Hasta La Gadget!

Back during the heady days of 2012, before the Pebble raised a crazy amount of money on Kickstarter, Sony quietly released an Android-compatible smartwatch of its own. By most accounts it wasn’t very good, but that doesn’t mean that Sony has relegated it to the trash pile.

No, with hindsight being what it is, Sony is looking to breathe some new life into that curious little gadget with some help from the developer community. The company has kicked off what it calls the Open SmartWatch program to get developers cooking up custom firmwares for the thing.

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on the wearable gadgetry space, Sony launched the SmartWatch in question last year to mixed reviews. The concept is a very familiar one — the watch syncs to an Android-powered smartphone and displays messages and notifications, as well as runs a slew of bespoke SmartWatch apps. Thanks to its Android underpinnings, you could easily think of it as a more robust version of the Pebble or any of the copycats that have sprung up in its wake.

As iffy as Sony’s second-gen SmartWatch was, most of the issues seemed to be rooted in its software (and to its credit, Sony keeps pushing out patches and updates for the thing). Sony’s is one of the prettier smartwatches out there, and the spec list has just enough oomph to make it an attractive choice for some frenzied late night tinkering. By stripping out Sony’s work and starting fresh, hackers are largely left with a blank slate, and the company is committed to highlighting some of the most novel firmware once they start popping up.

To help kick this whole thing off, Sony has also tapped Arduino to hold a hackathon in Malmo, Sweden, to get antsy developers more familiar with the SmartWatch and what it’s capable of. There is, as always, a caveat: you may be breaking new ground with a device that most people haven’t given a second thought to, but you’ll be giving up access to the nearly 200 or so compatible applications floating around in the Google Play store.

DIY micro-robotics is having a moment. The latest project to take the crowdfunding route — via Kickstarter — to build out a platform for playing around with robotics is called BrickPi. As its name suggests, BrickPi is a mash-up of the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, co-opted to act as the brains of the robot, plus LEGO Mindstorms sensors, bricks and motors for crafting its working parts. Firmware is written in Arduino, making it open and hackable. Indeed, the BrickPi makers have put their hardware designs and software source code online for download on Github.

The BrickPi extends the Raspberry Pi with a board that snaps in place over the Pi to connect it to the various LEGO sensors (such as touch sensors, colour sensors and gyroscope). This is then contained within a plastic case that is compatible with LEGO bricks so it can act as the base for building out the robot. An on board battery connector allows the robot to be untethered from a power socket so it can go roving.

The BrickPi is the brainchild of educational robotics company  Dexter Industries which also sells sensors for LEGO Mindstorms. The Kickstarter campaign has five days left to run and is approaching $90,000 in pledged backing from more than 1,270 backers — hugely above the original (modest) goal of $1,889.

Going the crowdfunding route sounds like it was primarily about building a community and getting the word out for Brick Pi’s makers but they have added a series of stretch funding goals to explain what they plan to do with the extra money raised. These include adding more sensors and ports to the device and creating additional libraries (in C/C++, as well as the original Python libraries) to expand programming options.

“We have a lot of plans for the extra funds raised and they all include improving the user experience and opening up the BrickPi to a wider audience,” says Dexter Industries’ John Cole. ” That mostly means putting together some sharp tutorials, and putting together more examples.  In my humble experience, where a lot of technical projects like this go wrong is when they have only 2 or 3 example projects.  Adults can think of a lot of projects and interesting ways to use the product, but kids have trouble with it, get bored, and move on.”

The original goal of the funding campaign was to bring the cost of the BrickPi down to $35 — making it the same price as the Raspberry Pi. BrickPi also pledged to write a library for the Scratch programming language, itself developed for helping kids to learn how to code. With projects like this, and mOwayduino — another robotics platform in the making due to go the crowdfunding route shortly — hardware hacking for creatively minded kids has never looked so easy.

If you grew up in the 80s you might recall Big Track: a programmable kids robo-truck that could be made to perform a handful of actions, like moving a set number of units in a certain direction, firing a faux laser or tipping out the contents of its dumper truck at a pre-set destination (assuming your parents’ had shelled out for that accessory).

Well, Big Track mostly sucked but only because the concept was ahead of what the technology could affordably deliver. Playing with Big Truck meant repeatedly driving into walls as you underestimated the number of units required to negotiate the space between the kitchen table and the door. What the toy maker got right was that kids are easily excited about robotics. Fast forward a few decades and enter mOwayduino: programmable Arduino-based robot toys designed to be used in conjunction with mobile apps (e.g for radio controlling the device via the phone’s accelerometer) plus hardware add-ons — creating a rich environment for learning by playing around with hardware and software building blocks.

Or that’s the idea. At the moment, mOwayduino is at the concept/prototyping stage.  The Spanish company behind the project is apparently aiming to crowdfund the idea via Indiegogo. For now, you can register your interest via their website. Update: mOwayduino’s makers say the Indiegogo campaign to fund production will launch in less than two weeks. “If we succeed, in three months, it will be on market. For people supporting the Indiegogo project, mOwayduino will be available at a special price,” the company tells TechCrunch. “If we exceed the money we need for the production, we will develop a graphical programming app for tablets.” It also intends to have an open API for users to develop their own apps.

The basic design of the mOwayduino robot looks a bit like a desk-mounted pencil-sharpener that’s wandered away from its duties. On the base there are three wheels to facilitate free, circular turning movements. Each robot then has various on-board lights and sensors (line sensor, light sensor, obstacle sensor, microphone, speaker etc) plus a USB-rechargeable battery that’s good for two hours of use.

Then, up top are expansion slots where additional modules can be plugged in to augment and extend its powers. For instance, there will be a vision system expansion module for capturing real-time images and sending them to a PC screen. (Just imagine the apps you could create to spy on your siblings!) Another planned expansion module adds Wi-Fi so the robot could be controlled from a mobile device or send emails when it has completed certain tasks.

The combination of a feature-rich basic robot unit plus the ability to augment and extend functionality — with support for programming via Ardunio IDE, Phyton, Java and the kid-friendly Scratch language, and the ability for multiple mOwayduinos to talk to each other and operate in sync — suggests this tech will easily kick Big Track’s ass. Or it will if it gets off the ground.

mOwayduino follows in the footsteps of other learning focused hardware such as the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. Key to the latter device’s success has been its low price tag so it will be interesting to see what price-tag mOwayduino will carry. Hopefully the base units won’t be prohibitively expensive so that kids can get their home-hacking on.

Some students at the LeCroy Career Technical Center have created an automated lawn mower for a national robotics competition. I say they just didn’t want to mow the lawn anymore. But no matter the reason, they have made a pretty cool lawnmower. Having it do all of the work is a nice bonus though.

This Ardumower was made from a motorized wheelchair, a push mower, an Arduino mini-computer, sensors and other parts. First they disassembled the  wheelchair, then created the metal frame and then fitted the programmable hardware that allowed them to autonomously or remotely operate it.

They used Google Maps as the coordinate locater, so that they could program the Arduino to cut grass all by itself. They have to work on obstacle avoidance next.

Or if they had about $3000 lying around, they could just go for one of these.

[via DamnGeeky]

Back in the 1980s, I always wanted a set of those Simmons electronic drums – not because I had any idea how to play percussion, but because they just looked cool and geeky. Of course, now I look back and think they were pretty silly looking. Still, I always enjoyed the sound of electronic drums. While I suppose I could go buy a fancy drum machine, but I rather like the way this kit looks instead.

Designed by Dr. Bleep, the Bleep Drum Kit is an Arduino-based electronic circuit that generates percussive sounds. It offers four different sounds, along with pitch control for two of them. You can also record and play back sequences with the Bleep, by simply tapping them out. Its sampled sounds are decidedly lo-fi, but that’s what I love about it. Here, check it out in action:

Since the code for the Bleep Drum is provided, you can hack in your own .WAV samples, or with a little bit of work, you could probably control it via MIDI too.

You can order the Bleep either in Kit form for $60(USD), or if soldering is above your pay grade, you can go for the pre-assembled version for $85. Both are available over on Bleep Labs website.