Yelp – which not long ago organized its first hackathon – replicated the event after six months. These are the winners:
Useful: Adam D., Evrhet M., Mark A., and Minh T. created a Q&A service that would let users ask and answer questions about a particular business.
Funny: Need to know when we’re launching our next product or how many users have signed up today? Then look no further than the Yelp Jumbo-Tron-O-Matic courtesy of Ben B., Jon M., Eskil O., Evan K., Daniel C., and James B.
Cool: At Yelp, we don’t mess around with our beer. To make sure we never run dry or get a bad pint, the geniuses on this team — John B., Gabe H., Alex D., Julien R., and Jeff M. — built the Kegbot. Controlled by an iPad app, you can tell how much beer is being emptied (and at what rate: cough, John), as well as leave a 5 star review for your brew.
The iPad-monitored brewing machine maybe not the cheapiest solution for your bar, but it’s definetly Cool. I wonder wether there are videos from the other two winners.
New, updated Ethernet Shield version. Mega-compatible and with micro-SD card slot.
We’re very happy to announce an updated version of the Arduino Ethernet shield, with some nice new features. This revision incorporates a micro-SD card slot so you can store files to send over the network. It’s compatible with the Arduino Mega (using the SPI pins on the ICSP header). It adds a reset controller which should address the problems some people have had getting it to work directly on power-up. All-in-all, we think it’s a well-rounded upgrade to a useful product.
So you’re pretty fond of your Arduino. You make blinking lights, and beeping noises. You’ve made a robot that was pretty cool. Or maybe you didn’t. Who cares, You’re ready for the next step. You want to extend it. Although you can just plug in wires, there’s something very appealing about making a shield. Instead of a rats-nest of wires piled about and plugged into your prototyping breadboard, you can have a nice clean shield with labeled connections and a smaller footprint. So here I’m going to tell you everything you need to know to make a schematic and PCB layout, and get a beautiful shield that will plug into the top of your Arduino.
A very useful project from Contesti.eu helping Arduino storing HUGE amount of data usin I2C EEProm:
Searching on the net on Arduino and Arduino web-sites you will find a lot of projects and ideas about the use of EEProm devices as a non-volatile storage method to save data. Arduino is equipped with its own – very small – EEProm memory to save configuration parameters and much more. Arduino boards have about 32 Kb – or even less – storage area and users experience the need to expand it in an affordable and robust way.
The development of a memory bank based on I2C bus EEProm relates to the creation of some kind of software in order to offer at least the possibility to access every memory location regardless of the number and kind of physical devices actually used. Following this way, we developed this memory Bank, aka EEProm 128×8 in respect of these requirements. After having carried out tests and made changes to the first hardware prototype, we are now releasing hardware version 2.1, part of the Bank project 1.2
we all wait for the documentary to be distributed:
Laboral Centro de Arte, Spain, has commissioned the creation of a documentary about Arduino. The filmmakers are almost done with it and today they released the trailer to it. A lot of the footage was shot during the Arduino Uno meeting in March 2010, that took place at ITP, New York University.
The documentary is CC licensed, which means you guys can use it in class, public display, etc. The official release including the 45m TV version (with English and Spanish subtitles), the full interviews to all of us, videos taken at Makerbot, Adafruit, NYC Resistor, etc will be soon announced at the film’s website: arduinothedocumentary.org. If you want to volunteer making the subtitles in your own language, feel free to contact the guys behind it.
A very impressing project that brings out the idea (seen some time ago with Bikes against Bush, and later enpowered by the Tour the France) of triggering several motors/paintBrushes in sequence, and printing out some messages.
The project is well designed, well-referenced, and German. I’m getting used to see wonderful urban-related projects from Germany.
The txtBOMBER is a one-hand-guerillia-tool – a machine not much bigger than a pressing iron – that generates political statements on the fly and immidiately prints them on any flat surface.
If you feel you are part of our modern viewless generation, the txtBOMBER is the perfect tool for you! Just switch it on, it’s powered by a strong battery. And move it along a wall. It’s that easy to show your?its?someones? opinion of something?someone?! Hell! You should reconsider if you are keen enough to use it!
The txtBOMBER has seven build-in pens to “print” the letters and a micro-controller-brain (Arduino), no need for a computer or any other brain.
The SMSlingshot is an autonom working device, equipped with an ultra-high frequency radio, hacked arduino board, laser and batteries. Text messages can be typed on a phone-sized wooden keypad which is integrated in the also wooden slingshot. After the message is finished, the user can aim on a media facade and send/shoot the message straight to the targeted point. It will then appear as a colored splash with the message written within. The text message will also be real-time twittered – just in case.
have a look at the video on the official page of the project. Very interesting use of the sling in a digital way.
Very interesting Make post about an Arduino-controlled Scanning-Tunneling Electron Microscope (STM) by Sacha de Angeli.
Building the first Open Source (inexpensive) Scanning-Tunneling Electron Microscope (STM) – With just enough electronics knowledge to be dangerous and a lot of helpful friends, I embarked on the design and build of an arduino-controlled, affordable STM with the intention of releasing the hardware design, firmware, and software via open source licensing. The goal of this project is to address the following two problems in the world of STM:Problem 1: The Scanning-Tunneling Electron Microscope, capable of resolving individual atoms, is so elegant a device that it won the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics. Despite it’s simplicity, STM microscopy can be an expensive endeavor: commercial equipment, while truly excellent, costs tens of thousands of dollars – well above the budget of hobbyists and entrepreneurs.
Problem 2: Due to Problem 1, there is a rich history of graduate students building STM devices on modest budgets. However these devices commonly require expensive external equipment (storing oscilloscopes, signal generators, commercial data capture boards, etc.). This external equipment is common in research labs, but not necessarily common to hobby and entrepreneurial workspaces. Additionally, the design information for these graduate student-built devices is spread out amongst theses and dissertations with no central repository of information; therefore, problem solving effort is often duplicated.
Sacha has worked in and around chemistry and engineering as a technician, student, researcher, hobbyist, and entrepreneur for over 14 years. He is currently the president of Pumping Station: One, Chicago’s premier hackerspace where he mostly herds cats and hackers. He also runs chemhacker.com where he discusses the intersection between science, art, opera, creativity, chemistry, and scanning-tunneling electron microscopy. He has recently spoken at Notacon 2010 and will be presenting his STM project at the Open Science Summit in Berkeley, CA July 29-31.
A must-see video produces by SparkFun about a very interesting installation by Jen Lewin, The Pool:
The Pool is an environment of giant, concentric circles created from interactive, wireless circular pads. By entering the pool, you enter a world where play and collaborative movement can create a cascading effect of swirling light and color .
Each pad in The Pool is its own wireless controller. All of the 106 pads communicate and listen to each other in an organic network formed in the same way people interact. The Pool has no single master computer and does not use a router to route or control connections. Each pad is independent, and simultaneously interacts and listens to its environment based on user feedback. Together, the 106 pads create complex, surprising, and unpredictable color arrays with their user participants.
Amazing Daft Punk helmet replica from [Volpin Props]. It took a long time to came around a wonderful replica of the famous iconic helmet used by Daft Punk. The lighting is powered by Arduino.
Its been a long road. Seventeen months, countless hours, multiple dead ends, hundreds of lessons learned, and one helmet made. In the past two installments I’ve discussed sculpting, resin casting, chroming and vacuum forming. This is where the magic happens though… Illumination.
