Hasta La Gadget!

Hey there maker. Have you run out of toys to tinker with? Have you refurbished all of the gizmos in your local junk shop? Have you written programs to automate every appliance in your house? Chris Novello has something that should keep you occupied for a long time. It’s called Illucia, and it lets you mess stuff up.

Illucia is a patch bay controller that lets you manipulate software using various electronic devices and even other software. It does this through Open Sound Control (OSC) and an array of jacks that can serve as input or output. Check out the controller’s user guide for more on how it works.

Here’s Chris breaking Super Mario Bros. by using the Illucia and a multitouch music instrument called the Soundplane:

Here Chris controls The Legend of Zelda through Super Mario Bros., manually triggering events in the latter that in turn trigger events in the former:

You can find more of Chris’ demo videos on his Vimeo page. Chris made Illucia fully open source – he posted all of the necessary build information on GitHub – but he also made 19 units by hand, 13 of which have been sold as of this writing. You can buy one from the Illucia website for $495 (USD).

[via Illucia via PSFK]

The burgeoning small scale 3D printing industry is focused on producing plastic or metal objects. A small team of makers led by Gerard Rubio hopes to turn the spotlight on a more practical material: fabric. The OpenKnit is a work-in-progress open source printer that automatically knits thread to create clothing based on digital templates.

The printer is powered by an Arduino Leonardo and can control three needles at the same time. Like the pioneering RepRap, the OpenKnit printer itself will have parts that can be 3D printed to further save on costs. Gerard says the printer should cost around $750 (USD) to build.

Aside from the printer itself, OpenKnit also has a companion program called Knitic that can be used to design clothes. Knitic was developed by Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva, who used their experience from hacking old electronic knitting machines to create a user-friendly program for designing clothes. Finally, there’s Do-Knit-Yourself, a “virtual wardrobe” where people can share their designs. Think of the site as the Thingiverse of clothing.

Obviously, all three parts of the OpenKnit project are still in their infancy, and the clothes that have come out of it are not much to look at. But I hope the project takes off and democratizes fashion, because that industry badly needs a wake up call. Check out the OpenKnit website to learn more about the printer. Makers should head to Gerard’s Github page to find out how they can replicate the device.

[via Gadgetify]

From robots to mind-reading, new programming languages to advanced communication systems, DARPA has fingers in many, many pies. And now, it’s making all its open source code available by publishing the DARPA Open Catalog.

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No company or web service is probably as painfully aware of the need to keep data safe and private than the likes of Facebook, who holds a virtual copy of … Continue reading

A small robotics company called UFactory is working on the uArm, a small version of the industrial robot arms we often see tirelessly moving about in modern manufacturing assembly lines. The uArm is about the size of a desk lamp and is controlled through an Arduino-compatible board.

The current build of the uArm is made largely out of laser cut wood or acrylic and uses four off-the-shelf servo motors. It also has three different “hands”: a gripper, a suction cup and a small circular platform.

uFactory currently has a Windows program that lets you control the robot through a mouse or a keyboard. They’re currently working on Android and iOS apps too.

The company also wrote an Arduino library for uArm, so if you’re familiar with the language you can program the robot through that as well.

uFactory promises to make its design files, hardware and software open source after its Kickstarter campaign ends.

Pledge at least $185 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a uArm assembly kit as a reward. I’m waiting for Iron Man fans to reenact this scene with their armored pets.

[via Gadgetify]