While this is not directly related to Arduinos, I thought I would share some pictures of my most recent project… The Yake Banner!

The Yake Banner was inspired by the “Fire Skirt” on Instructables.

You can see more pictures of the Yake Banner, along with pictures of Yake Fest here!

Now, I’m off to download the new Arduino 017 IDE build… talk to you in a day or two!

–Morgellon OUT!

Massimo Banzi at Flourish ’09 from Morgellon on Vimeo.

Processing Workshop at Flourish ’09 (pt1) from Morgellon on Vimeo.

Processing Workshop at Flourish ’09 (pt2) from Morgellon on Vimeo.

I’ve finally uploaded the video of my talk, so go check it out! You may notice that the few slides I use look very similar to the Phreaknic slides.  That’s because they are the Phreaknic slides.  I forgot to pack up my laptop power cord and since it’s kinda old, the battery life is non existent.  Luckily, Jeremy and Brian (two FANTASTIC guys that were sharing the room with me and Irongeek) had an extra EEE PC they let me borrow.  I managed to download the PDF of the slides from my server, a small bit of code, the arduino IDE… and throw “something” together.

*Duino Punk! Manifesting Open Source in Physical Space from Morgellon on Vimeo.

Now that Outerz0ne is over, we should be getting back to a more “daily” feel.  I received some conductive thread and some temperature sensors the day before Outerz0ne, so I’ll be doing some basic projects with them soon!

I’m also working on some LillyPad based projects, to create some wearable electronics.  I’m starting to get the needlework down and I have acquired a sewing machine… now I just need to learn how to use the sewing machine…

Stay tuned, more projects soon – Morgellon out!

Outerz0ne 5 Atlanta, GA March 6 - 7, 2009

I’ll be at Outerz0ne 5 in Atlanta, GA March 6th – 7th, 2009.  (kinda short notice, as it is next weekend…)

My talk there is entitled, *Dunio-Punk! Manifesting Open Source in Physical Space.  You can read more about it and the others talking at the Outerz0ne 5 Speaker Page.  If you’re near the Atlanta area, be sure to swing by and say hello!  Outerz0ne 5 will be at the Wellesley Inn 1377 Virgina Ave Atlanta, GA 30344 (more info at Outerz0ne 5 website)
View Larger Map

Notacon 6 Cleveland, OH April 16 - 19, 2009

Droops and I will both be at Notacon 6 in Cleveland, OH April 16th – 19th, 2009. (A bit more notice here…)

Our talk there is entitled, Interactivity with Arduinos, Transducing the Physical World.  You can read more about it and others talking at the Notacon 6 Speaker Page.  If you’re near the Ohio area, make plans to come out and spend the weekend at Notacon 6!  Notacon 6 will be held at the Wyndham Cleveland at Playhouse Square, Downtown Cleveland, OH 1260 Euclid Ave Cleveland, OH 44115. (plenty of directions and more info at the Notacon 6 site)

Don’t worry if you can’t make it out, I’ll do my best to post pictures and the video of the talk from Outerz0ne and Notacon.

Know of a conference where we should be speaking?  Be sure to drop us a line and let us know!

The Arduino is an open source microcontroller development board that makes it easy for beginners in electronics to do crazy things. We are going to be continuing our Intro to Arduinos talk from Phreaknic, Anyone new to Arduino’s should watch that talk online. We will be discussing building your own devices to interact with the real world: making electronic musical instruments, wireless communication, networking Arduinos, controlling lights and sounds, sensing touch, RFID, building custom games with custom controllers, sensing temperature changes and ways of notification like phone calls, sms, hidden buzzers. We will also go into building clothes with embedded electronics.

Learn more about Notacon http://www.notacon.org/

Stop by and say, “Hi”, if you come… we would love to see ya!

The Extraordinary Journey from Fundamental Electronics to Fabulous Enchanted Systems with Arduino’s and Magical Potions from droops on Vimeo.

Arduino / Processing Color Selector from droops on Vimeo.

This is for our talk at Phreaknic, the ardunio reads 3 linear pots and outputs serial data that looks like this:

X 56
Y 67
Z 10
X 59
Y 89
Z 10

Processing takes this, splits it up, and makes the pretty colors.

Arduino Knock Sensor Drum Kit v1.01 from Morgellon on Vimeo.

• Read how to use a piezo buzzer as a knock sensor

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Knock

• Read how to make a piezo buzzer play various tones, instead of just one!

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/PlayMelody

Here’s the sample code I used, with a few tweaks added:

int ledPin = 13;      // led connected to control pin 13
int knockSensor = 0;  // the knock sensor will be plugged at analog pin 0
byte val = 0;         // variable to store the value read from the sensor pin
int statePin = LOW;   // variable used to store the last LED status, to toggle the light
int THRESHOLD = 100;  // threshold value to decide when the detected sound is a knock or not

// TONES  ==========================================
// Start by defining the relationship between
//       note, period, &  frequency.
#define  c     3830    // 261 Hz
#define  d     3400    // 294 Hz
#define  e     3038    // 329 Hz
#define  f     2864    // 349 Hz
#define  g     2550    // 392 Hz
#define  a     2272    // 440 Hz
#define  b     2028    // 493 Hz
#define  C     1912    // 523 Hz
// Define a special note, ‘R’, to represent a rest
#define  R     0

// SETUP ============================================
// Set up speaker on a PWM pin (digital 9, 10 or 11)
int speakerOut = 9;
// Do we want debugging on serial out? 1 for yes, 0 for no
int DEBUG = 1;

void setup() {
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as as OUTPUT
pinMode(speakerOut, OUTPUT);
Serial.begin(9600);       // use the serial port
}

// MELODY and TIMING  =======================================
//  melody[] is an array of notes, accompanied by beats[],
//  which sets each note’s relative length (higher #, longer note)
int melody[] = {  C,  b,  g,  C,  b,   e,   C,  c  };
int beats[]  = { 16, 16, 16,  8,  8,  16,  16, 16  };
int MAX_COUNT = sizeof(melody) / 2; // Melody length, for looping.

// Set overall tempo
long tempo = 10000;
// Set length of pause between notes
int pause = 1000;
// Loop variable to increase Rest length
int rest_count = 100; //<-BLETCHEROUS HACK; See NOTES

// Initialize core variables
int tone = 0;
int beat = 0;
long duration  = 0;

// PLAY TONE  ==============================================
// Pulse the speaker to play a tone for a particular duration
void playTone() {
long elapsed_time = 0;
if (tone > 0) { // if this isn’t a Rest beat, while the tone has
//  played less long than ‘duration’, pulse speaker HIGH and LOW
while (elapsed_time < duration) {

digitalWrite(speakerOut,HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(tone / 2);

// DOWN
digitalWrite(speakerOut, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(tone / 2);

// Keep track of how long we pulsed
elapsed_time += (tone);
}
}
else { // Rest beat; loop times delay
for (int j = 0; j < rest_count; j++) { // See NOTE on rest_count
delayMicroseconds(duration);
}
}
}

void loop() {
val = analogRead(knockSensor);    // read the sensor and store it in the variable “val”
if (val >= THRESHOLD) {
// statePin = !statePin;           // toggle the status of the ledPin (this trick doesn’t use time cycles)
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // turn the led on or off
Serial.println(“Knock!”);       // send the string “Knock!” back to the computer, followed by newline
for (int i=0; i<MAX_COUNT; i++) {
tone = melody[i];
beat = beats[i];

duration = beat * tempo; // Set up timing

playTone();
// A pause between notes…
delayMicroseconds(pause);
}
delay(10);                      // short delay to avoid overloading the serial port
}
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}

Arduino Knock Sensor Drum Kit v1 from droops on Vimeo.

When a drum is struck, a knock sensor (backwards peizo) talks to the arduino and activates an led ot change the color of the drum (blue), after a delay the blue led goes out and the drum becomes orange again.  I used a pullup resistor between the pins of the knock sensor, but i didnt get any different results with different values, so its probably dependent on the peizo that you use.

/*
droop's drum kit

dailyduino.com

droops - gmail

thanks for the idea josh!!
*/

int knockPin = 3; //pin for incoming knock sensor
int knockVal; //value from knock sensor
int knockLedPin = 10; //bue led
int normalLedPin = 4;  //orange led
int lightBlue = 2000; //counter for keeping blue light on
int limit = 1000; //how sensitive the knock sensor is, lower = higher sensitivity based on piezo and pull down resistor
int blueTime = 2000; //how long the blue led stays on

void setup(){
  pinMode(knockLedPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(normalLedPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(knockPin, INPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  digitalWrite(knockLedPin, LOW);
  digitalWrite(normalLedPin, HIGH);
}

void loop(){

  knockVal = analogRead(knockPin); //read the knock sensor

  if (knockVal < limit){
    lightBlue = 0; //drop the value to activate the led
    Serial.println(knockVal);  //dump to serial for debugging
  }

  //this keeps the blue light on after a knock is registered
  if(lightBlue < blueTime){
    digitalWrite(normalLedPin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(knockLedPin, HIGH);
    lightBlue++;
  } else {
    digitalWrite(knockLedPin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(normalLedPin, HIGH);
  }  

}

Paul from Modern Device sent in 3 rBBB’s, 2 P4 RS232 to TTL Serial Adapter Kits, 2 LCD117 Serial LCD Boards, 2 16×2 blue LCD’s and a Serial Cable.

Lady Ada from Adafruit Industries gave us a Motor Shield and a Wav Shield.

NKC Electronics sent in 3 x Freeduino USB kits and 2 x Freeduino serial kits.

I owe each of these folks something and I am working on it.  Please check out their stores for the coolness.