Schlagwort: Android Things

  • A smart guitar for blind, deaf, and mute people

    A smart guitar for blind, deaf, and mute people

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    ChordAssist aims to bring the joy of learning the guitar to those who otherwise may have problems with accessing guitar tutorials. Offering advice in Braille, in speech, and on-screen, ChordAssist has been built specifically for deaf, blind, and mute people. Creator Joe Birch, who also built the BrailleBox device, used Raspberry Pi, Google Assistant, and a variety of accessibility tools and technology for this accessible instrument.

    Chord Assist: An accessible smart guitar for the blind, deaf and mute

    Powered by the Google Assistant, read more at chordassist.com

    Accessibility and music

    Inspired by a hereditary visual impairment in his family, Buffer’s Android Lead Joe Birch spent six months working on ChordAssist, an accessible smart guitar.

    “This is a project that I used to bring my love of music and accessibility (inspired by my family condition of retinitis pigmentosa) together to create something that could allow everyone to enjoy learning and playing music — currently an area which might not be accessible to all,” explained Joe when he shared his project on Twitter earlier this month.

    BrailleBox

    This isn’t Joe’s first step into the world of smart accessibility devices. In 2017, he created BrailleBox, an Android Things news delivery device that converts daily news stories into Braille, using wooden balls atop solenoids that move up and down to form Braille symbols.

    Demonstration of Joe Birch's BrailleBox

    ChordAssist

    This same technology exists within ChordAssist, along with an LCD screen for visual learning, and a speaker system for text-to-speech conversion.

    Chord Assist was already an Action on the Google Project that I built for the Google Home, now I wanted to take that and stick it in a guitar powered by voice, visuals, and Braille. All three of these together will hopefully help to reduce the friction that may be experienced throughout the process of learning an instrument.

    ChordAssist is currently still at the prototype stage, and Joe invites everyone to offer feedback so he can make improvements.

    To learn more about ChordAssist, visit the ChordAssist website and check out Joe’s write-up on Medium.

    Website: LINK

  • The Android Things flower that smiles with you

    The Android Things flower that smiles with you

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Smile, and the world smiles with you — or, in this case, a laser-cut flower running Android Things on a Raspberry Pi does.

    Android Things flower Raspberry Pi Smile recognition Expression Flower

    Expression Flower

    The aim of the Expression Flower is to “challenge the perception of what robotics can be while exploring the possibility for a whimsical experience that is engaging, natural, and fun.”

    Tl;dr: cute interactive flower. No Skynet.

    Android Things

    The flower is powered by Google’s IoT platform Android Things, running on a Raspberry Pi, and it has a camera mounted in the centre. It identifies facial expressions using the ML Kit machine learning package, also from Google. The software categorises expressions, and responds with a specific action: smile at the flower, and it will open up its petals with a colourful light show; wink at it, and its petals will close up bashfully.

    Android Things flower Raspberry Pi Smile recognition Expression Flower

    The build is made of laser-cut and 3D-printed parts, alongside off-the-shelf components. The entire build protocol, including video, parts, and code, is available on hackster.io, so all makers can give Expression Flower a go.

    Android Things flower Raspberry Pi Smile recognition Expression Flower

    Seriously, this may be the easiest-to-follow tutorial we’ve ever seen. So many videos. So much helpful information. It’s pure perfection!

    Machine learning and Android Things

    For more Raspberry Pi–based machine learning projects, see:

    And for more Android Things projects, we highly recommend:

    Aaaand, for getting started with all things Android on your Raspberry Pi, check out issue 71 of The MagPi!

    Website: LINK

  • MagPi 71: Run Android on Raspberry Pi

    MagPi 71: Run Android on Raspberry Pi

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Hey folks, Rob here with good news about the latest edition of The MagPi! Issue 71, out right now, is all about running Android on Raspberry Pi with the help of emteria.OS and Android Things.

    Raspberry Pi The MagPi Magazine issue 71 - Android

    Android and Raspberry Pi, two great tastes that go great together!

    Android and Raspberry Pi

    A big part of our main feature looks at emteria.OS, a version of Android that runs directly on the Raspberry Pi. By running it on a touchscreen setup, you can use your Pi just like an Android tablet — one that’s easily customisable and hackable for all your embedded computing needs. Inside the issue, we’ve got a special emteria.OS discount code for readers.

    We also look at Android Things, the official Android release for Raspberry Pi that focuses on IoT applications, and we show you some of the amazing projects that have been built with it.

    More in The MagPi

    If Android’s not your thing, we also have a big feature on building a Raspberry Pi weather station in issue 71!

    Raspberry Pi The MagPi Magazine issue 71 - Android

    Build your own Raspberry Pi weather station

    On top of that, we’ve included guides on how to get started with TensorFlow AI and on building an oscilloscope.

    Raspberry Pi The MagPi Magazine issue 71 - Android

    We really loved this card scanning project! Read all about it in issue 71.

    All this, along with our usual varied selection of project showcases, excellent tutorials, and definitive reviews!

    Get The MagPi 71

    You can get The MagPi 71 today from WHSmith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, head over to your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center in the next few days for a print copy. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS apps. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.

    New subscription offer!

    Want to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the magazine? We’ve launched a new way to subscribe to the print version of The MagPi: you can now take out a monthly £5 subscription to the magazine, effectively creating a rolling pre-order system that saves you money on each issue.

    The MagPi subscription offer — Run Android on Raspberry Pi

    You can also take out a twelve-month print subscription and get a Pi Zero W plus case and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.

    That’s it, folks! See you at Raspberry Fields.

    Website: LINK

  • Augmented-reality projection lamp with Raspberry Pi and Android Things

    Augmented-reality projection lamp with Raspberry Pi and Android Things

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    If your day has been a little fraught so far, watch this video. It opens with a tableau of methodically laid-out components and then shows them soldered, screwed, and slotted neatly into place. Everything fits perfectly; nothing needs percussive adjustment. Then it shows us glimpses of an AR future just like the one promised in the less dystopian comics and TV programmes of my 1980s childhood. It is all very soothing, and exactly what I needed.

    Android Things – Lantern

    Transform any surface into mixed-reality using Raspberry Pi, a laser projector, and Android Things. Android Experiments – http://experiments.withgoogle.com/android/lantern Lantern project site – http://nordprojects.co/lantern check below to make your own ↓↓↓ Get the code – https://github.com/nordprojects/lantern Build the lamp – https://www.hackster.io/nord-projects/lantern-9f0c28

    Creating augmented reality with projection

    We’ve seen plenty of Raspberry Pi IoT builds that are smart devices for the home; they add computing power to things like lights, door locks, or toasters to make these objects interact with humans and with their environment in new ways. Nord ProjectsLantern takes a different approach. In their words, it:

    imagines a future where projections are used to present ambient information, and relevant UI within everyday objects. Point it at a clock to show your appointments, or point to speaker to display the currently playing song. Unlike a screen, when Lantern’s projections are no longer needed, they simply fade away.

    Lantern is set up so that you can connect your wireless device to it using Google Nearby. This means there’s no need to create an account before you can dive into augmented reality.

    Lantern Raspberry Pi powered projector lamp

    Your own open-source AR lamp

    Nord Projects collaborated on Lantern with Google’s Android Things team. They’ve made it fully open-source, so you can find the code on GitHub and also download their parts list, which includes a Pi, an IKEA lamp, an accelerometer, and a laser projector. Build instructions are at hackster.io and on GitHub.

    This is a particularly clear tutorial, very well illustrated with photos and GIFs, and once you’ve sourced and 3D-printed all of the components, you shouldn’t need a whole lot of experience to put everything together successfully. Since everything is open-source, though, if you want to adapt it — for example, if you’d like to source a less costly projector than the snazzy one used here — you can do that too.

    components of Lantern Raspberry Pi powered augmented reality projector lamp

    The instructions walk you through the mechanical build and the wiring, as well as installing Android Things and Nord Projects’ custom software on the Raspberry Pi. Once you’ve set everything up, an accelerometer connected to the Pi’s GPIO pins lets the lamp know which surface it is pointing at. A companion app on your mobile device lets you choose from the mini apps that work on that surface to select the projection you want.

    The designers are making several mini apps available for Lantern, including the charmingly named Space Porthole: this uses Processing and your local longitude and latitude to project onto your ceiling the stars you’d see if you punched a hole through to the sky, if it were night time, and clear weather. Wouldn’t you rather look at that than deal with the ant problem in your kitchen or tackle your GitHub notifications?

    What would you like to project onto your living environment? Let us know in the comments!

    Website: LINK

  • BrailleBox: Android Things Braille news display

    BrailleBox: Android Things Braille news display

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Joe Birch has built a simple device that converts online news stories to Braille, inspired by his family’s predisposition to loss of eyesight. He has based his BrailleBox on Android Things, News API, and a Raspberry Pi 3.

    Demonstation of Joe Birch's BrailleBox

    The background

    Braille is a symbol system for people with visual impairment which represents letters and numbers as raised points. Commercial devices that dynamically produce Braille are very expensive, so Joe decided to build a low-cost alternative that is simple to recreate.

    Braille alphabet

    Image by DIPF CC BY-SA 3.0

    News API is a tool for fetching JSON metadata from over 70 online news sources. You can use it to integrate headlines or articles into websites and text-based applications.

    The BrailleBox

    To create the six nubs necessary to form Braille symbols, Joe topped solenoids with wooden balls. He then wired them up to GPIO pins of the Pi 3 via a breadboard.

    One of the solenoids of Joe Birch's BrailleBox

    One of the solenoids Joe built into the BrailleBox

    Next, he took control of the solenoids using Android Things. He set up the BrailleBox software to start running on boot, and added a push button. When he presses the button, the program fetches a news story using News API, and the solenoids start moving.

    BrailleBox Demo

    Uploaded by Joe Birch on 2017-06-20.

    Since Joe is an Android Engineer, looking through his write-up and code for BrailleBox might be useful for anyone interested in Android Things.

    If you like this project, make sure you keep an eye on Joe’s Twitter, since he has plans to update the BrailleBox design. His next step is to move on from the prototyping stage and house all the hardware inside the box. Moreover, he is thinking about adding a potentiometer so that users can choose their preferred reading speed.

    Accessibility

    If you want to find our community’s conversation about accessibility and assistive technology, head to the forums. And if you’re working to make computing more accessible, or if you’ve built an assistive project, let us know in the comments or on social media, so that we can boost the signal!

    Website: LINK