Did you know that your optical mouse contains a very tiny, very low resolution camera? Your Mouse Is A Terrible Webcam article tells how to turn that tiny optical sensor into a webcam. Logitech RX 250 has an ADNS-5020 optical sensor (15×15 pixel grayscale image sensor) with SPI interface. The project uses Arduino, Ethernet shield, →
There seems to be push for x86 based Arduino compatible boards. Not long ago Intel announced Intel Galileo board. Now there is a new $40 x86 Arduino. 86Duino is like bringing old Pentium II-class machine capable of running DOS, Windows, and Linux into the space of an Arduino. The 86Duino Zero features an x86 Vortex86EX →
Here’s a cool hack to get you in the December holiday mood! Time to set up some Christmas lights, maybe even computer controlled LED lights. First idea to try: Arduino controlled Christmas lights! How about this Gemmy Lightshow LED Christmas Lights Or a Pedal Powered Menorah Other videos: 2012 Christmas Lights Show (GE Color Effects →
Visual programming is way to write software by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. Visual programming isn’t a new concept, it goes at least back to 1975. There are various reasons why Visual programming is sometimes easier way to write code than traditional writing text source code, but it does not →
Arduino news seem to be coming this week. First there was Intel Galileo board and then Arduino TRE. Third new product is Arduino Robot. Arduino Robot is the first official Arduino on wheels. The robot has two ATmega32u4 processors, one on each of its two boards. The Motor Board controls the motors. The Control Board →
Dev boards based on microcontrollers and ARM System on Chips are everywhere, but smaller boards with x86 processor has been rare. I just saw The Intel-powered Arduino article that tells about Arduino-compatible Intel Galileo board. Galileo is a microcontroller board based on the Intel® Quark SoC X1000 Application Processor, a 32-bit Intel Pentium-class system on →
Build your own metal detector article mentions a pretty interesting Diy Arduino based metal detector. The article starts with with an explanation of how most oscillator based metal detectors work. Most metal detectors uses a search coil that act as part of an oscillator circuit. When metal is put in proximity of the search coil →
I bought some time ago HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor Distance Measuring Module to play with ultrasound distance measurements with Arduino Duemilanove 2009 Atmega 328P SCM Board. The working principle of the HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor Distance Measuring Module when the module get trigger “start” pulse, it sends eight 40khz square wave pulses and automatically detect whether receive →
Serialchart is an open source application for charting data sent via RS-232 port in real time. It runs on Windows. It is very suitable for a microcontroller (Arduino) project to graph the incoming data to screen. The incoming data should be in CSV format, with each point on a separate line. After some short tests →
Hopelessly addicted to email, social networking, or other online distractions? Robert R. Morris and Dan McDuff created Pavlov Poke to wean themselves off Facebook and finish their dissertations. While this project is intended to be a joke, the project creators believe a serious discussion is needed about how communication technologies are designed. In the technical →