Planet Arduino

Need a hand? The UFACTORY team has got you covered with the uArm Swift, an open-source robotic assistant for your desktop.

The four-axis uArm Swift is a smaller and sleeker version of the company’s original device from 2014. Based on an Arduino Mega, the robot is capable of lifting 500 grams (1.1 pounds) with a working range of 5 to 32 centimeters (2 to 12.6 inches).

UFACTORY has launched two different models of the consumer-friendly arm on Indiegogo. Whereas the basic model is perfect for beginners and those looking to tinker around with robotics, the Swift Pro is designed for a more experienced Maker crowd with a stronger motor, more precision, and greater versatility. It also boasts position repeatability down to 0.2mm.

With a little programming, the Pro can perform a wide range of tasks from 3D printing to laser engraving to picking up and moving game pieces. You can even create your own actions through the team’s Blockly-based graphical software, uArm Studio, as well as control your Swift either directly from a keyboard-and-mouse setup, by making gestures, or over Bluetooth from the uArm Play mobile app.

The Swift is extendable with three different end-effectors (suction cup, metallic gripper, and universal holder) and a built-in socket for selected Seeed Grove modules. But that’s not all. Attach an OpenMV Cam and the robotic arm can detect faces, colors, and markers.

If you’re looking for an affordable and portable robotic arm, be sure to check out UFACTORY’s Indiegogo campaign.

Professionally engineered, SmartPID is a high-tech, programmable temperature and process controller for the DIY community.

Compared to a basic on/off thermostat, SmartPID is an “open platform” that can collect temperature from multiple sensors, apply programmable control logic, and drive different loads with a precise PID algorithm.

Not only can SmartPID control any thermos-regulated process, heating or cooling, it can be used for a number of applications throughout your home, both locally and remotely. You can easily access your process and log data from the web browser on a desktop over Wi-Fi or a smartphone via a dedicated app, which is ideal in case of critical situations that involve alarms and triggers.

The brainchild of Davide Arzarello, SmartPID is a must-have for Makers, do-it-yourselfers, tech enthusiasts, as well as professional engineers seeking an affordable process controller. It’s 100% Arduino-compatible: just plug the SmartPID USB port into your computer and program the board using the Arduino IDE.

SmartPID is neither a simple controller nor a thermostat: it is an “open platform” in which the resources and I/O can be used for a variety of applications and in a variety of environments. The idea behind SmartPID is to develop an ecosystem of “vertical” applications on top of a common set of features, providing tools for people who would like to develop their own applications or hack existing ones. The two main apps included are the smart thermostat and smart brewing app, with a successful crowdfunding campaign, the company hopes to expand the controllers versatility into a number of vertical applications on top of the SmartPID platform.

With its process automation, SmartPID makes everything from homebrewing and winemaking to aquarium maintenance to oven temperature more precise, powerful, and flexible. Want to learn more? Check out Arzarello’s campaign on Indiegogo!

A connected home is in the dreams of many of us and we all spent at least a few moments thinking about how would it be for real. The problem is that most of the hardware devices and software platforms are not designed to work together and that’s why things become complicated.

Today we introduce you to a new Arduino At Heart project called EZcontrol.IT, crowdfunding now on Indiegogo, and designed to simplify the world  of internet of things:

EZcontrol.IT offers dedicated hardware that is affordable and easy to use, compatible and programmable with the Arduino™ IDE and language; designed to interact with a full and extensive software platform: Lelylan, that is an open, easy to use and personalize, cloud platform for Home Automation.

The project is composed by:

•  EZboard, a low power consumption Arduino compatible board, equipped with an onboard Ethernet controller, microSD card socket, temperature sensor, and power relay. It’s designed to run for long periods of time powered by batteries and it integrates all the hardware necessary to implement most of the common applications for Home Automation.
• Leylan platform, a very easy to use Home Automation cloud platform, universally compatible with any device capable of being connected to the web. It’s  based on the MQTT protocol (MQ Telemetry Transport), the same used by Facebook to send live updates to the mobile messaging applications, and offers a simple API that can be used to program basically any platform.

EZcontrol.IT decided to join the Arduino AtHeart program to better identify this solution as dedicated to makers, and to remark the compatibility with the Arduino platform at the highest possible level.

EZboard in bundle with Lelylan is available starting today for a short initial period of pre-order, with packages for makers and extremely affordable early-birds offers. Make your pledge!

Read more on MAKE

Recent declines in honey bee populations raised attention of many scientists and now makers started activating swell.

The Open Source Beehives (OSBH) project is a collaborative response to the threat faced by Bee populations in industrialised nations around the world.
They’ve just launched a campaign on Indiegogo and are waiting for your contribution.

The campaign will help to build new sensors to understand the behaviour of the bees and the pollutants that are killing them. Also the production of the hives relies on the Fab Lab Network, which makes it able to be produced anywhere in the world. The project is proudly powered by the Arduino At Heart Smart Citizen Kit.

Jonathan Minchin, the bee-man in the lab , told us:

The development team is made up of makers, technologists, entomologists and is being led by a wide ranging community of beekeepers. The OSBH team came together in 2013 from the Fab Lab Barcelona, OKNO in Brussels and the Open Tech Collaborative in Denver with the shared objective of designing hives that can support Bee colonies in a sustainable way. To monitor and track the health and behaviour of a colony as it develops and to engage an active and diverse community to respond to the threats faced by Bees.

Work began to design our Internet-connected beehives and to put them into backyards everywhere. The aim is to grow a citizen-led beehive network that both strengthens bee populations and generates insightful hive data, ultimately we want to help discover what is causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The Smart Citizen platform and (SCK) sensor kit with Arduino at heart provides a perfect fit with the aims of the project in that it allows us to quickly and efficiently develop a powerful and specialised sensor shield adapted for use within a Beehive. The data we produce can also be published openly to the Smart Citizen online platform and shared with the community.

The data from the hives will help beekeepers and scientists monitor the temperature, humidity and relevant sound frequencies coming from within the hives in a non-intrusive way. This data helps them to understand what the colony is doing and how it reacts to environmental changes. We are also working with sensors that can measure the weight of the hive and monitor air born pollutants that might affect the bees. The data collected from each hive is published together with geolocations, allowing for a further comparison and analysis between the hives.

These sensor enhanced hive designs as well as the electronic schematics are being published openly and can be downloaded and made locally at a Fab Labs or any other maker space. The hives along with different options to support the project can be ordered through our current crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Now watch the video to look at some visual details and meet the other collaborators:

Read more on MAKE

The power of infrared light was widely and best appreciated with invention of television’s remote controls. The signal between a remote control handset and the device it controls, consists of pulses of infrared light, which is not visible to the human eye.

Tomorrow at MakerFaire Dublin you’ll we able to see the work of AnalysIR, a project that is taking this technology to a whole new level.

They implemented a Windows application which connects to an Arduino with the addition of an IR receiver and can decode new IR signals in a fraction of the time: no need for expensive Logic Analyzers or Oscilloscopes.

Here they are with their Indiegogo campaign:

At MakerFaire they will be showing some cool demos of what you can do with IR like generating electricity, seeing the invisible -Using iPhone & Android camera to check if TV remote is working, long range TV remote Control Demo Using Optics and many more applications for a total of 10 installations. Look out for them on Saturday!

Annikken Andee is a Bluetooth Arduino shield, currently on an Indiegogo campaign, that let  Arduino communicate with  Android device without writing Android code.

With the growing popularity of smart phones in this time and era it’s interesting to explore how Arduino could tap on the strength of smart phones – touch screen capability and smart phone capability. However for the integration to work, one has to develop the corresponding Smart phone app to handle the bluetooth communication and provide a stable GUI on the screen.

Therefore to make things easier for Arduino developers who wish to tap on the power on smartphone, the Singapore-based team came up Annikken Andee project, an Arduino shield, with supporting resources, that performs primarily the following actions:

• handles the communication between Android and Arduino
• GUI creation on smartphone by coding on Arduino. Requires no Smartphone App programming
• accesses to Smartphone functions from Arduino Library
• provides larger, portable and non-volatile storage

The shield communicates with Arduino via the ICSP header (SPI) and pin 8. An SD card Reader is available for external data storage for Arduino –  for huge data storage or extended period of data logging activity by Arduino. As Android has yet to support for Bluetooth 4.0/BLE, they are using bluetooth 2.1 module WT11i by Bluegiga for communicating with the Android phone. Currently the shield supports Arduino Uno, Mega and Leonardo.

Robin, part of the Team Annikken Ande, wrote us:

With Andee, Arduino user can program the UI on their Android phone by downloading the Andee Arduino Library onto their Arduino IDE and the Andee Android App into their Android phone from google play store. Using the functions in the Arduino library, user can easily design the UI on the Andee Android App without touching Android programming.

As we hope to spread the news of this invention to as many people as possible, we believe that arduino.cc is the perfect place to help us make this work.

A wireless mesh Arduino board with USB, LiPo battery charger, built in range testing and over-the-air programming… cheap enough to leave in your project!

Gregor @ inDevice.ca have developed a low cost wireless Arduino board. It is based on the ATMega128RFA1 and uses Atmel’s wireless mesh stack. It also has a built in V-USB port for the bootoader and serial terminal and is fully compatible with Arduino. Some other unique features weʼve added is built-in range testing and wireless programming. There is a new video up showing two wireless boards working together and accepting commands from a WiFi shield. Right now they have a page up on Indiegogo, check it out.

miniSWARM – Scalable Wireless Arduino Radio Module - [Link]

iKazoo  is a prototype for an open source platform using Arduino and  recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.  It’s a multifunctional device assistant for entertainment with a  touch and shock sensitive surface. It can easily record or alter your voice but also play many types of instrument.  You can use it as a optical game controller and even as a brush on your pad. The hardware  contains sensors that can monitor all body movements and become a step counter.  Here’s the video presentation:

When I asked them why they chose Arduino, Nasrin Zadeh – the founder of the project -  told me:

We chose Arduino and the Processing platform as we know that there are many creative minds out there who want to program and test  functions  outdoor and on the fly. So in fact, the iKazoo is a mobile Arduino, which interacts with your mobile device, wherever you are. See it as a mobile mini lab. Of course it’s pre-programmed for those who just want to have some fun or personal assistance in sport, fitness wellness our to entertain friends with creative tunes.

iKazoo comes with an App, which contains a look-up table to link audio and sensors to any application of your smart device. So, the user decides what and how to control smart phones, tablets, PC’s, synthesizers or robots. We like the community to support us for the sake of mutual fun experience. Arduino gives the freedom and ease to express and realize creative ideas on the fly.