Editorial

Esta é a Newsletter Nº 190 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 1868, Harvey S. Firestone. Ele foi um industrial norte-americano que desenvolveu pneus pneumáticos rectilíneos usados nos modelos T Fords. No seu início de carreira, a partir de 1893, ganhava a vida vendendo buggies em Detroit, Michigan. Posteriormente, mudou-se para Akron, Ohio, e fundou a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company em 1900. O seu sucesso cresceu quando, em 1906, juntou-se a Henry Ford para fornecer pneus para seus populares carros Modelo T. No final dos anos 1930, quase um quarto de todos os pneus usados nos Estados Unidos eram fabricados pela Firestone. As suas inovações na indústria mudaram o design e a produção de pneus, incluindo bandejas antiderrapantes, pneus de balão de baixa pressão e pneus de tratores agrícolas.

Faz também hoje anos que nascia, em 1890, Jaroslav Heyrovský. Este Químico checoslovaco recebeu o Prémio Nobel da Química de 1959 "pela sua descoberta e desenvolvimento dos métodos de análise polarográfica" (1922), que é uma das técnicas analíticas mais versáteis. Aplica-se o princípio de que na electrólise os iões são descarregados num eléctrodo e, se o eléctrodo for pequeno, a corrente pode ser limitada pela taxa de movimento de iões para a superfície do elétrodo. Na polarografia, o cátodo é uma pequena gota de mercúrio (constantemente a formar-se e caindo para manter a superfície limpa). A tensão é aumentada lentamente e a corrente é traçada contra a tensão. A corrente aumenta em etapas, cada uma correspondendo a um tipo particular de ião positivo na solução. A altura das etapas indica a concentração do ião.

Por fim, faz hoje anos que nascia, em 1901, Robert J. Van de Graaff. Este Físico norte- americano é o inventor do gerador Van de Graaff, um tipo de gerador electrostático de alta tensão que pode ser usado como acelerador de partículas em pesquisa atómica. As diferenças de potencial alcançadas nos modernos geradores Van de Graaff podem ser de até 5 MV. É um princípio de campos eléctricos que cargas em uma superfície podem saltar em pontos onde a curvatura é grande, isto é, onde o raio é pequeno. Assim, uma cúpula de grande raio inibe a descarga eléctrica e a carga adicional pode atingir uma alta tensão. Este gerador tem sido usado em aplicações médicas (como produção de raios X de alta energia) e industriais (esterilização de alimentos). Na década de 1950, Van de Graaff inventou o transformador de núcleo isolante capaz de produzir corrente contínua de alta tensão.

Nesta semana que passou ficámos a saber que a NASA colocou na superfície de Marte o primeiro instrumento a partir da sonda InSight completando uma milestone muito importante. Novas imagens da sonda mostram o sismógrafo no chão, sua cobertura cor de cobre levemente iluminada no crepúsculo marciano. Parece que tudo está calmo e tudo é brilhante para a InSight a caminho do final do ano.

Também esta semana Elon Musk revela túnel da Boring Company, prometendo uma nova era no transporte de alta velocidade. Com um Tesla Model X modificado atravessando um túnel da Boring Company na noite de terça-feira, Elon Musk mostrou a visão de um sistema de túneis de alta velocidade que acredita poder aliviar o congestionamento e revolucionar a maneira como milhões de passageiros circulam pelas cidades.

Na Newsletter desta semana apresentamos diversos projetos de maker assim como alguns modelos 3D que poderão ser úteis. É apresentada a revista MagPI nº 77 Dezembro, a revista Hackspace Nº14, o livro "The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide" e o livro "Makerspace Playbook - School Edition".

Estando em plena época natalícia resta-me desejar a todos em meu nome e em nome do altLab votos de um excelente Natal com muitas prendas no sapatinho.

João Alves ([email protected])

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

NASA's InSight Places First Instrument on Mars

"NASA's InSight lander has deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars, completing a major mission milestone. New images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, its copper-colored covering faintly illuminated in the Martian dusk. It looks as if all is calm and all is bright for InSight, heading into the end of the year. "InSight's timetable of activities on Mars has gone better than we hoped," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Getting the seismometer safely on the ground is an awesome Christmas present." The InSight team has been working carefully toward deploying its two dedicated science instruments onto Martian soil since landing on Mars on Nov. 26." [...]

Elon Musk unveils Boring Company tunnel, promising a new era in high-speed transportation

"With a modified Tesla Model X zipping through a Boring Company tunnel Tuesday night, Elon Musk took the wraps off his vision of a high-speed tunnel system he believes could ease congestion and revolutionize how millions of commuters get around cities. “I thought it was epic,” said Musk as he described how he felt being whisked through the Boring Co.‘s demonstration tunnel. “For me it was an epiphany, like ‘this thing damn well worked.’” Musk, who founded the Boring Co. two years ago after complaining that traffic in Los Angeles was driving him “nuts,” says the demonstration tunnel cost approximately $10 million to complete. Engineers and workers have been boring the 1.14-mile-long tunnel underneath one of the main streets in Hawthorne, California. One end of the tunnel starts in a parking lot owned by Musk’s Space X. The other end of the demonstration tunnel is in a neighborhood about a mile away in Hawthorne." [...]

NASA Satellites Spot Young Star in Growth Spurt

"An adolescent star in the midst of a dramatic growth phase has been observed with the help of two NASA space telescopes. The youngster belongs to a class of stars that gain mass when matter swirling around the star falls onto its surface. The in-falling matter causes the star to appear about 100 times brighter. Astronomers have found only 25 stars in this class, and only about half of those have been observed during an outburst. The new findings shed light on some long-standing mysteries surrounding the evolution of young stars, including how they acquire all of their mass. This rarely observed outbursting behavior could be common but might typically be hidden from our view by thick clouds of dust." [...]

Next-generation of GPS satellites are headed to space

"After months of delays, the U.S. Air Force is about to launch the first of a new generation of GPS satellites, designed to be more accurate, secure and versatile. But some of their most highly touted features will not be fully available until 2022 or later because of problems in a companion program to develop a new ground control system for the satellites, government auditors said. The satellite is scheduled to lift off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It's the first of 32 planned GPS III satellites that will replace older ones now in orbit. Lockheed Martin is building the new satellites outside Denver. GPS is best-known for its widespread civilian applications, from navigation to time-stamping bank transactions." [...]

Baidu Taps Unity's Game Engine To Test Its Self-driving Cars

"Unity, the same company whose 3D gaming engine brought you _Cuphead and Hearthstone is now helping Chinese internet giant Baidu develop the next generation of autonomous vehicles, the two companies announced on Tuesday. The collaboration is part of Baidu's ambitious Apollo Plan, which seeks to devise, build, test and eventually distribute self-driving systems with level 3, 4 and 5 autonomy. So far the company has assembled a coalition of more than 133 automakers and OEMs. Unity's real-time simulation will enable developers to effectively digitize the development phase of these autonomous technologies, which leads to a number of advantages, Tim McDonough, Unity's head of Automotive, explained to Engadget on a recent call. "Nobody gets hurt in a video game," he explained. "You can also test things that you can't test in the real world."_ [...]

Fully Driverless Grocery Deliveries Have Started In Arizona

"It could still be several years before you ride in a fully autonomous car with no human backup on public roads. Your groceries, however, can take that ride today. That is as long as you live in the Scottsdale area and shop at Fry’s. Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has kicked off a pilot project in Arizona by teaming up with grocery Kroger. Just in time for Christmas, Nuro’s compact driverless R1 “pods” are hitting the roads to save locals from yet another run to the store during the annual holiday craziness. The R1 can handle two deliveries at the same time." [...]

Atos expands BullSequana X supercomputer range to include AMD processors

"Atos today announces support for AMD EPYC™ processors in its upcoming BullSequana X range of supercomputers. The next generation AMD EPYC processor, codenamed “Rome”, is expected to be available in Atos’ new BullSequana XH2000 liquid cooled supercomputer announced today at SC’18, with availability in 2019. The new BullSequana X2410 blade will offer customers a powerful solution for bandwidth oriented HPC applications, and therefore a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This new BullSequana blade will improve production workflow performance due to superior memory bandwidth. Each BullSequana X2410 blade will include three compute nodes side-by-side, each equipped with two next generation AMD EPYC™ processors and 16 memory DIMMs per node. “Atos is excited to reinforce the partnership with AMD with the planned launch of an EPYC Rome blade for our new BullSequana X2410 next year”, said Agnès Boudot, Vice President HPC & Quantum at Atos." [...]

Wave Computing Launches the MIPS Open Initiative To Accelerate Innovation for the Renowned MIPS Architecture

"New Initiative Will Expand Adoption of MIPS by the Global Semiconductor Industry By Providing a Proven, Industry-Standard and Patent Protected RISC Architecture for Free. Wave Computing®, the Silicon Valley company that is accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) from the edge to the data center, announced it will open source its MIPS instruction set architecture (ISA) to accelerate the ability for semiconductor companies, developers and universities to adopt and innovate using MIPS for next-generation system-on-chip (SoC) designs. Under the MIPS Open program, participants will have full access to the most recent versions of the 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS ISA free of charge – with no licensing or royalty fees. Additionally, participants in the MIPS Open program will be licensed under MIPS’ hundreds of existing worldwide patents. “Having spent years in the open source technology movement, I can attest to the hunger for community-driven solutions,” said Art Swift, president of Wave Computing’s MIPS IP Business. “However, until now, there has been a lack of open source access to true industry-standard, patent-protected and silicon-proven RISC architectures." [...]

VW Solves Quantum Chemistry Problems on a D-Wave Machine

"Scientists say their work offers a proof of principle for using D-Wave’s quantum computers to tackle even tougher chemistry problems. Since at least 1982, when physicist Richard Feynman first proposed the idea of quantum computers, scientists have dreamed of using such exotic machines to simulate quantum phenomena in atoms and molecules. Now, in a paper to be presented in March, scientists at Volkswagen in Munich and San Francisco have used a D-Wave 2000Q quantum computer to solve rudimentary quantum chemistry problems. The results, the VW scientists say, offer a proof of principle of Feynman’s vision using the increasingly popular Canadian quantum computer system. The paper they will present in March, which they shared on the preprint server arXiv, describes running D-Wave computations that find the ground state energies of molecular hydrogen and the molecule lithium hydride. Both molecules are well known and well studied." [...]

Mbed OS 5.11 release: Focus on security, storage, and ease of use

"Security, storage and ease of use continue to be front of mind for the team behind Mbed OS. With our latest release focused on secure sockets, Advanced Storage solutions for IoT Devices, and Enhanced Device Statistics APIs, in addition to resolving several bug fixes. These updates enable businesses to simplify the creation of devices needing secure connections to any cloud and lower the cost of devices requiring remote firmware upgrades. The detailed technical overview and release notes can be found on the Mbed OS releases page. Secure sockets Secure sockets now make it easier for businesses to make ‘secure connections’ when sending data to any cloud or server using Mbed OS, by enabling the TLS functionality for secure sockets in the background. This has been achieved by introducing native secure sockets, and TCP and UDP based protocol." [...]

Honda tests self-driving, off-road "Autonomous Work Vehicles"

"They're almost cute, these little seatless quadbikes, and they can be programmed to autonomously perform a bunch of handy tasks outdoors. Honda has been testing prototypes in search and rescue, firefighting, construction, agriculture, landscaping and snow removal applications, and is looking for partners to come on board to further the technology. The rugged little autonomous work vehicle (AWV) platform is basically a Honda agricultural 4WD quad bike with the top half removed and replaced with a bunch of sensors, self driving equipment and whatever else might be required for the specific task laid out for it. Its rail system lets you mount all sorts of accessories and plug-ins, and its fairly rudimentary autonomous capabilities let you set it to "follow me," "pattern" or "A to B" modes, which make it useful across a fairly broad range of applications. Honda's been testing it with a mower towed behind it, keeping weeds and grass down at a 178-acre (72 ha) solar plant in North Carolina. Meanwhile, in Colorado, the fire department has had them following firefighters around, carrying heavy gear as they work their way through steep and difficult terrain on their way to control forest fires." [...]

TSMC cleared to build new factory in southern Taiwan

"New factory in Tainan will make use of renewable energy and recycled water. The world’s largest contract semiconductor manufacturing company, TSMC (台積電), has been cleared to commence construction of a new 3nm chip factory at the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan, reported CNA. The new factory is expected to use 20 percent renewable energy and 50 percent recycled water. The factory’s environmental impact assessment was accepted by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Dec. 19, after concerns were raised about use of water and power sources. TSMC is expected to invest NT$600 million (US$19.45 million) in the project, with construction to begin in 2022. Production is planned to start in late 2022 or early 2023." [...]

3D Printing Extremely Viscous Materials

"The research has been published in the journal Additive Manufacturing. “The most common form of 3D printing is thermoplastic extrusion,” said Emre Gunduz, assistant research professor of mechanical engineering. “That’s usually good enough for prototypes, but for actual fabrication, you need to use materials with high strength, like ceramics or metal composites. But the precursor for these materials are extremely viscous, and normal 3D printers can’t deposit them, because they can’t be pushed through a small nozzle.” Most proposed solutions to this problem involve changing the composition of the materials themselves. However, Gunduz’ solution is to apply high-amplitude ultrasonic vibrations to the nozzle itself. “We found that by vibrating the nozzle in a very specific way,” said Gunduz, “we can reduce the friction on the nozzle walls, and the material just snakes through.” Gunduz and his team have been able to print items with 100-micron precision, which is better than most consumer-level 3D printers." [...]

Flea-sized solar panels embedded in CLOTHES can charge a mobile phone

"Clothing embedded with tiny solar cells the size of a flea will allow wearers to generate electricity on the move and charge items like mobile phones and smartwatches. Nottingham Trent University has developed a way to embed miniaturised solar cells into yarn that can then be knitted and woven into textiles. The technology has been tested and proven to charge a mobile phone and a Fitbit. The cells are encapsulated in a resin which allows the textile fabric to be washed and worn like any other form of clothing. Measuring only three millimetres in length and 1.5 millimetres in width, the cells are almost invisible to the naked eye and cannot be felt by the wearer. For all intents and purposes, garments appear exactly the same as any other form of clothing despite having the capability to generate electricity." [...]

Weather monitoring from the ground up

"ClimaCell uses wireless signals to track and forecast the weather in every 500-meter patch of the Earth’s surface. Many startups tailor their first product or service to a specific market segment in order to validate their ideas and get some early traction. Far fewer develop a solution to such a fundamental problem that they explore several markets simultaneously, but ClimaCell has done just that. The problem the company is tackling is weather modeling. Its solution uses the ubiquitous tools of the wireless world, such as the communication networks of cell phones and “internet of things” devices, to create “virtual sensors” capable of tracking and predicting weather in ways traditional sensors, such as satellites and radar, cannot. ClimaCell’s software, called HyperCast, works by tapping into communications network infrastructure." [...]

3D printing eliminates undesirable trait in conventional superalloys

"An undesirable trait found in traditionally processed superalloys does not exist in a 3D-printed, nickel-based superalloy, according to a team of materials scientists who think this could lead to new manufacturing techniques that allow for alloys with tailored properties. The trait, called dynamic strain aging (DSA), occurs in metals at high temperatures subjected to stress. In conventionally processed materials, if DSA is present, the strength of the material fluctuates with applied deformation, resulting in serrated stress-strain curves. Researchers, led by Allison Beese, assistant professor of materials sciences and engineering at Penn State, tested the 3D-printed Inconel 625 versus traditionally processed Inconel 625 using neutron diffraction characterization with mechanical testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Data gathered at the microscopic level gave a picture of the grain-level origins of the serrated stress curve, and resulted in a new understanding of the microstructure mechanisms that drive this phenomenon. This research, published in Nature Communications, could pave the way for designing materials without dynamic strain aging." [...]

Team invents method to shrink objects to the nanoscale

"It’s not quite the Ant-Man suit, but the system produces 3-D structures one thousandth the size of the originals. MIT researchers have invented a way to fabricate nanoscale 3-D objects of nearly any shape. They can also pattern the objects with a variety of useful materials, including metals, quantum dots, and DNA. “It’s a way of putting nearly any kind of material into a 3-D pattern with nanoscale precision,” says Edward Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology and an associate professor of biological engineering and of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. Using the new technique, the researchers can create any shape and structure they want by patterning a polymer scaffold with a laser. After attaching other useful materials to the scaffold, they shrink it, generating structures one thousandth the volume of the original." [...]

Laser-pointing system could help tiny satellites transmit data to Earth

"Platform offers the precision that shoebox-sized CubeSats need to beam down hefty data packets. A new laser-pointing platform developed at MIT may help launch miniature satellites into the high-rate data game. Since 1998, almost 2,000 shoebox-sized satellites known as CubeSats have been launched into space. Due to their petite frame and the fact that they can be made from off-the-shelf parts, CubeSats are significantly more affordable to build and launch than traditional behemoths that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. CubeSats have become game-changers in satellite technology, as they can be sent up in flocks to cheaply monitor large swaths of the Earth’s surface. But as increasingly capable miniaturized instruments enable CubeSats to take highly detailed images, the tiny spacecraft struggle to efficiently transmit large amounts of data down to Earth, due to power and size constraints." [...]

Better Superconductors from Ceramic Copper Oxides

"Riccardo Comin seeks to elucidate the microscopic physics of high-temperature superconducting devices to advance their technological applications. Medical magnetic resonance imaging, high-power microwave generators, superconducting magnetic energy storage units, and the solenoids in nuclear fusion reactors are very different technologies which all critically rely on the ability of superconducting materials to carry and store large electric currents in a compact space without overheating or dissipating large amounts of energy. Despite their extraordinary properties, most superconducting materials present their own set of demands, such as the need to cool down to the temperature of liquid helium for medical MRIs. Still, superconductors are so efficient compared to everyday materials like copper that the cost of cooling them down with special cryogenic circuits is negligible compared to the energy saved from being converted — and ultimately wasted — in the form of heat, says Riccardo Comin, an assistant professor of physics. “When you are trying to run a large current through a conventional circuit like one that’s made of copper, there will be a lot of dissipation into heat because of the finite electrical resistance of the material,” he says. “And that’s energy that just goes lost." [...]

Pressure Tuned Magnetism Paves the Way for Novel Electronic Devices

"Using ultrasensitive magnetic probes, researchers unveil a surprising link between emergent magnetism and mechanical pressure in artificially engineered non-magnetic oxide heterostructures. Advances in the technology of material growth allow fabricating sandwiches of materials with atomic precision. The interface between the two materials can sometimes exhibit physical phenomena which do not exist in both parent materials. For example, a magnetic interface found between two non-magnetic materials. A new discovery, just published in Nature Physics, shows a new way of controlling this emergent magnetism which may be the basis for new types of magnetic electronic devices. Using very sensitive magnetic probes, an international team of researchers led by Prof. Beena Kalisky, of Bar-Ilan University's (BIU) Department of Physics and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA) and Prof. Nini Pryds, of Technical University of Denmark’s (DTU) Department of Energy, has found surprising evidence that magnetism emerging at the interfaces between non-magnetic oxide layers can be easily tuned by exerting tiny mechanical forces." [...]

One switch to rule them all

"Inkjet-printed switches make multiple frequency bands easier and cheaper to manage in wireless devices. Frequency-tunable communication modules, such as antennas and filters, are expected to help miniaturize wireless devices. Researchers at KAUST have created switches that enable control over these modules in response to stimuli. Mobile devices to support multiple standards, such as a global positioning system and a global system for mobile communications, require antennas that are capable of covering several frequency bands. “Radio-frequency switches are the key to realizing cost- and space-saving frequency-tunable antennas and filters,” says Ph.D. student Shuai Yang, who worked on the project with his supervisor Atif Shamim. Commercially available radio-frequency switches have performance limitations and involve convoluted fabrication approaches that require expensive materials and tools." [...]

Data use draining your battery? Tiny device to speed up memory while also saving power

"The more objects we make "smart," from watches to entire buildings, the greater the need for these devices to store and retrieve massive amounts of data quickly without consuming too much power. Millions of new memory cells could be part of a computer chip and provide that speed and energy savings, thanks to the discovery of a previously unobserved functionality in a material called molybdenum ditelluride. The two-dimensional material stacks into multiple layers to build a memory cell. Researchers at Purdue University engineered this device in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Theiss Research Inc. Their work appears in an advance online issue of Nature Materials. Chip-maker companies have long called for better memory technologies to enable a growing network of smart devices. One of these next-generation possibilities is resistive random access memory, or RRAM for short." [...]

Ingestible capsule can be controlled wirelessly

"Electronic pill can relay diagnostic information or release drugs in response to smartphone commands. Researchers at MIT, Draper, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed an ingestible capsule that can be controlled using Bluetooth wireless technology. The capsule, which can be customized to deliver drugs, sense environmental conditions, or both, can reside in the stomach for at least a month, transmitting information and responding to instructions from a user’s smartphone. The capsules, manufactured using 3-D-printing technology, could be deployed to deliver drugs to treat a variety of diseases, particularly in cases where drugs must be taken over a long period of time. They could also be designed to sense infections, allergic reactions, or other events, and then release a drug in response. “Our system could provide closed-loop monitoring and treatment, whereby a signal can help guide the delivery of a drug or tuning the dose of a drug,” says Giovanni Traverso, a visiting scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he will be joining the faculty in 2019." [...]

High-efficiency discovery drives low-power computing

"Discovery of atomic-scale binary logic powers faster, more energy-efficient electronics. Challenge any modern human to go a day without a phone or computer, and you’d be hard pressed to get any takers. Our collective obsession with all things electronic is driving a dramatic daily drain on the world’s power. In fact, according to studies from the Semiconductor Research Corporation, if we continue on pace with our current ever-increasing energy consumption, by the year 2035, we will use all of the world’s energy to run our computers - an impossible/unsustainable situation. To combat this looming energy crisis, enter Robert Wolkow. The University of Alberta atomic physicist has devoted his career to developing greener, faster, smaller technology." [...]

Machine-learning enables a previously-unseen look at polymers helpful in biomedical field

"Polymers — molecules of repeating chemicals — are the basis of many materials: plastic water bottles, rubber tires, even the keratin in your hair. When certain kinds of polymers are sensitive to changes in external stimuli such as temperature, they become helpful, particularly in biomedical applications like drug delivery, tissue engineering, and gene delivery. A team of researchers led by Sanket Deshmukh, assistant professor of chemical engineering, has developed a method to investigate the structures of polymers that are sensitive to external stimuli. In a recently published journal article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, the group developed a first-of-its-kind, temperature-independent computational model for one particular polymer that is sensitive to temperature. Simulation trajectories of this computational model were analyzed by using a data-driven machine-learning method. The group chose the polymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), also known as PNIPAM, which is temperature sensitive." [...]

The stiffest porous lightweight materials ever

"Researchers at ETH have developed and manufactured a family of architectures that maximises the stiffness of porous lightweight materials. It’s practically impossible to develop stiffer designs. 3D printing and other additive production techniques make it possible to manufacture materials with internal structures of previously unimaginable complexity. This is interesting for lightweight construction, too, as it enables the development of materials that have the highest possible share of interior voids (to make the materials as light as possible) but are simultaneously as robust as possible. Achieving this requires that the internal structures be intelligently organised for maximum efficiency. A research team from ETH Zurich and MIT led by Dirk Mohr, Professor of Computational Modeling of Materials in Manufacturing, has developed and fabricated material architectures that are equally strong in all three dimensions, and that are simultaneously extremely stiff." [...]

Assessing the Promise of Gallium Oxide as an Ultrawide Bandgap Semiconductor

"In microelectronic devices, the bandgap is a major factor determining the electrical conductivity of the underlying materials. Substances with large bandgaps are generally insulators that do not conduct electricity well, and those with smaller bandgaps are semiconductors. A more recent class of semiconductors with ultrawide bandgaps (UWB) are capable of operating at much higher temperatures and powers than conventional small-bandgap silicon-based chips made with mature bandgap materials like silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). In the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, researchers at the University of Florida, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Korea University provide a detailed perspective on the properties, capabilities, current limitations and future developments for one of the most promising UWB compounds, gallium oxide (Ga2O3). Gallium oxide possesses an extremely wide bandgap of 4.8 electron volts (eV) that dwarfs silicon’s 1.1 eV and exceeds the 3.3 eV exhibited by SiC and GaN." [...]

Technique Allows Integration of Single-Crystal Hybrid Perovskites Into Electronics

"An international team of researchers has developed a technique that, for the first time, allows single-crystal hybrid perovskite materials to be integrated into electronics. Because these perovskites can be synthesized at low temperatures, the advance opens the door to new research into flexible electronics and potentially reduced manufacturing costs for electronic devices. Hybrid perovskite materials contain both organic and inorganic components and can be synthesized from inks, making them amenable to large-area roll-to-roll fabrication. These materials are the subject of extensive research for use in solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodetectors. However, there have been challenges in integrating single-crystal hybrid perovskites into more classical electronic devices, such as transistors. Single-crystal hybrid perovskites are preferable because single-crystalline materials have more desirable properties than polycrystalline materials; polycrystalline materials contain more defects that adversely affect a material’s electronic properties." [...]

Sydney scientists develop work-around for quantum architecture

"Technique uses indirect exchange to couple spin qubits Working with Professor David Reilly, Dr Xanthe Croot and Sebastian Pauka have invented a qubit architecture designed to improve scalability for semiconductor-based quantum computers. Australian scientists have developed an architecture for quantum computers that will help overcome interference caused by quantum bits being too close to each other. There is a global scientific race to build a quantum computer – a machine that unlocks the strange behaviour of quantum mechanics to calculate completely new types of problems. Australia is recognised as a global leader in the emerging technology. The problem is that the quantum bits, or qubits, needed to build the machines are finickity: they are susceptible to electromagnetic ‘noise’ from the environment which ‘decoheres’ their quantumness, reducing their calculations to normal, classical switches. The qubits need to be ‘entangled’ to work as quantum switches, or logic gates." [...]

Scientists develop a new method to revolutionise graphene printed electronics

"A team of researchers based at The University of Manchester have found a low cost method for producing graphene printed electronics, which significantly speeds up and reduces the cost of conductive graphene inks. Printed electronics offer a breakthrough in the penetration of information technology into everyday life. The possibility of printing electronic circuits will further promote the spread of Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The development of printed conductive inks for electronic applications has grown rapidly, widening applications in transistors, sensors, antennas RFID tags and wearable electronics. Current conductive inks traditionally use metal nanoparticles for their high electrical conductivity. However, these materials can be expensive or easily oxidised, making them far from ideal for low cost IoT applications." [...]

New cutting-edge technology bridges the digital divide

"Researchers achieve world-first data transmission capacity for 5G and next-generation networks. We use the Internet in nearly every aspect of our daily lives – when making video calls, telecommuting, playing online interactive games, interacting on social networks or using smart TVs. All these uses require ever-increasing amounts of data to be transmitted. However, at the current rate of increase, today’s state-of-the-art networks will soon be unable to support demand. Existing wireless networks operating at microwave frequencies are already congested, with a bandwidth too narrow to support multigigabit data rates. Optical fibre networks, on the other hand, cannot be deployed in some rural and suburban areas due to high costs and geographical considerations." [...]

Flexible thermoelectric generator module: a silver bullet to fix waste energy issues

"A team of researchers led by Osaka University developed an inexpensive large-scale flexible thermoelectric generator (FlexTEG) module with high mechanical reliability for highly efficient power generation. Through a change in direction of the top electrodes at the two sides of the module and the use of high density packaging of semiconductor chips, the FlexTEG module has more flexibility in any uniaxial direction. This improved efficiency of recovery, or thermoelectric conversion, of waste heat from a curved heat source, enhancing the module’s mechanical reliability as less mechanical stress is placed on semiconductor chips in the module. The team’s research results were published in Advanced Materials Technologies. It is said that Society 5.0, a super-smart society in which our living space will be networked by various IoT (Internet of Things) technologies, will come in the near future. A thermoelectric generation system to permanently generate power by efficiently recovering waste heat energy emitted in the environment is an effective means to conserve the global environment and save energy, and research for applying this system to energy sources for next-generation IoT devices has gained attention." [...]

Graphene's Magic is in the Defects

"A team of NYU researchers has solved a longstanding puzzle of how to build ultra-sensitive, ultra-small electrochemical sensors with homogenous and predictable properties by discovering how to engineer graphene structure on an atomic level. NYU Researchers Offer Major New Insights for Precise Engineering of Ultra-Small, Ultra-Sensitive Electrochemical Sensors Findings Could Benefit Biochemical Detection, Environmental Monitoring, and Lab-on-a-Chip Applications A team of researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and NYU’s Center for Neural Science has solved a longstanding puzzle of how to build ultra-sensitive, ultra-small electrochemical sensors with homogenous and predictable properties by discovering how to engineer graphene structure on an atomic level. Finely tuned electrochemical sensors (also referred to as electrodes) that are as small as biological cells are prized for medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring systems. Demand has spurred efforts to develop nanoengineered carbon-based electrodes, which offer unmatched electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties. Yet these efforts have long been stymied by the lack of quantitative principles to guide the precise engineering of the electrode sensitivity to biochemical molecules. Davood Shahrjerdi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NYU Tandon, and Roozbeh Kiani, an assistant professor of neural science and psychology at the Center for Neural Science, have revealed the relationship between various structural defects in graphene and the sensitivity of the electrodes made of it." [...]

Switch-in-a-cell electrifies life

"Rice University scientists create electrical protein switches triggered by chemicals Scientists at Rice University have developed synthetic protein switches to control the flow of electrons. The proof-of-concept, metal-containing proteins made in the Rice lab of synthetic biologist Joff Silberg are expressed within cells upon the introduction of one chemical and are functionally activated by another chemical. If the proteins have been placed in the cell, they can simply be turned on and off. “This is not a metaphor for a switch, it is a literal electrical switch built from a protein,” Silberg said. The proteins could facilitate next-generation bioelectronics, including complete biological circuits within cells that mimic their electronic counterparts. The possible applications include living sensors, electronically controlled metabolic pathways for chemical synthesis and active pills that sense their environment and release drugs only when needed." [...]

Toward brain-like computing: New memristor better mimics synapses

"A new electronic device developed at the University of Michigan can directly model the behaviors of a synapse, which is a connection between two neurons. For the first time, the way that neurons share or compete for resources can be explored in hardware without the need for complicated circuits. “Neuroscientists have argued that competition and cooperation behaviors among synapses are very important. Our new memristive devices allow us to implement a faithful model of these behaviors in a solid-state system,” said Wei Lu, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering and senior author of the study in Nature Materials. Memristors are electrical resistors with memory—advanced electronic devices that regulate current based on the history of the voltages applied to them. They can store and process data simultaneously, which makes them a lot more efficient than traditional systems." [...]

RFID Tag Arrays Track Body Movements, Shape Changes

"Washable, battery-free tags could be cheaply embedded in clothing Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found ways to track body movements and detect shape changes using arrays of RFID tags. RFID-embedded clothing thus could be used to control avatars in video games — much like in the movie "Ready Player One." Or embedded clothing could to tell you when you should sit up straight — much like your mother. RFID tags are nothing new, which is part of their appeal for these applications, said Haojian Jin, a Ph.D. student in CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). They are cheap, battery-free and washable. What's new is the method that Jin and his colleagues devised for tracking the tags, and thus monitoring movements and shapes." [...]

Researchers demonstrate teleportation using on-demand photons from quantum dots

"A team of researchers from Austria, Italy and Sweden has successfully demonstrated teleportation using on-demand photons from quantum dots. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group explains how they accomplished this feat and how it applies to future quantum communications networks. Scientists and many others are very interested in developing truly quantum communications networks—it is believed that such networks will be safe from hacking or eavesdropping due to their very nature. But, as the researchers with this new effort point out, there are still some problems standing in the way. One of these is the difficulty in amplifying quantum signals. One way to get around this problem, they note, is to generate photons on-demand as part of a quantum repeater—this helps to effectively handle the high clock rates." [...]

Satellite study proves global quantum communication will be possible

"Researchers in Italy have demonstrated the feasibility of quantum communications between high-orbiting global navigation satellites and a ground station, with an exchange at the single photon level over a distance of 20,000km. The milestone experiment proves the feasibility of secure quantum communications on a global scale, using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). It is reported in full today in the journal Quantum Science and Technology. Co-lead author Dr Giuseppe Vallone is from the University of Padova, Italy. He said: “Satellite-based technologies enable a wide range of civil, scientific and military applications like communications, navigation and timing, remote sensing, meteorology, reconnaissance, search and rescue, space exploration and astronomy. “The core of these systems is to safely transmit information and data from orbiting satellites to ground stations on Earth." [...]

Robots with sticky feet can climb up, down, and all around

"New “HAMR-E” robots could enable inspection of complex machines without dismantling them Jet engines can have up to 25,000 individual parts, making regular maintenance a tedious task that can take over a month per engine. Many components are located deep inside the engine and cannot be inspected without taking the machine apart, adding time and costs to maintenance. This problem is not only confined to jet engines, either; many complicated, expensive machines like construction equipment, generators, and scientific instruments require large investments of time and money to inspect and maintain. Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a micro-robot whose electroadhesive foot pads, origami ankle joints, and specially engineered walking gait allow it to climb on vertical and upside-down conductive surfaces, like the inside walls of a commercial jet engine. The work is reported in Science Robotics. “Now that these robots can explore in three dimensions instead of just moving back and forth on a flat surface, there’s a whole new world that they can move around in and engage with,” said first author Sébastien de Rivaz, a former Research Fellow at the Wyss Institute and SEAS who now works at Apple." [...]

New Materials Architectures Sought to Cool Hypersonic Vehicles

"DARPA seeks designs for cooling super-hot leading edges that rip through the air at more than five times the speed of sound. Hypersonic vehicles fly through the atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, creating intense friction with the surrounding air as they travel at Mach 5 or above – five times faster than sound travels. Developing structures that can withstand furnace-like temperatures at such high speeds is a technical challenge, especially for leading edges that bear the brunt of the heat. To address this thermal challenge, DARPA recently announced its Materials Architectures and Characterization for Hypersonics (MACH) program. The MACH program seeks to develop and demonstrate new design and material solutions for sharp, shape-stable, cooled leading edges for hypersonic vehicles. A Proposers Day describing the program will take place January 22, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia: https://go.usa.gov/xEcEy." [...]

Magnetoresistance ratio enhancement in Heusler-based alloy opens the door to highly sensitive magnetic field sensors

"By creating a new multilayer structure with an enhanced magnetoresisitance ratio, researchers in Japan show that it’s possible to increase the sensitivity of magnetic field sensors. Magnetic field sensors can enhance applications that require efficient electric energy management. Improving magnetic field sensors below the picoTesla range could enable a technique to measure brain activity at room temperature with millisecond resolution -- called magnetic encephalography -- without superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) technology, which requires cryogenic temperatures to work. A group of researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Materials Science at the University of Tsukuba and LG Japan Lab Inc. explored enhancing the magnetoresistance ratio in a current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magnetoresistance (CPP-GMR) device by using a half-metallic Heusler CoFeAl0.5Si0.5 (CFAS)alloy. The alloy has 100 percent spin-polarized conduction electrons, which enables very high spin-asymmetry of electron scattering and results in a large magnetoresistance ratio. They report their findings in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing." [...]

Female+Male connector 2.54 mm

"I will show you my self-made connector for wires. It is convenient to use it for DIY, for electronic devices. The connector will withstand high currents. It is easy to connect and disconnect. Female+Male Pin header 2.54 mm https://44ru.ru/3rvIMW Video https://youtu.be/4zFNJf3L_sI More my models https://www.thingiverse.com/Dmawzx/designs *** MY SETTINGS *** Material: ABS Nozzle diametr: 0.4 mm Extrusion width: 0.4 mm Layer height: 0.1 mm Extruder temp: 235 °С Heated bed temp: 80 °С Infill: 100% Support: no Speed: 100 mm/s Bottom/top/perimetr layers: 5/5/3 Inside-Out" [...]

Prototyping platform for Arduino-Raspberry

"This is a customizable support for electronic cards. It can be adjusted to fit almost any board, with screws fitting or just sitting in a notch. I made two board, one with an external power supply with rectifier, voltage regulator, volt and amps gauge, a little voltage booster, temperature gauge, a big breadboard and a Uno, and another with the Uno, a little voltage booster, volt and amps gauge, 1602 display and a little breadboard. I fixed some of the boards with screws and some that have no fixing points with a drop of hot glue. In the customizer you can add as much as 10 boards, in case you need more you have to do some copy and paste... I used some boards stl files as a reference in the examples, and if you want them you can find them at the following links: Arduino uno: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:253463 Mega 2560: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:739959 Raspberry Pi A+ : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:566520 Raspberry Pi B+: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:402498 Raspberry zero: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1323037 Most of the stl files are rendered and exported in different positions respect axis centers." [...]

The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide

"The Raspberry Pi is a small, clever, British-built computer that’s packed with potential. Made using the same technology you find in a smartphone, the Raspberry Pi is designed to help you learn coding, discover how computers work, and build your own amazing things. This book was written to show you just how easy it is to get started. Learn how to: Set up your Raspberry Pi, install its operating system, and start using this tiny, fully functional computer. Start coding projects, with step-by-step guides using the Scratch and Python programming languages. Experiment with connecting electronic components and have fun creating amazing projects." [...]

The MagPI 77

"Happy Christmas! If you got a Raspberry Pi under the tree, you may be wondering what you can do with it. Fear not, as we show you how to make with code on the Raspberry Pi. With Python and some electronic components, the sky’s the limit. Also, while the Raspberry Pi is excellent, it can be made better with accessories. We break down 20 of the best HATs, add-ons, accessories, and more in our big feature." [...]

Makerspace Playbook - School Edition

"A subgenus of maker pro we come across frequently at the Maker Pro Newsletter are the educators, hackers, and citizens who see a need in their local community and opt to open their own makerspace. What they soon discover is that running a makerspace is hard, and requires organizational or business acumen — just look at the fate of TechShop (@techshop), which filed for bankruptcy last year. If you’re interested in starting a makerspace in your own community, there’s no better guide than the Makerspace Playbook, a timeless Maker Media (@Make) guide to starting a makerspace in your school, neighborhood or community. It includes resources on everything from safety and design to inventory, budgets and documentation — an invaluable magnum opus on the business of makerspaces. " [...]

HackSpace magazine #14

"Grab your soldering iron, it's time to make some music. We take a look at how to build a modular synth complete with sequencer. Press the buttons, twiddle the knobs and you'll be able to create a unique sound based on a device you've constructed. Makers mapping radiation in Japan Create a sound-activated light-up mask Drew Fustini chats about PCBs and open hardware Build an Arduino robot from scratch" [...]

7 Band Led Audio Visualizer

"This is a project that takes in a continuous analog signal usually music and uses it to light a 7 band led visualizer. It uses the MSGEQ7 chip to analyze the music signal to get the frequency magnitudes and maps it to the led strips. The Led strips used are the SK6812 also known as WS2811 or Adafruit Neopixel. Equipment used: 1.) MSGEQ7 2.) 3.5 mm Female aux jack 3.)" [...]

Morning Buddy

"Some people have very busy schedules, which makes it easy to forget a thing a or two. With this alarm clock you can set multiple alarms to keep you on schedule. The clock runs on 24-time and all you have to do is program it to go off at the different times of the day that fit your schedule. When your doing this the times that you have set will pop up on the LCD screen, so that you can check to make sure they're right and serve as an extra reminder. " [...]

Midi Record/Play/Overdub With 5-Pin Connections

"* Uses an ATMega-1284 chip running at 8 MHz, with 4 k Bytes of RAM and 4 kBytes of eeprom * Uses the old DIN 5-pin connectors * Allows recording and playback, as well as overdub: recording along with something you recorded before. * Full menu * Capability of naming and storing a file in eeprom * Editable tempos and time signatures * Rudimentary quantization Usefulness* Proof of concept: you may find this project challenging. What this tutorial includes: * Parts list * Project Report (Attached to this panel) Contains a lot of info you need to know about the project * Link to the C code on GitHub https://github.com/sugarvillela/ATMega1284 * Step-by-step instructions for building the project and adapting the code" [...]

Qwiic Twist Hookup Guide

"What does that mean? Send the command twist.getCount() and you’ll get the number of steps the user has twisted the knob. For example, 312 or -23 depending on the direction and amount the user and turned the knob. The Twist takes care of all the various interrupts, switches, PWM'ing of LEDs and presents all those features over an easy-to-use I2C interface. The Qwiic Twist was designed to get rid of the large mass of wires that are needed to implement an RGB encoder in a breadboard. Now you can get encoder position with something as twist.getCount(); and your microcontroller can keep focused on other more important tasks." [...]

DIY Christmas Tree and Christmas Decor Using Arduino

"Christmas is incomplete with gifts and, therefore, a place for Santa Claus to keep them - the Christmas Tree. And since weve been on a DIYing spree this year since quite a long time, why not continue it in the case of the tree and make an unconventional one ourselves, right from Scratch? All that you need in your DIYing basket are some acrylic pieces in the shape of a tree, an RGB LED strip, and a code et voil! Your DIY unique Christmas Tree up and ready to shine bright! Once you set it up, it is, for sure, going to the most unusual tree in the entire town! Plus, who knows, Santa might get impressed and bring you an extra special gift this year, say a unique STEMpedia DIY kit!" [...]

Play with Fire Over WIFI! ESP8266 & Neopixels

"Create a cool fire simulation effect with Wi-Fi wireless control. A mobile app (for Android smartphones) with a good looking interface is ready to install to play with your creation! We will also use Arduino and ESP8266 to control the flame. At the end of this project you will learn: How NeoPixels work. How to program ESP8266 and control variables over wifi How to create a cool fire effect with Neopixels" [...]

NE555 Christmas Tree

"The schematic itself is not very difficult, but the soldering can be a little bit tricky because one end of the brass rod will start to de-solder when one tries to solder the other end. A trick is to be accurate and fast which is not easy after force bending the rod I started by soldering together pieces of 1mm brass and copper wire, then I connected one of the ne555 circuit" [...]

Glowing Ornament

"Original glowing ornament for your Xmas tree. It's made from brass rods wired by a freeform method and contains 18 glowing LEDs. The main challenge here is to create a round shape from brass rods to look like an orb. I've decided to have a ball created out of 6 wires vertically and 3 wires horizontally - 18 intersections in total for LEDs to be placed in. At the bottom of the orb, there is a ring opening that will later allow me to insert an electronics to drive the LEDs. First, start simply, found yourself a nice template for bending a wire into a circle." [...]

E101 Line Following Bot With Speaker

"Here is a line following robot that plays music when it passes over specific colors This bot will follow a track or tracks of multiple different colored lines that you can create while playing music of your choice. " [...]

Arduino Dusk/dawn Clock Timer

"Summary: This Arduino based timer can switch one 220V light at dusk, dawn or specified time. Introduction: Some of the lights in my house are automatically switched on at dusk, until either a pre-set time or until dawn (all night). The location of the lights does not allow the use of a light sensor. The regular available clock timers switch on at a specific time. To switch on around dusk therefore requires regularly adjusting the timer program setting. As a nice challenge, I decided to build a custom Arduino based stand alone timer instead." [...]

AVR Programmer W/High Voltage

"This is my first Instructable. Using Eagle, the board I designed is an AVR Programmer. The board combines the functions of 4 separate prototype boards I’ve built in the last few years: - A High Voltage AVR programmer, primarily used on ATtiny devices to set fuses when the reset line is used for I/O. - Arduino as ISP, 5V and 3v3 (counts as two of the functions) - NOR Flash EEPROM programmer (quickly copies from an SD card to NOR Flash) The board uses common AMS1117 LDO voltage regulators to get 5V and 3v3. The high voltage function requires 12V. For this I used a MT3608 DC-DC step-up converter." [...]

Single Switch Communication Device for Persons With Paraplegia

"Many of those affected by severe locomotor disabilities caused by cerebral palsy or similar conditions may not have fine enough motor skills to control not more than one access button. This device aims to enable such persons to use a single button and a scanning method to choose, select and print chosen symbols on an LCD screen. " [...]

Simon & Whack-a-Mole Game Using Arduino (also in Tinkercad)

"If you grew up in '80s, most likely you played an electronic toy game called Simon. In this Instructable, I will be building an Arduino kit that you can code to play Simon and other button-based games such as Whack a Mole. I developed this kit to be used by a local Girls Who Code club that I facilitate. If you don't want to spend any money buying parts, you can do the complete project in Tinkercad. You can just copy and tinker this project:https://www.tinkercad.com/things/lozV8434PFG-simon..." [...]

Controlling Devices With Voice Command Using NodeMCU

"I just want to say hello to everybody, this is my first time writing an instructable project. English is not my native language so I will try to make short and as clear as possible. Controlling devices with voice command is not a strange thing anymore, you can buy the controller from Google or Amazon. Those devices provide a lot of functions and capabilities. But making your own one is something else, it's more fun and cheap too. So, in this project, I will show you how to control devices with your voice using a NodeMCU and smartphone app." [...]

DIY 18650 Lithium Ion Cells Charging Grid

"I have been working on motorising my bicycle using a geared DC motor and now I need a battery pack for that. So to make a battery pack I have decided to go with the popular 18650 lithium ion cells from two old hoverboard batteries. Since the cells are from used batteries so I need to balance charge all the cells before making the battery pack. Everytime I use these 18650 cells I need to go through this stage when I need to balance charge all the cells individually to get them at the same potential. Now to get through efficiently I decided to built a dedicated charger for 18650 cells. Moreover, I have decided to make it a modular charger so that I can add up modules to form a larger grid that enables me to charge as many cells as I want simultaneously." [...]

Build the Rainbow Apparatus

"The The Rainbow Apparatus (a.k.a The Astral Chromascope) is an optical contraption that lets you see the colorful energy from ordinary things! In this Instructable, I will show you how to build your own to explore the technicolor vibes of the stuff around you! " [...]

Backlit Signs With LED Light Strips

"This is part three in my ongoing "Anything Worth Doing is Worth Overdoing" series. When I moved into my current home, I decided that I the sign out front that has my house number on it, which was chosen by my mother in the 80s, just had to be replaced. That's where this started. My first intelligent thoughts about the design all included backlighting. As I began building the sign and testing theories, more crazy ideas came about, and more ideas needed to be tested. Before I was done, I ended up designing and building a custom WiFi controller for the lights, writing software for that controller, writing a mobile app to control the lights, getting the app released on app stores, burning through an entire spool of 3D printer filament in one non-stop session, and building four distinct signs." [...]

Arduino Smartwatch Bluetooth Notifier

"I've been working on an Arduino based smartwatch that could show time, date, alarm, temperature, connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and show notifications. I had some errors on this baord, but in this tutorial, I'm sharing the good board that I've already fixed. See below all the files, the GERBERS, the code and a step by tep tutorial. Lets start! PART 1 - The PCB GERBER file Here you haev the board used in this project. You could see the EasyEDA project link below or downlaod the GERBER file as well." [...]

LED Christmas Tree Decoration

"Christmas tree LED decoration with a 555 timer and blinking LEDs. Story This is a how to solder kit for beginners to encourage children to learn how to solder and the result can be hung on your Christmas tree as an ornament. I made it because I want to share my experiences with soldering and I thought this simple kit would be the perfect starter for those children and parents who want to enter this amazing world and with this kit, you can learn to solder plus the result will make the perfect Christmas tree decoration! In order to create this project, you need to order the board from PCBWay with the link provided. Once you have the board, there are only a few and easy components to gather: 1 x Timer 555 IC 1 x 10K Resistor 17 x 1K Resistor 1 x 100uF Capacitor 8 x 5mm Red LED 8 x 5MM Green LED 2 x 2025 Coin Cell Holder Then, to solder the components in the board, just follow this: 1. Solder theIC in place." [...]

Running Wifi Microcontrollers on Battery

"Operating Wifi at low power is difficult, Wifi is just way more complex and chatty than simple RF links. This project and blog post series explores what is available at the end of 2018. In this exploration, low-power refers to a wifi-connected microcontroller that runs at least for a week on a 1000mAh LiPo and could thus run indefinitely on a small 100mA/6V solar panel with good sun exposure. It focuses on use-cases where the microcontroller remains connected to Wifi or at least maintains that illusion by being reachable with a few seconds of response time. Tl;dr: this series is pretty long and in-depth, if you prefer to cut to the chase you can zip right to the conclusions. I looked into using the esp8266 on battery in 2015 when I first started using it and quickly gave up." [...]

DIY LED Cube

"The LED Cube is nothing but a 3-dimensional array of LEDs to light up in different forms and patterns. It's an interesting project to learn or better your Soldering, Circuit Designing, 3D Printing, and Programming skills. Though I would like to construct an RGB cube, I think I will first start off with a simple one color led cube to gain experience. I was super impressed and inspired by Chars project from Instructables, you should check it out if you got the time. https://www.instructables.com/id/Led-Cube-8x8x8/ I am going to construct an 8x8x8 led cube, which is nothing but 8 rows, 8 columns and 8 layers of LEDs. Thats 512 LEDs in all." [...]

Automated Soldering Robotic Arm

"This instructable shows how to solder electronic parts in your PCB using Robotic Arm The Idea of this project came to my mind accidentally when I was searching for the different abilities of robotic arms, then I found that there is a few who covers this area of usage (Automated Welding & Soldering Robotic Arm). Actually I had an experience before for building similar projects, but this time the project was very useful and effective. Before decided the shape of it I saw a lot of applications and other projects especially in the industry field, Open source projects helped me a lot to find out the right and suitable shape. Thats because of the science behind the visual feeding for our brains. " [...]

Simple Record and Playback

"This project allows you to "record" sensory input and store it for later use. The information is stored in EEPROM instead of dynamic memory so that it can be remembered even when the board is shut down (like a tiny hard drive). Materials: Arduino - https://amzn.to/2DLjxR2 Breadboard - https://amzn.to/2RYqiSK Jumper wires - https://amzn.to/2Q7kiKc Button - https://amzn.to/2QUGfN0 LED - https://amzn.to/2S5PFlM Resistor (for LED) - https://amzn.to/2S2sV5R 10k Potentiometer - https://amzn.to/2EBuEwq Servo Motor - https://amzn.to/2S6E5GZ" [...]

$10 Secure ESP32-Based Internet Camera

"ESP32-CAM-based project that streams video securely to any place in the world over the Husarnet. Introduction In this project we use ESP32-CAM module together with Husarnet secure network layer. The ESP32-CAM is a module available from Seeed Studio (but you can also use other modules with camera such as M5Stack one). The ESP32-CAM module is very cheap (around $10) and Husarnet makes it easy to establish secure connection to the camera from anywhere around the world. Wiring First, make sure the camera is connected to the on-board connector - the module comes with an unconnected camera. " [...]

Adding a WiFi Co-Processor to CircuitPython

"We love Blinka & CircuitPython, and want to share it with the world! But how can we get CircuitPython talking to everyone? This guide will show you how to connect your CircuitPython board to the Internet, by using an ESP8266 or ESP32 as the 'Wireless modem' - we'll even show you how to upload the required AT command firmware to the chip, all from your CircuitPython board. Yallah! Let's go! The Internet offers wonders beyond belief, but first we have to connect to it." [...]

Infinity Mirror Coffee Table

"I'll start by saying that I recently sold this table and don't have access to it anymore. I've gotten a bunch of messages from people wanting to buy either another table or buy a guide on it. I decided to write up a guide with some of the knowledge from the previous table I built. That said, I don't have pictures for every single step nor do I have measurements. There is a lot of leeway with how much you're willing to pay for each piece of this design. My table had a wireless charger built into the side of it." [...]

PCF8574 GPIO Extender - With Arduino and NodeMCU

"In my last tutorial, I talked about the TCA9548A MUX which can be used to add at the max of 64 I2C or IC sensors to your Arduino/ESP8266/ESP32. In this tutorial, I am going to talk about the PCF8574 8-bit GPIO Port Extender. It is one of the many GPIO extenders available in the market. This tiny little board becomes a life saver When you run out of pins on your Arduino. This "GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) pin extender" provides an additional 8 pins (P0 ~ P7) which can be used to 'output a signal' or 'read a signal as an input'. These modules run on the I2C bus, and if daisy-chained you can connect upto 8 of these devices in a project." [...]

Build a single-pixel scanning camera with an RGB sensor

"Sensors like the TCS34725 from Adafruit can detect a single color. It stands to reason then, that if you were to aim this sensor at a multitude of points and record the resulting data, you could have a one-pixel camera. As seen here, Tucker Shannon decided to take this concept and run with it, constructing his own with an Arduino Uno and a pair of stepper motors. The device looks like something akin to some sort of auto-turret, and directs the sensor in a square spiral for image acquisition. The resulting pictures are certainly low-res, but good enough to pick out recognizable forms with a little imagination. The color sensor tells the Arduino what color it “sees” at any given time." [...]

LED Christmas Decorative PCB

"I thought this was a really neat use of a 4-layer PCB in an artistic style! I started thinking about how you could design a PCB like this in KiCad. One thing led to another and I'd ended up with a design ready to be sent off. I double checked with JLCPCB about the manufacture of such a PCB. Often PCB companies may not like producing boards with lots of exposed copper areas on the front of the PCB. My contact at JLCPCB really loved the idea and sponsored this project!" [...]

RTC based automatic LED lamp

"This is real-time clock based automatic LED lamp which we originally designed to use as night light. This lamp can programmed to turn on and off at the specific time of the day. For example, it can program to turn on at 6 PM on each day and to turn off at 4 AM next day. The core component of this project is PIC16F883 MCU and it's firmware is developed using MikroC Pro for PIC. We select this MCU because of it's 7 KB flash memory, I2C, UART, E2PROM and built-in 8-bit and 16-bit timers. In this system we use DS1307 RTC because of it's availability in the market and lower external component count." [...]

Arduino Ant Hexapod Robot

"In this tutorial I will show you how I built an Arduino hexapod. As the name suggests, the hexapod has 6 legs but in addition to that, it also has a tail or abdomen, a head, antennas, mandibles and even functional eyes. All of this, makes the hexapod look like an ant, so therefore we can also call it an Arduino Ant Robot. Overview For controlling the robot I made a custom-built Android application. The app has 4 buttons through which we can command the robot to move forward or backwards, as well as turn left or right. Along with these main functions, the robot can also move its head and tail, as well as it can bite, grab and drop things and even attack." [...]

Speeduino - Speed Tracker

"Get the speed of your die-cast toy car! Story Get the speed of toy die-cast cars! We, kids of all ages, enjoy playing with our fancy cars... We NEED to know how fast they run. Seeing my eight year old boy playing with Hot Wheels cars, running fast on a speed lane and screaming loud, " This is the fastest car in the world! 300km/h!" I started wondering if I could make a device to measure the actual velocity of this wonderfull little cars." [...]

Tower Copter With PID Controller

"Hello guys my name is wachid kurniawan putra, today i will share my microcontroler project with my team My team consist of 4 people including myself, they are: 1. Juan Andrew (15/386462 / SV / 09848) 2. Wachid Kurniawan Putra (17/416821 / SV / 14559) 3. Yassir Dinhaz (17/416824 / SV / 14562) 4. Zia Aryanti (17/416825 / SV / 14563) We are student in Vocational College Gadjah Mada University majoring at electrical engineering,this tower copter are my final examination for my third semester Without further ado lets begin the class :)" [...]

Bluetooth Air Horn

"As a long time lurker I finally decided this project was worthy of a write up (also I'm killing for an instructables tshirt). I love this site and hope you enjoy this project. IMPORTANT!Just a quick heads up, there are optional steps in this build. Your horn will be fully functional by step6 however I have included further options to monitor battery levels, change your Bluetooth device name and more! Also if anything isnt clear please let me know! I'll amend this write up with anything I may have missed." [...]

Automatic Trash Can Using Arduino Based Embedded Platform

"Trash bins and managing the waste in them can be messy. And overstuffing them with waste? Even messier. But trash bins that can sense your presence when you approach them to put trash and track how much of it do they hold? Possible, smart, or both? The answer is both!" [...]

Connected Thermostat

"Monitoring accurately the temperature in your home is definitely one of the best way to save on your energy bill. At the same time you want to feel well in a warm home during winter time. My current thermostat only allows a static programmation: I can define a day temperature (around 19/20 to not heat too much) and a night (or no one at home) temperature (16) For each weekday, I can define time range to apply day temperature and time range to apply night temperature) Additionally, I can manually adjust the temperature that will be taken in account until the next time range is reachedNot so bad but I cannot monitor the temperature remotely: specially when coming from vacation, I am not able to warm the home before we arrive. I cannot stop heating automatically when there is no one at home. I cannot take in account other parameters that impacts home temperature like sunshine during the day (warming home), winds (cooling home)... I cannot have control on temperature set by my wife, overheating all day at 25C ..." [...]

Scrolling Text Display (A to Z Guide)

"In this instructable / video I will guide you with step by step instructions how to make scrolling text display with Arduino. I won't be explaining how to make code for Arduino, I will show you how to use existing code. What and where you need to connect and install that you could make scrolling text display like this without any previous knowledge of Arduino. Arduino software - https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software Code and library - http://bit.ly/arduinocodelibrary Original link - https://github.com/riyas-org/max7219" [...]

Water Level Monitor

"This project will demonstrate how to build a water level monitor using an Arduino Nano, a Solu SL067 water level sensor, and an indicator. Project: Water Level Monitor This project will demonstrate how to build a water level monitor using an Arduino Nano, a Solu SL067 water level sensor, and an LED indicator. There are many possible uses for this simple system, examples include monitoring a sump pit (to control pump activation), rainfall detection, leakage detection, or monitoring plant water levels. I built this specifically to monitor the water level of my Christmas tree. " [...]

Open Source Breakout Board Sigfox to Send Data to Azure IoT

"This project show the process of creating a breakout from scratch to soldering a Sigfox modem from Wisol and send data to Azure IoT Hub. Objective The objective of this project is to assemble a PCB board that can use a Sigfox modem from Wisol company. Sigfox is an LPWAN (Low power wide area network) design for IoT solutions, many companies assembly modem to talk with this network, but the development kits are expensive. Because of that, we design an open source PCB to soldering the Wisol Sigfox modem, and we did an end-to-end to test if it was working correctly. " [...]

Adjustable Power Supply

"This instructable is about how to make power supply with adjustable output and can be powered with various supplys .All you need is knowledge in electronics. " [...]

Programming FTDI devices in Python

"FTDI chips are frequently used as USB-to-serial adaptors, but the newer devices have the ability to drive more complex protocols such as SPI and I2C. I like to use Python when first experimenting with new PC hardware, and there are some Python libraries for interfacing to FTDI chips, but I couldn’t find any real projects or complete worked examples. The following posts demonstrate a step-by-step approach to driving the FTDI chips from Python, to learn about their functionality. In the final part, I implement a pure-Python SWD interface that can access the internals of a CPU while it is running, in a similar way to much more sophisticated debug tools, such as OpenOCD. " [...]

CHIP-8 console on FPGA

"This a CHIP-8 game console emulator working on FPGA chip (TinyFPGA BX). Implementation notes and remarks Writing unit tests (see cpu, gpu, bcd) helped me a lot, I was able to test most instructions in simulation. I wrote several simple assembly programs which I compiled to CHIP-8 using the Tortilla-8 project. There was also some manual testing needed in order to get both the screen and the keypad to work. I wrote some simple programs to run on the chip, and corrected some misconceptions I have on CHIP-8 behavior (for instance, memory loads and stores include multiple registers, and sprite drawing wraps around). I was able to correct my Rust CHIP-8 emulator in the process; it's funny how it was able to run many games despite getting these things completely wrong." [...]

Widget Dashboard

"This project is a dashboard for displaying the outputs from up to four different sensors or Internet of Things devices. It's based on an ATtiny85 driving an SPI 96x64 SD1331 colour OLED display. You can include any widgets from a selection of different types, and they automatically lay themselves out on the display. You could use it for applications such as a weather station, power monitor, or circuit status display. For a practical example of its use see ATtiny85 Weather Station. Introduction The Widget Dashboard runs on a low-cost 96x64 OLED display with 64K colours, and an SPI interface." [...]