Editorial

Esta é a Newsletter Nº 115 que se apresenta com o mesmo formato que as anteriores. Se gostar da Newsletter partilhe-a!

Todas as Newsletters encontram-se indexadas no link.

Esta Newsletter tem os seguintes tópicos:

• Novidades da Semana
• Ciência e Tecnologia
• Modelos 3D
• Documentação
• Projetos Maker

Faz hoje anos que nascia, em 1944, Ernő Rubik. Este inventor húngaro ficou conhecido pela criação de puzzles mecânicos dos quais se destaca o cubo de Rubik. Rubik obteve a patente húngara HU170062 para seu "Cubo Mágico" em 1975. O cubo de Rubik foi chamado de Cubo Mágico (Bűvös kocka) na Hungria. Faz também anos hoje que nascia, em 1879, Eugène Freyssinet. Nascido na França, este engenheiro civil foi um dos pioneiros na utilização e no desenvolvimento de infra-estruturas feita com recurso a cimento pre-esforçado. Eugène conseguiu um avanço significativo em estruturas de cobertura estreita com o desenho de dois enormes e célebres hangares no aeroporto de Villeneuve-Orly em 1923. O princípio da forma ondulada para a cobertura do cimento foi introduzido para obter a rigidez necessária para uma envergadura de 70 m. Em 1924, ele aplicou o mesmo princípio de coberturas onduladas para dois hangares de aviões com uma envergadura de 55m em Vélizy - Villacoublay. Faz igualmente hoje anos que nascia, em 1826, Stanislao Cannizzaro. Este químico italiano ficou conhecido a história pela reacção de Cannizzaro e pelo sua influência nas deliberações relacionadas com o peso atómico no congresso de Karlsruhe em 1860. A reacção de Cannizzaro é uma reacção de auto-óxido-redução feita com aldeídos aos quais falta um átomo de hidrogénio ligado ao carbono na posição alfa. Faz também hoje anos que nascia, em 1779, William Hedley. Este engenheiro industrial inglês foi fundamental na introdução de várias importantes inovações no desenvolvimento ferroviário inicial. Enquanto trabalhava na Wylam Colliery, perto de Newcastle, ele construiu a primeira locomotiva a vapor prática que dependia simplesmente da aderência de rodas de ferro a trilhos de ferro. Por fim, também faz anos hoje que nascia, em 1765, Simeon North. Este fabricante de armas norte-americano ficou conhecido por desenvolver umas das primeiras fresadoras mecânicas em 1818 e desempenhou um papel importante no desenvolvimento da fabricação de peças intermutáveis.

Nesta semana que passou a nave espacial Juno da NASA completou o voo sobre a grande manche vermelha de Júpiter. Todos os instrumentos científicos da Juno e o JunoCam da nave espacial estavam operacionais durante o voo, recolhendo dados que agora estão a ser enviados para a Terra. O próximo voo próximo de Juno em Júpiter ocorrerá a 1 de Setembro. A Intel lançou a sua linha de processadores escaláveis Xeon. Estes novos processadores são a nova base para Datacenters seguros, ágeis e multi-Cloud. Eles representam os maiores avanços da plataforma nesta década. Os processadores oferecem um desempenho optimizado de carga de trabalho excepcional e segurança reforçada por hardware. A Audi apresentou o seu novo A8 que torna a mobilidade em magia. Usando tecnologia da NVIDIA para transformar o transporte. Lançado em Barcelona, este veiculo vem dotado de um sistema de inteligência artificial que o permite conduzir em estradas com densidade elevada de veículos oferendo níveis de autonomia sem precedentes.

Na Newsletter desta semana apresentamos diversos projetos de maker assim como um modelo 3D que poderá ser útil. É apresentada também a revista newelectronics de 11 de Julho 2017 assim como um ebook que é uma compilação de todas as patentes de Nikola Tesla.

João Alves ([email protected])

O conteúdo da Newsletter encontra-se sob a licença Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Completes Flyby over Jupiter's Great Red Spot

"NASA's Juno mission completed a close flyby of Jupiter and its Great Red Spot on July 10, during its sixth science orbit. All of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating during the flyby, collecting data that are now being returned to Earth. Juno's next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on Sept. 1. Raw images from the spacecraft's latest flyby will be posted in coming days. "For generations people from all over the world and all walks of life have marveled over the Great Red Spot," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Now we are finally going to see what this storm looks like up close and personal." The Great Red Spot is a 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm that has been monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more than 350 years. In modern times, the Great Red Spot has appeared to be shrinking. Juno reached perijove (the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's center) on July 10 at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time of perijove, Juno was about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno had covered another 24,713 miles (39,771 kilometers), and was passing directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of the Great Red Spot. The spacecraft passed about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the clouds of this iconic feature." [...]

Intel Xeon Scalable Processors

"The Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors are the new foundation for secure, agile, multi-cloud data centers. They represent the biggest platform advancements in this decade. The processors deliver exceptional workload-optimized performance and hardware-enhanced security. Designed for trusted data service delivery, the processors are fueled by significant leaps in I/O, memory, storage and network technologies. Available today, the Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors have the design flexibility to thrive across common applications and mission critical operations or to harness actionable insights from advanced real-time analytics and emerging imperatives like artificial intelligence, 5G, autonomous driving and more. This agility enables customers to seize new business opportunities from our increasingly data-fueled smart and connected world." [...]

Audi’s New A8 Turns Mobility Into Magic, Using NVIDIA Tech to Transform Transportation

"In Barcelona, a city of architectural treasures, Audi unveiled Tuesday a design masterpiece of its own. The new flagship 2018 A8 features a multitude of high-tech splendors, all powered by NVIDIA. Its AI Traffic Jam Pilot — which offers unprecedented levels of autonomy on crowded highways — instantly grabbed headlines. But it was just one of many remarkable new features powered by NVIDIA technologies. Audi has emerged as a technology leader, and the results of its leadership — from piloted driving to parking to new services for digitally connected vehicles — are at the center of the story it’s telling at the inaugural Audi Summit here in Spain. “The car of the future will make its occupants’ life easier with the help of artificial intelligence,” Audi Chairman of the Board Rupert Stadler said at the event’s keynote, which drew more than 2,000 guests. “Technology matters” he declared as he introduced such A8 features as Audi AI Traffic Jam Pilot, Remote Park Pilot, Natural Voice Control and Swarm Intelligence." [...]

Iron secrets behind superconductors unlocked

"Due to magnetism iron should - theoretically - be a poor superconductor. Nevertheless certain ironbased materials possess fine superconducting properties. Why? Because the five unbound electrons found in iron - as a result of individual modes of operation, it turns out - facilitate superconductivity. This new, long sought-for explanation - appearing in this weeks issue of Science - is the result of international co-operation between experts from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) i Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues from a number of other scientific institutions in Europa and USA. "This may come in very handily in future attempts to 'tailor' new superconductors", says Brian Møller Andersen, condensed matter physicist at NBI and one of the scientists behind the research. Brian Møller Andersens field is 'exotic' phases in condensed matters - i.e. phases and conditions where materials display reactions markedly different from what is seen under socalled normal circumstances - and he specializes in superconductors: Matters and materials, typically metals or alloys, that can transmit electricity without loss of energy, in reality a cable void of resistance. Such superconductors exist and can e.g. be found in the vast number of magnets which CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has installed in its subterranean particle accelerator (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland - which makes it is possible to study particles at sub-atomic level. The research community is, however, also very eager to develop superconductors for rather more 'mundane' purposes - not least transmission of electricity to the general public - but still needs to come up with economically viable solutions. The need for such transmission systems undoubtedly exists - the present international system, including Denmark - is based on high voltage cables which have significant resistance resulting in transmission-losses of up to 10 percent 'along the road' from powerplant to end-consumer. But in spite of more than one century of intense research science has not yet been able to come up with superconductors that function at 'room-temperature' - hence the situation still being that materials tested for superconductivity need to be cooled well down toward absolute zero (-273,15 Celcius)." [...]

Graphene and terahertz waves could lead the way to future communication

"By utilizing terahertz waves in electronics, future data traffic can get a big boost forward. So far, the terahertz (THz) frequency has not been optimally applied to data transmission, but by using graphene, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have come one step closer to a possible paradigm shift for the electronic industry. Over 60 young researchers from all over the world will learn more about this and other topics as they gather in outside of Gothenburg, Sweden, to participate in this week's summer school Graphene Study, arranged by Graphene Flagship. It is the EU's largest ever research initiative, the Graphene Flagship, coordinated by Chalmers, who organises the school this week, 25-30 June 2017. This year it is held in Sweden with focus on electronic applications of the two-dimensional material with the extraordinary electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties that make it a more efficient choice than silicon in electronic applications. Andrei Vorobiev is a researcher at the Terahertz and Millimetre Wave Laboratory at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience - MC2 - as well as one of the many leading experts giving lectures at Graphene Study. " [...]

Practical parallelism

"System enables large speedups — as much as 88-fold — on common parallel-computing algorithms. The chips in most modern desktop computers have four “cores,” or processing units, which can run different computational tasks in parallel. But the chips of the future could have dozens or even hundreds of cores, and taking advantage of all that parallelism is a stiff challenge. Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a new system that not only makes parallel programs run much more efficiently but also makes them easier to code. In tests on a set of benchmark algorithms that are standard in the field, the researchers’ new system frequently enabled more than 10-fold speedups over existing systems that adopt the same parallelism strategy, with a maximum of 88-fold. For instance, algorithms for solving an important problem called max flow have proven very difficult to parallelize. After decades of research, the best parallel implementation of one common max-flow algorithm achieves only an eightfold speedup when it’s run on 256 parallel processors. With the researchers’ new system, the improvement is 322-fold — and the program required only one-third as much code. The new system, dubbed Fractal, achieves those speedups through a parallelism strategy known as speculative execution." [...]

Power of light: Research team finds light is key to promising material

"A Florida State University research team has discovered that light can significantly alter the structure of a promising material that scientists believe could make more efficient light-emitting diodes, lasers and other photon-based technologies. In the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor Biwu Ma explains how light can change a material called organometal halide perovskites from a 1-D to a zero-dimensional structure. Computational studies suggest this zero-dimensional structure is more energetically and thermodynamically stable than the 1-D structure, and thus could make for more effective technologies. Ma and his team have been working on organometal halide perovskites for the past few years with the hope to discover new functional materials that outperform conventional optoelectronic materials. A perovskite is any material with the same type of crystal structure as calcium titanium oxide, and hybrid metal halide perovskites have received increased attention in recent years for their potential applications in various types of photon-related technologies such as light-emitting diodes and lasers. In this study, Ma and his team assembled organic and inorganic components with the intent to form single crystals with both 1-D and zero-dimensional structures. “We have been developing new structures by treating the fundamental building blocks of this class of materials, metal halide octahedrons, as Lego pieces.” Ma said. “Theoretically, we could use them to build 3-D, 2-D, 1-D, and even zero-dimensional structures.” While much work has been carried out in the field of organometal halide perovskites in recent years, the focus has been mainly on 3-D and 2-D structures, with 1-D and zero-dimensional structures significantly underexplored. As part of this process, Ma’s team discovered that light was actually capable of changing some of the 1-D crystals to a zero-dimensional crystal structure." [...]

Gold Remembers

"Scientists from the Technion and Germany have demonstrated the “shape memory” effect in gold particles for the first time. Researchers from the Technion and Germany have demonstrated for the first time the phenomena of shape memory and self-healing in gold microparticles. This is achieved through defects-mediated diffusion in the particle. The discovery may one day lead to development of micro- and nano-robots capable of self-repair; mechanically stable and damage-tolerant components and devices; and targeted drug delivery. The study, published in Advanced Science, was conducted by doctoral student Oleg Kovalenko and Dr. Leonid Klinger, led by Prof. Eugen Rabkin of the Technion Department of Materials Science and Engineering, together with Dr. Christian Brandl of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany). Shape-memory materials are characterized by the ability to repair the damage caused to them (such as plastic deformation) and to recover their original shape. These materials can exist in two stable crystalline forms, or phases: austenite, which is the more symmetrical primary form stable at elevated temperatures; and martensite, which is a phase characterized by lower symmetry, but also by greater strength. A well-known example of transition between the two phases is the quenching of steel. The transformation of the austenite phase to the martensite can be activated by applying mechanical load to the material, or by cooling it down. The low-symmetry structure of the martensite allows the material to absorb considerable plastic strain by re-orienting the distorted crystals of martensite according to the direction of the stress applied to it. Even after plastic deformation, the martensite crystals “remember” their parent austenite phase and are capable of restoring it in its original configuration. This will happen if the material is heated up, causing the reverse martensite-austenite phase transformation and transforming the thermal energy into mechanical energy that will restore the material to its original shape. Until now, this shape memory effect has only been observed in very few metal alloys such as Nitinol (Ni-Ti). These alloys are characterized by polymorphism – multiplicity of possible stable crystalline phases. This is the first time the phenomenon of shape memory has been demonstrated in sub-micrometer particles of gold. The researchers indented the gold particles with a sharp diamond tip controlled by an atomic force microscope (AFM). Annealing of the indented particles at a temperature of 600°C (about 65% of the absolute melting temperature of gold) resulted in full healing of the damage and recovery of the particles’ original shape prior to deformation. According to Prof. Rabkin, the discovery of the shape memory effect in these particles is surprising for two reasons: “First, the particles’ original shape was not perfect in terms of energy and thermodynamic equilibrium. Second, gold in its solid state is not characterized by polymorphism.”" [...]

Secrets of superfluid helium explored

"When Cornell physicists Robert Richardson, David Lee and Douglas Osheroff received the 1996 Nobel Prize for their discovery of the superfluid state of liquid helium, it was only the beginning. Now a new team of Cornell researchers, building on that work, have found new complexities in the phenomenon, with implications for the study of superconductivity and theoretical models of the origin of the universe. “We wanted to see new phase transitions,” said Jeevak Parpia, professor of physics. As it turned out, he saw a more “efficient” transition compared to any observed before in helium. The results are published July 3 in the journal Nature Communications. Parpia and his research group collaborated with a group led by John Saunders, professor of physics, at Royal Holloway, University of London. When the isotope of helium known as helium-3 is cooled to 3.2 degrees above absolute zero it changes from gas to liquid – what physicists call a “change of state.” Cool it further – to about a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero – and it becomes a “superfluid” that can flow without resistance from its surroundings. If you put some of it in a circular channel and start it flowing around the circle, it will flow forever, not slowed by friction. This behavior of helium is of great interest because electrons in a superconductor also behave as a superfluid, flowing without resistance from the atoms in the conductor. To look for the transition, Parpia’s research group used the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility to make a “torsion pendulum” head, a silicon disk 14 millimeters in diameter, in which they etched a circular channel 3.5 millimeters wide, adding a glass cover to make the cavity 1.08 microns (millionths of a meter) high. Rotating the disk forward and back makes the superfluid helium flow around in the cavity, and the amount that is superfluid can be observed as a change in the period of oscillation of the disk. The researchers observed the two phases of superfluidity that Richardson, Lee and Osheroff had reported, referred to as A and B. They also found that the A phase could be “supercooled” but nowhere as much as it can in larger, bulky experiments." [...]

Neutrons detect elusive Higgs amplitude mode in quantum material

"A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has used sophisticated neutron scattering techniques to detect an elusive quantum state known as the Higgs amplitude mode in a two-dimensional material. The Higgs amplitude mode is a condensed matter cousin of the Higgs boson, the storied quantum particle theorized in the 1960s and proven experimentally in 2012. It is one of a number of quirky, collective modes of matter found in materials at the quantum level. By studying these modes, condensed matter researchers have recently uncovered new quantum states known as quasiparticles, including the Higgs mode. These studies provide unique opportunities to explore quantum physics and apply its exotic effects in advanced technologies such as spin-based electronics, or spintronics, and quantum computing. “To excite a material’s quantum quasiparticles in a way that allows us to observe the Higgs amplitude mode is quite challenging,” said Tao Hong, an instrument scientist with ORNL’s Quantum Condensed Matter Division. Although the Higgs amplitude mode has been observed in various systems, “the Higgs mode would often become unstable and decay, shortening the opportunity to characterize it before losing sight of it,” Hong said. The ORNL-led team offered an alternative method. The researchers selected a crystal composed of copper bromide, because the copper ion is ideal for studying exotic quantum effects, Hong explained. They began the delicate task of “freezing” the material’s agitating quantum-level particles by lowering its temperature to 1.4 Kelvin, which is about minus 457.15 degrees Fahrenheit. The researchers fine-tuned the experiment until the particles reached the phase located near the desired quantum critical point—the sweet spot where collective quantum effects spread across wide distances in the material, which creates the best conditions to observe a Higgs amplitude mode without decay. With neutron scattering performed at ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor, the research team observed the Higgs mode with an infinite lifetime: no decay." [...]

Toward the next generation of superconductors and lithium-ion batteries

"Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tohoku University and the University of Tokyo have applied advanced scanning methods to visualize the previously unexplored surface of a superconductor: lithium titanate (LiTi2O4). LiTi2O4 is the only known example of a so-called spinel1 oxide superconductor. Its rarity makes LiTi2O4 of enormous interest to those studying the origins of superconductivity, as it has the highest superconducting transition temperature (of up to 13. 7 K) within this group of materials. Although LiTi2O4 in bulk form has been studied for decades, little is known about its surfaces, owing to the difficulty of preparing suitable LiTi2O4 surfaces for further analysis. Now, using a combination of experimental and theoretical methods, a team of researchers including Taro Hitosugi of Tokyo Tech and the Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University, has obtained visual evidence of superconductivity on ultrathin LiTi2O4 films, marking a milestone in surface science. Published in Nature Communications, the study began with the detection of an unexpected energy "gap," hinting at the existence of superconductivity at the surface. Furthermore, their investigations revealed that the surface superconductivity is in different states from that of the bulk interior. The researchers used two experimental methods to visualise this finding: pulsed laser deposition2 (PLD), a technique that has enabled the production of high-quality LiTi2O4 films under vacuum conditions; and low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), for precise imaging of the surfaces." [...]

'Near-zero-power' temperature sensor could make wearables, smart home devices less power-hungry

"Electrical engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a temperature sensor that runs on only 113 picowatts of power — 628 times lower power than the state of the art and about 10 billion times smaller than a watt. This "near-zero-power" temperature sensor could extend the battery life of wearable or implantable devices that monitor body temperature, smart home monitoring systems, Internet of Things devices and environmental monitoring systems. The technology could also enable a new class of devices that can be powered by harvesting energy from low-power sources, such as the body or the surrounding environment, researchers said. The work was published in Scientific Reports on June 30. “Our vision is to make wearable devices that are so unobtrusive, so invisible that users are virtually unaware that they’re wearing their wearables, making them ‘unawearables.’ Our new near-zero-power technology could one day eliminate the need to ever change or recharge a battery,” said Patrick Mercier, an electrical engineering professor at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and the study’s senior author." [...]

UW-Madison researchers tackle bias in algorithms

"If you’ve ever applied for a loan or checked your credit score, algorithms have played a role in your life. These mathematical models allow computers to use data to predict many things — who is likely to pay back a loan, who may be a suitable employee, or whether a person who has broken the law is likely to reoffend, to name just a few examples. Yet while some may assume that computers remove human bias from decision-making, research has shown that is not true. Biases on the part of those designing algorithms, as well as biases in the data used by an algorithm, can introduce human prejudices into a situation. A seemingly neutral process becomes fraught with complications. For the past year, University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty in the Department of Computer Sciences have been working on tools to address unfairness in algorithms. Now, a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will accelerate their efforts. Their project, “Formal Methods for Program Fairness,” is funded through NSF’s Software and Hardware Foundations program. UW-Madison computer science professors Aws Albarghouthi, Shuchi Chawla, Loris D’Antoni and Jerry Zhu are leading the development of a tool called FairSquare. Computer sciences graduate students Samuel Drews and David Merrell are also involved. What sets FairSquare apart is that it will not only detect bias, but also employ automated solutions. “Ultimately, we’d like this to be a regulatory tool when you’re deploying an algorithm making sensitive decisions. You can verify it’s indeed fair, and then fix it if it’s not,” says Albarghouthi. Decision-making algorithms can be mysterious even to those who use them, say the researchers, making a tool like FairSquare necessary." [...]

A new artificial intelligence based system warns when a gun appears in a video

"Scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) designed a computer system, based on new artificial intelligence techniques, that automatically detects in real time when a subject in a video draws a gun. Their work, pioneering on a global scale, has numerous practical applications, from improving security in airports and malls, for example, to automatically controlling violent content in which handguns appear in videos uploaded on social networks such as Facebook, Youtube or Twitter, or classifying public videos on the internet that have handguns. Francisco Herrera Triguero, Roberto Olmos and Siham Tabik, researchers in the Department of Computational and Artificial Intelligence Sciences at the UGR, developed this work. Its relevance was reflected when the MIT Technology Review, an e-journal of the renowned technology-oriented university, selected it as one of the five most stimulating articles of the week worldwide." [...]

Manufacturing – Tailoring performance

"A new manufacturing method created by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Rice University combines 3D printing with traditional casting to produce damage-tolerant components composed of multiple materials. Composite components made by pouring an aluminum alloy over a printed steel lattice showed an order of magnitude greater damage tolerance than aluminum alone. The process, published in Materials and Design, was developed for potential automotive and other applications where thermal and mechanical properties must be optimized simultaneously. “This scalable processing strategy can be used to fulfill specific component functions, giving materials designers unprecedented control over both microstructure and material properties,” said ORNL’s Amit Shyam." [...]

Researchers Revolutionize Brain-Computer Interfaces Using Silicon Electronics

"In new DARPA project, researchers exploit the latest in silicon electronics to invent an implanted brain-interface device that could transform how artificial systems enhance brain functions. Today, implanted electrode devices for stimulating the brain are extremely crude devices with only a handful of electrodes that are used to mitigate the effects of Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and other neurodegenerative conditions. The number of patients with these devices is merely tens of thousands because of the extreme invasiveness of the implantation process and the large size of the implanted device. The invention of a less invasive implant device with many more channels that can interact with the brain would result in revolutionary improvements to brain-machine interfaces, including direct interfaces to the auditory cortex and the visual cortex, expanding dramatically the ways in which artificial systems can support brain function. Thanks to a new four-year $15.8M grant from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Columbia Engineering Professor Ken Shepard, a pioneer in the development of electronics that interface with biological systems, is leading a team to do just that: invent an implanted brain-interface device that could transform the lives of people with neurodegenerative diseases or people who are hearing and visually impaired. “This topic has drawn lots of interest from the private sector recently, including start-ups Neuralink and Kernel,” says Shepard, who is the Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering, and professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering. “If we are successful, the tiny size and massive scale of this device could provide the opportunity for transformational interfaces to the brain, including direct interfaces to the visual cortex that would allow patients who have lost their sight to discriminate complex patterns at unprecedented resolutions. This is a highly ambitious project for Columbia, indeed for all of us, and we are very excited to address such a challenging issue.”" [...]

Green method developed for making artificial spider silk

"Researchers have designed a super stretchy, strong and sustainable material that mimics the qualities of spider silk, and is ‘spun’ from a material that is 98% water. A team of architects and chemists from the University of Cambridge has designed super-stretchy and strong fibres which are almost entirely composed of water, and could be used to make textiles, sensors and other materials. The fibres, which resemble miniature bungee cords as they can absorb large amounts of energy, are sustainable, non-toxic and can be made at room temperature. This new method not only improves upon earlier methods of making synthetic spider silk, since it does not require high energy procedures or extensive use of harmful solvents, but it could substantially improve methods of making synthetic fibres of all kinds, since other types of synthetic fibres also rely on high-energy, toxic methods. The results are reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Spider silk is one of nature’s strongest materials, and scientists have been attempting to mimic its properties for a range of applications, with varying degrees of success. “We have yet to fully recreate the elegance with which spiders spin silk,” said co-author Dr Darshil Shah from Cambridge’s Department of Architecture. The fibres designed by the Cambridge team are “spun” from a soupy material called a hydrogel, which is 98% water. The remaining 2% of the hydrogel is made of silica and cellulose, both naturally available materials, held together in a network by barrel-shaped molecular “handcuffs” known as cucurbiturils. The chemical interactions between the different components enable long fibres to be pulled from the gel. The fibres are pulled from the hydrogel, forming long, extremely thin threads – a few millionths of a metre in diameter. After roughly 30 seconds, the water evaporates, leaving a fibre which is both strong and stretchy." [...]

Computer reads body language

"Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute have enabled a computer to understand body poses and movements of multiple people from video in real time — including, for the first time, the pose of each individual's hands and fingers. This new method was developed with the help of the Panoptic Studio — a two-story dome embedded with 500 video cameras — and the insights gained from experiments in that facility now make it possible to detect the pose of a group of people using a single camera and a laptop computer. Yaser Sheikh, associate professor of robotics, said these methods for tracking 2-D human form and motion open up new ways for people and machines to interact with each other and for people to use machines to better understand the world around them. The ability to recognize hand poses, for instance, will make it possible for people to interact with computers in new and more natural ways, such as communicating with computers simply by pointing at things. Detecting the nuances of nonverbal communication between individuals will allow robots to serve in social spaces, allowing robots to perceive what people around them are doing, what moods they are in and whether they can be interrupted. A self-driving car could get an early warning that a pedestrian is about to step into the street by monitoring body language. Enabling machines to understand human behavior also could enable new approaches to behavioral diagnosis and rehabilitation, for conditions such as autism, dyslexia and depression." [...]

Breakthrough in spintronics

"It's ultra-thin, electrically conducting at the edge and highly insulating within – and all that at room temperature: Physicists from the University of Würzburg have developed a promising new material. The material class of topological insulators is presently the focus of international solids research. These materials are electrically insulating within, because the electrons maintain strong bonds to the atoms. At their surfaces, however, they are conductive due to quantum effects. What is more: The electron has a built-in compass needle, the spin, whose orientation is capable of transmitting information very efficiently. It is protected against scattering when moving through these surface channels. With these properties, topological insulators could make an old dream come true: direct spin-based data processing, the so-called spintronics. Until now, however, there has been one major obstacle to using such surface channels for technical applications: "As the temperature of a topological insulator increases, all quantum effects are washed out and with them the special properties of the electrically conducting edges," Dr Jörg Schäfer explains; he is a private lecturer at the Chair of Experimental Physics 4 of the University of Würzburg. For this reason, all known topological insulators have to be cooled to very low temperatures – usually down to minus 270 degrees Celsius – to be able to study the quantum properties of the edge channels. "Of course, such conditions are not very practicable for potential applications such as ultra-fast electronics or quantum computers," the physicist says. A team of Würzburg physicists has now presented an entirely new concept to elegantly bypass this problem. Members of the team included Professor Ralph Claessen and private lecturer Dr Jörg Schäfer from the Chair of Experimental Physics IV and Professor Ronny Thomale, Professor Werner Hanke and Dr Gang Li from the Chair of Theoretical Physics I. The scientists have now published their results in the current issue of Science." [...]

Human pose estimation for care robots using deep learning

"A research group led by Professor Jun Miura at Toyohashi University of Technology, has developed a method to estimate various poses using deep learning with depth data alone. Although it requires a large volume of data, the group has realized a technology which efficiently generates data using computer graphics and motion capture technologies. This data is freely available, and expected to contribute to the progress of research across a wide range of related fields." [...]

Soft and stretchy fabric-based sensors for wearable robots

"Wearable technologies – from heart rate monitors to virtual reality headsets – are exploding in popularity in both the consumer and research spaces, but most of the electronic sensors that detect and transmit data from wearables are made of hard, inflexible materials that can restrict both the wearer’s natural movements and the accuracy of the data collected. Now, a team of researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has created a highly sensitive soft capacitive sensor made of silicone and fabric that moves and flexes with the human body to unobtrusively and accurately detect movement. “We’re really excited about this sensor because, by leveraging textiles in its construction, it is inherently suitable for integration with fabric to make ‘smart’ robotic apparel,” says corresponding author Conor Walsh, Ph.D., Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS. “Additionally, we have designed a unique batch-manufacturing process that allows us to create custom-shaped sensors that share uniform properties, making it possible to quickly fabricate them for a given application,” says co-author Ozgur Atalay, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute. This research is published in the current issue of Advanced Materials Technologies, and the protocol is available as part of the Harvard Biodesign Lab’s Soft Robotics Toolkit." [...]

Self-powered system makes smart windows smarter

"Smart windows equipped with controllable glazing can augment lighting, cooling and heating systems by varying their tint, saving up to 40 percent in an average building’s energy costs. These smart windows require power for operation, so they are relatively complicated to install in existing buildings. But by applying a new solar cell technology, researchers at Princeton University have developed a different type of smart window: a self-powered version that promises to be inexpensive and easy to apply to existing windows. This system features solar cells that selectively absorb near-ultraviolet (near-UV) light, so the new windows are completely self-powered. “Sunlight is a mixture of electromagnetic radiation made up of near-UV rays, visible light, and infrared energy, or heat,” said Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and the Theodora D. ’78 and William H. Walton III ’74 Professor in Engineering. “We wanted the smart window to dynamically control the amount of natural light and heat that can come inside, saving on energy cost and making the space more comfortable.”" [...]

Study suggests route to improving rechargeable lithium batteries

"Most of today’s lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cars to phones, use a liquid as the electrolyte between two electrodes. Using a solid electrolyte instead could offer major advantages for both safety and energy storage capacity, but attempts to do this have faced unexpected challenges. Researchers now report that the problem may be an incorrect interpretation of how such batteries fail. The new findings, which could open new avenues for developing lithium batteries with solid electrolytes, are reported in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, in a paper by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT; W. Craig Carter, the POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT; and eight others. The electrolyte in a battery is the material in between the positive and negative electrodes — a sort of filling in the battery sandwich. Whenever the battery gets charged or drained, ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) cross through the electrolyte from one electrode to the other. But these liquid electrolytes can be flammable, and they’ve been responsible for some fires caused by such batteries. They are also prone to the formation of dendrites — thin, fingerlike projections of metal that build up from one electrode and, if they reach all the way across to the other electrode, can create a short-circuit that could damage the battery. Researchers have tried to get around these problems by using an electrolyte made out of solid materials, such as some ceramics. This could eliminate the flammability issue and offer other big benefits, but tests have shown that such materials tend to perform somewhat erratically and are more prone to short-circuits than expected. The problem, according to this study, is that researchers have been focusing on the wrong properties in their search for a solid electrolyte material. The prevailing idea was that the material’s firmness or squishiness (a property called shear modulus) determined whether dendrites could penetrate into the electrolyte. But the new analysis showed that it’s the smoothness of the surface that matters most. Microscopic nicks and scratches on the electrolyte’s surface can provide a toehold for the metallic deposits to begin to force their way in, the researchers found. This suggests, Chiang says, that simply focusing on achieving smoother surfaces could eliminate or greatly reduce the problem of dendrite formation in batteries with a solid electrolyte. In addition to avoiding the flammability problem associated with liquid electrolytes, this approach could make it possible to use a solid lithium metal electrode as well. Doing so could potentially double a lithium-ion battery’s energy capacity — that is, its ability to store energy for a given weight, which is crucial for both vehicles and portable devices." [...]

Biased Algorithms Are Everywhere, and No One Seems to Care

"Opaque and potentially biased mathematical models are remaking our lives—and neither the companies responsible for developing them nor the government is interested in addressing the problem. This week a group of researchers, together with the American Civil Liberties Union, launched an effort to identify and highlight algorithmic bias. The AI Now initiative was announced at an event held at MIT to discuss what many experts see as a growing challenge. Algorithmic bias is shaping up to be a major societal issue at a critical moment in the evolution of machine learning and AI. If the bias lurking inside the algorithms that make ever-more-important decisions goes unrecognized and unchecked, it could have serious negative consequences, especially for poorer communities and minorities. The eventual outcry might also stymie the progress of an incredibly useful technology (see “Inspecting Algorithms for Bias”). Algorithms that may conceal hidden biases are already routinely used to make vital financial and legal decisions. Proprietary algorithms are used to decide, for instance, who gets a job interview, who gets granted parole, and who gets a loan. The founders of the new AI Now Initiative, Kate Crawford, a researcher at Microsoft, and Meredith Whittaker, a researcher at Google, say bias may exist in all sorts of services and products. “It’s still early days for understanding algorithmic bias,” Crawford and Whittaker said in an e-mail. “Just this year we’ve seen more systems that have issues, and these are just the ones that have been investigated.” Examples of algorithmic bias that have come to light lately, they say, include flawed and misrepresentative systems used to rank teachers, and gender-biased models for natural language processing. Cathy O’Neil, a mathematician and the author of Weapons of Math Destruction, a book that highlights the risk of algorithmic bias in many contexts, says people are often too willing to trust in mathematical models because they believe it will remove human bias. “[Algorithms] replace human processes, but they’re not held to the same standards,” she says. “People trust them too much.”" [...]

Thinking Thin Brings New Layering and Thermal Abilities to the Semiconductor Industry

"What would a simple technique to remove thin layers from otherwise thick, rigid semiconductor crystals mean for the semiconductor industry? This concept has been actively explored for years, as integrated circuits made on thin layers hold promise for developments including improved thermal characteristics, lightweight stackability and a high degree of flexibility compared to conventionally thick substrates. In a significant advance, a research group from IBM successfully applied their new “controlled spalling” layer transfer technique to gallium nitride (GaN) crystals, a prevalent semiconductor material, and created a pathway for producing many layers from a single substrate. As they report in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, controlled spalling can be used to produce thin layers from thick GaN crystals without causing crystalline damage. The technique also makes it possible to measure basic physical properties of the material system, like strain-induced optical effects and fracture toughness, which are otherwise difficult to measure. Single-crystal GaN wafers are extremely expensive, where just one 2-inch wafer can cost thousands of dollars, so having more layers means getting more value out of each wafer. Thinner layers also provide performance advantages for power electronics, since it offers lower electrical resistance and heat is easier to remove." [...]

Parametric Garage Boxes

"This is a box customizer with a roller door just like a garage. You only need to set the width, height and depth of the box and get the files ready to print. The door has been designed with tolerances in joints but i recommend doing a first test with the 'test.stl' file, a small piece used for calibration. The door parts can be dissasembled and/or reconnect with others so you can combine different colors in one door or reusing parts for other boxes. Also included the STL's for the three parts of a 105x105x105 cube box." [...]

Complete Patents Of Nikola Tesla

"Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), was the discoverer of the alternating current light and power system in use allover the world today. His inventions should have made him a multimillionaire, but he died in relative poverty. He was a true martyr for science and human progress. In 1884, a poor Serbian immigrant named Nikola Tesla arrived in the United States – at that time the land of the free… Though he was poor in this world’s goods, he was rich in ideas that would eventually light up the United States… and the entire world. While walking in Budapest Park, Hungary, Nikola Tesla had seen a vision of a functioning alternating current (AC) electric induction motor." [...]

newelectronics 11 Julho 2017

"New Electronics is a fortnightly magazine focusing on technological innovation, news and the latest developments in the electronics sector. Downloadable as a digital page turner or pdf file, or offered as a hard copy, the New Electronics magazine is available in a format to suit you." [...]

Infrared Remote Controlled Automation of Anything: Tiny, Cheapest and Easiest (any Remote Can Be Used)

"READ THE CIRCUIT EXPLANATION FOR UNDERSTANDING AND INNOVATION...This is a simple circuit based on basic concept of electronics. Its mainly a counter circuit that is triggered by infrared signal(of 38 kHz range i.e. any remote). Can control single appliance(or multiple appliances in cascaded way). ENJOY... LAZINESS AT HOME!!! again..." [...]

Lab Power Supply 0-20V and 0.002-4A

"This is a laboratory power supply with a stabilized output, continuously adjustable from 0 to 20VDC and from 2mA to 4A. The current limiter makes it useful in experimenting with electronics because you can limit the maximum current before applying the voltage. This power supply has also build-in protections from parts failure and output overload.This is a modified circuit initially found at www.electronic-lab.com. This circuit can also be found as a commercial DIY kit, or module, and is very popular. Simulations in on this were performed in EveryCircuit and schematic drawings are exported from EasyEDA. Both of these programs are web based and free.You can also checkout my website Skalamerie for this instructable, but basically you can find the same things as here." [...]

Home Automation Using XBee and Arduino

"This project is all about controlling appliances via xBee communication in Proteus (a simulation software). Here you can see there is a GAS SENSOR and beside that there is a FLAME SENSOR (the library can be downloaded from https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/) and the xBee is connected to Arduino through Tx and Rx pins of Arduino and the lamps and the DC motor are connected to supply voltage through a relay. Each relay has one pin connected to Arduino and the other to ground. If the relay is on, then that component is connected to supply and vice versa." [...]

A Sudoku Solver's Robot

"A robot that solves and fills alone a sudoku' grid ! Sudoku are digital puzzles that computers can solve automatically because they obey some simple mathematical rules. The main objective of this project was to build a rudimentary and autonomous robot, like plotting table base on 3D printer idea, which will be able to: analyze the grid of sudoku to be filled; solve the Sudoku problem; fill the grid. That means the robot must be able to process the grid to be solved in order to detect the boxes already filled,their values and then proceed to filling just like the filled grid show bellow. How it works? The hardware of the robot consist at using a Raspberry pi 3 with a camera. A photo of the grid is taken at the beginning of the process." [...]

Interactive Plant Mood Detector

"The Plant mood detector is an interactive robot, that communicates between a plants and we humans, telling the mood of the plant! We often tend to over-water or under-water our plants, making the plant sad . So, how do we know whether a plant is happy or not? Solving this problem, I present 'THE INTERACTIVE PLANT MOOD DETECTOR', providing everybody with a green thumb, whether a professional gardner or just a novice.The interactive plant mood detector display the mood of the plant on it's LED display in the form of emojis, making it simple and interesting for children or a novice to water his/her plants. It gathers sensor value from the precise soil moisture sensor and converts these signals into emotions such as - Happy, Irritated, Grumpy, or Sad. This device is equipped with a soil moisture sensor which detects and differentiates soil moisture conditions and the micro controller used is Arduino Uno and is powered using a 9V battery. The LED display is a custom display made of eight independent LED's meant to display the different emotions.It was a short project and took a few days calibrate and completing it." [...]

Arduino Multi Boot Project

"An Arduino based project for easy and quick deployment of your own project....Selecting a specific arduino program to be run and use without the use of programmer as long as it is save in your SD CARD FAT32 format... A number of IO are still free to use like 2xSerial Port, I2C, Analog Port and Digital Port....Adding other devices like Wifi or Bluetooth or more.....This is still at early stage more improvement and enhancement be made......" [...]

Simple DIY 2-wheel Balancing Robot (Arduino & RPi)

"The epic: Build a robot-car with ‘a certain level of autonomy’. Explore possible options for computer vision control. Explore simple options for mapping and localization. Preferably build a 2-wheeled differential robot. In Reading Signs you’ll find a first exercise with computer vision control. In turn this post offers a very basic approach to build a balancer and covers: My experiences with different sorts of hardware components; A simple control logic; Control loop timing experiences and semi-automatic tuning. The video shows the first 3 versions of the balancing robot: The basic balancer ran by an Arduino Uno and controlled by an Android app; Two extended versions loaded with ultrasonic sensors and controlled by a Raspberry Pi; (The appearance of the bot is constantly changing due to my experiments) A future post will cover distance reading, obstacle avoiding and odometry experiments." [...]

Using Nokia 3310 84x48 LCD with Arduino

"These 84 by 48 pixel LCDs are what you might have found in Nokia 3310. And what about using them in the Arduino projects? The Nokia 5110 is a basic graphic LCD screen for lots of applications. It was originally intended to be used as a cell phone screen. This one is mounted on an easy to solder PCB. It uses the PCD8544 controller, which is the same used in the Nokia 3310 LCD. The PCD8544 is a low power CMOS LCD controller/driver, designed to drive a graphic display of 48 rows and 84 columns. All necessary functions for the display are provided in a single chip, including on-chip generation of LCD supply and bias voltages, resulting in a minimum of external components and low power consumption. The PCD8544 interfaces to microcontrollers through a serial bus interface." [...]

Get started developing IoT solutions by building a simple home automation system

"Build a smart doorbell with a Raspberry Pi, some sensors, a buzzer, Node-RED, and Apple Home Kit. Sometimes the most effective home automation projects are the ones that solve very simple problems. Here's my simple home automation IoT solution. I have trouble hearing my door bell when I'm working upstairs wearing headphones, so I'm going to create a smart doorbell system: I'm going to add a motion sensor to the front door of my house that will activate whenever someone is at the front door; I'll also add a temperature and humidity sensor that I can use to monitor the conditions outside my front door at any time, so I won't forget my coat or umbrella when I leave the house if I need them; I'll use the PIR sensor to trigger a relay to turn on a strip of LED lights to make it easier to see to unlock the door when I get home after dark; I'll expose all of these sensors as Apple Home Kit devices. Home Kit is Apple's home automation framework that allows you to read from sensors and control smart devices that are installed in your home by using the Home app from an iPhone or iPad running iOS 10, so I'll be able to see the sensor readings from my phone." [...]

Roombot: Room Cleaning Robot

"RoomBot is a room cleaning robot that moves around the room avoiding obstacles, picking up dust and wiping the floor. Have you ever imagined a toy-like machine (trust me it is much more complex than a toy) that can be your partner in daily household chores? Yes. The time has come for it to become a reality with our tiny little room cleaning robot named Roombot. While it is a fact that these bots already exist, our aim is to make ROOMBOT smarter, economical and more user-friendly which makes it one of a kind. Just to give an example, you can see what your partner is doing by using an app and also control it via phone. (Sounds more like a game, doesn’t it?) We plan to make this bot popular through social media platforms, tech platforms and of course by reaching out to people who would be willing to be a part of affordable cleaning solution which we are going to provide in the form of Roombot." [...]

Arduino 1.8.x Clone With Atmega 8535/32/644p/1284p: the Mightycore

"How to use the latest arduino IDE for old and latest atmegas DIP 40. and make a clone of arduino board. This project is the upgrade of the arduino atmega644/1284 clone project. I have got some old atmegas but not obsolete yet and I used them with some software like CodeVision AVR.... and recently I found a way to use these microcontrollers under the latest Arduino IDE, more convinient (I think). So this instructables will deal with : how to use Atmegas 8535/32/644p/1284p under Arduino 1.8.X using the Mightycore project ?" [...]

Deathwatch -- Wearable Life Expectancy Timer Using Adafruit Circuit Playground + OLED

"You're going to die someday! But that's okay, so am I :)I think a near constant awareness of one's own mortality is an inspiring, motivating, (soul-crushing), and ultimately perspective-focusing endeavor that everybody should undertake. That's why I made a wearable to help me! In short, it's a wrist-worn Adafruit Circuit Playground that displays a randomly generated (but statistically informed) number of days I have left to live. Fun!Basic premise is: it operates on code that randomly generates these days based on an actuarial table I found that gave me the probability I would die in various age blocks. So every now and then it'll change -- one day it'll say I have 23,454 days left, another only 19. And it's all on a randomized timer as well, so I never know when it'll change, allowing it to catch me off guard and hopefully make me shift perspective in that ..." [...]

Arduino - Web-Based Keypad

"Remotely controlling Arduino by using Web-based Keypad. We can control everything with this project. In this article, I just display the pressed key on 8x8 LED matrix as an example." [...]

WIFI Enabled LED Matrix

"This projects has an Arduino UNO connected to a 7219 LED Matrix with 4- 8x8 blocks. The Arduino is also connected to a ESP8266-12 Development board.The ESP8266-12 (NodeMCU)Connects to your Wifi (you supply SSID and password)Starts a web server on port 80Sends the Arduino its IP address (which scrolls on the LED Matrix) so you know how to go to the web server.Any data enter in the form on the webpage is sent to the Arduino which scrolls it on the LED Matrix. You can also port forward from your wife router to have an internet enabled device." [...]

How to Make Simple Audio Amplifier With Mosfet

"An Audio amplifier is a device , which is a capable of strength the week signals to drive the speaker. In this Instructable I will instruct you to make your own simple audio amplifier using MOSFET and less number of components. The Transistor I used is IRFZ44 which is a Mosfet." [...]

Halogen floodlight SMT reflow

"This project was waiting on a box fot two years, until I had to solder 100 PCBs. After some research on SMD/SMT reflow oven hacking, I was confident to build my own reflow device with an halogen floodlight. First test was to check the speed of the temperature rise inside a standard halogen floodlight. Reflow soldering temperature curves are quite demanding, and some adapted ovens can't reach the degrees-per-second speed of the ramp-up stages of these curves. I bought the spotlight, put an aluminium sheet covering the inside surface of the protective glass (to reduce heat loss), and measured the temperature rise with a multimeter's thermometer.... and wow! More than 5ºC/s... and I better turned the thing off after reaching 300ºC and still rising quickly. So the floodlight was able to fulfill the needs. Next step was a temperature controller, that is, the device that keeps the temperature as in a specified reflow curve profile in each moment. Having an AC heater element (in my case the halogen bulb), the two basic components in a AC temperature controller are: a temperature sensor; an AC dimmer (connected to the heater element)." [...]

Arduino Writing Mewtocol Protocol From PLC'S Panasonic

"Thanks to the request of one of my subscribers I have created this tutorial, which will be written in a Panasonic PLC (Nais) of the FPX Series Family. These PLCs are very practical and a high percentage of machines have it as a unit control.On this occasion I will use an Arduino MEGA 2560 R3 and a converter MAX232 (RS232) to write to DT records of the PLC, since in the network are the manuals of Mewtocol Protocol of panasonic that is used by PLC'S, HMI Screens, Inverters, Servo Drives Among other industrial devices.COMPLETE TUTORIALSArduino writing Mewtocol Protocol from PLC'S Panasonichttp://pdacontrolen.com/arduino-writing-mewtocol-p...Arduino escribiendo Protocolo Mewtocol de PLC’S Panasonic http://pdacontroles.com/arduino-y-escribiendo-prot..." [...]

Number Game Using 555 Timer and CD4026

"How's about playing with some random numbers where a player press a button and his lucky number is displayed on screen?? Funny..right? This is possible by using CD4026 IC and 555 timer and a couple of resistors and capacitors and switches. This is very cheap and a good project for beginners. I made this project so that we can play a simple but a good time passing number game and the whole thing is super cheap. I made one ,showing numbers from 0-9 .You can extend it to infinity, I will explain this in the upcoming steps .So let's build it.." [...]

Micro:bit Moisture sensor

"In this quick and easy project, you build a micro:bit moisture sensor. In this project you can use wires or a breadboard to connect a micro:bit to a sparkfun moisture sensor. You may need to solder on three headers to the moisture sensor to get it to work." [...]

How to Build a Hexapod Walker Robot with Raspberry Pi

"For my next project, I decided to create my version of a popular robot project: the hexapod walker. This Raspberry Pi-powered robot will have an autonomous mode where it runs by itself and avoids obstacles and a manual mode where it can be controlled by a smart phone. Interested? Here’s how I did it. There are lots of ways to use this gait in a hexapod walker. I chose to build a three-servo motor version which I found to have a balance between price and performance. Then I added another servo motor where the “eyes” of the robot are mounted. The robot will have three movements: forward, backward, turn right, and turn left. Any movement always involves tilting the robot to the right or left and then moving the leg that is lifted by the tilt. Below are the diagrams for the movements (a gray on a leg means the weight of the robot is on that leg)." [...]

JPEG Decoding on Arduino Tutorial

"When most people hear the term “JPEG decoding,” they will usually assume that it’s something really difficult, something that requires lots of processing power and complicated mathematics, something that is impossible – or at least impractical – on relatively cheap and slow 8-bit microcontroller platforms like the Arduino. In this article, we’ll learn how to take JPEG photo using an Arduino-controlled camera, turn the photo into lots and lots of pixels, and to transmit all of them via serial port to our PC – or wherever we like!" [...]

Breadboarding and Programming the ATmega328P & ATtiny45 in Atmel Studio 7

"In this project, we'll build circuits for programming two different Atmel microcontrollers and we'll discuss the necessary software setup. This project will describe the construction of two very similar circuits: one for programming an ATmega328P and another for programming an ATtiny45. The article will provide a complete schematic diagram of the programming circuits as well as detailed photographs of the solderless breadboard assemblies. In addition, Atmel Studio 7 IDE (Integrated Development Environment) will also be introduced." [...]

"Hurry, Doctor!", an Arduino-Powered Operation-Style Electronic Board Game

"I picked up an old Operation board game from the thrift store and my three-year old and I performed a few successful surgeries. My residency complete, the next day I visited the Dollar Tree for foil, foamcore and plastic boxes and started tinkering towards a lesson plan to build a bunch of them with my elementary school STEM students......down the rabbit hole...I had also been looking for long-term middle school project ideas for the upcoming school year. Specifically, a healthy dose of real code running an electronic device that the kids get to make mostly by themselves and take home. Something with plenty of hands-on craftsmanship using X-Acto knives, a soldering iron, nuts and bolts, foil tape, and so forth. About twenty hours later, every table in my classroom was covered in wire snippings and foamcore scraps, I had written and thrown away about 12,000 lines of code in order to have 750 that worked correctly, I had two breadboards and two prototypes within which four Arduinos blinked away, both of my whiteboards were covered in gibberish, the base of my drill press was buried in PVC shavings, and I was officially halfway done... In the classic board game, 'Operation', players draw a card to determine which tiny plastic object to extract and for how many dollars, then they receive that amount of money if they pull the piece out of a tight opening with a pair of tweezers...as long as they don't accidentally brush against the metal edge. Touching the edge with the wired tweezers closes a circuit that lights up the patient's nose bulb and vibrates the playing field with a motor under its surface, indicating a failed surgery. I figured that using an Arduino, I could maintain the basic game play but automate the scorekeeping, add simple sound effects, and enhance the game with a timer, so that players would earn more money by performing surgeries quickly." [...]

Arduino Controlled Sound Responsive LED Display

"The aim of the project was to produce a colourful sound responsive LED display. It serves no purpose other than decorative but does look very nice and can add to the atmosphere in a room where music is playing. It is also a fun electronics project with which to learn more about arduino programming and electronics. It cycles through different sound reactive light patterns when a button is pushed. Some of the patterns contain multiple sub patterns.The project uses modern WS2812 addressable LEDs to produce the lighting effects. These LEDs consist of a red, green and blue LED on one chip combined with a tiny micro controller that takes a signal in and sets the brightness of all 3 colours using an 8 bit value for each channel. They update at high speeds to produce colour mixing effects and even animations. They use 3 wires; 5 volts, ground and a signal wire. An arduino micro controller generates the signal. An arduino is a simple, cheap and slow 8 bit computer that can run software to generate a signal to control WS2812 LEDs. It maxes out at 512 LEDs which is enough to produce good results." [...]

Make a 1.5V AM Radio!

"Hi i'm Erik an electronic engineer and Hobbyist :)In this instructable i'll show you how to make a fully functional AM Radio using only 3 transistors and some recycled components!Let's go!" [...]

Inside Intel's first product: the 3101 RAM chip held just 64 bits

"Intel's first product was not a processor, but a memory chip: the 31011 RAM chip, released in April 1969. This chip held just 64 bits of data (equivalent to 8 letters or 16 digits) and had the steep price tag of $99.50.2 The chip's capacity was way too small to replace core memory, the dominant storage technology at the time, which stored bits in tiny magnetized ferrite cores. However, the 3101 performed at high speed due to its special Schottky transistors, making it useful in minicomputers where CPU registers required fast storage. The overthrow of core memory would require a different technology—MOS DRAM chips—and the 3101 remained in use in the 1980s. This article looks inside the 3101 chip and explains how it works. I received two 3101 chips from Evan Wasserman and used a microscope to take photos of the tiny silicon die inside.4 Around the outside of the die, sixteen black bond wires connect pads on the die to the chip's external pins. The die itself consists of silicon circuitry connected by a metal layer on top, which appears golden in the photo. The thick metal lines through the middle of the chip power the chip. The silicon circuitry has a grayish-purple color, but it largely covered by the metal layer. Most of the chip contains a repeated pattern: this is the 16x4 array of storage cells. In the upper left corner of the chip, the digits "3101" in metal identify the chip, but "Intel" is not to be found." [...]

Arduino Nano Multiplication/Division Signs

"The Arduino Nano Multiplication/Division Signs can be an excellent tool for teaching in the levels of elementary school because its design was thought to show the result of combinations of signs in math operations of multiplication & division." [...]

Raspberry Pi-Powered Candy Dispenser

"Make a candy machine that can give candy with a push of a button or a tweet! The aim of this project was to improve on my previous candy dispenser by making a new one that is more interactive and aesthetically pleasing." [...]

Brady* the Ultrasonic Warning System for the Visually Impaired

"This ultrasonic detector is aimed at helping visually impaired people get around with as little problems as possible. The idea is that the person will clip this onto one of their pockets and while walking, from a certain distance, it will buzz in order to keep the person from hitting something. The compact design houses an Arduino Nano, two 240 mAh batteries, a switch, a buzzer and a charging unit. The design also allows for it to be clipped on to either your shirt's or pants' pocket for easy access and use. The two piece enclosure doesn't require supports and prints easily in only a few hours. The enclosure is also small enough to fit most printers. The clip that is printed separately is then glued to the slot on the top enclosure. Also note that the tolerances are tight and will only work on a well calibrated design, so if requested I will release a high tolerance version." [...]

Ozone Generator

"At some point last year my car’s air conditioning unit started to develop a bad smell, which is a sign that mold has formed on the condenser. Unfortunately, this part is hard to reach and cleaning the condenser is hence a big problem. I went through a set of commercial climate control cleaning products and found most of them pretty useless:1) Two different disinfectants in spray cans that are sold as climate control unit cleaners: The spray cans are easy to use as you just put them into the car and let them spray their content while the ventilation is running. Unfortunately, the smell was back two days after their application. I guess the sprays are a combination of a perfume (they leave a strong lemon-like smell in the car) and am mild disinfectant like isopropanol. The latter one is not good for killing mold if it reaches the condenser at all. 2) A spray can with a long tube to spray disinfectant and cleaner directly onto the condenser. This is actually a pretty good system and preferred by most workshops due the simplicity and easy application. It actually removes organic matter from the condenser and typically protects it with a good fungicide. However, you have to be able to reach the condenser with the tube which in my case sadly wasn't possible. It would have meant a lot of extra work to make it accessible. Also, the ventilation shafts are not cleaned by this method. Talking to a mechanic I found out that some workshops use ozone generators to deodorize such cars. They use it also to remove cigarette smells or other unpleasant odors. Due to its gaseous state, short lifetime and exceptional reactivity ozone can reach the radiator, reacts with the mold (killing it) and vanishes without a trace after some hours. As professional ozone generators and cleaning services are pretty expensive, I decide to build a simple ozone generator from cheap available parts." [...]

DIY Simple FM Transmitter Circuit

"Building an FM Transmitter and broadcasting our own signals on the air is really a fun project to do. Especially, with this circuit since it does not require you to wound your own inductor or use a trimmer and spend hours in tuning your circuit to make it work properly. In this project you will learn How an FM Transmitter Works and how you can build your own with subtle components. We are adapting the circuit given by Tony Van Roon given in the book “Circuits for Hobbyists” (Page 75). This is an excellent book to start with if you want to do some tinkering with electronics. Note: Generating Frequencies that could affect your FM band or any other communication band might be considered against the law in your country. Kindly use this circuit for education purpose only and make sure your signal is not too strong to disrupt any communication near you. For any mishaps neither the website nor the author can be held responsible." [...]