PJRC Electronic Projects has come out with the $19 Teensy AVR development board. It uses the AT90USB162, which eliminates the need for a separate USB-to-TTL chip: The Teensy is a complete USB-based microcontoller development system, featuring a 16 MHz AVR (AT90USB162) processor, in a very small footprint! All programming is done via the USB port. […]
(image of solar-powered 802.15.4 node from Tom Igoe’s Making Things Talk) The Christian Science Monitor has an article on wireless sensor networks being used to sense and gather data from the environment: The hand-sized yellow objects poking up among the lush canopies at Camalie Vineyards aren’t a new variety of monster grape. They’re electronic devices […]
Here’s another Make: Books PDF excerpt. This one comes from Tom Igoe’s Making Things Talk, which tells you how to create Arduino- and XBee-powered devices that form networks of smart objects. This excerpt shows you how to work with two different distance rangefinders, the Sharp GPxx series of infrared rangers and the Devantech SRFxx series […]
Everybody seems to be messing with Arduino lately. So today was my chance to give it a go. Jimmie Rodgers of Willoughby and Baltic helped me set up the software on my laptop at Noise Night. It was incredibly easy, and he helped me to understand that the IDE for the ‘regular Arduinos’ is different […]
I made this scorpion toy with a Twitchie Robot Kit. I’m really afraid of scorpions where I live in Arizona, so I thought a friendly toy would help me get used to them. I made his plush body from some fabric I had around, aiming to make him look like an Arizona bark scorpion, which are tan/yellowish/translucent. Twitchie is Arduino powered and comes pre-programmed, so it’s an excellent kit for beginners in robotics, because no programming is required! You can download and modify the code if you want, and it’s pretty light on the soldering, too. I’d recommend Twitchie for young makers (boys & girls, too!) interested in robotics or moving plush toys. You can buy the Twitchie Robot Kit in the Maker Shed:
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKTET2
Music is “At the Crack of Noon” by Shuutobi, http://shuutobi.com
Tom Igoe, author of Making Things Talk, is in the rainforest in eastern Ecuador, applying his sensor and embedded hacking skills to tracking monkeys (from Part 4 of his adventure postings): This morning, Kevin and Tony and I went to look for titi monkeys. We didn’t find any, but we did manage to get lost, […]
Thermistors are pretty cool little items. They convert heat into resistance. By having the temperature available as resistance, you can use the value to control other things like circuits and programs. Photo cells do the same thing with light, and they are in lots of common devices from night lights to dimmers on clock radios. […]
