The Monday Jolt

So You Have a Raspberry Pi… Now What?

So You Have a Raspberry Pi… Now What?

I love talking to people about Raspberry Pi, but quite often I hear people say, “I just bought a Raspberry Pi and I don’t know what to do with it!” I understand this dilemma. When I’m playing with a cool new technology that has so many possible uses, it can sometimes feel a bit paralyzing […]

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The Toa Mata Arduino-MIDI Robot Percussion Band

The Toa Mata Arduino-MIDI Robot Percussion Band

Italian maker and sound producer Giuseppe Acito built this robot percussion band by combining LEGO Bionicle bots, an Arduino Uno, and an iPad MIDI sequencer app.

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Build a 3D Scanner Out of Junk… in 24 Hours

Build a 3D Scanner Out of Junk… in 24 Hours

Last June, the LVL1 hackerspace in Louisville, KY, held a 24-hour hackathon, where several teams stayed up all night, competing with each other to use an Arduino, a breadboard, as well as any components they could harvest from LVL1’s junkpile, to build the coolest project possible. Joe Pugh and his fellow members Aaron Verdow, Tim […]

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Hacking on the Frontier of Gestural Input

Hacking on the Frontier of Gestural Input

When the Microsoft Kinect game controller came onto the scene in 2010, the maker community immediately saw its potential as an input device for 3D scanning, gestural input, and spacial recognition. Initially, Microsoft didn’t like the idea of people hacking their product, but it didn’t stop the most eager among us from successfully cracking the […]

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Making Magic with Arduino

Making Magic with Arduino

Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is a neat trick. But how about wowing crowds of kids with an old suitcase that performs magic thanks to 18 synchronized, Arduino-powererd servos that whir about hidden from view?

In many respects Mario “the Magician” Marchese, with his narrow suspenders and pork pie hat, is an old-school magician. He performs on the sidewalks of New York City with with nothing but the power of his voice and a bag full of tricks that looks like old timey, slapstick gags — epaulets that unexpectedly pop up in the air, banners that “accidentally” fall behind him, and spinning ribbons on his lapel.

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The Monday Jolt: HarvestGeek Rules the Greenhouse

The Monday Jolt: HarvestGeek Rules the Greenhouse

The Monday Jolt is a new series about microcontrollers and electronics that appears in MAKE every Monday morning. HarvestGeek is an ambitious project to automate a greenhouse or other growing environment through the use of a variety of sensors hooked up wirelessly to an Open Source, Arduino-compatible base station. An additional unit can trigger greenhouse […]

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The Monday Jolt: Bricktronics Expands the Possibilities of Lego

The Monday Jolt: Bricktronics Expands the Possibilities of Lego

The Monday Jolt is a new column about microcontrollers and electronics that appears in MAKE every Monday morning. Lego Mindstorms NXT is a fantastic educational robotics set that teaches kids and adults skills ranging from engineering to programming. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be cool to enhance those Lego robots with Arduino boards and shields? With that […]

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