The Knock Box is a power strip with superpowers – it turns on your lamp whenever you knock on your nightstand. You get two outlets, individually controlled by knock-knock-knocking on a nearby hard surface. It’s great for hitting the lights when it’s pitch dark, but if an appliance can plug into the wall, you can toggle it! […]
The Knock Box: Build a Knock-Sensitive Power Strip Continue Reading
The Pi is a fine little computer board, though not nearly as good as the Arduino when it comes to I/O capabilities. The beautifully-engineered Gertboard is a plug-in add-on that neatly overcomes this deficiency by giving the Pi access to an ATMega328, but it’s a very complex and expensive solution. An alternative would be to interface
The Raspberry Pi – Arduino Connection Continue Reading
I learned that one of my nieces had an interest in programming. She was working with robotics at high school and has a summer internship where they had Arduinos. I think she was able to borrow an Arduino to experiment with at home but every Maker knows that is not the same as having a
Arduino Beginner and Basic Electronics Kit Primer Continue Reading
After many happy years as a runner, two years ago I had a problem with my right hip. Unfortunately I had to undergo to total hip replacement surgery. After the operation I made a period of rehabilitation in the use of the leg muscles, through physiotherapy sessions. These sessions consisted of passive movements inducted by
How to Make a Balancing Board System for Hip’s Muscles Exercise (BalanX) Continue Reading
Just as you can concatenate Strings with other data objects using the StringAdditionOperator, you can also use the += operator and the cconcat() method to append things to Strings. The += operator and the concat() method work the same way, it’s just a matter of which style you prefer. The two examples below illustrate both,
Arduino String Appending Operators Code Continue Reading
I design and create this Palm Arduino V3 prototype PCB, as I was tired of recreating Arduino Compatible on perf board every time I prototyping a new project, especially when I had to spend a lot of time tracing the wiring to see that I made the right connection. I design this Palm Arduino (version
Palm Arduino Board V3 Continue Reading
Have you ever wondered why smartphones are called smart-phones? Because they are smart, right? They do some works automatically, smartly. That’s the short answer. I was thinking something, even if computers are a lot more powerful than phones, why aren’t they smart! For instance, mobile phones have automatic brightness control system, which is handy and
Hack Computer to Make It Smart! Continue Reading
My first meeting with microcontrollers was a few decades ago (you might remember the first Parallax Basic Stamps) but with the Arduino platform it happened more recently, only 6 years ago and although at that time the development boards were quite difficult to find, even then I found it was a very interesting thing. Later
Arduino Magnetic Board Continue Reading
About two years ago, I built a big 120 face LED geodesic dome that plays music with a MIDI output. However, it was a difficult build and the sensors weren’t completely reliable. I decided to build the Bucky Touch, a smaller version of my geodesic dome that is easier to construct and has upgraded capacitive touch sensors.
Bucky Touch: Light-up Dodecahedron Instrument Continue Reading
Intro: If you’ve got an Arduino Uno and want to start duplicating projects without having to buy an Uno every time… get ready to live! This instructable will show you how to move your projects (that do not require serial communication) onto a breadboard for prototyping or expansion. If you’re looking for a more permanent
Arduino Projects on a breadboard (no serial com) Continue Reading
