Planet Arduino

Maker Faire is a three-day, family-friendly event that has been celebrating the DIY Movement for the last 10 years. The ‘Greatest Show & Tell on Earth’ is designed for creative, innovative people of all ages and backgrounds, who like to tinker and love to make things.

In just a few days, the Arduino team will be in attendance for the 11th annual Maker Faire Bay Area as a Goldsmith Sponsor. Those heading to the San Mateo on May 20th-22nd will want to swing by our booth (#2321) and join us for some inspiring talks, especially the highly-anticipated State of Arduino by Massimo Banzi on Saturday at 12:30pm.

We’ve been preparing a series of demos to showcase the family of Arduino tools for the Internet of Things through our Arduino Create platform. Those who come by our booth will have the chance to experience the following firsthand:

• Cloud Sensor Station | “Make Sense of Your Data”
  The Cloud Sensor Station is equipped with four different sensors: gas detection, light intensity, motion detection (infrared) and temperature/humidity. These four sensors send values to the Arduino Cloud so that you can see real-time results of the collected data from everywhere.
• Yún Camera | “Lights! Camera! Facebook!”
  The Yún Camera captures photos at the press of a button and then automatically uploads them onto Facebook. (We’re sensing plenty of selfies in our near future!)
• Yún Message | “Leave a Message and I’ll Show It Back”
  The Yún Message is a smart desk, developed in collaboration with Opendesk, that displays custom messages on an LED matrix. This piece of smart furniture lets users share a reminder or note through a webpage. Come and leave a note or… do it online!
• Twitter Printer | “The IoTweet!”
  This connected thermal printer running on MKR1000 will automatically print tweets from all over the world with the #PrintArduino hashtag. (Look forward to seeing what you come up with!)

Additionally, we’ll be showcasing our Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC) program, which is a collaborative learning curriculum designed for schools that wish to incorporate emerging technologies into their existing technology classes.

Whether you’re a teacher or student, come and discover how to explore electronics through a series of hands-on coding projects that’ll provide you with the foundations of programming, electronics and mechanics.

Aside from some of our latest products and projects, we’ll also play host to several members of our growing open-source ecosystem and partners like Intel, ARM and Atmel, to name just a few.

Have a question about Arduino? Looking to get started but don’t know how? Beginners, or even experienced users, will have the chance to get their questions answered inside our booth. We’ve set aside an area where you can speak to our team of experts, from your recent invention to one of our boards. What’s more, you’ll even be able to take home an assortment of Arduino SWAG: stickers, pins and other cool giveaways!

Can’t wait to see everyone soon! In the meantime, stay tuned as we’ll be posting a confirmed agenda of scheduled talks in the next few days. For everything else, check out Maker Faire’s official site!

The Boogie Cup is an interactive project controlling the music volume according to the number of cups used in a party and allowing party-goers to follow each other on Spotify. How does it work?

The Boogie Cup Holder uses an infrared distance sensor to detect how many cups are in the stack. As guests take cups, the sensor detects a change in distance, and increases the volume at the party. The Genuino MKR1000 wifi chip connects the Boogie Cup to the Spotify API. When two guests pass by with similar playlists, their cups light up. When they cheers, a message is sent to a server that enables each user to follow each other on Spotify.

The device was created by a team of student (Sophie Chow, Priscila Ferreira, Lars Kaltenbach, Mary Mikhail) during a 4-day exploration into Physical Computing  during the Interaction Design Programme at CIID with the support of Massimo Banzi and Dario Buzzini, with the aim to encourage new behaviors with ordinary objects.

Massimo Banzi is among the judges on “America’s Greatest Makers” a reality competition from Mark Burnett (the reality-TV king behind “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” and “The Voice”) in partnership with Intel which debuted last week on TBS.

In a first of its kind competition, the tv show takes 24 teams of makers from across US and puts them in head-to-head challenges to invent disruptive projects and win $1 million. The team are composed by unique people from 15 years old to 59 with ideas going to inspire a whole new audience of potential makers.

In the first two episodes, each team pitched their device idea to the judging panel composed by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich; business and financial expert Carol Roth; comedian, serial entrepreneur and co-host of truTV’s Hack My Life Kevin Pereira; and one of the celebrity guests.

At the end of April during 4th episode guest judge Massimo Banzi joins the panel as the remaining makers compete in the “Make or Break” rounds for $100,000 and a spot in the million dollar finale. If you are not in the USA, watch the episode at this link after April 27th.

In the meanwhile you can also watch a beginner maker project to learn how to do obstacle avoidance using Arduino 101. Cara Santa Maria is the trainer who’s going to guide you into the tutorial about this really important topic for projects involving moving objects like robots and drones:

Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and use hashtag #AmericasGreatestMakers

Moodbox is a musical device created by a group of students (Iskra Uscumlic, Cyrus Kamath, Luca Mustacchi, Dario Loerke) to explore how we might set the mood in a studio space through music. They created it using Genuino Uno during the Interaction Design Programme at CIID with the help of Massimo Banzi and Dario Buzzini.

Moodbox enables you to set the perfect ambience and trigger different emotions:

Taking inspiration from the classic bar jukebox and its ability to influence the mood, we recognized that music and the atmosphere created by it are inextricably linked. When selecting a song to play in a social setting there is always a sense of negotiation involved. The person choosing has to consider the environment, the people around them, the current mood and that they would like to create.

With this in mind we set out to explore new opportunities for interaction in the communal space, using the environment of the studio as the setting.

As you can see in the video above, you can adjust the vibe of any space using four scales of emotions – from love to kill, serious to fun, chill to hype and dreamy to focus:

Emotions may be combined and fine-tuned with retro-style rotary knobs to dial-in feelings and get the perfect song choice. Like a jukebox, songs are queued once the selection is made. To provide visual feedback, lights also respond to the changes in mood, enhancing the overall influence on the space.

Moodbox connects to your iTunes account, with the rotary knobs sending information via a Genuino Uno and JavaScript to sort through a playlist. Our custom emotional algorithm then picks the right song and triggers mood lighting depending on the selection.

Last friday in Rome during the press conference of Maker Faire Rome 4th edition, Riccardo Luna together with Massimo Banzi announced that next October the event is going to become “better, bigger and stronger”.
A new location by Fiera di Roma building will host six pavilions in an area of over 100.000 sq.m. for makers, visitors, conferences, seminars and workshops. The event promoted by the Rome Chamber of Commerce and powered by its Innovation Unit “AssetCamera “ is once more curated by Massimo Banzi, Arduino co-founder, along with Riccardo Luna, Italian Digital Champion.

The topics featured at Maker Faire Rome 2016 are going to be home automation, re-use, drones and robots, 3D printing, digital manufacturing, industry 4.0, IoT – Internet of things, mobility, safety & security, food , fashion, music and especially Food & Nutrition.Together with the Future Food Institute (FFI), trust voted to food and innovation, Maker Faire will focus on the intersection between food and technology and will deepen the relationship between nutrition, health & wellbeing. The “Call 4 Makers” 2016 will open on April 18th and will close on June 5th.

Maker Faire Rome is also looking for amazing project with a “Call for BigBang Projects”  open until March 31^st.  The call will consider large-scale, entertaining, high impact, interactive projects. Installations and performances proposals will be welcome, too. The goal is to create the most immersive scenery one could dream of for a Faire of such character.

In the meanwhile take a look at the European Maker Week, an entire week of makers’ events, from May 30th to June 5th,  promoted by The European Commission and implemented by Maker Faire Rome in collaboration with Startup Europe, the event:

aims to draw European citizens to the “Maker world” thanks to the aid of Fablabs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and the hardware startups environment. The goals of European Maker Week are two folds: create awareness about the importance of the maker culture to foster an education of creativity and innovation in all schools across Europe; build bridges between local authorities and media and the main players of their own local makers ecosystems. It is of particularly importance to reach out to new players (e.g. Schools) who have never organized a maker event before.

Join us for the Arduino Day event organized by our team at the Jacobs Institute on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley with the participation of Massimo Banzi, David Mellis and Tom Igoe.

We are seeking volunteers to assist us during the event. We are going to have free workshops, talks by the founders, and art and tech displays.

We are looking for volunteer assistance during the event e.g. staffing information tables and displays, bringing a project to demo, helping during workshops, picking up coffee & lunch, and providing technical assistance. This is not a paid gig, but to show our appreciation that you are spending your time with us, Arduino has prepared a small gift for you.

We welcome all levels of skills and curiosity. More important than your technical skills are your people skills. Please provide us with basic information about yourself and your interests. Use the appropriate form depending on whether you have volunteered with us in the past:

First time volunteers? Please fill out this form. If you have volunteered for Arduino before, please contact us at arduinovolunteer [at] gmail.com.

We also have two paid positions: one for a two-person video camera crew and the other for a photographer. To apply, please fill out this form.

When: April 2nd, 2016
Location: University of California Berkeley at Jacobs Institute – 2530 Ridge Rd, Berkeley, CA 94709
Website: http://jacobsinstitute.berkeley.edu/
Arduino Day website: https://day.arduino.cc
Staff: Judy A. Castro (Event Manager), Michael Shiloh (Educator)

Arduino Day’s events’ map is updating constantly with new events created by local communities worldwide. The participation is open to anyone who wants to celebrate Arduino, Genuino and all the amazing things that have been done (or can be done!) with them and the community of open source enthusiasts. The call for submission is now extended and open until March 15th! We’ve already received 280 submissions from more than 55 countries! Celebrate with us and add your local event  now on day.arduino.cc.

If you want to attend one of the events near your town,  check the map on the Arduino Day website and remember that this year we are also celebrating Genuino, Arduino’s sister brand for products sold outside of USA. US-based events will be called ’Arduino Day’, while events based outside the US will be called ’Genuino Day’.

Some days ago Massimo Banzi and his team announced that the third edition of Arduino Day organized directly by the Arduino team will take place on Saturday April 2nd 2016 in Berkeley (CA) at Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, University of California with Massimo Banzi, Tom Igoe and David Mellis.

“We’re really excited to express our love for open source – said Massimo Banzi, CEO at Arduino – in a day of celebration of our amazing community of makers, developers and partners. 6 million downloads of the Arduino Development Environment in the last year alone show the sheer size of our community.”

This is the draft agenda of the event (registration form coming soon):

– 11 am – 6 pm: exhibition of Arduino projects
– 12 pm – 4 pm : hands-on activities
– 3 pm -5.30 pm : Arduino co-founders  presentations

• David Mellis  “Makers and machine learning: a system for analysis of real-time sensor data”
• Tom Igoe “Talk Making amazing things talk”
• Massimo Banzi “IoT and the connected objects”

“I’m also excited” – said David Mellis, Arduino co-founder – “to hold an Arduino Day at UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute because they both represent a playful and innovative approach to design and engineering. I’m looking forward to seeing all the amazing things that people here at Berkeley have been building with Arduino. I’m also hoping that Arduino Day will be a chance to connect makers on campus with those in the broader community.”

 David Cuartielles will be in Mexico City to take part to Genuino Day organized by Hacedores at Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City.

Share your pictures, comments and news on your social channels using Hashtag: #ArduinoD16

Fab Academy is a distributed educational model directed by Neil Gershenfeld from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms. Students view and participate in global lectures broadcasted every week and on February 1st Massimo Banzi was invited to give a lecture to an audience of  students from all over the world. You can watch the 50-minute recorded lesson in the video below:

Good news everyone. Due to many requests from our community we agreed to extend the contest to January 31st 2016.

You have some more days to submit your ideas to the World’s Largest Arduino Maker Challenge,  win one of the one thousand Arduino and Genuino MKR1000 and a fully-funded (up to $1,500) trip to Maker Faire Shenzhen, New York, Bay Area or Rome; a chance to present your creation at the Microsoft and the Arduino & Genuino booths; a professional video production of you and your creation; and a whopping $500 gift certificate to Adafruit.

Watch Massimo Banzi’s video presenting the contest.

Keep dreaming new ideas and have fun!

Rebel Geeks is a seven-part series on Al Jazeera English channel, featuring profiles of people around the world challenging power structures and offering a different vision of our technological future.

During Makers Faire in Shenzhen, in southeastern China, the authors of the series met Massimo Banzi and produced‘ Meet Your Maker’, a video interview about Arduino and how thousands of people are adopting it to build everything from 3D printers to drones, smart home devices to robotics.

‘Meet Your Maker’ can be seen on Al Jazeera English from November 16 at 22.30GMT. 

Watch the trailer and read the article now.