Planet Arduino

praveen @ circuitstoday.com writes:

This article is a about a fully functional water level controller using Arduino. The circuit displays the level of water in the tank and switches the motor ON when the water level goes below a predetermined level. The circuit automatically switches the motor OFF when the tank is full. The water level and other important data are displayed on a 16×2 LCD display. The circuit also monitors the level of water in the sump tank (source tank). If the level in side the sump tank is low, the motor will not be switched ON and this protects the motor from dry running. A beep sound is generated when the level in the sump tank is low or if there is any fault with the sensors.

Water level controller using arduino - [Link]

There have been countless projects to make custom photo flash trigger circuits. Usually the circuits react to sound, triggering the camera flash at the moment a certain sound is triggered. That type of trigger can be used to detect the popping of a balloon or shattering of glass. Other triggers detect motion, like a projectile crossing a laser beam for example. [Udo's] friend had a fun idea to take photos of water balloons popping. Unfortunately neither of those trigger methods would be well suited for this situation. That’s when [Udo] had to get creative.

[Udo] built a unique trigger circuit that uses the water inside the balloon as the trigger. The core component of the circuit is an Arduino. One of the Arduino’s analog pins is configured to enable the internal pull-up resistor. If nothing else is connected to the pin, the Arduino will read 5 volts there. The pin is connected to a needle on the end of a stick. There is a second needle on the same stick, just a short distance away from the first. When these needles pierce the balloon’s skin, the water inside allows for a brief moment of conductivity between the two pins. The voltage on the analog pin then drops slightly, and the Arduino can detect that the balloon has popped.

[Udo] already had a flash controller circuit. He was able to trigger it with the Arduino by simply trying the flash controller’s trigger pin to one of the Arduino’s pins. If the Arduino pulls the pin to ground, it closes the switch on the flash controller and the flash is triggered. Both circuits must share a common ground in order for this to work.

All of the code for [Udo's] project is freely available. With such spectacular photographs, it’s only a matter of time before we see more of these floating around.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks

The Drink Up Fountain is project created in September 2014 by YesYesNo Interactive studio in collaboration with Partnership for a Healthier America’s Honorary Chair – First Lady Michelle Obama, and Y&R New York, VML New York creative agencies, dedicated to encouraging people to drink more water more often: “You are what you drink, and when you drink water you drink up!”

The Fountain runs on Arduino Mega  and

dispenses entertaining greetings and compliments intended to entice the drinker to continue sipping. When a drinker’s lips touch the water, the fountain “talks,” completing a circuit and activating speakers. When the drinker pulls his or her head away and stops drinking, the circuit breaks and the fountain stops talking. With hidden cameras set up, Drink Up caught unsuspecting individuals using the fountain in New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park

Take a look at the video to see how the fountain interacts the people:

It’s great having fresh vegetables just a few steps away from the kitchen, but it takes work to keep those plants healthy. [Pierre] found this out the hard way after returning from vacation to find his tomato plant withering away. He decided to put an end to this problem by building his own solar-powered plant watering system (page in French, Google translation).

An Arduino serves as the brain of the system. It’s programmed to check a photo resistor every ten minutes. At 8:30PM, the Arduino will decide how much to water the plants based on the amount of sunlight it detected throughout the day. This allows the system to water the plants just the right amount. The watering is performed by triggering a 5V relay, which switches on a swimming pool pump.

[Pierre] obviously wanted a “green” green house, so he is powering the system using sunlight. A 55 watt solar panel recharges a 12V lead acid battery. The power from the battery is stepped down to the appropriate 5V required for the Arduino. Now [Pierre] can power his watering system from the very same energy source that his plants use to grow.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks, green hacks

singingshark @ instructables.com writes:

Welcome! For our Environmental Capstone class (senior thesis) for St. Olaf College we built a monitor that would effectively monitor how much water a shower uses. For our project we made four different monitors using the same process. This instructable is written as if you were to make a single water monitor. [...]

Shower Monitor Arduino with LCD display - [Link]

“Anastatica sensibile” is an installation created to study around natural processes as medium for interactivity. It was designed last year by the italian artist Daniela Di Maro in collaboration with the Software Architecture Laboratory of Milan.

The installation has been conceived around the properties of a specific plant species, the Rose of Jericho (Selaginella Lepidophylla): a desert plant known for its ability to survive in almost complete drought conditions.

During dry weather in its native habitat, its stems curl into a tight ball looking like a bare root, but after watering it, it turns green in about one day and that’s why some call it “resurrection plant”.

The installation irrigates  45 Roses of Jericho controlling them with an interactive system that monitors the number of people around the installation and activates watering according to it:

When the number significantly increases, one plant is randomly selected: the LED of the selected plant blinks for ten seconds. When a plant has been selected for a certain number of times, the digital system irrigates the plant and its LED is turned on […] An irrigated plant is excluded by the selection process for about four days, a time sufficient for the plant to regenerate itself and then to return in the “closed” state because
of the absence of water.

 

Two electronic control units  manage forty five LEDs and forty-five electro-valves, using an Arduino Mega microcontroller each, plus a specific, self-made Printed Circuit Board.

 

 

You can read the specifics of the project on this PDF hosted on the project page in the Bicocca Open Archive.

 

Arduino is not only for hobby projects, there are also good way to use it to semplify your work. This is a good example, submitted by [sspence65].

This is a project I did at work to control two water baths for a process control. Two custom tanks have to be kept at 180F, using DS18b20 temp sensors, an Arduino 2560, 4 SSR’s, and $15 1500 watt electric elements.

On the [website] you can find all about the project, included the code for the Arduino Mega.

Instead of cricking your neck to drink from a water fountain, what if the fountain cricked its neck for you? Tropism Well is an interactive sculpture that senses when someone is near and bows to pour water into a glass.