Hasta La Gadget!

Puppet shows and tech rarely ever mix so succinctly: Insert Coin finalist Gal Sasson has taken the ages-old art form and put it on a motorized stage powered by Arduino, making it more entertaining and interactive in the process. The product, dubbed Make a Play, consists of a stage and control board (complete with buttons, knobs and joysticks) all hooked into a nearby computer, and we had the chance to play around with it at Engadget Expand. After decorating the background and adding puppets and toys onto the stage, kids can control the lighting, move two motorized carts to change the position of each puppet and they can even turn on tiny LED lights attached to the toys. But it goes one step further: you can record all of the puppets’ movements and audio associated with your play, which means that your creations can be played back and reproduced on the stage whenever you want. Gal is still working on his launch strategy, so pricing and availability have not been officially announced. We take the stage for a spin in the video and image gallery below, so take a closer look.

Filed under: Mobile

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If you’re hip-deep in Arduino projects, you’re likely aware of shields: graft-on boards that add functionality, most often getting the Arduino in touch with the rest of the world. Many of these require more than a little coding skill to get the ball rolling, even in light of the Netduino, which has led Supermechanical to unveil its new Twine Cloud Shield. The board links the Arduino to a Twine WiFi sensor and gives the Arduino every internet feature the Twine can offer through just three lines of code. There’s even a pair of touchpads on the shield to trigger actions through capacitive touch. Do be prepared to pony up for that ease of use when it costs $35 for the Cloud Shield alone, and $150 to bundle one with the Twine. Still, the outlay may be justified if you’re more interested in quickly finishing a fun experiment than frittering your time away on the basics.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals

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Source: Supermechanical

Sick of people coming into your office and talking your ear off? There are plenty of ways to get them to leave, but I’ve never thought of using an old NES system to hurry them on their way.

Mark Rober and his pal Chad Grant hacked together this NES console – dubbed the “Annoying Person Remover “- which plays classic sound effects from the game when a person enters your space. When they first come in, it plays Mario’s pipe sound, and then the familiar level music and sounds as they hang out. But they only have 400 seconds to complete the level before they’re booted from your office, with that lovely Hurry Up tune that plays when you’re running out of time, and the Game Over tune when it’s time to GTFO.

The build is actually pretty simple, using an old NES, an Arduino board (with Music and Sound add-on), a motion sensor, and a clock display. You can grab all of the information you need to build your own over on Dropbox, including a parts list, and Arduino programming files.

Internet of things? That’s so 2012. 2013? Well maybe, just maybe, it’ll be all about the internet of places. Hexagonal Research founders Loren Lang and Ronald Bynoe are betting that the next big thing will be environmentally aware computers. The pair have created Observos which combines an ATMEL microcontroller (with integrated wireless) with a host of on-board sensors. What began as a prototype built around a tower of Arduino shields is now a small first-run integrated board with spots for connecting XBee radio cards and a small LCD display. Right now the focus is on humidity, temperature and barometric pressure, though other environmental variables would be relatively trivial to tack on. While the Observos board is isn’t quite ready for prime time, its already getting some serious field testing in a plant nursery and a potential partnership with the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge could find the boards placed in health clinics in the Amazon.

In addition to the small display, the board can be programmed to send text message or email alerts, and in the future could tie into venting or heating systems for completely automated control. There’s even a rudimentary web interface for monitoring the various data coming in from the sensors.

Check out the full list of Insert Coin: New Challengers semifinalists here — and don’t forget to pick a winner!

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Observos

There are certain things you’d expect to encounter on a visit to NASA’s Swamp Works research facility. Walking into the former Apollo testing facility, you’ll almost certainly catch glimpses of martian rovers, soil samples and an assortment of scientific testing devices. But in spite of Arduino’s near ubiquity these days, we’ll admit that we were a bit taken aback when the familiar blue microcontroller made an appearance on a lab desk during our conversation with NASA “lighting guy,” Dr. Eirik Holbert. It seems that NASA, like pretty much everyone else, is experimenting with the hacker-friendly component.

The board was hooked up to a lighting fixture Holbert is working on as part of NASA’s upcoming deep space habitat concept generator. It’s an attempt to bring some sunlit consistency to space exploration, simulating Earth-like lighting patterns to help keep the crew alert and get them ready for sleep in the evenings. So, where does NASA turn when it’s looking to conserve weight and save some taxpayer money in the process? Toward the Arduino Uno, naturally. Holbert assembled a number of off-the-shelf products, including the aforementioned microcontroller and shields from Sparkfun to make a fixture for under $500.

Asked whether we might be seeing an Arduino setup like this on an upcoming mission, Dr. Holbert told us, “I’m all about interchangeability. If they can make something space compatible, I’d be all for it.”

Filed under: Science

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