This upcoming line of modular interface devices from Machine Collective look useful -

Machinecollective understands your needs and we're here to help you out! We are working on a range of modules based on frequently used components, sensors and indicators. The prototyping modules are designed to work with development platforms such as Arduino and Wiring. The modules can also be used for other purposes such as circuitbending, DIY synths, analog sequencers or plain old electronics projects.

The open source Wireless-G Router (model WGR614L), enabling Linux developers and enthusiasts to create firmware for specialized applications, and supported by a dedicated open source community. The router supports the most popular open source firmware; Tomato and DD-WRT are available on WGR614L, making it easier for users to develop a wide variety of applications. The router is targeted at people who want custom firmware on their router without worrying about issues, and enjoy the benefits of having an open source wireless router.

The WGR614L features a 240 MHz MIPS32 CPU core with 16 KB of instruction cache, 16 KB of data cache, 1 KB of pre-fetch cache, and incorporates 4 MB of flash memory and 16 MB of RAM.

More:

Open source hardware, what is it? Here's a start...

Open source hardware @ Etech (PDF).

Open source hardware archives.

THE idea of "open source" software is familiar to many computer users. Enthusiasts get together on the internet to create a new program, and as well as giving it away, they also make available its source code--the software's underlying blueprint. This allows other people to make additions and improvements, and those are made available, in turn, to anyone who is interested. You do not have to be a programmer to benefit from the open-source model: many people use the Linux operating system or Firefox web-browser, for example, both of which have been developed in this way.

Now the same approach is being applied to hardware, albeit in a modified form.

All of which suggests that open-source hardware will really start to make a difference when big hardware makers and consumer-electronics firms begin to embrace the idea. "It's a new day for consumer electronics," says Chumby's Mr Tomlin. "The community makes suggestions and shares hacks. And we don't try to sue our innovators. We make heroes of them."

• What is open source hardware.
• Open source hardware @ MAKE.
• Maker Shed store (we have our own open source hardware kits and stock many/most).
• Adafruit Industries - open source hardware.
• Adadruit Industries - open source hardware list (wiki).

Ladyada's just churning out the new kits these days; I'm not sure she's human. The latest:

Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It's low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer.

Here's a video of the Wave Shield for Arduino in action:

This PIC based countdown timer was used to control lighting for the Ultra-Violet exposure of photosensitive PCB material, although it would come in handy for many other applications, such as cooking, or even exercising. It also includes an audible alarm when the counter finishes and relays control to turn on or off the lights.

PIC Countdown Timer, [via]

Our pals over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories have released version 2.0 of their awesome Peggy LED pegboard display kit. I had the pleasure of seeing this thing in action at last week's Maker Faire. I want.

...Peggy 2.0 still does the same darn thing: it provides efficient power to a 25 x 25 array of LED locations. Peggy is designed to takes some of the sting, complexity, and mess out of playing with LEDs. It's a versatile and powerful light-emitting pegboard that lets you efficiently drive hundreds of LEDs in whatever configuration you like, without so much as calculating a single load resistor. You can install anywhere from one to 625 LEDs, and Peggy will light them up for you ... The biggest change is that the Peggy 2.0 hardware now supports simple animation capability with individually addressable LED locations. Besides the microcontroller, there are now four support chips that help to drive the rows and columns of the display. Now, we're not talking live video feeds or long movies here (speed and memory considerations will spoil that party), but you might be surprised how much you can do with a little AVR microcontroller.

Peggy version 2.0

Related:

• "Peggy," - A Light emitting pegboard display

DC401 is bringing DIY rapid prototyping to their May meeting:

Bruce Wattendorf is a Rhode Island based RepRap maker. He and his son have working on their RepStrap since January 2007. Bruce will be bringing his RepRap in to demo its capabilities and talk about the process of actually building one. For anyone who's dreamed of printing 3D objects, this talk is for you.

Date/Time: 7 May 2008 - 1730-1900
Location: AS220, 115 Empire St, Providence.

I don't know if you've seen these yet, but I put up a couple of Arduino projects I've been working on, like a lithium battery pack, an "extender shield," and a TouchShield OLED for the Arduino. I brought these over to the NY Hacklab and the Make and tech meets a few weeks back. You might also like this video I made yesterday (below) of all the Arduino shields I have, stacked on top of each other.

Here is an example of how to make a cool Internet application using the XPort shield I recently released. This is very simple, but its a good example of getting and outputting data. Basically the Arduino serves up a webpage with a bunch of nice javascript code that allows you to select a color. It also displays a "current color" (in this case a light green).

When you click "Submit" on the page, another request is made to the XPort/Arduino, this time with a GET command ?color=#xxxxxx with the color information. The Arduino looks for this command, parses the color requested and calls analogWrite() on the three LEDs to change them into that color.

Byron Lahey and other researchers at Arizona State University are working on this all terrain iRobot modification. He writes:

Robot Create robots are easily programmable and expandable in their functionality, but can only travel on a very limited varieties of terrain (carpet, hard flat floors and other typical interior domestic surfaces). As part of the Arts, Media and Engineering program we are working on systems related to the Mars exploration rovers. To teach about these systems and allow students to test and explore terrain navigation and mapping with robots, we needed robots with expanded terrain navigation capabilities. This video demonstrates an early prototype modification of the iRobot, comparing the performance of a modified and unmodified robot traveling on a rocky surface.

This video first shows how epicly the standard iRobot Create fails on a non-flat surface, then shows how his mods make it work better. Here are some photos of the modifications.

Ambient technology is the current rage for presenting information in a unobtrusive and, sometimes, sublime manner. Information suited for an ambient format ranges from complex number-laden data streams to simple one- or two-digit numbers. The idea here is that you can glean the same information by simply looking at the color of a cube, rather than consulting a sensor's text output.

While this project doesn’t directly take advantage of ambient technology, it does show you a great method for generating a simple color-changing LED that can be integrated into any number of projects. By combining the open-source Arduino microcontroller circuit board with a “smart” LED called BlinkM, you can build a simple mood cube that randomly generates a spectrum of sumptuous colors.

By pairing a sensor with this Arduino-based mood cube to input data, you can create a more ambient-like experience.

Related:

Arduino Diecimila, fully assembled. Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It's an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

ProtoShield for Arduino Kit. An open-source prototyping shield for Arduino NG/Diecimila. It has tons of cool features, to make prototyping on your Arduino easy. Get it at the Maker Store.

Arduino archives @ MAKE.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories made these ATmegaxx8 breakout boards that double as business cards. Windell writes:

Our design goals for this project were (1) to make a printed circuit board version of the minimalist target board for the ATmega168, encompassing a place for the chip and a connection to the 6-pin ISP header, (2) to make a minimal and inexpensive circuit board platform that you could use to deploy a single AVR somewhere with without much fuss, (3) to encompass the capacity of a breakout board, giving extra holes to tap into each pin of the AVR and provide labels for every pin, (4) to fit in some small amount of flexible prototyping space, (5) to make it all fit into a neat business-card form factor, and (6) to release it as an open-source project.

Brilliant, and I can't wait to trade business cards with them! - Link.

Open Source Hardware
Phillip Torrone (Maker Media), Limor Fried (Adafruit Industries)

Open source hardware is a term slowly working its way into many new projects and efforts, but what is it? There are a few definitions, some of which come from "open source software," which is usually considered software's "source code under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to study, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form." So how does this translate to hardware?

This session will focus on electronic hardware, the layers they can be divided into, different document types, licensing concerns, and a show-and-tell of hardware.

Open source hardware @ Etech - Link (PDF).

Openmoko is an open source cell phone that runs a version of Linux. The creators have now published the CAD files for the Neo enclosure, bring the openness to a whole new level. You can design your own phone! - [via] Link.

Related:

OpenMoko: $300 Linux-powered mobile phone - Link.

Sparkfun writes:

This is a USB to UART board that allows easy reprogramming of the LilyPad main board without the need for soldering. This board is based on the FT232RL IC from FTDI.

Features:

• Implements full v2.0 USB protocol
• Needs no external crystal
  
• Internal EEPROM for device ID and Product Description strings
  
• Royalty-Free Driver support for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X

This is great for programming the LilyPad, as it requires no soldering or alterations to the Arduino Mini programmer (and has a flatter form factor), and it slots right onto the board! - Link.

Related:

LilyPad Arduino - Link.

My colleagues and I in the Arts, Media and Engineering program at Arizona State University are working on a wireless tangible interface object for collaboration, called the Sensor Squid. It's basically an Arduino-controlled, Bluetooth communicating 6-foot plush cephalopod used to control a Max/MSP game about community-generated media. You can download the code, parts list, and schematic. - Link & more.

Above photo used with permission by Ryan Spicer.

Related:

Adopt a Squid - Link.

Want to hook up a Wii Nunchuck to an Arduino but don’t want to cut up the cord on your Nunchuck? Yeah me too. So I made some of these... It’s a small PCB that adapts the Wii Nunchuck connector to standard 4-pin header. I call it the “wiichuck adapter”. It plugs directly into the Arduino, no wiring necessary. You can get one too for $3.

One of the coolest things about the Wii (to me) is that the expansion port on the bottom of the Wii remote is an I2C serial connection. This means that anything that plugs into that port can work with microcontrollers like the Arduino. Of the available peripherals, the Wii Nunchuck is one of the best. It contains a 3-axis accelerometer, a 2-axis joystick, and two buttons. Hooking up a Wii Nunchuck to Arduino is easy and I’ve have class notes describing how to do it. But cutting off the connector of the Nunchuck to get at the wires is a little drastic.

This “wiichuck adapter” let’s you play with the Wii Nunchuck and other Wii remote peripherals without needing you to cut cables. Just plug it into the Wii Nunchuck, then into the Arduino.

Related:

• Arduino guide @ MAKE - Link.
• Arduino archives @ MAKE - Link.
• "Making things talk" the best book on Arduino! - Link.
• Arduinos in the Maker store - Link.

Specs:

• 3.5" LCD color touchscreen
• Two external USB 2.0 full-speed ports
• 350 MHz ARM processor
• 64 MB SDRAM
• 64 MB NAND flash ROM
• Stereo 2W speakers
• Headphone output
• Squeeze sensor
• Accelerometer (motion sensor)
• Leather casing
• AC adapter included
• Wi-fi connectivity
• Access to the free Chumby Network
• Over-the-air software updates

Related:

Source, schematics and more - Link.
Chumby wiki - Link.

For years, hackers and garage hobbyists have pried the covers off their gadgets, cobbled together computers out of components, or built other electronics from scratch. But today, even people who can't tell a resistor from a capacitor are finding new opportunities to tinker as the do-it-yourself spirit of the Web branches into the physical world.

Related:

Open source - what is it? - Link.
Open source hardware guide @ MAKE - Link.
Open source hardware archives @ MAKE - Link.

This Instructable will show you how to make a pair of cozy slippers that are designed with two analog inputs each that sense the pressure being weighted from the body on either the toe-ball or the heal of the foot.

Later steps in this Instructable will show you how to feed this analog input into your laptop via an Arduino physical computing platform. There are many things that you can do with this input, and I hope to bring out a few interesting applications in the next weeks. This Instructable features a simple drawing application that allows the wearer to control the direction of a line being drawn in real-time and thus draw, using the weight on their feet, in a very simple etch-a-sketch fashion.

Related:

Get an Arduino @ the Maker store - Link.
Visit our Arduino guide! - Link.

Rock stars Theo Watson and Zach Lieberman will be running a Tinker.it workshop on their platform openFrameworks:

This is the first ever UK workshop on openFrameworks, a cross-platform C++ library for creative coding, and an opportunity to experiment with building new systems for interaction that move away from the screen and into physical space. This workshop is designed for artists, designers and hackers alike. On the first day, the workshop will offer a cohesive introduction to the library, as well as cover the fundamentals of computer vision, signal processing and interfacing with physical devices, via connection to Arduino. On the second day, participants will work to code creative and expressive prototypes based on these approaches.

If you're going to be in the UK on the 1st and 2nd of March, I'd highly recommend this. - [via] Link.

With all the cool things that you can do with LEDs today, there is still one thing that's lacking: simplicity. If you want to run a bunch of LEDs at a time, you usually end up spending a fair bit of time worrying about series and parallel combinations, matching brightness, and picking load resistors. Or, if you're a beginner, maybe you only get one third of the way through the previous sentence-- wondering if you're already in over your head.

Suppose that you want to make a big LED display for your window or wall: maybe it's your logo, a symbol, your favorite 8-bit character, or maybe even a sign that spells out words like "OPEN" or "ON AIR." How do you go about it? The usual DIY solution involves drilling holes in a panel to fit your LEDs, then spending a heck of a lot of time wiring everything up-- ending up with one resistor per LED (and a three-dimensional mess if you happen to look at the back side of the panel). And, if you do everything in the most obvious ways, it can even end up consuming a surprising amount of power.

While I have certainly spent my share of time constructing things with the aforementioned technique, at some point it becomes clear that there has to be a better way. In this day and age, shouldn't LEDs be about as difficult to play with as, say, a Lite Bright? Today we are releasing a new open-source hardware and software design that takes some of the sting, complexity, and mess out of playing with LEDs. It's a versatile and powerful light-emitting pegboard that lets you efficiently drive hundreds of LEDs in whatever configuration you like, without so much as calculating a single load resistor.

Ever wondered how HTML and image data would sound as beat samples?
Bill writes:

I've written a Firefox addon that makes it possible for a monome or arduino to interact with your browser. The url below is a video of me "playing" the raw data in the NYTimes homepage using a monome 40h. The project is called Lily and its a Max/PD style patching language that hooks into the browser and allows you to build multi-media projects (including physical controllers) on top of Firefox.

Each link highlighted actually makes for a nice percussive sound. This makes sense given that many percussive voices are synthesized using noise generators - and web data sounds similarly random to our ears. Awesome project, thanks Bill!

Lily project - Link

Related:

Hello friends and YBox enthusiasts! We have some exciting news to share. There is a new YBox on the block--the YBox 2!

The YBox made its debut as a quick and dirty prototype for Yahoo's first public Hackday. Then it reappeared as a kit, a series of workshops and a giveaway at last year's SF Maker's Faire. We had a great time sharing the project with folks, and so it's with real glee that we announce the YBox 2.

It was developed by Robert Quattlebaum a developer and classmate from the SF sessions. He's made a number of smart refinements to the project, including getting the cost down by replacing the Xport. Our secret (and admittedly improbable) goal was always to get this thing down to $10, and he managed to shave $50 off the cost with version 2! But there's more than just cost, including a speaker, a status light and countless tweaks. All in all a really exciting evolution. Congrats Robert.

Some of you have written to ask about new kits or to wonder why the wiki has been terrorized with spam. The kits are gone and we don't have time to make more. The good news is that the project continues and you can contact Robert if you'd like to purchase a new board or to download the board files and create your own Ybox 2. We'll work on getting the wiki cleaned up and we send a special thanks to all the folks who have put in countless hours scouring it.

OK that's it for now, happy hacking!

Related:

YBox in 60 Seconds - Link.

YBOX - turns a TV into a simple, web configurable ... - Link.

Since Make is all about great hardware projects, I figured I'd let you know about a project that aims to develop a fully VGA compliant video card in true open source fashion. Kerneltrap now has an interview online about the motivations behind the project, when the card will be available and what it's performance will be. With the first prototype already working after just a few months of development, it's a matter of time before developers can get their hands on one of these.

It is a contest for everyone who believes in Open Hardware and enjoys hacking with Arduino. It is the time to show what you have done and share it with the Community! There are 3 different categories:

Common life hacks. Have you designed a remote-pets-feeder? A gadget for watering your plants? A GPS navigator for your bike? Or anything that makes your life easier?
Art hacks. Artistical installations, interactive objects... just show the limits of your imagination.
Robotics.

The winner of each category will get one GPRS/GPS Module for Arduino. One of the exclusive and limited edition for Arduino whe are going to release.
It will let Arduino to connect to the mobile networks, make and receive phone calls, send and receive sms's!, give the GPS coordenates... A new level of modules for Arduino.

Related:

Arduino guide @ MAKE - Link.

Making Things Talk by Tom Igoe - the best book on Arduino! - Link.

The Beat Case is a portable audio system built to help the Palestinian rappers Dam and PR, here for the movie Slingshot Hip Hop, perform around Park CIty. The Beat Case includes a microphone and line level inputs, is battery powered, and all fits inside a Pelican case. An Instructable for the Beat Case will be coming soon. You can see more photos and hijinks at the Graffiti Research Lab web site. - Link