Planet Arduino

While Roald Hendriks is quite pleased with the build quality of the IKEA DUKTIG play kitchen, it does lack one thing—the ability to say “beep.”

This feature was requested by his daughter, who for her third birthday wanted “a kitchen that says beep, just like mommie’s.” Not wanting to disappoint, he dutifully installed an Arduino, along with a real-time clock module, buttons, and a speaker to allow her to set the cooking time, and have it count down just like the adult equivalent.

The mods are extremely well done, and the buttons and time display on the front look like they were meant to be there. Hendriks even installed lighting inside the oven so she can see what she’s baking!

Check it out in the video below!

Your coffee table can have many uses — it rests your drinks (with coasters, of course), stores miscellaneous items, adds some style to your living room, and even serves as the center of a conversation area. Up until now, though, one thing it hasn’t been was a music visualizer. But thanks to this guide from Make: Magazine, you’ll soon be able to start a dance party on demand using your $10 jumbo-sized IKEA side table.

Aside from the inexpensive piece of furniture, the project calls for an LED matrix, tons of lights, a mic, some small electronic components, and an Arduino Uno for its brain. This allows its display to react and “dance” to the tunes coming from your speakers. Since it employs a minimal amount of current, the good news is that you’ll be able to run it off an iPhone charger or any other USB port that’s nearby.

It’s based on the Tiny Music Visualizer project from Adafruit, using their I2C multiplexer board for a tiny 8×8 bicolor LED matrix. The Arduino code is from there, the circuit is from there — all I really created was a big handmade LED matrix, and put it into an IKEA table!

Plug its USB cable into a phone charger or any USB port, then crank up the tunes and enjoy watching the giant tricolor pixels dance like splashing fountains of spectrum analyzer goodness!

If you’re looking for an accessory that’ll be the light of your next shindig, head over to Make:’s full tutorial here. 

Use some LEDs to upgrade a $10 Ikea side table into a centerpiece that bumps and jives to the beat of your tunes. Get your freq on!

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The post Transform an Ikea Side Table into a Music Visualizer appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Mate Marschalko, who gave us the recent RC car over wireless and a racing wheel project now has a cool Ikea hack to share. He took an Ikea lamp and used a WiFi-enabled Arduino compatible microcontroller to create an alert notification light for his desk. He writes: This IKEA lamp […]

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The post Get Media Alerts from Your Lamp with This Ikea Hack appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.