ColorNode is a wireless Arduino-compatible microcontroller board designed to replace the stock controller board on GE Color Effects light strings. It’s a project designed by digitalmisery and was inspired by deep darc’s Hacking Christmas Lights project last year. The schematic and photos are available, and they promise to post the code as soon as the […]
Author Archives: the machinegeek
The $5 Picaxe Beatbox
Corticalcafe has posted a project for an audio record and repeat device using a Picaxe-08M microcontroller, piezo speaker, and a handful of resistors. The Beatbox uses LDRs shielded inside nuts to sense the input “drumbeats”! When powered up the LED indicator lights and the circuit senses about 5 seconds of input beats. After the maximum […]
TI CC110L RF BoosterPack
Manuel Garbe writes to inform us: TI has just released a new boosterpack for his MSP430 launchpad It is the CC110L RF BoosterPack, an RF shield (from 433 to 915 , perfect for my chronos.) There is a lot of information, with software example and a video. (We just checked the TI site and find […]
Basic RF sniffing with the Bus Pirate
s3c describes on his website how he used the Bus Pirate as an RF sniffer. He connected the BP to a 433 MHz RF data receiver and successfully captured some garage door opener RF traffic. Simple yet fun to try. Get your own Bus Pirate from Seeedstudio.
Minibloq v0.8 Beta released
Minibloq ver 0.8 has been released. “Minibloq is a graphical programming environment for Arduino™, Multiplo, physical computing devices and robots. One of it’s main goals is to bring closer physical computing and robotic platforms to primary schools, kids and beginners.” You can download this Beta version for Windows and OSX here.
Free O’Reilly webcast: Intro to embedded systems programming
O’Reilly is presenting a free one hour webcast this Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM PT entitled “A Gentle Introduction to Embedded Systems Programming.” Elecia White will be the presenter. Want to do some embedded software? Or worse, did you get handed a project and just want to know what is going on? There […]
MSPGCC Uniarch install tutorial
Sergio Campama has written this tutorial on installing MSPGCC Uniarch. “Uniarch is an initiative to unify all the work left behind by mspgcc3 and mspgcc4, while also separating the boundaries between the compiler and TI header files. This ‘branch’ of mspgcc is the most advanced one, having over 300 supported MSP430 devices.” Sergio writes: I […]
Defcon 19: build your own radar system
At the Defcon 19 (2011) conference Michael Scarito demonstrated how to construct your own radar system. The project is based on a design by Dr. Greg Charvat from MIT and uses synthetic aperture techniques to generate a two- or three-dimensional image. (You can read Dr. Charvat’s research paper here.) The hardware operates in the 2.4 […]
Radio Shack’s Great Arduino Challenge
Radio Shack has begun their Great Arduino Design Challenge. They’re seeking the project that best shows how you can use Arduino in a creative and innovative way. Check out the contest’s webpage for rules and all the details.
AnalogDemo: plot data and upload to Pachube in C#
Luca Dentella has written a tutorial outlining the process of receiving data over a PC serial port, plotting it on a chart and sending to Pachube. You can download Luca’s code from the project’s Github repository page. Via the contact form.
Matatino lets Arduino connect to Mac apps
Robotgrrl posted a link to her coding project Matatino, “a Cocoa framework for Mac that provides a straight-forward way to communicate with your Arduino through its serial connection.” Matatino is an open source project. You can learn how to add Matatino to your Xcode project at Robotgrrl’s Apps4Arduino site. Via the Arduino blog.
OpenSCAD – the programmers solid 3D CAD modeler
If you’ve looking for open source 3D modeling software that focuses more on the CAD and less on the artistic/game dev aspects, consider Openscad. Think design of machine parts, not movie animation. It takes a different approach than other 3D modeling software. OpenSCAD is not an interactive modeler. Instead it is something like a 3D-compiler […]
CadSoft releases EAGLE Version 6 for beta testing
Eagle has released beta Version 6 of their CAD software for public testing. They note: We suggest that only users who already have experience with previous versions of EAGLE participate in the beta test. If you are new to EAGLE please use our current release version. CadSoft notes that the beta version is NOT for […]
Tutorial: driving shift registers with AVR hardware SPI
Mike Szczys has written a tutorial on driving shift registers with SPI (AVR). He writes: The thing is, the sample code in the datasheet won’t work by itself. Atmel didn’t address the fact that you must drive SS low (the latch pin) to start the SPI transfer. I wrote this post to help get folks […]
Defcon 19: Kinect + Metasploit = Kinectasploit
In this presentation from last summer’s Defcon 19 conference, Jeff Bryner, Owner of P0wnlabs.com, demonstrates how to integrate the Kinect with Metasploit. He uses the open source Blender 3D game engine to interface the Kinect hardware with Metasploit. This hack allows you to launch preassigned Metasploit attacks based upon your gestures as detected by the […]
MSP430 Launchpad 3D model in Sketchup
lpm0 writes to inform us of a 3D model he found of the MSP430 Launchpad at 43Oh. The 43Oh crew describes their design: We were looking out for a 3D model of the Launchpad for one of our projects, but could not find any. So we whipped our own Sketchup Model. As far as we […]
Radio Shack to carry Arduino
Radio Shack has announced that they will begin carrying Arduino boards and shields. The product list (with RS part numbers) includes the Arduino Uno REV 3 (2760128), Arduino Mega 2560 REV3 (2760127), Arduino Mega ADK (2760129), Arduino Ethernet Shield Without PoE Module (2760130), Arduino Motor Shield (2760131), the Arduino SD Shield (2760132) and the Arduino […]
Xilinx ISE Design Suite v 13.3 now available
Xilinx has announced the availability of Version 13.3 of their ISE Design Suite. This download includes the free Webpack version of the ISE and is available for Windows and Linux. This is the software package used to develop for our CPLD Development Boards. Don’t want to download 4.9 GB? No problem. Xilinx is making the […]
Defcon 19: Hacking over power lines
Dave Kennedy (ReL1K) presented this talk at last summer’s Defcon 19 conference demonstrating the relative insecurity of home automation devices, such as X10, HomePlug and ZWave modules, which communicate either locally over power lines or via RF in the ISM bands. The presentation covers usage of the Teensy Arduino-based device to emulate a keyboard when […]
Programming the STM32F4 DISCOVERY with the Bus Blaster
Nabil wrote to say, “I’ve had success programming and debugging using the Bus Blaster. In this post I will show you how to program and debug the Discovery board using open source hardware and software.” Via the contact form.