Ouya game dev CREATE contest

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The Ouya is a soon to be released $99 gaming console. It was funded in August, 2012 via Kickstarter to the tune of $8+ million, and hardware should be shipping starting in April. The console is based on Android Jelly Bean and includes a Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal flash storage, HDMI connection to the TV (with support for up to 1080p HD), WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth LE 4.0, USB 2.0, a wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad and Ethernet port. The Ouya crew describes the project as an “open gaming console”, which in their definition means that developers won’t have to pay to develop and list their games with Ouya, and the SDK is free to download. Also, all games published will either be free or at least free to try.

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To generate interest in Ouya the team in cooperation with Kill Screen are sponsoring a game development contest called CREATE with prizes totalling $45,000! Just download and install the Android SDK, and the Ouya software development kit (ODK), read the documentation, and code up your game idea. The contest runs through January 23, and official rules can be found on Ouya/Kill Screen CREATE page. (We note that the contest is open to persons who “backed or purchase an OUYA on Kickstarter or ouya.tv”, but with 63,000+ backers and purchasers to date that’s a substantial audience.)
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App note: USB on the go (OTG) basics

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Here’s a tutorial from Maxim describing the basics of USB on the go (OTG). OTG gives, devices that support it, the capability to act as hosts to other devices. But OTG concept doesn’t end just there, it also allows for on the fly role reversal, and gives the peripheral the ability to request power from the host only when it’s needed.

USB On-the-Go (OTG) allows two USB devices to talk to each other without requiring the services of a personal computer. Although OTG appears to add “peer to peer” connections to USB, it does not. Instead, USB OTG retains the standard USB host/peripheral model, where a single host talks to USB peripherals. OTG introduces the dual-role device (DRD), capable of functioning as either host or peripheral. Part of the magic of OTG is that a host and peripheral can exchange roles if necessary.

 

Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

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We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service.

This week two random commenters will get a coupon code for the free PCB drawer tomorrow morning. Pick your own PCB.

You get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another!

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

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PCB assembly tips: the making of the AASaver

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Last March Ray presented his design of a portable breadboard power supply with a selectable voltage using the Microchip MCP1640 boost converter he dubbed the AASaver. After receiving and assembling batches of AASaver PCBs he wrote this tutorial explaining the techniques he uses to manually assemble the boards into a finished, functional product. This is a good explanation of how to populate PCBs with SMD components for beginners.

Via the contact form.

App note: Current sense circuit collection

Here’s a current sense circuit collection from Linear Technology. The collection is organized by application type and for each one there are a few example circuits. High side, low side, level shifting, high and low voltage, fault sensing, etc:

Sensing and/or controlling current flow is a fundamental requirement in many electronics systems, and the techniques to do so are as diverse as the applications them-selves. This Application Note compiles solutions to current sensing problems and organizes the solutions by general application type. These circuits have been culled from a variety of Linear Technology documents.

Thanks Jim! Via the comments.

App note: PCB layout tricks, striped capacitors, and more

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While it doesn’t matter what direction non-polarized capacitors are soldered into a circuit, some feature a stripe indicating which contact is connected to the outer shell of the capacitor. The article describes how to best take advantage of this in your designs.

The outside foil of a spiral-wrapped film capacitor shields the inner conductor. In a simple low-pass R-C circuit, figure 1a, one side of the capacitor is grounded so it makes good sense to connect the striped end to ground to shield the signal side from electrostatically coupled interference.

What about the high-pass case, figure 1b? Neither side of the capacitor is grounded. But generally, the previous stage driving this circuit (perhaps the output of an op amp) is a low impedance that would be less susceptible to induced noise. So connect the stripe to the low-Z side.

Via Hack a Day.

App note: Using USB flash drives with USB host capable PICs

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Here’s an app note from Microchip describing how to use USB flash devices with microcontrollers that have USB host capability. The article also provides instructions on how to use the USB OTG Configuration tool.

This document describes the USB Data Logger, Mass Storage demo application. It gives an overview of the application’s firmware, how it operates, and describes how it was  configured using the USB Configuration tool. This includes support for FAT16 and FAT32

Workshop Update for January 11th, 2013

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We worked on our Bus Pirate educational kit today.

We implemented the pull up voltage control from the binary scripting mode for Bus Pirate v4. It should now work in all protocols with the command 0x51 for 3.3V, 0x52 for 5V, and 0x50 to switch them off.

Changing the read display mode on the fly is now available for all versions of the Bus Pirate. You simply need to type in ‘d’ for decimal, ‘b’ for binary, and ‘x’ for hexadecimal mode right after the ‘r’ command. Repeat read works as well. For example the command ‘rd’ will read a single byte and display it in the decimal format, while ‘rb:3’ will read 3 bytes and display them in the binary format. This feature is available in the SVN rev2085.

Ford’s OpenXC vehicle data bus interface project

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At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Ford announced their OpenXC project, a combination of open source hardware and software that lets you extend your vehicle with custom applications and pluggable modules. It uses standard, well-known tools to open up data from the vehicle to developers. The OpenXC team explains, “OpenXC is an API to your car – by installing a small hardware module to read and translate metrics from a car’s internal network, the data becomes accessible from most Android applications using the OpenXC library. You can start making vehicle-aware applications that have better interfaces based on context, can minimize distraction while driving, are integrated with other connected services, and can offer you more insight into your car’s operation.”
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Skittles sorting machine

Ever wanted to eat only the red colored skittles? Now you can, as Brian designed a Skittles sorting machine based around a Basic Stamp 2 board. The candy is one by one placed on a turn table which swings each one by a TCS3200-DB Color Sensor. Next up a tube mounted on a servo motor dispenses the candy to sorting containers.

Via Hacked Gadgets.

Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

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Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday.

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

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Week in (p)review January 11, 2013

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Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon.

Coming up:

  • Free PCBs via Facebook on Friday
  • App notes on the weekend
  • Free PCB Sunday
  • 3D model on Monday
  • Eagle parts and tips on Tuesday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • A new tutorial on Wednesday
  • Workshop video on Thursday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

Bus Pirate with a Nexus 7 tablet

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Dolabra connected his Bus Pirate to the Nexus 7 tablet. All it takes is an OTG USB cable and a serial app to get your Bus Pirate going.

I have been playing around with USB OTG on my new nexus 7 tablet. I wanted to see if I could talk to a bus pirate. It turns out you can!

Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

Via the forum.

Workshop Update for January 10th 2013

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We cleaned up the old Bus Pirate SVN repository, and left pointers to the new firmware source in the Dangerous Prototypes repository. This should prevent some confusion. We finished up today and next weeks videos, and got interviewed by EEWeb.

We’re working to implement control over the pull up voltages in Bus Pirate v4’s binary mode firmware.

Dual motor driver LaunchPad booster pack

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Parker designed a dual motor driver booster pack for the MSP430 LaunchPad. It’s based around the DRV8833 iterated motor driver capable of controlling voltages up to 10.8V and handling current up to 2A. You can download the Eagle source files from his site.

This is a Low Voltage, 2A motor controller BoosterPack for the Ti LaunchPad. So far I have not found a motor controller yet so I decided to make one. It uses the Ti DRV8833PWPR Dual H-bridge Motor Driver chip. The chip is capable of 2Amps per motor channel and a motor voltage from 2.7V to 10.8V. Logic voltage for the DRV8833 is 3.3V which makes it a perfect match for the MSP-430 LaunchPad.

The Analog Discovery review

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Jack did a review of the Analog Discovery bench tool. This is a 5 MHz 2 channel scope,  5 MHz 2 channel waveform generator, and a 100MSPS 16 channel logic analyzer. This was also the top prize in this year’s 7400 contest.

The bottom line is that for $199, and especially at $99 for students, this is a great product. You’re not going to do ARM development with it, but it’s decent for a lot of analog work and for dealing with slow microcontrollers. The pattern and waveform generators are a real boon for running experiments.

Via the comments.

WORKSHOP VIDEO #51: Fake flash drive, QFP protoboards, 1 year of workshop video retrospective

Teardown of a fake USB flash drive from India and a USB charger from China. A look at the new xQFP protoboard v2 PCB, and a new filing system for free PCBs. We’ve been doing workshop videos for more than a year now, so we look back on the evolution of the weekly updates.

While on our Global Geek Tour of India we scored a fake 32GB flash drive. We hoped it was one of those smart fakes that have only 1GB of memory, but simulate a 32GB drive by correctly recording the full 32GB file indexing. It turns out our flash drive was just a USB cable jack stuffed into a flash drive case.

Disillusioned by our flash drive experience we expected to be similarly burned by the USB charger we picked up for $0.25 during our latest Shenzhen visit. The charger is small, very light, and the USB jack sits a little crooked inside. We were pleasantly surprised to find two PCBs, a few caps, and a coil inside.

Version 2 of the QFP protoboards just arrived in the workshop. We moved the PCB to the Sick of Beige standard, and extended the IC pin footprints to make it easier to solder. This time around we placed 2 different pitch QFP footprints on each side of the board. These boards will go into production when the current batch of QFP protoboards is depleted at Seeed.

The previous versions of the QFP protoboards are available for $10.

We’ve been doing Workshop Videos for a year now, and we take a look back at the evolution of the update videos. At first we had floating hands explaining electronics in a poorly lighted workshop. As the time progressed we got more cameras for better angles, much better lighting, dedicated microphones, and finally a large workshop.

Raspberry Pi sandwich plate inspired by Sick of Beige

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Boisblas tweeted a picture of his Raspberry Pi setup, inspired by our Sick of Beige case. The Pi is mounted on a plastic plate with hex standoffs. Like our cases it’s not fully enclosed, but it does provide some protection from those pesky shorts when the board is placed on conductive materials.

Raspi sandwitch plate inspired by @dangerousproto sick of beige #RasPi pic.twitter.com/ctPwlR9B

You can get our Sick of Beige cases in 13 different sizes ranging from the tiny 30mmx30mm to the Cadsoft Eagle maximum supported 100mmx80mm. All the cases are sold for $3, and are available at Seeed.

MMA7455L accelerometer free PCB build

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Dmmedia built a free MMA7455L accelerometer breakout board. The MMA7455L is a 3-axis accelerometer with I2C and SPI interfaces.

If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the free PCB drawer.

Get the MMA7455L breakout board for $15 at Seeed Studio.