Unity3D hacker Pieter Floris writes in to say that he's Patrick Gutlich has finally got his Arduino connected compass controlling a camera in Unity3D. The barrier of entry continues to be lowered by projects like this. Kudos, Patrick!

More:

Updated Power Glove with Bluetooth and Arduino

Hector of Make: en Español sent us this piece from the site:

What happens when you give an Arduino to a student whose resources barely provide for the most basic maker needs, but is nonetheless eager to create something awesome? You get tech-art in the making.

David Busto Torres, the newest member of the elite robotics club from ITESM SLP campus (Mexico), shares with us his creation. It is a robot made only with an Arduino, some Ethernet cable, a couple of IR LEDs, two salvaged DC motors, an improvised H-bridge, and of course, some Lego bricks.

The total cost was less than US$10 (around $100 Mexican pesos) -- the Arduino was provided by the crew at Make: en Español.

David promised to share a video with us once he's finished creating an Arduino shield to replace all the cables and improve the robot's aesthetics, but for me, what could be more beautiful than the pictures above?

[Thanks, Hector!]

Any hams out there that need a quick-and-dirty morse code beacon? Then you might be interested in Mark VandeWettering's Arduino Based Morse Beacon. I really like the clever way that he stores the code sequences for each character:

It's a little bit clever (a very little bit) but I guess it does require some explanation. Morse code characters are all length six or less, and each element is either a dot or a dash, so it would seem that we can store the pattern in six bits. Let's say that dits are zero and dahs are one. Lets store them so the first element gets stored in the least significant bit, and the next in the second most, and so on. The only trick is knowing when there are no elements left, because otherwise we can't tell (for example) K (-.-) from C (-.-.) To do that, we store a single extra one after all the other elements are taken care of. Then, when we are looping, we do the following. If the pattern is equal to one, we are done (that's our guard bit). If not, we look at the least significant digit. If it is a zero, we have a dit, if we have a one, it's a dah. We then get rid of that element (by dividing by two, or shifting right if that floats your boat) and repeat. Voila. Each character takes only a single byte to store its pattern, and decoding is just done in a few instructions.

Mark admits that using an Arduino for this is a bit of overkill, however I think that convenience trumps component cost for one-of projects like this. If you are up for the challenge, however, you could probably build one with more esoteric components, such as an EEPROM+counter, or even a music-box type mechanical system. Anyone create something crazy cool like that?

In the Maker Shed:

Make: Arduino

Living in the UK, Jim hadn't experienced an earthquake firsthand. After watching recent quakes unfold in Indonesia, he decided to create a device that would keep him aware of the Earth's seismic events. His Seismic Reflector uses a Processing-based software monitor which feeds data to very motorized Arduino -

The aim is to build a device which responds to earthquakes being reported in near-real time via the USGS RSS feeds. The device responds by illustrating the magnitude of the reported earthquake via two fairly chunky vibration motors of the kind used in video game controllers. The device is connected to a PC via a virtual com port over USB (thanks to an on board Arduino). On the PC, an application sits there checking the RSS feed periodically and when a new event it posted to the RSS feed, the desktop app parses the data out of it and presents the magnitude of the quake to the Arduino which interpreters this as rate at which to activate the vibration motors.
[…]
I'd just like to stress that this project is about empathising in some small way with victims of earthquakes.  I'm not trying to make light of peoples anguish or suffering, and I'm not trying to play on peoples fears of an impending "big one".  I do not experience many earthquakes where I live, but I know a lot of people around the world (specifically around the Med and the Pacific) do.  This is my attempt to understand that feeling a bit better.

In the Maker Shed:

MotorShield for Arduino Kit

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

ITP students Hana, Ania, and Greg built this augmented xylophone, the multixylophoniomnibus. Despite having a basically unpronounceable name, the project looks nice and they have a very in-depth review of the process that they went through in order to produce a working product. Nice job!

They also have a large number of photos available in their Flickr photo set.

Like Tetris, but tired of playing it alone in the dark on your Game Boy? Well, now you can rejoice, for Luyza Pereira and Bettina Hiel have brought Tetris into the era of physical computing with their installation Tetris meets Arduino. The result is about what one would expect, and with the addition of a tilt sensor to turn the blocks, looks like a pretty fun game. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any details of the build available, however it should be pretty straightforward to re-make. [via dudecraft]

Spikenzie Labs shares some glamour shots of the new Hardcopy Arduino prototyping board -

Designed to make a permanent version (or Hardcopy if you will) of your project once you have perfected it on a breadboard but without the expense of embedding your original Arduino into your project. The hardcopy also makes your project more reliable and robust. With the prototyping area integrated into the board with the microprocessor, your project will have fewer boards and fewer wires, and because of that, fewer mistakes and fewer shorts.

Miketron converted his random MIDI note generation software(MAC/PC) into hardware form via an ATMega168 chip -

A couple of months I took my MAX/MSP code for Random7 and rewrote so I could embed it into a hardware version.  Random7 Hardware Version 1 (R7H) is a very basic version of the Random7 software.  The core element of R7H is still the same,  the program pick from 7 different midi notes randomly.  As of now the key R7H is preset to the key of A Major, and the only control is a potentiometer that controls the speed of R7H.  Output for R7H is a midi port, an on/off switch, and there is also a red led the flashes everytime a note is sent.

J44 outlines his steps for converting a basic gaming light gun into a custom Laser Tag-like system, including gun and head mounted 'hit' detectors (a la Photon) -

I hope many of you will find this instructable useful and will go on to build your own duino taggers. There is much scope for improving and upgrading this system outlined here. If you do go on to improve on this duinotagger please share your work and hopefully in time the system will evolve into a much richer gaming experience.

Related:

Build your own laser tag system

YouTuber jodex96 souped up the basic Arduino EMF detector project with a piezo buzzer. The resulting audio feedback from the device is reminiscent of a geiger counter - very cool! I'm loving all the variations people are cooking up for this one.

Related:

Making the Arduino EMF Detector

Maker Aki Mimoto wrote in to let us know about his exciting new Arduino/VR/Web app mashup. He's wired up his wife's bike on a stationary platform to an Arduino using a reed sensor. Using the sensor data from the bike, along with data from a head mounted display (HMD), Ari is able to accurately pinpoint his position within Google Street View. Additional data from the HMD allows Ari to look around at his surroundings for a true VR experience.

Pragmatically explained, it means that I don't have to sit in the darkness or stare at my garage door while I'm huffing away. Hopefully once this is done, I'll be able to spend a few nights a week pedalling away downstairs and work my way across the US or Australia over the course of the year.

In the Maker Shed:

Make: Arduino

Say you want to build a re-programmable toy, but the person you are making it for doesn't have access to a computer. How could you do it? Charlie Robinson looked to the past to solve this problem with his Arduino Cassette Engine. His project allows an Arduino to interpret specially coded audio files as binary data, which can then be stored to a memory card. The current version seems to be just storing the data, however there is no conceptual reason why this couldn't be used to actually reprogram the device once it is downloaded.

So, why is this interesting? Well, if the Arduino can be programmed using audio, then suddenly anything with a speaker can be made into a programmer. I think it would be pretty funny if you could use, say, a garden variety cell phone with some Java software to write programs for your micro.

What do you think, is there some potential here, or would it be better to just give aspiring programmers a regular computer to hack on? [Thanks Matt!]

Arduino photo by Matt Biddulph.

Cyrille built this MIDI fader box based on Arduino complete with desktop config software - looks perfect for one-handed live usage. Check out the photoset for the full feature list.

Electronic Brick starter kit includes:

• (1) Arduino sensor chassis
• (1) LCD 16*2 Characters
• (1) Rotary Angle Sensor (Analog)
• (1) Button Switch
• (1) Piezo buzzer
• (1) Tilt Switch
• (2) LEDs
• (1) Light Sensor
• (1) Temperature Sensor
• (1) 2-pin Plugable terminal module
• (5) Fully-buckled 3 Wire Cables
• (1) 10-pin Colorful Ribbon Cable (for connecting the LCD)

Don't want to cut the cable on your Nunchuck or buy a teeny circuit board to do the trick when you have etching capability at home? Instructables user dany32412's Nunchuck Arduino adapter tutorial uses pretty much the same layout as Tod Kurt's, but you make it yourself!

We're using a hazer to make the laser beams visible, which works surprisingly well in this semi-open space. To increase the spectacle we installed a few extra lasers that are not being sensed for tripwires, but just look cool. The heisters won't know which these are, however, so it adds to the challenge without increasing complexity.

In this side view you can see what happens when you break too many beams: lots of lights come on, including a blinding, red LED array. For this Tod used an Arduino-controlled AC optical relay. I'm hoping Tod will write up the whole project for a MAKE article, because he has all kinds of neat tricks like this throughout.

The event is shaping up to be truly wonderful, and affords the attendee a rare chance to hang out in Mister Jalopy's secret underground lair. I'm totally shameless, so if you ask I'll eat some laser for you. There are still a few tickets available, hope to see you there!

Related:
Laser tripwires for Machine Project art heist
Machine Project Benefit 2009

Ever wished that when you play air guitar, it would make real sounds instead of just the ones from your best death metal face? David Fournier, Jean-Louis Giordano, Monireh Sanaei, Maziar Shelbaf and Gustav Sohtell are here to help. They build the AIRduino guitar, a wearable virtual instrument. Open source with full documentation, naturally. [via Fashioning Technology]

Care to hand control of your playlist over you to an Arduino?

Awhile back I was working on a project that that I wanted to be able to start music the on my mac through the IR receiver. After a while of looking around I found this library  which allows you to use your arduino as an Apple Remote. I integrated it in to my project and it worked great! So the other day I decided to make an Apple Remote shield for my arduino.

David King built this stoplight costume for his oldest daughter. It's his first Arduino project. Besides flashing the expected red, green, and yellow lights, it incorporates an Adafruit WaveShield to play music. [Thanks, David!]

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino WaveShield Kit

My wife and I are making a robot Halloween costume and I just finished the electronics design prototype. I wanted to wait until the costume was finished before revealing it but I'm too excited that I finished my circuit and coding. That's a video of it, and I want to describe it a little. It uses an Adafruit Wave Shield for the sounds, and an antique analog gauge I found at Gateway Electronics here in St. Louis. There's an infrared beam pair from Sparkfun, which will be watching the "candy input slot" on the robot's chest. The gauge displays the count, until too much candy is inserted and it goes crazy. Then after 20 seconds of no more candy, the candy count gets reset, to be ready to do it all over again at the next house. In the sketch, I used these AlphaBeta libraries: LED, button, TimedAction, and Scheduler. These made coding this sketch very easy. He even updated Scheduler with a clear() for me. Thanks again for that! The hardest part was getting it all to work together. I had been trying to use pin 9 for the gauge, and it crashed the sketch. I did more reading and found out you can't do PWM on 9 with the Wave libraries because of the timer. Pin 6 works fine though. The beep sound loop I found on my mac, I think it came from iMovie. The speech is recorded synthesis also from my mac, made like this from a terminal: say -o outputfile.aiff "thing to say" This makes an aiff file. Then I used iTunes to convert all the sound files to WAV with the right settings for the Wave Shield. The chaser LEDs are going to surround the Arduino in a shadow box sort of thing, so people can see the controller, and to punch it up so it isn't so boring. ;D

Detail shots of the electronic components in the robot costume my wife and I built. She did all the painting and papercraft, and I did the electronics. Systems include an Arduino with Adafruit Wave Shield for sound effects, and a proto shield that you see with all the wires and resistors. They are wired to the antique analog gauge on the front panel, which reacts to the IR pair from SparkFun in the Input slot. The speech is recorded synthesis from my Mac. Sayings are: "Candy, my favorite fuel," "Yum yum yum...," "You will be spared from the robot uprising, thank you human," and "Warning! Candy overload!" And on the front panel just for eye candy is a Game of Life kit from the Maker Shed/Adafruit.

Eric Lowry built this sweet WoW magic-user costume for his son. It has LED health and mana bars, LED magic power in the gloves, and an LED, er, "touch-sensitive fairy companion." There's one Arduino for the gloves and status bars, and another for the companion.

By Kris Magri, engineering intern

How I designed Makey, Part II: Creating the "stretchy" robot body in Inventor

When designing Makey the Robot for MAKE, Volume 19, I ran into a problem that plagues all kinds of designers -- how to continually redesign a body to accommodate changes in whatever's crammed inside it?

Once I'd sketched out Makey's configuration and modeled the major parts in Autodesk Inventor 3D modeling software, I really got into some of Inventor's awesome features. Inventor has three basic design types you work with: sketches, parts, and assemblies. Up to this point I had designed each individual component, including Makey's robot body, as a part, as shown in Figure A.

Fig. A: Makey's sheet metal body, near-final version, shown as a single part in Autodesk Inventor. Because I designed it as a component of an assembly, all the mounting holes and dropouts are perfectly aligned to internal robot components; if I move the components, Inventor automatically moves the holes.

Once I had these parts modeled, I placed them together into an assembly, as in Figure B. Then, I attempted to stretch the robot body as needed by making that part "Adaptive" inside the assembly. (That's what Inventor calls "stretchy" parts, and it's a powerful feature.)

Fig. B: Makey's body shown as part of an assembly in Inventor, constrained to the edges of the motors (at bottom, in blue). If I move the motors, the body automatically stretches to accommodate the new motor positions. Similarly, I constrained the battery boxes (at top, in tan) to the body, so wherever the body stretches, the battery boxes follow automatically. Nice!

Also, I cut holes into the body where I needed them for mounting the motors. This was the wrong approach! It seemed to work, but when I looked at the robot body as a part, outside of the assembly, the holes I had made weren't shown. They had simply vanished.

The reason for this is that Inventor can't know ahead of time how you're going to use a part. You could design one part that could be used in multiple assemblies, so if you alter the base part in any way inside one particular assembly, the alteration exists only in the assembly, but the base part is unchanged. Thus, my changes didn't "take hold."

The key was to create the robot body from inside the assembly. You can actually be inside an assembly and make a brand-new part. To do this, in the Assembly Panel area, instead of selecting Place Component, choose Create Component.

I ended up first creating what I called a "base plate," which existed solely to help me anchor all the parts, including the robot body. It would not be a part I would actually fabricate. I then placed the base plate, the motors, the Arduino, and the batteries into an assembly, using Place Component, and assembled it all by anchoring everything to the base plate (using constraints). This was pretty much what I had been doing before.

Now, still inside the assembly, I created a new part, via Create Component, which would become the robot body. I selected the material type Sheet Metal.ipt, since it's a sheet metal part, and created each bend and flange step by step, inside the assembly. This robot body now "belonged" to the assembly, and was adaptive inside the assembly. Any editing of it, from that point on, was always initiated from within the assembly.

Instead of making the body a specific width, I just made everything extra large with no dimensions. Once the body was formed, I finished editing, and now I was back inside the assembly with my new robot body. I then constrained the side of the body to an existing "edge" from another part, for instance, the sides of the motors (Figure B). When the constraint went into effect, the sides of the body "snapped" into place next to the motors. To make holes, I projected the motor mount holes onto the robot body, again edited the robot body part (from within the assembly), cut holes there, and then the holes "stayed put," so to speak.

Success at last -- I had modeled a fully adaptive robot body that I could easily modify to accommodate all the robot components I would be cramming inside it.

Next up: The battle to fit the brains inside.

More: How I designed Makey the robot, Part I: The first design

The Arduino-based synth project formerly known as binder synth is now known as Adasynth - and it sounds like development is coming along right nicely. Davitr0n provides some background on his project -

The goal of this project was to make a patchable synthesizer as versatile as we can while keeping the cost down.  Since I know how to program C++ and have a basic understanding of electronics we chose to use an arduino. So far we’ve stayed pretty true to that goal.  With just the arduino, a resistor chip, some recycled wood, and a lot of help in the form of interface components (plugs and jacks) from my old electronics teacher we have a working synthesizer.. and to be honest the results so far are much better than we expected.

Arduino Pocket Piano Synth Kit

Designed for use with the Pocket Piano shield for Arduino, Marc Nostromo's Squealer synthesis engine-

The engine implements a small monosynth with a few waveforms, a HP/BP/LP continuous resonant filter, decay and a few little own tricks that  generate a LOT of aliases, making a great dirty digital synth. Since the Pocket Piano has only 3 potentiometers available for control (the 4th one being hardwired to the volume), I use a "page" system to implement series of 3 parameters to fiddle with. To switch "page", use the rightmost note of the A.P (NOT the one under the led, the one left to to it). To help you know which page you are at, you can use the led: it will flash a number of time equivalent to the current page you are at.
Here's the parameter list:

• Page 1: wave selection / octave / release
• Page 2: filter type (continuous lp-bp-hp) / filter cut-off / filter resonance
• Page 3: wave loop position / wave loop length (makes the oscillators go wako)

Bar End Brake Light: BEBL

Augustson designed etched and assembled a specialized Arduino board for a new robotics project -

What is ADM 1.0? Basically we built an Arduino, added a Dual Motor Controller to it and a small prototyping area. Hence the name ADM (Arduino Dual Motor).  The board works and is programmed just like a normal Arduino. For the science fair, part of the rules stated we could not use an actual Arduino board, but were able to build or modify our own.

It should be able to work without being connected to an outlet. It should have lights and it shouldn't be to heavy to move around. Ateast not by a small wagon. And it should be loud. Not Mötorhead loud but loud enough. It should also be cheap enough so that I would not cry if it got trashed or stolen after a few gigs/parties.

In the Maker Shed:


In the Maker Shed: Arduino Duemilanove

Really sweet Mario costume with built-in classic sound-effects from Adafruit forum member djmacatack. It uses an Arduino with an Adafruit WaveShield. [Thanks, Becky!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

There's still time left to enter the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Deadline is 11:59 PM PDT, November 3rd. Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Guilherme Martins built this "talkie walkie" in response to a challenge to build a robot using only one servo. It responds to sound in real time, automatically controlling the movements of a lip-syncing paper mouth. [via Hack a Day]