Femtoduino: an ultrasmall arduino board

This is amazing, perfect for those times when your have to create another board just to hold the atmega µC. I am looking forward to use this tiny board in some project in a near future. Congrats to Varesano for the project.

You can check his project HERE.

Arduino-Based Digital Clock

Wow, this is amazing! DOTKLOK is an open-source, hackable, Arduino-based digital clock that displays a series of unique time-telling animations.

DOTKLOK: Game Time from The Latest Artists on Vimeo.

DOTKLOK is an open-source, hackable, Arduino-based digital clock that displays a series of unique time-telling animations. The passing of time is depicted with numbers and abstract/geometric patterns such as Morse code and minimal analog clock faces, and includes animations inspired by classic video games such as Pong, Tetris, Pacman, and Space Invaders.

You can buy the kit for U$150.00 and it assembled for U$200.00
for me… I think I will build one, hell yeah I’m going to build one, just love it!!!

You can check more information from dotklok’s website.

Open Hardware Definition 1.0 Released

It’s finally here, a document that will help us to define what Open Hardware is, and to spread the idea. Open Software have been around for a long time, Open Hardware is still beginning, but already have a really big community out there, including me. I will add the logo to my next projects for sure!

Now, to move forward, please HELP:

• Endorse the definition, post your feedback on version 1.0 on the forum and the mailing list as we work towards a 1.1 update in the next few weeks / months.
• Take a look at the logos we are considering for “open source hardware”, give feedback or submit your own logo on the forum, in the thread LOGO.
• Show your support of the OSHW Definition by applying the definition to your work/project/website

This is a very important step in propelling our movement forward. PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE.

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Working with LEDs and Resistors

The objective of this text is to help you to understand how Resistors work and use it in it’s most simple use, as a current limiter. If you want to know more about resistors and leds, check Here and Here.

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Building an Breathalyzer with MQ-3 and Arduino

During the First Meeting of Electronic Arts in Florianópolis, we built a Breathalyzer using the Alcohol Gas Sensor MQ-3 and a Arduino Board to use in the last day of the meeting, in which we gave a party. You can see a quick video two posts below. Last days I received many emails asking for the code or how to make one, so I decided to build the sensor again, take pictures/videos and make a tutorial showing how you can make one, so here it is.

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I Meeting of Electronic Arts

It happened last week, starting on Monday 11th January and finishing on Friday the 15th, the I Meeting of Electronic Arts, where people from many differet places of Brazil came to see what was going on. Our first idea was a meeting (de)constructive, build, hack, modify, learn, teach, freedom of knowledge. Several workshops were presented, Basic Electronics, Processing, PureData, and others (the videos of the presentations will be distributed when people finish editing).

On Tuesday night we made a walking trip crossing the dunes till we find Joaquina’s beach. After swiming in the cold waters, we walked back on a thick rain, amazing, it was long ago since the last time I walked on the rain wanting it!

We learned/teched a lot in this event, one thing that we’ve noticed is that creative minds work much better after midnight. There was no point planning anything for the morning because no one could wake up before 11h.

On Thursday night a party was organized, where we put in for a test some projects developed during the event, for example a Breathalyzer using a Alcohol Gas Sensor MQ-3 sensor, LEDs and an Arduino. By the way, never seen so many arduinos in one place, in different sizes and colors, beautiful!

You can check some pictures from my Flickr:

Here is also a Video from the Breathalyzer (I will make a post on how you can make one after the Campus Party next week)

Some more videos can be found on my Vimeo.

Ultrasonic Range Finder with Arduino

I recently got a Maxbotix LV-EZ4 Ultrasonic Range Finder to try understand how to use it with my little Arduino. Having a ultrasonic range finder can be very useful in many different projects, as it can detect objects, I can use it to make alarm systems (cars usually use this kind of sensor), Obstacle-Avoiding Robot and many other things that you may have in mind. It works better outdoors then the IR sensor, but the only thing I could notice is that it doen’t detects very well some thick carpets. Besides that, it’s a great sensor. From the datasheet we can read that it sonar range information from 6-inches out to 254-inches (15.24 cm – 6.452m).

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Mythbusters Gagged: Credit Card Companies Kill Episode Exposing RFID Security Flaws

I had to post this here:

This show’s how insecure RFID is right.

Via consumerist

Simple but well made ATmega8 Development board

In case you think a arduino board is too much for your ATmega Development, you should check this board made by yourITronics. Using the microcontroller`s internal clock, and programming using an ICSP cable you can start developing right now!

In the website you’ll find the scheme and the eagle file.

Take a look here!

Say hello to Arduino’s big brother, Sanguino

And Zach Smith says: “I’m really really really excited to announce this new product. This one was directly conceived, funded, and produced here by the RRRF as a direct result of the kind souls who have supported us so far. To get to the meat, the Sanguino is a new microcontroller board inspired by the Arduino. We took the biggest baddest 40-pin DIP that atmel makes and made a board with it. Its based on the atmega644P which provides 64K of flash, 4K of ram, and 32 GPIO pins. The best part: its compatible with the Arduino software, which means all of your code should run on it no problem, and you can program it just as easily.”

You can buy a kit from the RRRF for $25 or check out the Sanguino website.

I am totally going to get one!!!