Planet Arduino

Congratulations to the winner of this year’s Hackaday Prize, Alberto Molina Perez! Inspired by Bruce Lee’s famous water quote, Dtto is a self-reconfigurable robot that can adopt any shape by simply changing the position and connection of its 3D-printed modules.

A coupling mechanism on both ends allows the sections to assemble themselves in various configurations and carry out complex tasks in unison. They can chain together to create a snake-like robot, turn into a wheel, or even form a bridge to get over a gap. Impressively, this is all accomplished autonomously. The goal is that, one day, Dtto’s versatility will enable it to perform rescue missions and explore unknown environments without any human intervention.

As Hackaday notes, each module consists of two boxes, rounded on one side, linked by a bar. One half houses all of the electronics, which includes an Arduino Nano, a Bluetooth chip, an NRF2401+ radio transceiver, two SG92R Tower Pro servos for hinging, and three Tower Pro SG90 micro servos for coupling, while the other leaves space for additional features, such as a camera, microphone and speakers, multiple sensors, actuators, or more batteries.

You can read more about the project on its Hackaday.io page, and be sure to check out its latest demo reel below!

For most of us, our touch-screen smartphones have become an indispensable accessory. Without thinking we tap and swipe our way through our digital existence, the promise of ubiquitous truly portable computing has finally been delivered.

Smartphones present a problem though to some people with physical impairments. A touchscreen requires manual dexterity on a scale we able-bodied people take for granted, but remains a useless glass slab to someone unable to use their arms.

LipSync is a project that aims to address the problem of smartphone usage for one such group, quadriplegic people. It’s a mouth-operated joystick for the phone’s on-screen cursor, with sip-and-puff vacuum control for simulating actions such as screen taps and the back button.

To the smartphone itself, the device appears as a standard Bluetooth pointing device, while at its business end the joystick and pressure sensor both interface to a Bluetooth module through an Arduino Micro. The EAGLE board and schematic files are available on the project’s hackaday.io page linked above, and there is a GitHub repository for the code.

Technology is such a part of our lives these days, and it’s great to see projects like this bridge the usability gaps for everyone.  Needless to say, it’s a perfect candidate for the Assistive Technology round of the Hackaday Prize.

We’re still not sure exactly how [connornishijima]’s motion detector works, though many readers offered plausible explanations in the comments the last time we covered it. It works well enough, though, and he’s gone and doubled down on the Arduino way and bundled it up nicely into a library.

In the previous article we covered [connor] demonstrating the motion detector. Something about the way the ADC circuit for the Arduino is wired up makes it work. The least likely theory so far involves life force, or more specifically, the Force… from Star Wars. The most likely theories are arguing between capacitance and electrostatic charge.

Either way, it was reliable enough a phenomenon that he put the promised time in and wrote a library. There’s even documentation on the GitHub. To initialize the library simply tell it which analog pin is hooked up, what the local AC frequency is (so its noise can be filtered out), and a final value that tells the Arduino how long to average values before reporting an event.

It seems to work well and might be fun to play with or wow the younger hackers in your life with your wizarding magics.

Blood glucose monitors are pretty ubiquitous today. For most people with diabetes, these cheap and reliable sensors are their primary means of managing their blood sugar. But what is the enterprising diabetic hacker to do if he wakes up and realizes, with horror, that a primary aspect of his daily routine doesn’t involve an Arduino?

Rather than succumb to an Arduino-less reality, he can hopefully use the shield [M. Bindhammer] is working on to take his glucose measurement into his own hands.

[Bindhammer]’s initial work is based around the popular one-touch brand of strips. These are the cheapest, use very little blood, and the included needle is not as bad as it could be. His first challenge was just getting the connector for the strips. Naturally he could cannibalize a monitor from the pharmacy, but for someone making a shield that needs a supply line, this isn’t the best option. Surprisingly, the connectors used aren’t patented, so the companies are instead just more rigorous about who they sell them to. After a bit of work, he managed to find a source.

The next challenge is reverse engineering the actual algorithm used by the commercial sensor. It’s challenging. A simple mixture of water and glucose, for example, made the sensor throw an error. He’ll get it eventually, though, making this a great entry for the Hackaday Prize.

[Sergey Mironov] sent in his SelfieBot project. His company, Endurance Robots, sells a commercial version of the bot, which leads us to believe that in a strange and maybe brilliant move he decided to just sell the prototype stage of the product development as a kit. Since he also gave away the firmware, STLs, BOM, and made a guide so anyone can build it, we’re not complaining.

The bot is simple enough. Nicely housed hobby servos in a 3D printed case take care of the pan and tilt of the camera. The base of the bot encloses the electronics, which are an Arduino nano, a Bluetooth module, and the support electronics for power and motor driving.

To perform the face tracking, the build assumes you have a second phone. This is silly, but isn’t so unreasonable. Most people who’ve had a smart phone for a few years have a spare one living in a drawer as back-up. One phone runs the face tracking software and points the bot, via Bluetooth, towards the user. The other phone records the video.

The bot is pretty jumpy in the example video, but this can be taken care of with better motors. For a proof-of-concept, it works. A video of it in action after the break.

We live in a connected world, but that world ends not far beyond the outermost cell phone tower. [John Grant] wants to be connected everywhere, even in regions where no mobile network is available, so he is building a solar powered, handheld satellite messenger: The MyComm – his entry for the Hackaday Prize.

The MyComm is a handheld touch-screen device, much like a smartphone, that connects to the Iridium satellite network to send and receive text messages. At the heart of his build, [John] uses a RockBLOCK Mk2 Iridium SatComm Module hooked up to a Teensy 3.1. The firmware is built upon a FreeRTOS port for proper task management. [John] crafted an intuitive GUI that includes an on-screen keyboard to write, send and receive messages. A micro SD card stores all messages and contact list entries. Eventually, the system will be equipped with a solar cell, charging regulator and LiPo battery for worldwide, unconditional connectivity.

2016 will be an interesting year for the Iridium network since the first satellites for the improved (and backward-compatible) “Iridium NEXT” network are expected to launch soon. At times the 66 Iridium satellites currently covering the entire globe were considered a $5B heap of space junk due to deficiencies in reliability and security. Yet, it’s still there, with maker-friendly modems being available at $250 and pay-per-use rates of about 7 ct/kB (free downstream for SDR-Hackers). Enjoy the video of [John] explaining the MyComm user interface:

An entry in this year’s Hackaday Prize, Dtto is a snake-like robot designed to be modular and self-reconfigurable.

Inspired by Bruce Lee’s famous water quote, Dtto can transform into various shapes by changing the position and connection of its 3D-printed modules. As Hackaday points out, each section of Dtto is a double-hinged joint. When two come together, magnets help them align. A servo-controlled latch solidly docks the sections, which then work in unison. Impressively, it can connect and separate segments autonomously – without any human intervention. Creator Alberto believes the versatility of the bot will enable it to perform rescue missions, explore unknown environments, and operate in space.

The open-source robot consists of an Arduino Nano, a Bluetooth HC-06 module, an NRF2401+ radio transceiver, two SG92R Tower Pro servos for main movement, three Tower Pro SG90 micro servos for coupling, and a WS2812 RGB LED. For its latest iteration, the Maker has made a few design improvements to allot for 25% more internal space, a data bus connecting the two blocks and Tower Pro MG92B motors. Future modules will even include a built-in camera, an ultrasonic sensor, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer, to name just a few. Until then, you can follow along on its project page and check out a few of its videos below.

Eyedrivomatic uses the same technology utilized for text-to-speech in order to build a motorized wheelchair you can move with your eyes.

Read more on MAKE

The post Eye-Tracking Wheelchair Control Design Wins Hackaday Prize appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

If someone lobs a grenade, it’s fair to expect that something unpleasant is going to happen. Tear gas grenades are often used by riot police to disperse an unruly crowd, and the military might use a smoke grenade as cover to advance on an armed position, or to mark a location in need of an airstrike. But some gas grenades are meant to help, not hurt, like this talking gas-sensing grenade that’s a 2015 Hackaday Prize entry.

Confined space entry is a particularly dangerous aspect of rescue work, especially in the mining industry. A cave in or other accident can trap not only people, but also dangerous gasses, endangering victims and rescuers alike. Plenty of fancy robots have been developed that can take gas sensors deep into confined spaces ahead of rescuers, but [Eric William] figured out a cheaper way to sniff the air before entering. An MQ2 combination CO, LPG and smoke sensor is interfaced to an Arduino Nano, and a 433MHz transmitter is attached to an output. A little code measures the data from the sensors and synthesizes human voice readings which are fed to the transmitter. The whole package is stuffed into a tough, easily deployed package – a Nerf dog toy! Lobbed into a confined space, the grenade begins squawking its readings out in spoken English, which can be received by any UHF handy-talkie in range. [Eric] reports in the after-break video that he’s received signals over a block away – good standoff distance for a potentially explosive situation.

With the expanding supply of cheap sensors available these days, the possibilities are endless for ideas like this. It wouldn’t be that hard to add temperature, humidity and pressure sensors to the grenade, or maybe even the alcohol and ammonia sensors from this sensor suite. Add in sensors for things like particulates, vibration, and radiation, and pretty soon you’ve got a grenade that could do a lot of good.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

[Reinier van der Lee] owns a vineyard in southern California – a state that is in a bit of a water crisis. [Reinier van der Lee] also owns an arduino and a soldering iron. He put together a project the reduces his water usage by 25%, and has moved it to open source land. It’s called the Vinduino.

Its operation is straight forward. You put a water sensor in the dirt. You turn on the water. When the water hits the sensor, you turn the water off. This was not, however, the most efficient method. The problem is by the time the sensor goes off, the soil is saturated to the point that the plant cannot take it all up, and water is wasted.

The problem was solved by using three sensors. The lowest most sensor is placed below the roots. So it should never go off. If it does, the plant is not taking in all the water, and you can reduce the output. The two sensors above it monitor the water as it transitions through the soil, so it knows when to decrease the water amount and watering cycle times.

Be sure to check out the project details. All code and build files are available on his github under the GNU General Public License 3.0

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by: