Gadget Master

Video: Get to grips with the BeagleBone

2012-02-08T16:03:24Z

We're all for BeagleBoards here on Gadget Master and this is one I meant to flag before - Texas Instrument's system has a little brother: the BeagleBone, powered by the company's Sitara ARM Cortex-A8 processor.

"It builds in the most loved features of the BeagleBoard but has shrunk the size and price while adding more I/O connections," boasts TI in the video below. The RRP is $89.

To get started, simply plug it into your PC (Windows MacOs or Linux) and you can begin development... It will appear as a Flash drive and you will be able to extract the files to get you going. ]]> Gadget Master and this is one I meant to flag before - Texas Instrument's system has a little brother: the BeagleBone, powered by the company's Sitara ARM Cortex-A8 processor.

"It builds in the most loved features of the BeagleBoard but has shrunk the size and price while adding more I/O connections," boasts TI in the video below. The RRP is $89.

To get started, simply plug it into your PC (Windows MacOs or Linux) and you can begin development... It will appear as a Flash drive and you will be able to extract the files to get you going.

Features of the hardware spec highlighted by BeagleBoard.org include:
    * Board size: 3.4" x 2.1"
    * Shipped with 2GB microSD card with the Angstrom Distribution with node.js and Cloud9 IDE
    * Single cable development environment with built-in FTDI-based serial/JTAG and on-board hub to give the same cable simultaneous access to a USB device port on the target processor
    * Industry standard 3.3V I/Os on the expansion headers with easy-to-use 0.1" spacing
    * On-chip Ethernet, not off of USB
    * Easier to clone thanks to larger pitch on BGA devices (0.8mm vs. 0.4mm), no package-on-package memories, standard DDR2 vs. LPDDR, integrated USB PHYs and more.

What is the BeagleBone capable of doing? They are glad you asked...

At over 1.5 billion Dhrystone operations per second and vector floating point arithmetic operations, the BeagleBone is capable of not just interfacing to all of your robotics motor drivers, location or pressure sensors and 2D or 3D cameras, but also running OpenCV, OpenNI and other image collection and analysis software to recognize the objects around your robot and the gestures you might make to control it. Through HDMI, VGA or LCD expansion boards, it is capable of decoding and displaying multiple video formats utilizing a completely open source software stack and synchronizing playback over Ethernet or USB with other BeagleBoards to create massive video walls. If what you are into is building 3D printers, then the BeagleBone has the extensive PWM capabilities, the on-chip Ethernet and the 3D rendering and manipulation capabilities all help you eliminate both your underpowered microcontroller-based controller board as well as that PC from your basement.

Create your own Terminator Arm!

2012-02-07T16:29:35Z

Are you up to the challenge of creating your own Terminator Arm, complete with LED lighting effect?!

I ordered an Android IOIO board from SparkFun recently - for the current Gadget Master compo - and this tutorial on the same site caught my eye.

It's a tutorial by one "T Zero", taking us through the creation of afore mentioned robotic arm....

They begin:

Being a solder jockey, I'm not the best at programming and making things light up and blink. But, I am a wiz with a soldering iron. I enjoy making sculptures and little objects you can set at the edge of your desk to strike up a conversation. For this tutorial, I was trying to come up with the best sculpture or desk ornament - something every nerd or geek like myself would be proud to put on display. Something that didn't cost much and was a good rainy afternoon project. This project was done with trashed parts I found around the shop, and if your workstation looks anything like mine, you should be able to find these or similar parts.

]]>
I ordered an Android IOIO board from SparkFun recently - for the current Gadget Master compo - and this tutorial on the same site caught my eye.

It's a tutorial by one "T Zero", taking us through the creation of afore mentioned robotic arm....

They begin:

Being a solder jockey, I'm not the best at programming and making things light up and blink. But, I am a wiz with a soldering iron. I enjoy making sculptures and little objects you can set at the edge of your desk to strike up a conversation. For this tutorial, I was trying to come up with the best sculpture or desk ornament - something every nerd or geek like myself would be proud to put on display. Something that didn't cost much and was a good rainy afternoon project. This project was done with trashed parts I found around the shop, and if your workstation looks anything like mine, you should be able to find these or similar parts.

The full list of parts is as follows:

And as pictured:

He takes you through the various stages of the project, with pictures. For example:

"Once you have soldered the reed switch into place, slide the stand off over both LED leads. This is probably the most difficult part. In order to solder to the stand off, you need to hold a glob of solder on it, heating it up."

Check out the full tutorial >>

Robot explores, seeks and destroys!

2012-02-03T14:24:36Z

We highlighted a neat sound-activated light system recently - How to build a whistle-activated light switch - and the Gadget Master behind it has plenty of other projects under his belt. His website is well worth exploring >>

Take for example this exploratory robot, which he developed as part of an independent-study project in Computer Engineering at the Universirty of Illinois. The basic idea for it is that the 'robot', or something similar, "could conceivably be used by SWAT teams or the military to enter buildings where bad people are and shoot/Taser them".

Check out the video, above, of the device in operation, including the robot's eye view of the test action.

]]>
We highlighted a neat sound-activated light system recently - How to build a whistle-activated light switch - and the Gadget Master behind it has plenty of other projects under his belt. His website is well worth exploring >>

Take for example this exploratory robot, which he developed as part of an independent-study project in Computer Engineering at the Universirty of Illinois. The basic idea for it is that the 'robot', or something similar, "could conceivably be used by SWAT teams or the military to enter buildings where bad people are and shoot/Taser them".

Check out the video, above, of the device in operation, including the robot's eye view of the test action.

About the video system - the eys of the robot, as it were - he writes:

The video system is all from Misumi Electronics. They don't have prices on the site; you have to ask for quotes (I think they don't really intend to sell to hobbyists, but they will sell quantities of 1 if you ask. Allow a few weeks to finalize the order and get it shipped from Taiwan, though. Plus around $20 shipping.) The video camera I used was a CCD camera and was around $40; they have CMOS color cameras for $25. I haven't used the CMOS camera, so I don't know if there's a real difference. The camera outputs a standard video signal, just like a VCR, so you can hook it up to anything that takes a video signal.

I used a video transmitter and receiver from the same company. The pair is around $90, and transmits for a long distance, like a quarter mile. The transmitter takes the TV signal from the camera, and the receiver outputs the signal. I use a video capture card to watch the video on my PC. The transmitter also takes an audio signal, so I put a microphone on the robot too.

How is the robot powered?

The battery that powers the whole robot is a 12V lead-acid rechargeable battery. It's basically a little version of a car battery. It was $17 at the same surplus place as the movement motors. I charge it with a car battery charger ($20 from a hardware store). The only thing to worry about is that it has a maximum charging current (printed on the battery). The car battery charger I got has a current meter on it, so I used that to make sure that it wasn't giving it too much current. It turned out to be fine with no adjustment; if it had charged too fast, I would have added a small resistor, like 1 or 2 ohms, between the charger and battery to limit the current. (A small resistor would also have let me measure the current if the charger didn't have a current meter. Use a multimeter to measure the voltage across the resistor, and you can calculate the current through it.)

Read the full details of the robot >>

Most read Gadget Master posts in January

2012-02-02T10:34:48Z

Well, the New Year is here and is already a month underway... Time to ask the question: which posts have proved the most popular on Gadget Master among your peers, in January?

Well, the answer covers IO boards, LED displays, the Raspberry Pi and a whistle-activated light switch...

Let's take it in reverse order:

10. How to build a rotating LED display

9. Build your own wand based barcode scanner

8. A DIY Android Gadget Starter Kit

]]> Gadget Master among your peers, in January?

Well, the answer covers IO boards, LED displays, the Raspberry Pi and a whistle-activated light switch...

Let's take it in reverse order:

10. How to build a rotating LED display

9. Build your own wand based barcode scanner

8. A DIY Android Gadget Starter Kit

7. How to build a whistle-activated light switch

6. Android advances to centre stage

5. Keep your property where you can see it

4. Build your own LED cube

3. The IOIO Android breakout board competition

2. Build your own laser harp

1. Raspberry Pi #0001 goes for £3,500 on eBay

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Sign up for the Circuits-Gadget Master newsletter

2012-02-01T11:10:29Z

Having one of those days? Work driving you mad? Just can't seem to find the time to visit Gadget Master as much as you would like to?

Well, don't stress, help is at hand. If you can't come to us, we'll come to you!

You can now sign up for the Circuits newsletter to ensure you receive the latest and greatest Gadget Master news, hot and fresh, straight into your inbox!

Signing up only takes a second and then you can sit back and relax as we do the rest.

]]>

Having one of those days? Work driving you mad? Just can't seem to find the time to visit Gadget Master as much as you would like to?

Well, don't stress, help is at hand. If you can't come to us, we'll come to you!

You can now sign up for the Circuits newsletter to ensure you receive the latest and greatest Gadget Master news, hot and fresh, straight into your inbox!

Signing up only takes a second and then you can sit back and relax as we do the rest.

Go on, sign up - it will be the best decision you've ever made!

Video: The Four-bit Maze challenge, via Arduino

2012-01-25T08:49:30Z

This is a good one, from Gadget Master Oskar van Deventer. He had a vision for a mechanical or electronic puzzle without a screen and without lights, purely tactile and purely mechanical...

Based on an Arduino UNO microcontroller, it's programmed for ten different levels of difficulty, with an Arduino Motor Shield operating the motorfaders, reports Engadget.

He writes:

The Four Bit Maze is an electronic mechanical puzzle that is 100% tactile. The object of the puzzle is to move all four sliders from the "0" position to the "1" position.

Each challenge has only 16 binary states, and the operation of each challenge is 100% deterministic without any hidden states. Some challenges are easy and playful, whereas others are fiendishly hard.

How does it work? Check out the video below:

]]>

Based on an Arduino UNO microcontroller, it's programmed for ten different levels of difficulty, with an Arduino Motor Shield operating the motorfaders, reports Engadget.

He writes:

The Four Bit Maze is an electronic mechanical puzzle that is 100% tactile. The object of the puzzle is to move all four sliders from the "0" position to the "1" position.

Each challenge has only 16 binary states, and the operation of each challenge is 100% deterministic without any hidden states. Some challenges are easy and playful, whereas others are fiendishly hard.

How does it work? Check out the video below:

If you wish, you can buy the device for €435 from Oskar directly.

Tearing down the (3rd Gen) Kindle

2012-01-24T10:08:26Z

"It's been a while since I destroyed something beautiful" says Will Smith from the excellent ested.com, with a Kindle in his hands.

Check out this video of his teardown of Amazon's e-book reader. Okay, it is not the very most recent release (the 4th Gen was announced in September last year), but it's still of interest. See how gets on with this "impenetrable" device and see the e-ink screen in full clour...

]]> "It's been a while since I destroyed something beautiful" says Will Smith from the excellent Tested.com, with a Kindle in his hands.

A feature of the Kindle is that the offical case from Amazon delivers power for a light, built into the case, through the hinges or mounting points... "Pretty neat," says Will.

Check out Tested.com's YouTube channel for more videos.

A Steampunk fob watch fit for a gentleman's ensemble

2012-01-18T16:37:44Z

This is more Solarpunk than Steampunk if you want to be literal about it, but it's delightfully stylish and clearly Steampunk inspired.

It's a pocket watch that will add a touch of Victorian glamour to a gentleman's morning ensemble, showing how retailers are beginning to catch the enthusiasm for this sort of thing so it is actually available to buy, if you want it.

]]>
It's a pocket watch that will add a touch of Victorian glamour to a gentleman's morning ensemble, showing how retailers are beginning to catch the enthusiasm for this sort of thing so it is actually available to buy, if you want it.

Its turbine-style blades are not driven by steam, but rotate when exposed to direct sunlight, to wind the quartz movement watch. Its brass workings and pewter case give it the colour and weight to make it convincing. Of course for the benefit of UK customers, it can also be hand cranked if the sun won't come out to play.

The pewter work is designed in Sheffield by Alchemy Jewellery, for US historical replica retailer Design Toscano.

Sue Proud

Video: Sensors tune the Singing House

2012-01-18T10:21:13Z

'Home is where the gadgets' are is an observation we've made before, but how about this one to extend the concept - the Singing House by the New Orleans-based musician/inventor Quintron. Check out the video below.

It's a bit of fun where an analogue "drone synthesizer" is modulated by the weather outside a house, whether wind, rain, sunrise or sunset....

Check out the wind detectors, the drop sensors and the special sensor on the roof that "brings in a tone" for sunriose and sunset and, apparently, the presence of the moon...

"A bright moon will purr and lightning will strike," says the commmentary, with the latter slightly resembling a Theremin... ]]> Home is where the gadgets' are is an observation we've made before, but how about this one to extend the concept - the Singing House by the New Orleans-based musician/inventor Quintron. Check out the video below.

It's a bit of fun where an analogue "drone synthesizer" is modulated by the weather outside a house, whether wind, rain, sunrise or sunset....

Check out the wind detectors, the drop sensors and the special sensor on the roof that "brings in a tone" for sunriose and sunset and, apparently, the presence of the mmon...

"A bright moon will purr and lightning will strike," says the commmentary, with the latter slightly resembling a Theremin...

The IOIO Android breakout board competition

2012-01-16T12:04:47Z

Time for another competition! The theme we are taking for this one is Google's Android platform. So, taking a cue from a previous Gadget Master post - Android phones hack their way with IOIO breakout - let's have an Android related prize!

The IOIO board (pronounced "YoYo"), from SparkFun, is an easy way to get I/O from an Android smartphone's USB connection (OS versions 1.5 and greater). The board uses a Java API to hook into your phone's app, and this means you can extend the functionality of the phone out to external sensors and controls!

Here's the January/February compo!

The prize question: ]]> Android phones hack their way with IOIO breakout - let's have an Android related prize!

The IOIO board (pronounced "YoYo"), from SparkFun, is an easy way to get I/O from an Android smartphone's USB connection (OS versions 1.5 and greater). The board uses a Java API to hook into your phone's app, and this means you can extend the functionality of the phone out to external sensors and controls! It would set you back $50 online dollars to buy.

Here's the January/February compo!

The prize question:

As always, we'll keep the format familiar and straightforward: correctly answer this question for a chance of winning the IO board.

The recent Android advances to centre stage featured a number of posts touching on the Android platform. But which one has an image containing the text "Droid 1 Activity"?

Once you know the correct response, just email competition@electronicsweekly.com stating the title of the blog post that has the correct image in it.

The competition closes end of play Friday 24 February. You can view the Terms and Conditions.

Good luck!

Digital Volt Meters from Santa's workshop

2012-01-16T08:46:40Z

I don't know if you follow the Engineer in Wonderland series on Electro-ramblings, but when Alice gets into the workshop the content is worth sharing - consider Alice an uber-Gadget Master!

Take this recent post:

I like to make at least one present for someone at Christmas.

This time it was little pocket DVMs for those gathered around the Christmas tree that maintain their own cars and motorbikes.

A little time consuming, but the result was three happy relatives.

Inside each is a little self-powered DVM module from China.

]]> Engineer in Wonderland series on Electro-ramblings, but when Alice gets into the workshop the content is worth sharing - consider Alice an uber-Gadget Master!

Take this recent post:

I like to make at least one present for someone at Christmas.

This time it was little pocket DVMs for those gathered around the Christmas tree that maintain their own cars and motorbikes.

A little time consuming, but the result was three happy relatives.

Inside each is a little self-powered DVM module from China.

They are pretty accurate from 3.3V to 30V.

Maximum forward voltage is 30V, and no reverse vollage is allowed.

30V max is OK for car use - although 60V would have been better - but the reverse bias restriction is obviously a no no, so part of the build was to add reverse protection.

I chose the classic mosfet-run-backwards circuit adding a 10V zener to protect the gate from too many volts, with the whole lot soldered straight to the module.

Current draw was a pretty steady - regardless of number displayed - at 10mA, rising to 20mA at 30V.

So the rather over-specified 55amp STMicroelectronics mosfets I happened to have lying around resulted in a reading error of a huge 20µV, if my calculations are correct.

33x35mm boxes came from Maplin, and I replaced the top with red Perspex to make a contrast-enhancing window.

The artistically angled display was unavoidable as I would have had to cut bits of the module to get them straight.

A thick layer of stick-back foam in the back of the box pushes the module against the window to hold everything steady, and means I have a lot of 2mm screws and some spare holes lying around.

Who's a clever Alice

BTW, the whole experience made me think that a simple series diode could be used for protection, providing current draw was constant, and the module added the extra 0.6V (or whatever) voltage loss before it displayed a result.

As I remember, there is an extraordinarily clever LM10 circuit that could wrap around a microcontroller-based DVM to make its overall current consumption constant in this application, somewhere in this data sheet.

'Alice'

Raspberry Pi #0001 goes for £3,500 on eBay

2012-01-12T11:18:41Z

I don't know if you have been following the Raspberry Pi project - it looks very promising material for Gadget Masters - but a £20 Raspberry Pi computer sold for £3,500 on eBay last night, writes Steve Bush. It is intended to cost under £20 when it goes into production.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation, which intends to sell its educational computers directly, auctioned 10 of its beta production board on eBay.

As executive director Eben Upton pointed out in a video on the Foundation's website, this limited auction was aimed at: computer collectors, benefactors intending to donate to the foundation - which is a charity, and software development firm's wanting hardware before full-production boards are released later this month.

In a move that may cause priority arguments amongst collectors in the future, Raspberry Pi number 1 was actually the tenth auctioned, with number 10 going first for the relative bargain price of £1,900.

Set up by a group of high-flying techies, the Foundation aims to inspire a generation of programmers by putting competent low-cost hardware into the hands of children and teenagers, much in the way that Sinclair computers did in the 1980s.

"We have parts in stock for our first 10,000 units, and expect to be in volume production by the end of January," said Raspberry Pi Foundation executive director Eben Upton.

The computer, Raspberry Pi, is intended to cost under £20, is based around a 32bit ARM11 system chip which plugs into a TV through HDMI or analogue video, and will run some Linux distributions, Python, Iceweasel and KOffice amongst other open-source applications - a slight setback is that Ubuntu is not yet supporting the hardware.

Most importantly for the Foundation, unlike PCs and smart phones, Raspberry Pi can be programmed by the user as soon as it is switched on, tempting them to explore computer science.

Read the orginal story >>

Android advances to centre stage

2012-01-11T15:35:20Z

Ahead of the imminent Jan/Feb 2012 compo, let's have another themed roundup of posts... on Google's Android platform.

People who follow my other blog, Eyes on Android, will know I maintain a certain interest in all things 'Droid, and Gadget Master certainly crosses into this territory from time to time.

Here are some posts that touch on - however tangentially - the open source, non-Apple and non-Microsoft platform.

* A DIY Android Gadget Starter Kit

* Android phones hack their way with IOIO breakout

* Musical GPS guides cyclists on their way

]]>
People who follow my other blog, Eyes on Android, will know I maintain a certain interest in all things 'Droid, and Gadget Master certainly crosses into this territory from time to time.

Here are some posts that touch on - however tangentially - the open source, non-Apple and non-Microsoft platform.

* A DIY Android Gadget Starter Kit

* Android phones hack their way with IOIO breakout

* Musical GPS guides cyclists on their way

* Megapad modding brings Android to the kitchen table

* Make your own way with Android

* Gadget of the Week - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

* Video: Samsung Galaxy Tab teardown

* Tearing down the Motorola Xoom

* Watch out, there's a new BeagleBoard about

How to build a whistle-activated light switch

2012-01-09T12:22:03Z

This is a good project - building a whistle-activated light switch. Hold a note to turn it on, and whistle again to turn it off!

Check out the website of Luke Allen, a US Navy officer, where he details the project - Whistle-activated switch - and provides circuit diagrams, C code and explanations, and lots more.

"This device turns my bedroom ceiling light on or off when I whistle a steady tone. It lets me turn on the light before getting up in the morning, to help myself wake up. It also lets me read in bed at night and then turn off the light without getting up. (The project was inspired when I read Atlas Shrugged a few months ago and couldn't put it down. I liked the vehement anti-socialist arguments and the fact that the ideal man in the book is a tall electrical engineer. Both things are true.) Some people might suggest that buying a bedside lamp would accomplish the same thing as this project, but I don't listen to those people. Also, this method lets me control a brighter light and costs slightly less."

]]>
Check out the website of Luke Allen, a US Navy officer, where he details the project - Whistle-activated switch - and provides circuit diagrams, C code and explanations, and lots more.

"This device turns my bedroom ceiling light on or off when I whistle a steady tone. It lets me turn on the light before getting up in the morning, to help myself wake up. It also lets me read in bed at night and then turn off the light without getting up. (The project was inspired when I read Atlas Shrugged a few months ago and couldn't put it down. I liked the vehement anti-socialist arguments and the fact that the ideal man in the book is a tall electrical engineer. Both things are true.) Some people might suggest that buying a bedside lamp would accomplish the same thing as this project, but I don't listen to those people. Also, this method lets me control a brighter light and costs slightly less."

The switch is not activated by an non-whistle sounds, for example Heavy Metal music, as demoed in the video above. If the audio input reaches above a certain level a voltage comparator outputs a "1", and a microcontroller checks if the 1s have a steady frequency. If they do, the system springs into action.

His website gives details of how he controls the ceiling light and details of the whistle detection circuit:

"The first op-amp is amplifying the audio, and the second is acting as a comparator and outputting a digital '1' if the audio is above the reference, and a '0' if it's below it. (As a side note, the amplifier circuit shown below is the proper way to amplify audio; the simpler amplifier circuit that I use on my Starburst Turret page loses the bottom half of the audio wave, which is OK for the Starburst Turret but not necessarily OK for other uses.)"

It also includes his C code (for the free Microchip MPLAB C18 compiler) for the PIC 18F1320 microcontroller at the heart of the project.

He finishes with a challenge to himself - if he was better at whistling he could probably set different devices to different frequency ranges for control!

SparkFun preps Free Day giveaway event

2012-01-05T10:15:08Z

Possibly a chance for Gadget Masters to get their hands on some free kit, courtesy of SparkFun...

SparkFun Electronics is bringing back its annual Free Day giveaway event. The prize pool is up to $200,000, up 30% from last year, says the company.

Basically, two thousand people who visit the website on Free Day - which is January 11 - will be chosen at random to win their share of the prize - a $100 credit to be used on SparkFun products. ]]> SparkFun...

SparkFun Electronics is bringing back its annual Free Day giveaway event. The prize pool is up to $200,000, up 30% from last year, says the company.

Basically, two thousand people who visit the website on Free Day - which is January 11 - will be chosen at random to win their share of the prize - a $100 credit to be used on SparkFun products.

"Free Day was the brain-child of SparkFun CEO Nate Seidle," says the company announcement. "His goals were to invigorate the DIY-community, stress test the SparkFun servers, and reward and excite the SparkFun community. It also was SparkFun's hope that by enabling individuals to get their hands on free electronics, the entire community would receive a boost."

To participate, you will need a SparkFun customer account (which doesn't require a purchase) and to visit the SparkFun website on the Free Day (January 11, 2012).

The event officially starts at 9 a.m. MT and will last as long as the funds are still available. For more information, visit: www.sparkfun.com/news/747.