest maker event since 2013. At Arduino, we are proud to have been part of it since its first edition, and to have grown with it – and with the maker community – year after year. In fact, we have grown so much that for the 11th edition we needed more space! 

    In addition to being Gold Sponsor of the event, Arduino will have an entire pavilion this year: more room to display our user-friendly and flexible solutions, inspire visitors with demos at all levels, and more importantly showcase outstanding projects created by our community.

    No matter where you are on your maker journey, you’ll find something interesting and fun for you at the Arduino Village:

    • See the most recent additions to our ecosystem – like the UNO R4, GIGA Display Shield, and Opta.
    • Get to know our full offering, with highlights from Arduino Pro, Arduino Education, and Arduino Cloud.
    • Enjoy interactive applications that put Arduino into action: try our RC car, play a memory game, create your own cocktail recipe at a smart bar, and more!
    • Meet our experts and ask them anything. 

    Tickets to the Maker Faire Rome are available on the website. Need an extra reason to join us? Keep your eye out for Arduino staff around the venue, handing out a special discount for our online store!

    Come visit us in the Arduino Village, right at the heart of the event in Fiera di Roma, October 20th-22nd. Meeting you will make our day!

    The post Join us at Maker Faire Rome, and make our day! appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy

    The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We’re only a few short weeks away from Halloween and that means we’re starting to see the creative projects that makers come up with to celebrate the holiday. Movement, lights, and sound effects are the name of the game when it comes to Halloween decor and the Treat Trough of Terror is the perfect example.

    Gord Payne’s Treat Trough of Terror is a fun and unique way to doll out candy to the kids on Halloween while practicing social distancing. Payne can stand on his front stoop and when a trick-or-treater comes along, he can drop candy down the chute to their eager little hands. To turn that into a fun experience, the chute passes through a decorative jack o’ lantern. As the candy slides down the chute, the whole thing lights up and places spooky sound effects.

    The chute itself is just PVC pipe cut in half lengthwise and resting on a patio chair. The lights are WS2812B LEDs driven by an Arduino Nano board. The Arduino also controls the sound effects played by a small MP3 player module, with audio output going to a pair of powered speakers. An ultrasonic sensor detects the candy as it slides past on the chute, which tells the Arduino to activate the light and sound effects.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUjkn2-ibGI?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    If you want to hand out candy while maintaining at least six feet of distance, this is the perfect project to work on over the next few weeks.

    The post The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • A simple single-axis sun tracker to maximize solar output

    A simple single-axis sun tracker to maximize solar output

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Solar power is awesome, but it takes a long to recoup the investment on hardware. The more output you can squeeze from a solar panel, the faster you’ll cross that line into actual monetary savings on energy. You can achieve decent output through most of the day with smart placement, but a sun tracker like this single-axis design from Shawn Murphy will dramatically increase your output.

    This is a single-axis sun tracker and so it doesn’t increase output quite as much as a tracker that moves on two axes. But if one orients that axis properly, this will still be a significant improvement over a static solar panel.

    Murphy has two 300 watt solar panels mounted on the roof of a shed that they use as an art studio. That roof has a slight downward slope, so the panels only receive full sunlight when the sun is low in the sky. To account for that, a pair of powerful linear actuators lift up the entire roof of the shed to keep the solar panels perpendicular to the sun’s rays as much as possible. Gas struts help to lighten the load on the actuators.

    An Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board controls the linear actuator motors through a Drok DC motor controller. The Arduino looks at a pair of LDRs (light dependent resistors) and calculates the differential between them to determine if the panels should tilt further. Murphy connected the Nano to the Arduino Cloud to log the readings, which lets him check to see the movement throughout the day.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgmIF0OEbS0?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    You might not have a shed with a roof like Murphy’s, but you can still repurpose this project for your own solar panels.

    The post A simple single-axis sun tracker to maximize solar output appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Jet-powered Star Wars speeder bike built from repurposed hoverboard

    Jet-powered Star Wars speeder bike built from repurposed hoverboard

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Developing your skill set is all about pushing the boundaries of your current knowledge and experience, but that inevitably leads to occasional failure. When that happens, you need to know how to pivot and complete the project. A great example of that is James Bruton’s Star Wars speeder bike built from a repurposed hoverboard.

    Bruton started this project with the idea of taking the electronics and motors from a hoverboard and reconfiguring them to create a self-balancing bike. His intention was to control the movement by shifting his weight and by tilting the back half of the bike relative to the front half, so the hoverboard electronics would act just like they normally would. But that proved to be very difficult to ride, so Bruton had to pivot to a new control method that would give him better maneuverability.

    To save the project, Bruton turned to an Arduino UNO Rev3. It monitors the rotation angle and tilt angle of the handlebars using potentiometers, then uses servo motors to tilt the hoverboard controller boards accordingly. As far as the hoverboard electronics know, this is just the movement of the rider shifting their weight or moving their feet. This causes the bike to roll side-to-side or rotate in place through input through the handlebars.

    The bike rides on omni wheels, so Bruton also needed a way to move forwards. He chose to use hobby jet thrusters that are also under the control of the Arduino, with a throttle turning a third potentiometer. Those thrusters don’t have quite enough force for the job, so Bruton needs a push to get started. But they do let him continue on once he’s moving.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9tN51fh_vE?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Jet-powered Star Wars speeder bike built from repurposed hoverboard appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • No need for buttons with this Arduino Cloud alarm clock

    No need for buttons with this Arduino Cloud alarm clock

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    When Arduino first hit the maker scene, the world of embedded electronics was largely unconnected and offline. But as the IoT, home automation, and smart technology advanced, Arduino kept up. Today, there are a variety of Arduino development boards that offer built-in networking capability and you can use the Arduino Cloud to take advantage of them. To demonstrate that, Doug Domke built this button-free alarm clock.

    User interface design is a complex field that has to balance usability, simplicity, and practicality. Take a look at the radio alarm clocks of the 1990s to see how bad user interfaces can make device interaction frustrating. Domke’s alarm clock goes in the complete opposite direction and omits buttons altogether. It lets the user “set it and forget it” through a simple Arduino Cloud dashboard. The time automatically updates based on the configured time zone and daylight savings settings.

    This requires very little hardware. Power comes in through USB to an Arduino Nano ESP32 board, with a connected piezo buzzer module and four-digit seven-segment display. Those fit inside a basic 3D-printed enclosure. All the magic happens through the Arduino Cloud and Domke explains how to set up an Arduino Cloud account, create a dashboard, and connect the Nano ESP32 to that dashboard.

    If you want a dedicated alarm clock, this is a quick and easy project that will help you get acquainted with the Arduino Cloud for future IoT projects.

    The post No need for buttons with this Arduino Cloud alarm clock appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Tiny DIY Roomba cleans desks and countertops

    Tiny DIY Roomba cleans desks and countertops

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The future we were promised was supposed to include robot maids and flying cars. The future we got has Roomba vacuums and Southwest Airlines. But at least those Roomba vacuum robots work pretty well for keeping floors slightly cleaner. Sadly, they leave elevated surfaces untouched and dust-ridden. To address that limitation, Jared Dilley built this tiny DIY Roomba to clean his desk.

    Dilley is a dog owner and so his desk ends up with quite a bit of dust and loose hair, even though his dog is large and doesn’t sit on the desk — a mystery all pet owners will find relatable. Fortunately, Dilley is an engineer and had already created a small Arduino-controlled tank robot a while back. That operated a bit like a Roomba and would drive around until its ultrasonic sensor detected an obstacle, at which point it would turn. Dilley just needed to repurpose that robot into small mean cleaning machine.

    The 3D-printed robot operates under the control of an Arduino UNO Rev3 through a motor driver shield. Originally, it only had the ultrasonic sensor, which was enough to detect obstacles in front of the robot. But because its new job is to patrol desks and countertops, Dilley had to add “cliff” sensors to keep it from falling off. He chose to put an infrared sensor at each of the front two corners. The Arduino will register the lack of a reflection when one of those sensors goes past an edge, and will then change course. A Swiffer-like attachment on the back of the robot wipes up dust and dog hair.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM7q85V_2Z0?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Tiny DIY Roomba cleans desks and countertops appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Celebrating a few resourceful Project Hub uploads from July

    Celebrating a few resourceful Project Hub uploads from July

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Makers always find a good reason to make: to learn or to enjoy, to share or to find a solution, they can play around all day, and work around anything. Proud of our community’s resourcefulness, this month we celebrate three projects uploaded to Project Hub in July that embed IoT, robotics, and home automation into approachable and fun tutorials. It just takes equal parts passion, creativity, and willingness to try something new…

    3. Go the extra mile with 3D printing

    Adding custom enclosures can make your project look neater, protect its inner workings, and allow you to hone your designs for functionality and fun! It’s the finishing touch that makes any project really stand out – including this one, for an Arduino Nano Every tank that can be controlled remotely via Bluetooth®. You can find all the instructions you need in its Project Hub write-up: add a handful of components, and go call that friend who has a 3D printer!

    2. Hot glue your first robotic arm

    This Arduino UNO Rev3 project gives anyone approaching robotics a leg up – in building their first robotic arm! Using ready available and inexpensive materials like cardboard, you can follow the tutorial and replicate the simple Arduino and Python code to program the arm: it will record and replay positions, which you can easily control from a graphical interface. 

    1. Go nuts taking good care of your backyard squirrels! 

    Why just casually feed the little creatures, when you can construct a system that also automatically reports back on their activity? Peter Stuhr’s first tutorial on Project Hub combines a solar-powered MKR WiFi 1010 with Google Sheets, using the simple IFTTT web hook: every time the feeder is opened, the board wakes up for 10 minutes and fills out a few rows in the spreadsheet. His solution could be adapted to monitor many other events in the garden, but we love that he has invested his skills and resourcefulness to ensure hungry squirrels always have enough food. 

    For your chance to be selected for a $100, $300 or even $500 gift card to spend on the Arduino Store, submit your best project on the Project Hub! We will be awarding three new entries every month, as detailed in the complete terms and conditions. Good luck!

    The post Celebrating a few resourceful Project Hub uploads from July appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Can you smell what the Rockobot is cooking?

    Can you smell what the Rockobot is cooking?

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Modern engineering is increasingly cross-disciplinary, so today’s students often take courses that would have seemed to be “outside their field” a couple of decades ago. Pelochus and their classmates at the University of Granada are studying computer engineering, but had a class that challenged them to build battlebots in order to get some hands-on learning with microcontrollers and embedded systems. To dominate the competition, they used an Arduino to create the Rockobot.

    This is a play on a meme that was popular in the 3D printing community recently. For laughs, people would slap a bust of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — wrestler and actor extraordinaire — onto just about anything that could be 3D-printed. Pelochus and their team figured that such adornment would increase their chances of success in a battle, and we can smell what they’re cooking.

    Below the studly noggin, the Rockobot is a pretty standard tank-style battlebot. It has bent sheet metal plows in the front and back, which are the primary offense and defense. An Arduino Nano board controls the motors that drive the tank treads through a custom PCB populated with L289N H-bridge drivers. Power comes from a 1550mAh 14.8V battery through a step-down converter. Ultrasonic sensors on the front and back, along with infrared sensors on the sides, help the Rockobot navigate autonomously while avoiding collisions.

    The spirit of Mr. Johnson must have been inhabiting the Rockobot, because it blew through the competition and took the top position in the class tournament.

    The post Can you smell what the Rockobot is cooking? appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • A simple non-contact lap timer for RC car racing

    A simple non-contact lap timer for RC car racing

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Remote control cars have been popular toys for children and adults alike for decades now. And while there is plenty of fun to be had cruising around, a little bit of healthy competition can add another layer of enjoyment. To race or practice racing, you’ll want some way to time your laps. If you don’t have anyone to operate a stopwatch for you, then you should check out Tom Goff’s tutorial on how to create a non-contact lap timer.

    Goff built this specifically for his son to time laps when racing his RC car. It is a simple, affordable, and portable device that is easy to take to any paved area and set up. It acts as both the start and finish line, so it triggers the timer the first time the RC car passes through and stops the timer the second time.

    It recognizes the passing RC car using a DIY break beam sensor. Instead of using an off-the-shelf infrared module, Goff made his own sensor. One side has a very bright LED with the beam kept tight by PVC pipe and a convex lens. The other side has an Arduino Nano board that detects that beam using a light-dependent resistor (LDR). The Arduino utilizes the millis() function to count the elapsed time between beam breaks, then displays the results on an LCD screen. An 18650 lithium battery cell and charge controller in each unit provide power.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwxbSRWqfBA?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post A simple non-contact lap timer for RC car racing appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • The new Arduino GIGA Display Shield: Nice touch!

    The new Arduino GIGA Display Shield: Nice touch!

    Reading Time: 2 minutes
    Arduino Giga Display Shield

    A few months ago, we promised you that the GIGA R1 WiFi would allow you to “think bigger and be more creative than ever”.

    Now, we are happy to announce you can step up your game even further, with the introduction of the Arduino GIGA Display Shield — an innovative touchscreen solution enabling all makers to effortlessly deploy fast and highly responsive graphic interfaces to their GIGA R1 WiFi projects.

    Featuring a 3.97” 480×800 RGB touchscreen, an MP34DT06JTR digital microphone, a Bosch BMI270 six-axis IMU, an Arducam® 20-pin camera connector, and an RGB LED, the GIGA Display Shield is perfect for easily creating handheld devices or dashboards you can control with a touch.

    It basically adds intuitive interfaces, high-level user experiences, and cutting-edge technology to your strengths in this game we call making.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W75woSe_40?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    With the GIGA Display Shield, you can quickly add a cool UI to your hardware projects without extra wiring, have graphics adjust automatically according to device orientation or audio commands, or leverage computer vision as your solution’s input. If that’s not enough, GIGA R1 WiFi’s new set of top-facing connectors leave the top header available for expansion, attaching other shields to boost your possibilities even more.

    Ready, player one? Find out more about how the GIGA Display Shield can give you a boost. We think you’ll have a lot of fun with this…

    Add your touch

    The post The new Arduino GIGA Display Shield: Nice touch! appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This machine automatically threads beautiful string art

    This machine automatically threads beautiful string art

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    String art is impressive precisely because it is so difficult to make. Even a simple piece of string art will contain hundreds of feet of thread carefully looped around posts to create areas of varying density that act as shading. Everything from calculating the string’s path to physically laying down the string is a challenge. But after an immense amount of work, Paul MH was able to develop a machine that can produce string art at the touch of a button.

    Paul spent years working on this project and it shows. Every step of the process required trial-and-error with different prototypes. To create an art piece, the machine first has to insert dozens or hundreds of nails into the foam bed. That necessitated the invention of a mechanism to feed nails and a neural network to verify that each nail feeds properly. The machine then has to convert an image into a string path, with that path avoiding collisions with nails, looping around nails enough to maintain tension, generating the proper string density, and preventing any tangles.

    At its heart, this is a CNC machine that accepts custom g-code generated by Paul’s software. That G-code runs on an Arduino Mega 2560 board, which controls the machine’s motors through a RAMPS 1.4 shield. The concept is similar to a conventional DIY CNC router and the kinematic system is familiar, but this machine needed a multitude of custom parts. Most of those were 3D-printed over many iterations until Paul had a working machine.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPYEd50j3s0?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    As you can see in Paul’s recent video update, the machine can produce very nice string art. It can take any image as input, but high-contrast pictures without a lot of fine detail work the best.

    The post This machine automatically threads beautiful string art appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Automating Connect Four setup and cleanup

    Automating Connect Four setup and cleanup

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Good old-fashioned tabletop games are a lot of fun to play, but they’re a pain in the butt to set up. We all know the pain of divvying out Monopoly money and organizing tiny plastic houses. Connect Four players might spend as much time organizing pieces between games as they do actually playing. To facilitate Connect Four speed runs, Jared Dilley built this board that automatically sorts the pieces after a game.

    A normal Connect Four board just dumps all the pieces out of the bottom after a game, forcing players to classify them by color. Dilley’s updated board does all of that automatically. At the push of a button, it will begin ejecting pieces from the bottom. Little motorized flaps cause the falling pieces to drop one way or the other. The machine repeats that process for all the rows and each player ends up with a pile of the appropriate pieces on their side of the board, ready for a new game.

    An Arduino Mega 2560 detects whether a piece is red or black using an infrared sensor. Dilley adjusted the sensor so that it registers an infrared reflection for red pieces, but not black pieces. Each column has its own sensor, so the Arduino can recognize the colors of the entire bottom row. It then sets the positions of the flaps accordingly using servo motors controlled through a servo shield. Finally, another servo quickly releases the bottom row and then moves back to block the following row. That process repeats until all the pieces have been sorted.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tsY3SJziWs?start=1&feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    We can’t imagine that many people play enough Connect Four to make this worthwhile, but it is still a lot of fun to see in action and crosses into “oddly satisfying” territory.

    The post Automating Connect Four setup and cleanup appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • DIY sequential gear shifter for sim racing

    DIY sequential gear shifter for sim racing

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    A sequential transmission is one that only allows you to move up or down by a single gear at a time. They’ve always been the norm for motorcycles, because they’re lightweight and compact. And Formula One cars have sequential transmissions for the same reasons. But unlike motorcycles, which require manual shifting, Formula One cars have lightning-fast electronic systems. To recreate that for racing sims, Carlos Almeida designed this sequential gear shift controller.

    Real Formula One cars have paddle shifters, so that drivers can shift while keeping their hands on their steering wheels. This is a little bit different and looks more like a conventional shifter at first glance. It is a large lever that the user can push forward to move up a gear, or pull back to move down a gear. A seven-segment display shows the current gear number.

    Most of the mechanical components are 3D-printable and an Arduino MKR1000 WiFi board is the primary component. Moving the shift lever pushes a switch, which the Arduino registers. Almeida developed the sketch using PlatformIO. It sets the Arduino up as a standard USB HID that will work with any racing sim or game, because it sends key presses like any keyboard or gamepad. It doesn’t receive feedback from the PC, so it has to keep track of the current gear and let the user set the number of gears available using small buttons below the readout display.

    If you want a physical sequential shifter for racing sims, this will make a great weekend project.

    The post DIY sequential gear shifter for sim racing appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • 10 cutting-edge ways to impress your guests with the IoT

    10 cutting-edge ways to impress your guests with the IoT

    Reading Time: 8 minutes

    The Internet of Things has the power to transform your home into a futuristic web of cutting-edge gadgets, working together to make life easier, safer, and more entertaining.

    And while the IoT has a bunch of day-to-day applications like watering your plants and keeping your cupboards stocked, you can also use it to throw a killer party.

    Done right, you can build a smart home that leaves your guests gobsmacked, talking for months about their experience and frantically searching for ways to recreate it in their own homes.

    In this article, we’ll look at a few of the ways you can use the IoT to enhance your guests’ experiences and become the talk of the town (in a good way).

    What exactly is the Internet of Things?

    The IoT is a way of connecting multiple everyday devices to the internet and each other, enabling them to perform smarter tasks such as collecting, processing, and exchanging data of different kinds.

    For example, while an ordinary kettle is only good for boiling water, a smart kettle connected to the IoT can be controlled from your smartphone, set to automatically start boiling at a specific time, and be asked to do different things like keep the water at a certain temperature.

    When it comes to throwing a party that will go down in legend, the IoT can be a big asset.

    Impress your guests with the Internet of Things

    1. Smart home ambiance

    The first step to throwing a great party is setting the mood, and that applies to small gatherings, dinner parties, and even just hangouts.

    The IoT can be a big help here, allowing you to tap into smart lighting with the help of color-changing bulbs and synchronized effects. At the tap of a button or your smartphone, you can produce customized lighting patterns and hues, engineering exactly the right environment to fit the vibe.

    You can also integrate your lighting systems with voice control assistants, so you and your guests can change the ambience with simple commands. 

    2. Interactive entertainment systems

    With the IoT, you can take entertainment to the next level.

    Use smart speakers to create fully immersive music and sound, perfectly adapted to the mood of the room and the desired noise level. Switch from soft background music to a lively dance floor with a simple voice command.

    If you have a home theater or a gaming room, you can integrate these with the IoT to build a more customizable and personalized setup for guests.

    3. Smart food and beverage management

    If you really want to impress your guests, fill them up with delicious food and get them tipsy.

    This is yet another place where technology can help — an IoT-connected kitchen can revolutionize the catering process, allowing you to host truly unforgettable cookouts and dinner parties.

    Smart refrigerators with inventory tracking and recipe suggestions work alongside automated cocktail mixers and cupboards that send an alert to your phone whenever you’re running low on a certain ingredient.

    You’ll go from being a stressed, overwhelmed amateur chef to the master of your kitchen, effortlessly commanding your army of tech tools to run the show confidently.

    4. Intelligent climate control

    The only thing worse than a party where everyone is sweltering hot, is one where they’re all too cold to even peel off their winter coats.

    The good news for any aspiring host is that home automation can solve this age-old problem once and for all. Smart thermostats and HVAC systems are designed to keep your home in the perfect state of equilibrium — using automated adjustments to make a Goldilocks zone where all your guests feel just right, all the time.

    The best smart homes can do this in an energy-efficient way, too, ensuring you don’t waste fuel and money keeping a room warmer than it needs to be for everyone’s optimal comfort. And you can easily adjust the temperature from your smartphone, a remote control, or voice commands.

    5. Personalized guest experiences

    The best parties are the ones where everyone feels welcome, and there’s no better way to create that vibe than with personalization.

    The IoT can come in very useful here, helping you install things like smart mirrors which greet your guests personally and share information about the party like important times to remember and directions to specific places.

    How well do you know your guests? If you can create a small profile on each one, your smart home can even put together tailored entertainment recommendations, ensuring the mood of the party fits the mood of the guests, and that there’s a bit of something for everyone on the playlist and the menu.

    6. Automated home security

    Parties can be a ton of fun, but they come with a few risks as well. When everyone is distracted and occupied, it’s sometimes easy for unwanted visitors to sneak in under cover of the crowd.

    With IoT-driven security cameras and automated monitoring systems, you can keep your guests and property safe at all times, not just when the party is in full swing. You can program your smart security system to provide real-time alerts when something isn’t right, and even gain remote access.

    If security is a key concern for you, you can give trusted guests their own digital keys and temporary access, gaining more control over who leaves and enters your event.

    7. Smart party planning

    If you aren’t much of a planner, putting a first-rate shindig together can be a stressful experience.

    With the right tech solutions though, even the most disorganized among us can become expert event coordinators, piecing together seamless itineraries and dazzling guests by taking every tiny detail into consideration.

    Some examples here include:

    • Automated guest invitations and RSVP tracking
    • Integrated calendars, to-do-lists and reminders
    • AI-powered suggestions for how to plan and organize your event

    8. Entertain your guests with AR and VR

    Virtual reality and augmented reality are two emerging technologies that have the power to keep your guests engaged for hours.

    Gone are the days when a two-dimensional console was the only source of gaming-based fun — now your guests can strap on a headset and immerse themselves in a detailed and incredibly entertaining fictional world, even competing with other guests.

    It’s not just about gaming, either — AR and VR can be used to create beautiful cyber experiences for your guests, from interactive works of art to guided tours of faraway places.

    9. Smart furniture and layouts

    Equipping your seating areas with charging ports and built-in displays will delight your guests and create a much more comfortable and convenient place to chill out.

    As time goes on, furniture will likely get even smarter. For instance, smart furniture could soon detect the number of guests and available space and automatically adjust, folding away or expanding certain sections as needed.

    10. Eco-friendly hosting

    Parties — especially the big ones — can pack quite the environmental footprint if you aren’t careful.

    If you’re concerned about the impact of your party, there are several home automation tools that can help reduce your energy expenditure and help you plan a greener and more eco-friendly event.

    For example, you can use smart energy management tools to track your usage over time and make adjustments to avoid wastage, like turning down the lights and heat in a room that hasn’t been occupied in a while.

    Many up-to-date IoT devices will have these kinds of features built in, and will already automatically monitor and adjust their activity to use energy more optimally.

    (Bonus tip) Preparing for hiccups

    One of the risks of relying too heavily on tech for your party is that tech can sometimes go wrong.

    Things like glitching devices, network issues, and features that are difficult to use can all get in the way of your guests having the best time possible. It’s important to be prepared for the possibility of things going wrong and have plans in place.

    It’s always a good idea, for example, to have backup entertainment options in place. Is your VR system playing up? If so, having a more traditional console on hand can work as a great alternative while you get things back up and running.

    Ultimately, you don’t want your party to be too tech-centric. It’s always smart to balance your high-tech features with more traditional hosting and entertainment activities — not just because tech can sometimes go wrong but because guests will always appreciate a human touch.

    Host a party from the future

    Home automation, driven by technologies like the IoT, can transform your next party into something your guests will never forget.

    From big, show-stopping features like augmented reality works of art, to small but no less revolutionary tools like a smart dishwasher — home automation is the perfect party assistant.

    With Arduino, you can even start building your very own automated party tools, using just a handful of easy-to-find components and a bit of coding knowledge. Check out a few projects below!

    Bluetooth lighting system

    Arduino user akk47 made this project allowing users to build a lighting system that can be controlled with nothing more than taps from your phone, wherever you are in the building.

    It uses Bluetooth® and can be put together with just a handful of components. Projects like this are the first step towards your very own smart lighting system, making your home the envy of any guests.

    Multi-zone heating controller

    This project was built by Arduino user erkr because his rooms were either too hot or too cold when using a single thermostat.

    It allows you to split your home into zones and control the temperature for each zone separately. It’s not only a great way to save on energy bills and create a more comfortable living environment, but it’s also a fantastic tool when hosting parties where rooms have different temperature needs.

    PCB gyro gaming wheel

    A good gaming setup can turn a good party into an unforgettable one. Arduino user ashraf_minhaj built this project — a gaming steering wheel that can add a new dimension to racing games.

    This shouldn’t be too difficult to replicate for anyone with some background in making their own smart projects, and is a cheaper (and more fun) alternative to highly advanced gaming gadgets.

    These are just a few ideas to give you some inspiration — with Arduino the sky really is the limit when it comes to creating fun and original new gadgets for your smart home. Get in touch with us to learn more and get started.

    The post 10 cutting-edge ways to impress your guests with the IoT appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Industry automation? There’s an app for that! With FLECS and Portenta X8

    Industry automation? There’s an app for that! With FLECS and Portenta X8

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    FLECS and Arduino Pro are partnering to make Industry 4.0 easier for you. FLECS is the easy-to-configure and open-source platform that allows industrial users to work with automation solutions dedicated to their machinery just as easily as we all handle the apps on our phone: install, manage and configure via web interface, and let the system keep track of versions and ensure updates.

    All you need is a Portenta X8 – our powerful, industrial-grade SOM with Linux OS preloaded onboard: connect it to your computer via USB, install FLECS for free (with, literally, one line of code), and access the FLECS UI to pick the right solution for production control, communication, SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), data analysis, fleet management and more.

    Deploying Linux applications has never been more straightforward: we could say it’s as easy as 1-2-3 – except there are actually only 2 steps to the whole process.

    “We are excited to offer the huge Arduino user community immediate access to our automation applications, so anyone can build and boost a wide variety of solutions for industrial contexts. It’s all made possible by Portenta X8, a groundbreaking product bringing Linux into the Arduino ecosystem.”

    – Patric Scholz, Managing Director at FLECS

    Indeed, while on one side you can now leverage all FLECS solutions in a few commands and clicks, on the other you will be working with one of Arduino Pro’s highest-performance modules: Portenta X8 is basically two industrial products in one, with the power of no less than 9 cores (an NXP i.MX 8M Mini Arm® Cortex®-A53 quad-core, up to 1.8GHz per core + 1x Cortex-M4 up to 400MHz, plus the STMicroelectronics STM32H747 dual-core Cortex-M7 up to 480MHz +M4 32-bit MCU up to 240MHz). And of course, the “superpower” of all Arduino products: being part of a comprehensive ecosystem of open-source hardware, software solutions, Cloud services and amazing community-based support.

    To find out more, explore Portenta X8’s features or go directly to the Portenta X8 powered by FLECS page.

    The post Industry automation? There’s an app for that! With FLECS and Portenta X8 appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • DIY digital VU meter with analog vibes

    DIY digital VU meter with analog vibes

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    A volume unit (VU) meter is a simple gauge that indicates the amplitude of an audio signal, so higher decibels move the needle further. They’re common in the field of audio engineering and music production, with traditional VU meters being analog. But tuning an analog gauge is a challenge, so Mirko Pavleski designed a VU meter that looks analog and comes with all the benefits of a digital device.

    Monitoring the amplitude of a signal (like an audio signal) with a microcontroller is very easy — if that microcontroller has an ADC (analog-to-digital converter). MCU processors only understand digital ones and zeros, so the ADC is necessary to translate an infinitely granular analog signal into digital values that approximate it. The Arduino Nano board has eight analog input pins monitored by the ATmega328’s ADC and this project uses two of them: one for the left audio channel and one for the right.

    The only other major component for this project is an GP1287 VFD (vacuum fluorescent display), which Pavleski chose for its high contrast and fast response time. It has a resolution of 256×50 and that is wide enough to show two virtual gauges side-by-side. The Nano simply performs an analog read for each audio channel, then updates the graphical gauge using the U8g2 library for monochrome displays. This VFD draws quite a lot of power and that necessitates the use of dedicated power supply. The only other components necessary are resistors, capacitors, and a rotary potentiometer.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7hi1JXhq2o?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post DIY digital VU meter with analog vibes appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Piloting spaceships with a DIY cockpit

    Piloting spaceships with a DIY cockpit

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Take a moment to go and look up some photos of the cockpits of airplanes and spacecraft. All of them are packed full of instruments and controls. So why do we feel like we can play a flight simulator with a regular gamepad? If you’re doing so, then you’re missing out on a lot of the experience. To get that deep immersion, Beko Pharm constructed a DIY cockpit for space sims like Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen.

    Beko Pharm runs their sims on a Linux PC and that limits the compatibility with off-the-shelf rigs. But most of those are expensive and lackluster anyway, so Beko Pharm built a custom controller. Front and center is an LCD panel to display all kinds of data. Surrounding that are a multitude of indicator lights, buttons, and switches. The cockpit also includes a joystick and head tracking, so Beko Pharm can have complete control over their virtual spaceships.

    An Arduino Mega 2560 drives all of the lights, which are WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs. It also monitors the joystick and buttons. The Arduino communicates with the simulation software using a custom interface developed with Node-RED and Rust. This lets it send commands and receive status data. It can, for example, illuminate a specific LED indicator if the simulation reports something like an engine failure.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiV5hP8fZ7Q?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    All of those components mount onto a custom frame made of wood. That sits below Beko Pharm’s triple-monitor setup, creating the illusion that they are sitting in a real cockpit surrounding by controls and looking out of the windows.

    The post Piloting spaceships with a DIY cockpit appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Turning an old car into a powerful generator

    Turning an old car into a powerful generator

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Generators are expensive pieces of equipment. You can get a small low-quality model for a few hundred dollars, but powerful high-quality generators cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Old cars, on the other hand, can be very cheap — especially if they aren’t roadworthy anymore. Jake von Slatt has a video series explaining how you can convert an old car with a working engine into a powerful generator.

    Most of the cost of a generator is from the engine, and alternator or dynamo with inverter. In this case, the engine is in a Toyota Sienna minivan. The vehicle isn’t worth keeping on the road, but the engine still runs well. And that engine has plenty of power for a generator. The alternator came from a Harbor Freight generator that had a bad engine. To keep the AC voltage output at the steady 60Hz needed for household appliances and tools, von Slatt utilized an Arduino.

    The Sienna has a cruise control system that actuates the throttle in an attempt to keep wheel speed consistent. But in this case, von Slatt needed it to keep the engine steady at 3600rpm to maintain 60Hz. So he built a simple circuit around an Arduino Nano Every board and an H-bridge. The Arduino controls the cruise control actuator’s servo motor through the H-bridge while monitoring the alternator output voltage (stepped down to 5V) frequency. If the frequency is too low, the Arduino rotates the cruise control actuator to increase engine speed until the frequency is exactly 60Hz. If the frequency is too low, it does the opposite.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PO0-g3e-sE?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    This is a simple and effective way to keep both an old car and an old generator out of the scrap yard while providing off-grid power.

    The post Turning an old car into a powerful generator appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK