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July 6, 2009

Arduino IDE meets Ruby

Spotted on Liquidware, the new version of their Arduino IDE now supports Ruby scripting.

It is integrated as a Scripting tab in the Arduino IDE. Upon startup, a listing of your ruby script files is generated from your Sketchbook directory. Ruby scripting support is built into the Antipasto Arduino IDE in versions 0.8.11 or greater.

June 30, 2009

How-To: Web-connected sensors with Arduino + Pachube

Morgellon posted steps on publishing Arduino sensor readings to the web via Pachube -

I recently discovered Pachube and have just fell in love with it.
This is a video of my first Pachube project and what I've been able to do. I connected two light sensors to an Arduino. One sensor measure light levels in my room, the other measures light levels outside.
The Arduino is connected to a computer running Processing, and it forwards the sensor data to Pachube.

The process is quite straightforward, making related projects much more approachable - iPhone and Android web apps are icing on the cake!

More:

Realtime sensor network awaits your input ... or output

June 24, 2009

Meggy Jr Twitter reader

Based on the Twitter LED Scroller by David Nichols, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories built out this RGB Twitter scroller on a Meggy Jr.

In this video (embedded above), we start out scrolling slowly and then advance to a faster rate by pressing buttons on the arrow keys on the laptop's keyboard-- interesting that you can still read it when it's much faster, but it does take a moment to adjust to the faster speed. (We've posted a second video as well, that's a little more "ambient.")

As we have it configured here, the Meggy Jr scrolls through the 5 most recent tweets of folks that we follow, and then repeats. Between repeat cycles, if enough time has elapsed, it also checks to see if there are new updates. The history length (number of tweets to repeat) and time delay are adjustable, subject to Twitter query rate limits.

In the Maker Shed:

Meggy Jr. RGB Kit

Expected to debut during the Adobe MAX developer conference, Flash Player 10 is geared to bring it's widely popular media distribution format to a large selection of smartphone systems. According to a recent earnings call Adobe will be releasing Flash Player 10 for Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and WebOS this October.

[via TalkAndroid]

June 6, 2009

Make your own games with PlayCrafter

Playcrafter is a site where you can create your own game. Accounts on the system are free, and allow you to make and save your own games. There is also a paid level of account that will let you make games with more than 10 levels and some other features.

Games made with Playcrafter can be embedded into web pages, and can also be run on devices that are Flash 9+ friendly.

If you try this out with your students or kids, let us know about it in the comments.

June 2, 2009

Postcard from Maker Faire

Chris O'Brien over at Silicon Beat had a great time at Maker Faire. In answering the question "What is Maker Faire?," he ends up with an optimistic view of how we can use Maker Faire to take back our technology.

How do you boil down an event where someone spent 13 years building a life-size working version of the Mouse Trap game? Or a steam-driven motorcycle out of wood? Or a solar-powered recycling unit that processes fish poop to fertilize a vegetable garden? Or teaches people how to re-purpose their old clothes with its variety of sewing and craft techniques?
It's tech, but it's more than that. It's geeky, but it's for everyone. It's an overwhelming sensory experience that's still one of the most family-friendly events I've ever attended.
On a basic level, it's one of these events that reminds me why Silicon Valley is one of the most thrilling places on earth. It's easy to get cynical about this place sometimes when it seems everyone gets wrapped up in chasing money, status, and success. But strip that away, peel back the sometimes stifling hand of the corporations, and the heart of Silicon Valley looks something very much like Maker Faire.

If you went to Maker Faire and want to share your experiences, write about it, post your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool, and tag your work with Maker Faire, Maker Faire 2009 or #MF09 on Twitter and Flickr.

If you were not able to get physically to Maker Faire, you can still join the fun by finding the most interesting photos, videos, and other info. Create your own Maker Faire mashup of the event and put it online. There is a complete list of all the makers. Many of the organizations and people have web addresses that can help you find out more. Let us know in the comments where to find your Maker Faire Mashup!

May 26, 2009

Listening Post uses chatroom text as art

Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin’s Listening Post generates sound and an array of scrolling text from net-based conversation -

Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens.
Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it's own data processing logic.
Dissociating the communication from its conventional on-screen presence, Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication.

More on the projects page. [via Synthtopia]

May 12, 2009

Naguino: an Arduino-based LCD monitor for Nagios and Incinga

Maker Jan-Piet Mens has fashioned a rather useful network monitoring device using an Arduino Duemilanove, Arduino Ethernet Shield and S65 shield. Since the Naguino is stacked together the device does not require soldering. Messages are sent over HTTP POST and include service state and a 21 character color-coded message. You can use the rotary encoder on the S65 shield to page the messages up and down as the display fills up. Full source code and instructions on how to configure Nagios are included.

Naguino network monitor

April 25, 2009

Networked power outlet

Picture from Landon Cox, 360VL, Inc.

Landon has a great site with loads of evidence from his hardware and software explorations.

Looking for a way to fly your Green Geek flag a bit? Check out the network controlled AC outlet:

The impetus for this came when I was at work at a client...their offices are about 70 miles from where I live. I have 3 servers at home which are housed in the crawl space under my office where they are out of the way, don't pollute my workspace with fan noise, and don't put out heat I have to live with. One of the servers wasn't responding even though I had network access to the rest. It was just dead and I needed to bounce it with a hard reboot but I couldn't given my geographical circumstances.

Using a $69 Linux embedded board (an Atmel NGW100), an AVR microcontroller relay board, open source development tools (WinAVR), and some home-brewed software and electrical elbow grease, I now have a system I can use to hard boot a server remotely.

Check out the rest of the site as well: Landon's stuff is eye opening. I found his site to be well designed, with lots of information on projects, past and present.

Particularly useful is the approach he takes to posting on his site:

When I'm working on projects, sometimes I build or create things to see if I understand the problems or issues. For that reason, a lot of it is temporary, has no particular purpose, but might be amusing or educational. That's what this site is all about.

This site's content includes topics on hardware, sensors, microcontrollers, software, firmware, techniques I've used or discovered. It's really a stash for things I'm learning and want to share or just keep around for reference.

This is kind of like having an open notebook so that the world can see your projects, maybe long after you have moved on to the next shiny thought. By providing ourselves with a place to park our ideas while they are hot, we don't have to try and remember them later when other people get around to joining our interests.

I asked him for an update on the remote controlled power outlet project:

The project is still in use though because the servers don't belly up that much, it doesn't get exercised too much. If it was on a household device, that would be a different story. :-)

If I was going to do it again how would I do it differently? One thing is I would make the control between the NGW100 base station and the relay board a wireless link....not 802.11, but XBee. That way the NGW100 could be located more easily with my hubs and other internal wired network devices, but my servers, which are not in the same area, can still be controlled.

Would be nice to have a small web app running in the NGW100 to serve outlet status.

So, a little bit of hardware change. More software features.

Your work does not have to be complete to show it off. The process and the individual steps are valuable in themselves. Somebody else may be inspired to take your idea in a new direction, or maybe you will want to come back to it months or even years later. If you are willing to show off your documentation process, please share it with us in the comments.

April 22, 2009

Share synth sounds via Twitter

Tweet A Sound let's you design and share synth patches by way of the ever-popular Twitter. The software represents your patch via a compact string of numbers. The 140 character limit keeps your tweakable parameter count relatively low, but this could be welcome if you've ever found yourself overwhelmed by the deluge of options common to software synths. With a few adjustments to one of the presets, it's easy to eke out a quick "wow" -

#tas 0 10 4796 61 7010 40 8507 25 9720 12 9999 0 0 0 2258 80 7999 69 9999 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 587 2 2 21 59900 1 652 70 80 1059 844 34 81 11 2

Built with Max/MSP, the app will become exponentially cooler once MIDI control is fleshed out. Grab the free download for Mac available on the site. [via Create Digital Music]

April 18, 2009

Teaching sustainability with STEP

Image from STEP

Looking to teach sustainability in to the young'uns in your life? Try the Sustainability Technology Education Project, or STEP.

There are 35 case studies on the STEP site, primarily aimed at key stage 4 students. These provide a range of examples of sustainable solutions to technology issues from around the world.
Each case study includes background information, a design story, product analysis and an introduction to values issues. There are also suggestions for practical activities and class discussions. Teachers have found the case studies useful both for whole class work and for independent projects.

Teachers' notes, case studies, activities,links and more will get you started and keep you going.

Where do you find great classroom resources? Where do you showcase your students' work? Tell us in the comments.

April 1, 2009

Print your own Moleskine pages

Moleskine is offering a new service where they let you print whatever you want on the pages of one of their notebooks. Great for keeping your address book handy without re-writing it every time you get a new notebook. Via Core77.

March 30, 2009

Get Make: Online delivered by email

Did you know that you can get Make: Online delivered to your inbox each day? Feedblitz, the service that we use, does a really nice job of formatting the content. You get the entire day's worth of web content in a single digest email.

Make: Daily Mail gives you an internally-linked "What's In This Issue" table of contents, content ratings and recommendations, through Outbrain, and the ability to email individual items. You can even have the articles spoken to you, by machines of loving grace (with slightly funky inflections). Apps like Flickr slide show, YouTube and Vimeo vids play right in the email.

To sign up for Make: Daily Mail, enter your email address in the field on the right "rail" of the site, right below the iTunes Podcast link, or click here to go to the Feedblitz sign-up page.

March 22, 2009

IdeaBlob cultivates projects

Ideablob has a collection of projects that users of their system have submitted to a user response contest to win funding.

Here is a quote from their About Us page:

ideablob.com is where entrepreneurs and small business owners can share and grow their business ideas - and have a chance to win $10,000 towards fulfilling them.

Great ideas are generated every day by people all across the country, and now these ideas have a place to live and grow. Eligible individuals can submit their business ideas to ideablob.com, and based on votes from the ideablob.com online community - which includes other innovators as well as friends, family, colleagues, associates, teachers and mentors -one idea every month will win $10,000.

As individuals take part in ideablob.com's growth, their business has the potential to grow right along with it.

Why ideablob.com? Advanta began in 1951 with an idea, less than $100 in seed money, and big dreams. Today, as a respected company with close to 1,000 employees and well over one million small business customers nationwide, we empathize with entrepreneurs and small businesses and support their growth.

Design Green Now is one of the current featured projects. Their video is above.

The DGN panels will take place in 3 NYC universities. The design jam, is lead by SmartDesignWorldwide.com The panelists will uncover the challenges they face and the methods they have embraced to succeed in designing for sustainability.

Seven Rivers Water has an idea for providing drinking water in public:

When people want water in public, they are faced with tough choices. They can either buy an expensive bottle of water and risk adding to the 100 million water bottles thrown away each day OR they can drink from water fountains, which offer "free" hydration at the risk of exposure to germs and/or poor taste and quality. Seven Rivers will offer a superior, healthy alternative. We will develop a water vending machine that will purify and dispense water into customers' reusable bottles or our own eco-friendly cups. Our water will be more affordable than bottled water and will eliminate plastic bottle waste. We will install our machines in places such as colleges, high schools, and hospitals.

Coffee Connections is interested in creating a better funding model for coffee growers.

We will provide rural income generation opportunities to coffee farmers, discourage negative urbanization, and encourage the completion of education of farmers' children: by improving crop yields, further developing the coffee value chain and connecting farmers directly with international markets.

The Ideas section has several pages of proposals for funding. Members of the site vote up their favorites and each month the winner gets $10,000.

You may remember the recent article on Slicemodeler, which also has an entry:

Sliceform modelling for schools

SliceModeler is provided as a tool for educational institutions to create physical models of the 3D objects they design with Google SketchUp.

1) Use the SliceModeler plugin for Google SketchUp to design a sliceform model.
2) Build it from from material like cardboard, wood, stone, metal, concreet.
3) Place it in your environment.
4) Put documentation of it online.

Thanks Amy!

So how about taking a look through the entries with your Maker eye? What do you see that should be funded? Users can only vote for a project once, but we can create buzz around a project and increase its' funding chances. Tell us what you think in the comments.

March 2, 2009

DIY books using Wikipedia

Wikipedia is offering an interesting feature: compile articles into books, and get it printed by "PediaPress." Alternatively you can get the book as a downloadable PDF or OpenDocument. Rad! I can imagine some pretty awesome/hilarious collections; what book would you make?

February 27, 2009

World clock site...

Make Pt1793
Wow, this is fun/morbid/scary to put on an extra screen or flat panel... via BoJ.

February 24, 2009

Visualizing the number of links on 98 popular websites

Make Pt1784
Visualization of of the # of links on the homepage of the top 98 websites (MAKE is in there!).... via Waxy.

February 19, 2009

Masterpieces of the Prado Museum

Make Pt1778
Wow, incredible use of Google maps and Google earth for a museum...

Experience some of the most important Masterpieces from the Prado Museum. In the next two weeks, you will be able to access a new painting every day on Google Maps. The Prado Museum's Masterpieces in ultra high resolution. Zoom in and browse the pictures with your mouse or key controls to experience the masterpieces in ultra high resolution. To access all of the masterpieces in full screen and to see the Prado museum in 3D, use Google Earth. See a new masterpiece every day in Google Maps. To view all masterpieces together, use Google Earth.

February 4, 2009

Financial data as music... Excel as art...

Looking for a way to cheer up? Combat some work frustrations? Tune in to the melodic charm of stock charts... Here are some melodies derived from stock charts, arranged with Songsmith by Johannes Kreidler, a downturn never sounded so good. You can download this app and make some yourself too!

But wait, there's more!

Make Pt1087

AC/DC "Rock N Roll Train" - music video in an Excel spreadsheet Like PowerPoint, once everyone has something it's abused, used and eventually art comes of it.

Make Pt1739
Excel drawings.

Hypocycloid
Spiral Star art made in Excel.

Excelgames 20070404
Games developed in Excel.

Fpgvbn71Uney6E3B22.Medium
Use Excel to read the web - (good way to be sneaky at the office)...

January 31, 2009

Google becomes self aware says every site is harmful and malware... including Google

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Starting at 9:43am EST 1/31/2009 Google says every site is malware... including Google. A few makers emailed me asking why every site was "malware" - looks like something went really wrong, or really right (for someone).

It's pretty clear what happened - Google became self aware and decided the web is mostly harmful - including itself. Suicidal Skynet...