Editorial

Esta é a Newsletter Nº 218 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
• Documentação
• Projetos Maker

Faz hoje anos que nascia, em 1883, Rube Goldberg. Este cartoonista norte-americano satirizou a preocupação americana com a tecnologia. O seu nome tornou-se sinonimo de qualquer processo simples tornado estranhamente complicado por causa da sua série de desenhos animados de "Invenção" que usam uma série de ferramentas, pessoas, plantas e passos estranhos para realizar as tarefas simples do dia-a-dia da maneira mais complicada. Goldberg aplicou a sua experiência como engenheiro de pós-graduação e usou suas habilidades de engenharia, capacidade de escrever histórias e de desenho para se certificar de que as “Invenções” pudessem funcionar, embora dezenas de braços, rodas, engrenagens, alças, copos e hastes fossem colocados em movimento por bolas, gaiolas de pássaros, baldes, botas, banheiras, pás e até animais vivos para tarefas simples, como espremer o sumo de uma laranja ou fechar uma janela em caso de começar a chover. Ficou conhecido por ser a inspiração para as máquinas de Rube Goldberg.

Faz também anos hoje que nascia, em 1961, Brendan Eich. Este norte-americano ficou conhecido por ser o criador da versão original da linguagem de programação Javascript. A primeira versão foi concluída em dez dias, a fim de cumprir o calendário de lançamentos do Netscape Navigator 2.0 Beta, e foi designada por Mocha, mas renomeada como LiveScript em Setembro de 1995 e posteriormente JavaScript no mesmo mês.

Nesta semana que passou ficámos a saber que a Google está a preparar a instalação de um novo cabo submarino no oceano Atlântico entre Portugal e a África do Sul. Designado por Equiano, quando estiver completo este passará a ser o terceiro cabo internacional privado depois da Dunant e do Curie e o 14º investimento em cabos submarinos globalmente. Esperando que a instalação esteja completa em 2021 este novo cabo terá cerca de 20 mais capacidade que o ultimo cabo construído para servir esta região.

Na Newsletter desta semana apresentamos diversos projetos de maker. É apresentada também a revista newelectronics de 25 de Junho.

João Alves ([email protected])

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

Introducing Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa

"Today we are introducing Equiano, our new private subsea cable that will connect Africa with Europe. Once complete, Equiano will start in western Europe and run along the West Coast of Africa, between Portugal and South Africa, with branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries. The first branch is expected to land in Nigeria. This new cable is fully funded by Google, making it our third private international cable after Dunant and Curie, and our 14th subsea cable investment globally. Google’s private subsea cables all carry the names of historical luminaries, and Equiano is no different. Named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, the Equiano cable is state-of-the-art infrastructure based on space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology, with approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region." [...]

Samsung Electronics Introduces A High-Speed, Low-Power NPU Solution for AI Deep Learning

"Deep learning algorithms are a core element of artificial intelligence (AI) as they are the processes by which a computer is able to think and learn like a human being does. A Neural Processing Unit (NPU) is a processor that is optimized for deep learning algorithm computation, designed to efficiently process thousands of these computations simultaneously. Samsung Electronics last month announced its goal to strengthen its leadership in the global system semiconductor industry by 2030 through expanding its proprietary NPU technology development. The company recently delivered an update to this goal at the conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), one of the top academic conferences in computer vision fields. This update is the company’s development of its On-Device AI lightweight algorithm, introduced at CVPR with a paper titled “Learning to Quantize Deep Networks by Optimizing Quantization Intervals With Task Loss”. On-Device AI technologies directly compute and process data from within the device itself." [...]

Ensuring Astronaut Safety: Lockheed Martin And NASA Successfully Demonstrate Orion Launch Abort System In Flight Test

"The critical launch abort system for NASA's Orion spacecraft was put to its hardest test today, and it demonstrated its capability to pull the crew module and future astronauts to safety during a launch if there is an emergency. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) designed and built the launch abort system for the test and is also the prime contractor building the Orion spacecraft for NASA. The Ascent Abort-2 flight test is a major test milestone that is enabling the safe passage of astronauts aboard Orion on the Artemis missions to the Moon and then Mars. During the test this morning from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, the Orion launch abort system, with a mock-up Orion capsule, was launched on a modified Peacekeeper missile. At 31,000 feet, or about six miles up, into the flight, the on-board computers initiated the abort sequence. The launch abort motors, generating 400,000 pounds of thrust, then pulled the Orion capsule away from the rocket which was already traveling nearly 1,000 mph." [...]

Contact Lost With Three Starlink Satellites, Other 57 Healthy

"Three of the 60 satellites SpaceX launched last month to begin its broadband megaconstellation have lost contact with ground control teams, a SpaceX spokesperson said June 28. Those three satellites will deorbit "passively," the spokesperson said, meaning Earth's gravity and atmospheric drag will pull them down until they burn up in the atmosphere. Observers had noticed some Starlink satellites had not initiated orbit raising after being released May 23 from a Falcon 9 upper stage into a 440-kilometer low Earth orbit. SpaceX said May 31 that all 60 satellites were initially responsive. SpaceX's spokesperson, in their June 28 statement, said the company will intentionally deorbit two functioning satellites as well, in order to test the spacecraft's ability to propulsively deorbit. "Three satellites which initially communicated with the ground but are no longer in service, will passively deorbit," the spokesperson said." [...]

SoftBank, Toyota's self-driving car venture to add five more automakers: sources

"The self-driving car joint venture of SoftBank Corp and Toyota Motor will receive investment from a further five Japanese automakers, two sources familiar with the matter said, broadening backing for the all-Japan effort. Mazda Motor Corp, Suzuki Motor Corp, Subaru Corp, Isuzu Motors and Toyota unit Daihatsu will each take a stake of a few percent in the venture, the sources said. With the move to autonomous driving and electric vehicles creating ructions across the industry and spawning once unlikely partnerships, the venture, Monet, which is developing an on-demand self-driving service platform, hopes to help Japan’s auto industry ride the shift. Monet, announced in October, added investment from Honda Motor Co and Toyota’s truck making subsidiary Hino Motors in March, leaving SoftBank Corp the largest shareholder with a 40.2% share and Toyota owning 39.8%. When Honda and Hino joined in March, the total investment in Monet was 2.5 billion yen ($23.20 million). It was not immediately clear how much the five new partners are investing in the venture." [...]

New property of light discovered

"A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain and the U.S. has announced that they have discovered a new property of light—self-torque. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they happened to spot the new property and possible uses for it. Scientists have long known about such properties of light as wavelength. More recently, researchers have found that light can also be twisted, a property called angular momentum. Beams with highly structured angular momentum are said to have orbital angular momentum (OAM), and are called vortex beams. They appear as a helix surrounding a common center, and when they strike a flat surface, they appear as doughnut-shaped." [...]

From Brrrr to Vroom: New Additives Promise Better Performance for Electric Cars in Cold Weather

"Electrolyte additives can boost lithium-ion battery temperature range New additives can help lithium-ion batteries perform over a wider range of temperatures, a potential boon for electric cars, a new study finds. Electric cars struggle with extreme temperatures, which can degrade the electrolyte solutions that conduct ions between the negative electrodes, or anodes, and positive electrodes, or cathodes, within lithium-ion batteries. A key additive to most of these electrolyte solutions is ethylene carbonate, which helps produce a protective layer that prevents further decomposition of electrolyte components when they interact with the anode. However, ethylene carbonate has a high melting point, which limits its performance at low temperatures. Materials scientist Wu Xu at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and his colleagues previously showed they could extend the temperature range of lithium-ion batteries by partially replacing ethylene carbonate with propylene carbonate and adding cesium hexafluorophosphate. However, they wanted to improve the temperature range of lithium-ion batteries even further, so they could perform well from -40 to 60 degrees C. In the new study, Xu and his colleagues tested the effects of five electrolyte additives on the performance of lithium-ion batteries within this temperature range." [...]

Researchers teleport information within a diamond

"Researchers from the Yokohama National University have teleported quantum information securely within the confines of a diamond. The study has big implications for quantum information technology - the future of how sensitive information is shared and stored. The researchers published their results on June 28, 2019 in Communications Physics. "Quantum teleportation permits the transfer of quantum information into an otherwise inaccessible space," said Hideo Kosaka, a professor of engineering at Yokohama National University and an author on the study. "It also permits the transfer of information into a quantum memory without revealing or destroying the stored quantum information." The inaccessible space, in this case, consisted of carbon atoms in diamond." [...]

New material shows high potential for quantum computing

"A joint team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is getting closer to confirming the existence of an exotic quantum particle called Majorana fermion, crucial for fault-tolerant quantum computing — the kind of quantum computing that addresses errors during its operation. Quantum computing uses quantum phenomena to perform computations. Majorana fermions exist at the boundary of special superconductors called topological superconductors, which have a superconducting gap in their interiors and harbor Majorana fermions outside, at their boundaries. Majorana fermions are one of the most sought-after objects in quantum physics because they are their own antiparticles, they can split the quantum state of an electron in half, and they follow different statistics compared to electrons. Though many have claimed to have identified them, scientists still cannot confirm their exotic quantum nature. The UCR-MIT team overcame the challenge by developing a new heterostructure material system, based on gold, that could be potentially used to demonstrate the existence and quantum nature of Majorana fermions." [...]

Confirmation of old theory leads to new breakthrough in superconductor science

"Harvard/Argonne team clears up a decades-old mystery about the reverse Hall effect in high-temperature superconductors. Phase transitions occur when a substance changes from a solid, liquid or gaseous state to a different state — like ice melting or vapor condensing. During these phase transitions, there is a point at which the system can display properties of both states of matter simultaneously. A similar effect occurs when normal metals transition into superconductors — characteristics fluctuate and properties expected to belong to one state carry into the other. Scientists at Harvard have developed a bismuth-based, two-dimensional superconductor that is only one nanometer thick. By studying fluctuations in this ultra-thin material as it transitions into superconductivity, the scientists gained insight into the processes that drive superconductivity more generally." [...]

Getting more heat out of sunlight

"Material developed at MIT can passively capture solar heat for home heating or industrial applications. A newly developed material that is so perfectly transparent you can barely see it could unlock many new uses for solar heat. It generates much higher temperatures than conventional solar collectors do — enough to be used for home heating or for industrial processes that require heat of more than 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit). The key to the process is a new kind of aerogel, a lightweight material that consists mostly of air, with a structure made of silica (which is also used to make glass). The material lets sunlight pass through easily but blocks solar heat from escaping. The findings are described in the journal ACS Nano, in a paper by Lin Zhao, an MIT graduate student; Evelyn Wang, professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Gang Chen, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor in Power Engineering; and five others." [...]

Remote-controlled Drug Delivery Implant The Size Of A Grape May Help Chronic Disease Management

"People with chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes and heart disease may one day forego the daily regimen of pills and, instead, receive a scheduled dosage of medication through a grape-sized implant that is remotely controlled. Researchers from Houston Methodist successfully delivered continuous, predetermined dosages of two chronic disease medications using a nanochannel delivery system (nDS) that they remotely controlled using Bluetooth technology. The nDS device provides controlled release of drugs without the use of pumps, valves or a power supply for possibly up to year without a refill for some patients. This technology will be tested in space next year. A proof-of-concept paper recently published in Lab on a Chip (online June 25) explains how the Houston Methodist nanomedicine researchers accomplished long-term delivery of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and high blood pressure, medications that are often administered at specific times of the day or at varying dosages based on patient needs. “We see this universal drug implant as part of the future of health care innovation." [...]

Tiny motor can “walk” to carry out tasks

"Mobile motor could pave the way for robots to assemble complex structures — including other robots. Years ago, MIT Professor Neil Gershenfeld had an audacious thought. Struck by the fact that all the world’s living things are built out of combinations of just 20 amino acids, he wondered: Might it be possible to create a kit of just 20 fundamental parts that could be used to assemble all of the different technological products in the world? Gershenfeld and his students have been making steady progress in that direction ever since. Their latest achievement, presented this week at an international robotics conference, consists of a set of five tiny fundamental parts that can be assembled into a wide variety of functional devices, including a tiny “walking” motor that can move back and forth across a surface or turn the gears of a machine. Previously, Gershenfeld and his students showed that structures assembled from many small, identical subunits can have numerous mechanical properties." [...]

Building a bridge to the quantum world

"Scientists develop prototype of what may serve as link to connect quantum computers Entanglement is one of the main principles of quantum mechanics. Physicists from Professor Johannes Fink’s research group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have found a way to use a mechanical oscillator to produce entangled radiation. This method, which the authors published in the current edition of Nature, might prove extremely useful when it comes to connecting quantum computers. Entanglement is a phenomenon typical of the quantum world, which is not present in the so-called classical world — the world and laws of physics that govern our everyday lives. When two particles are entangled, the characteristics of one particle can be determined by looking at the other. This was discovered by Einstein, and the phenomenon is now actively used in quantum cryptography where it is said to lead to unbreakable codes." [...]

New AI programming language goes beyond deep learning

"General-purpose language works for computer vision, robotics, statistics, and more. A team of MIT researchers is making it easier for novices to get their feet wet with artificial intelligence, while also helping experts advance the field. In a paper presented at the Programming Language Design and Implementation conference this week, the researchers describe a novel probabilistic-programming system named “Gen.” Users write models and algorithms from multiple fields where AI techniques are applied — such as computer vision, robotics, and statistics — without having to deal with equations or manually write high-performance code. Gen also lets expert researchers write sophisticated models and inference algorithms — used for prediction tasks — that were previously infeasible. In their paper, for instance, the researchers demonstrate that a short Gen program can infer 3-D body poses, a difficult computer-vision inference task that has applications in autonomous systems, human-machine interactions, and augmented reality. Behind the scenes, this program includes components that perform graphics rendering, deep-learning, and types of probability simulations." [...]

New E-Tattoo Enables Accurate, Uninterrupted Heart Monitoring for Days

"The leading cause of death in Texas is heart disease, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, accounting for more than 45,000 deaths statewide in 2017. A new wearable technology made from stretchy, lightweight material could make heart health monitoring easier and more accurate than existing electrocardiograph machines — a technology that has changed little in almost a century. Developed by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin and led by Nanshu Lu in the Cockrell School of Engineering, this is the latest incarnation of Lu’s electronic tattoo technology, a graphene-based wearable device that can be placed on the skin to measure a variety of body responses, from electrical to biomechanical signals. The research team reported on their newest e-tattoo in a recent issue of Advanced Science. The device is so lightweight and stretchable that it can be placed over the heart for extended periods with little or no discomfort. It also measures cardiac health in two ways, taking electrocardiograph and seismocardiograph readings simultaneously." [...]

Energy-harvesting nanomaterials created cool

"A low-temperature method for making high-performance thermoelectric materials could recapture lost energy. Some of the vast amount of wasted energy that machines and devices emit as heat could be recaptured using an inexpensive nanomaterial developed at KAUST. This thermoelectric nanomaterial could capture the heat lost by devices, ranging from mobile phones to vehicle engines, and turn it directly back into useful electricity. The nanomaterial is made using a low-temperature solution-based production process, making it suitable for coating on flexible plastics for use almost anywhere. “Among the many renewable energy sources, waste heat has not been widely considered,” says Mohamad Nugraha, a postdoctoral researcher in Derya Baran's lab. Waste heat emitted by machines and devices could be recaptured by thermoelectric materials." [...]

How you and your friends can play a video game together using only your minds

"Telepathic communication might be one step closer to reality thanks to new research from the University of Washington. A team created a method that allows three people to work together to solve a problem using only their minds. In BrainNet, three people play a Tetris-like game using a brain-to-brain interface. This is the first demonstration of two things: a brain-to-brain network of more than two people, and a person being able to both receive and send information to others using only their brain. The team published its results April 16 in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, though this research previously attracted media attention after the researchers posted it September to the preprint site arXiv. “Humans are social beings who communicate with each other to cooperate and solve problems that none of us can solve on our own,” said corresponding author Rajesh Rao, the CJ and Elizabeth Hwang professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and a co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology." [...]

Danish researchers create worldwide solar energy model

"Solar cells are currently the world's most talked-about renewable energy source, and for any future sustainable energy system, it is crucial to know about the performance of photovoltaic systems at local, regional and global levels. Danish researchers have just set up an historically accurate model, and all the data has been made available for anyone who wants to use it. Solar energy is advancing in earnest throughout the whole world. Over the past three years, more photovoltaic (PV) installations have been installed globally than any other energy source, and the annual growth rate between 2010 and 2017 was as high as 24%. In global terms, it has been predicted that solar energy will play a similar role to wind energy in the sustainable energy systems of the future, but this requires precise models for how much energy PV systems produce. Danish researchers have now developed these models in a major research project at the Department of Engineering, Aarhus University and the results have been published in the journal Progress in Photovoltaics." [...]

Combing nanowires

"A new technique lets researchers make hundreds of nanowires, capable of recording intracellular signals, at the same time Machines are getting cozy with our cells. Embeddable sensors record how and when neurons fire; electrodes spark heart cells to beat or brain cells to fire; neuron-like devices could even encourage faster regrowth after implantation in the brain. Soon, so-called brain-machine interfaces could do even more: monitor and treat symptoms of neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease, provide a blueprint to design artificial intelligence, or even enable brain-to-brain communication. To achieve the reachable and the quixotic, devices need a way to literally dive deeper into our cells to perform reconnaissance. The more we know about how neurons work, the more we can emulate, replicate, and treat them with our machines. Now, in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, Charles M. Lieber, the Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor, presents an update to his original nanoscale devices for intracellular recording, the first nanotechnology developed to record electrical chatter inside a live cell." [...]

Physicists use light waves to accelerate supercurrents, enable ultrafast quantum computing

"Jigang Wang patiently explained his latest discovery in quantum control that could lead to superfast computing based on quantum mechanics: He mentioned light-induced superconductivity without energy gap. He brought up forbidden supercurrent quantum beats. And he mentioned terahertz-speed symmetry breaking. Then he backed up and clarified all that. After all, the quantum world of matter and energy at terahertz and nanometer scales – trillions of cycles per second and billionths of meters – is still a mystery to most of us. “I like to study quantum control of superconductivity exceeding the gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second, bottleneck in current state-of-the-art quantum computation applications,” said Wang, a professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University whose research has been supported by the Army Research Office." [...]

Research reveals exotic quantum states in double-layer graphene

"A new study reveals a suite of quantum Hall states that have not been seen previously, shedding new light on the nature of electron interactions in quantum systems and establishing a potential new platform for future quantum computers. Researchers from Brown and Columbia Universities have demonstrated previously unknown states of matter that arise in double-layer stacks of graphene, a two-dimensional nanomaterial. These new states, manifestations of what’s known as the fractional quantum Hall effect, arise from the complex interactions of electrons both within each graphene layer as well as across layers. “The findings show that stacking 2D materials together in close proximity generates entirely new physics,” said Jia Li, assistant professor of physics at Brown, who initiated this work as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia working with Cory Dean, professor of physics and Jim Hone, professor of mechanical engineering. “In terms of materials engineering, this work shows that these layered systems could be viable in creating new types of electronic devices that take advantage of these new quantum Hall states.” The research is published in the journal Nature Physics. The Hall effect, discovered in 1879, emerges when a magnetic field is applied to a conducting material in a perpendicular direction to a current flow." [...]

Label Set Operations (LaSO) Networks for Multi-Label Few-Shot Learning

"As we scale AI and machine learning to work on a broader set of tasks for enterprise and industry applications, it is imperative to learn more from less. Data augmentation is one important tool, especially in situations where there isn’t enough training data, that improves learning by synthesizing new training samples automatically. Such is the case for few-shot learning, where only one or very few samples are available per category. Most prior work on few-shot classification for images investigates the ‘single label’ scenario, where every training image contains only a single object and hence has a single category label. However, a more challenging and realistic scenario is multi-label, few-shot image classification where training data has a small number of samples, and images have more than one label, which has not been explored extensively in prior work. In order to advance this topic, we investigate multi-label, few-shot image classification in our paper presented at IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2019) in June 2019." [...]

Machine learning for sensors

"Today microcontrollers can be found in almost any technical device, from washing machines to blood pressure meters and wearables. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS have developed AIfES, an artificial intelligence (AI) concept for microcontrollers and sensors that contains a completely configurable artificial neural network. AIfES is a platform-independent machine learning library which can be used to realize self-learning microelectronics requiring no connection to a cloud or to high-performance computers. The sensor-related AI system recognizes handwriting and gestures, enabling for example gesture control of input when the library is running on a wearable. A wide variety of software solutions currently exist for machine learning, but as a rule they are only available for the PC and are based on the programming language Python. There is still no solution which makes it possible to execute and train neural networks on embedded systems such as microcontrollers." [...]

Russian engineers ready to ‘light up’ a lamp revolution

"Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have designed and tested a prototype cathodoluminescent lamp for general lighting. The new lamp, which relies on the phenomenon of field emission, is more reliable, durable, and luminous than its analogues available worldwide. The development was reported in the Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B. While LED lamps have become commonplace, they are not the only clean and power-saving alternative to incandescent lamps. Since the 1980s, engineers around the world have been looking into the so-called cathodoluminescent lamps as another option for general lighting purposes. Shown in figure 1, a lamp of this kind relies on the same principle that powered the old TVs using cathode-ray tubes: A negatively charged electrode, or cathode, at one end of a vacuum tube serves as an electron gun." [...]

One polymer to make two semiconductors, by controlling the solvent

"Conjugated polymers are important materials because of their special electronic and optical properties and low cost, making them very promising for a wide range of applications. An international research team led by Professor René Janssen developed a method to create two subtypes of one polymer, with different semiconductor characteristics, simply by changing the solvent from which the polymer film is created. This opens the door to the development of programmable electronic inks. The results are published today in Nature Communications. In conjugated polymers some electrons can roam freely. This not only gives them special electronic and optical properties, but these properties can also easily be tuned." [...]

newelectronics 25 Junho 2019

"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. " [...]

Eye of Agamotto With Arduino

"Was admiring a number of items out there regarding Dr. Strange's Eye of Agamotto (the Time Stone), and didn't see anything that was animated like it was in the movies... so the seed was planted in my head with regards to coming up with a way to do that. I thought about multiple layers, that each rotated from the starting position to an ending position that would reveal the eye, and looking at a number of animations and the movies again, and upon further investigation, found out that the rotation of the rings/layers can't be done with static objects... at least not to the level of what the movie effects showcase... so came up with this design. Once I figured out the start and end positions and figured out how much it would be required to be rotated (clockwise or counter clockwise), I created ratios. These ratios were then the test bed for creating gears... I found a great tool online that provides real time rotational information, and at a very reasonable price at that (it took quite a few trials and errors when actually cutting out the materials, and finding out that I actually really needed a central hub on each gear - this was actually quite educational to say the least) GearGenerator (including the gear set that is used here) the SVG of the gear set is included here With the SVG downloaded, I was able to import it in to Adobe Illustrator Supplies: laser cutter hard board card stock 6-32 x 2" machine screws (x6) 6-32 x 3/4" machine screws (x5) 6-32 machine screw nuts (x6) glue (wood glue works great on hardboard) paint Arduino (nano preferred) 9V battery + plus battery clip NeoPixel strip stepper motor (28BYJ-48 was used here) push buttons (x4) wire soldering iron + solder" [...]

Digispark & WS2812 Rainbow Wheel in a Box

"This tiny project has been made around a nicely carved 10x6x5cm wooden box I found in a shop. Its best feature, which has not actually been properly caught on camera, is to light up with bright, saturated colors, the sides of the tree-carved lid of the box. On the other side, be aware that using a rainbow effect on a strip of narrow RGB 5050 LEDs will always result in a whiteish illumination within some centimeters from the LEDs, as each pixel's color soon mixes with its neighbors'. Should you want to avoid this effect, you can try (unless you use some focusing lens) The brightness of the lamp is kept proportional to the ambient light thanks to a LDR: the lamp will shine in daylight conditions and won't be too bright if used as a nightlight, in the dark. Supplies: Bill of materials: one Attiny85 Digispark (clone) board, with its Micronucleusbootloader one 8x WS2812 bar one LDR, used to tune the lamp's brightness depending on the surroundings one 10KΩ pull-up resistor for the LDR an USB micro cable to program the Digispark and to power the lamp once done an hollow wooden box a 5V⎓ power source (capable of providing not less than 500mA) Skills and tools: PlatformIO (running on Visual Studio Code) as the IDE - any Arduino IDE will do the job, though a soldering iron, some solder wire and basic soldering skills some wiring, scissors some glue, tweezers some opaque paint (to cover Digispark LED and to protect the LDR from being influenced by the lamp light)" [...]

Homemade STM8 Development Board

"A simple development board for STM8 was made by thermal transfer, with only the programming and reset functions. The drawing time is long, mainly without the TSSOP20 package. The production time is very short, and it will be done in more than an hour. It seems that before the photosensitive plate, the photosensitive dry film, the photosensitive wet film is going to the evil road. There are many steps in the long time, no heat transfer is quick. And this time the line width of 12mil is no problem, not a break." [...]

Weather Station with ePaper and Raspberry Pi

"In this article, I explain how I created a tabletop weather station with ePaper display, a Raspberry Pi, and an enclosure. In this article, I explain how to build a weather station with an ePaper display (like the kind you find on a Kindle, except this one is tri-color - white, black and red) and a Raspberry Pi and put it in an enclosure so that you have a finished project that you can display on your coffee table or night stand and see the weather information for your location (or locations) of choice! For the weather data, I use Open Weather Map, a cloud service that offers a Weather API and that has a free tier plan available. It even has a Python wrapper library available to easily invoke the APIs and get the weather data in an object oriented manner, without worrying about underlying protocols and processing JSON results. For the ePaper display, I use an ePaper HAT for the Raspberry Pi by Waveshare, who also provide a python library for interfacing with it. Lastly comes the enclosure." [...]

LED Marquee Scroller Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266

"Make your own Clock, Weather, News, and more! Easy to make LED Marquee Scroller using a Wemos D1 Mini and a LED Dot Matrix Panel. Full Arduino software and 3D printed case. Features Displays the following every 60 seconds: Accurate Clock refresh off Internet Time Servers Local Weather and conditions (refreshed every 10 - 30 minutes) News Headlines from all the major sources Configured through Web Interface Display 3D print progress from your OctoPrint Server Option to display random goofy advice Option to display Bitcoin current value Basic Authorization around Configuration web interface Support for OTA (loading firmware over WiFi) Video: https://youtu.be/DsThufRpoiQ Build Video by Chris Riley: https://youtu.be/KqBiqJT9_lE Required Parts and Source Code: Wemos D1 Mini: https://amzn.to/2ImqD1n Dot Matrix Module: https://amzn.to/2HtnQlD 3D Printed Case: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-65739 Source Code: https://github.com/Qrome/marquee-scroller" [...]

Magic 3D Clock

"This clock displays the time as an autostereogram on a colour TFT display. The time is invisible until you view it with your eyes focussed in the distance, when the time will jump out in 3D, appearing as four digits. It uses an ATtiny85 driving a TFT 160x80 colour display, and the timekeeping is done by a DS1302 RTC chip. Introduction This isn't perhaps the most convenient way of seeing the time, but it's a fun demonstration of autostereograms, made popular by the Magic Eye books of the 1990s. It's ideal if you don't want to be constantly reminded of the time, but want to be able to check it when you need it. To view the clock you need to focus on a point behind the clock until the random dots snap together to create a new image, with the time shown in 3D." [...]

DIY Current Sensor for Arduino

"Hello there, hope you are doing good and in this tutorial I will be showing you how i made a current sensor for Arduino using some very basic electronic components and a home-made shunt. This shunt can easily handle large magnitude of current, around 10-15 Amps. The accuracy is also pretty good and I was able to get very decent results while measuring low currents around 100mA. Supplies: Arduino Uno or equivalent and programming wire OP- Amp LM358 Jumper wires 100 KOhm resistor 220 KOhm resistor 10 Kohm resistor Veroboard or Zero PCB board Shunt(8 to 10 milliohms) The main parts you would need for this build is a Shunt along with the operational amplifier IC. For my application I am using the IC LM358 which is a dual OP-AMP 8 pin DIP IC of which I am using only one of the operational amplifier. You will also be needing resistors for the Non-inverting amplifier circuit." [...]

Gravitational Acceleration Measurement

"The purpose of this project is to give a global overview of a science laboratory to students who are discovering physics. It covers the different important points of a manipulation: - the development of the theory of a simple situation, - the characterization of equipment and measurement uncertainties, - the adjustment of the theoretical model to the measurements performed, - criticism of the results obtained and - what improvement can be done to the manipulation. Manipulation consists of dropping an object and measuring the time it takes for it to travel different distances in order to determine gravitational acceleration. Supplies: For this project, you will need: 1 arduino 2 LEDs (+ adapted resistances if needed) 2 photoresistors 1 marble 2 strong magnets a 10 kΩ resistance Some conductive wires Breadboard (optional) You should also have access to a 3D printer and to a soldering iron. " [...]

Minimalistic Word Clock

"A big thanks to Super Make Something as this project was inspired by their Neopixel Word Clock. I created this clock as a part of my IGCSE Design & Technology course and received an A* for it. The CAD model was built on fusion beforehand a thus isn't a 100% accurate model. The aim of this product was to be simple and minimalistic to fit into an office environment. The clock is a fun and unique way to show time in 5-minute intervals and uses RGB LEDs to spark things up. This Instructables guide will hopefully take you on a detailed step-to-step journey so you can also create your own word clock." [...]

doom-nano

"A 3d raycast engine for Arduino Just experimenting with an Arduino Nano I bought some time ago. This chip is very limited in process and memory: 16Mhz, only 32kb for program memory and 2kb of RAM, of which 1kb is entirely used for the screen. Most of problems I´m facing currently are about memory. CPU clock might be a problem too, but can be more or less avoided having more memory for calculation shortcuts. Despite of all those limitations, I managed to make it run at 8-11 FPS with most of stuff already done. Probably can be optimized and structured much better." [...]

Betta Fish Feeder

"I'm setting up a betta fish tank and wanted to make an automatic fish feeder so he never misses a meal. I've seen other DIY fish feeders that just shake a container but I wanted to be able to precisely control how much food he'll get. Hope the new fishy likes it! Follow my other projects on Instagram @Trevor_DIY Purchasing through the following affiliate links supports me as a maker :) Supplies: Arduino UNO Arduino power adapter (or USB adapter) Motor driver and stepper motor (28BYJ-48) 3D printed wheel 3D printed housing Hot glue Fish tank Betta fish pellets" [...]

Smart Trash Bin Automation

"Make a simplified table trash bin and can. One day, I walked to an overseas mall. There we don't need to do something to open it without touching it without stepping on it, just approaching it or bringing our hands closer, we are hygienic without touching the garbage can to dispose of the trash. From there I found inspiration to make it more sophisticated by adding feature features to notify when the trash can is full and connected online. So that later when a full garbage can can be handled by a cleaning service. " [...]

Smart Home Using Amazon Alexa

"The Basic idea behind this project is to control an electronic appliance using Amazon Alexa or through its app from anywhere in the world. We will be using a Node MCU V1.0 for this. All the code will be on my Github Page. If at any point you don't understand a step feel free to comment down below and I shall respond to it at the earliest. All Credits for the servers as well as the code goes to kakopappa(https://github.com/kakopappa). I have modified the code to control 4 Relays for the purpose of this tutorial." [...]

Combined ISP and FTDI Tool With Pogo Pins

"I've been reading Sapiens by Yuval Harari and one of the things that has been the most fascinating to me, is human beings ability to make their life better by envisioning and creating a tool that doesn't yet exist. In this instructable I will be showing how to make a new tool for improving your microcontroller projects. When making embedded microcontroller projects, like a binary wrist watch, you usually optimize for size and minimal components. This means you it's often necessary to not include components only needed for initial set up, but instead just the components needed for continual operation. This means the microcontroller usually gets programmed from another programming circuit. Soldering and desoldering a programming circuit can be a hassle if you want to continue developing the embedded code, and this is the problem this tool will solve!" [...]

ESP32 Smart Home Hub

"Use an ESP32 to control anything from stepper motors to LED strips with easy-to-use and modular code. It can connect locally or externally. Idea Creating a system that can handle large amounts of sensor data, have multiple outputs, and connect to the internet or a local network takes a long time and large amounts of effort. All too often, people wanting to make their own smart home networks struggle with being able to find and assemble custom components into a larger system. That is why I wanted to make a modular and feature-rich platform that would make it easy to construct IoT-connected sensors and outputs. " [...]

Making a SPL db Meter

"In the 1980s, there was no internet as like today and so the sources of entertainment were televisions, radios and cassette players. When I was a kid, we had an audio cassette player. We used it to play songs but my imagination was always fixed to its VU meter display with its fancy readings as shown below. It changed with the volume of the speakers and matched rhythmically with the sound coming out of it. During my engineering career, I got to know about the Decibel scale and sound pressure measurement. It soon became a goal for me to design an audio dB meter and recreate my child memories." [...]

Simon Says Game - 3D Printable | Arduino Nano | DIY Project

"Print, assemble and program your own Simon Says game. How much of the randomly generated colour pattern can you memorise and repeat back? Not sure, then why not make one and find out. (My current best is level 14). With an Arduino Nano at its core this project also incorporates an OLED screen, passive buzzer and some big bright buttons. You can add even more colour to the project by printing the enclosure in several colours by manually changing the filament in your printer during the print." [...]

RGB Fibonacci Clock

"This time I present you a new version of the fantastic Fibonacci clock published here by pchretien: https://www.instructables.com/id/The-Fibonacci-Clock The original idea of this version of the Fibonacci Clock is not mine, it is an idea belonging to a friend, artmaker43. Originally artmaker43 developed Fibonnaci Clock.exe and Fibonnaci Clock Screensaver.exe, Windows executables that use the first five numbers of the Fibonnaci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5) using squares with those values along each side. This simulates counting all the way to 12. Then by keeping track of the number of 12s (plus the values less than 12) with painted squares, one can construct a 24-hour clock. This Fibonacci clock version is a little bit different to the original one: The clock is divided into three independents zones: hours, minutes and seconds that use the Fibonacci sequence (1,2,3,5) to simulate counting all the way to 12. In the minute and second zones we can find 4 labeled circles lighted by leds: 12, 24, 36 and 48 to indicate when the counting is greater than the ones In the hour zone we can find one labeled circle (PM) to indicate when the current hour is on the second 12-hour period (from noon to midnight)." [...]

Skeleton Watch

"Freeform electronic circuit sculpture Wristwatch made with freeform wire construction technique. Since circuit sculpture contest was announced I immediately knew I wanted to participate. Mostly because I have never made freeform circuit and was inspired by other people's work showcased in contest article. Sadly, due to work and holidays that I spent with my family I could only work on this project from 28th of December onward. So what you see here is one weekend, few weekdays of work and three weeks of daydreaming. " [...]

How to Make a 4x4x4 L.E.D. Cube With Leftover LEDs

"Hello there! recently, i was looking forward to change the decoration and theme of my desk, i wanted to add personal touch to my desk, which matched my channel theme too( which happens to be Electronics ;) ) Luckily i had lots of LEDs laying around from a previous project, Hence I decided to build a Mesmerizing LED CUBE using an Arduino Nano, so in this instructable, we will learn how to Make this LED Cube in simple steps! Supplies: 1. Electronics Arduino Nano 64- 3mm blue LEDs Female Headers Rainbow Ribbon cable 4- 100Ω Resistor (OPTIONAL) general purpose prototype board PCB ( files attached in further steps). 2. Tools Soldering iron." [...]

Hacking Digital Calipers

"It's tedious to write down digital caliper measurements while working with research samples since you have to set the calipers down each time to record the value. Use SAM32 to read the caliper measurement, decode the protocol, and emulate keystrokes over USB to enter data into spreadsheet. Note: wired design driven by @CaitlynBioE's specific use-case. Choosing the Right Calipers Enabling USB input from digital calipers is expensive: Amazon Mitutoyo USB Input Cable runs $174 on top of the already $150 calipers! But, it shows us there's at least an interface to work with (on some models). You can see by the product image that the cable mates with a 4-pin press-fit connector on the body of the calipers." [...]

FM Radio RDA

"Recently, I came across RDA5807 module which is an FM Radio Tuner in a very tiny package. It is very cheap and uses I2C protocol for communication which means that only two wires will be required to talk to the IC. Less wiring! My mom used to listen to the radio every day while cooking food before the radio died. I wanted to surprise her with a radio which I built myself. In this Instructables, I will show you how I interfaced RDA5807 IC with an Arduino." [...]

Sun, Space Bound Companion Bot

"Hey there, ever wanted a companion bot that looked out of this world? Well, why not an astronaut-based companion bot? Once upon a time, in a galaxy FAR, FAR AWAY, I decided to make a space companion bot. This project was inspired of course by Alex Glow and Sophy Wong at Maker Faire Bay Area 2019. I was inspired by the idea of more companion bots and seeing Sophy's talk about her amazing space suit made me excited to try and make a space theme bot. " [...]

Slimbox - a Smart Bluetooth Speaker!

"Hey there! For my school project at MCT Howest Kortrijk, I made a smart Bluetooth speaker device with different sensors, an LCD and RGB NeoPixel ring included. Everything runs on the Raspberry Pi (Database, Webserver, Backend). So in this instructable I will show you how I made this project in 3 weeks, step by step, so if any of you guys want to recreate my project, you can easily do! " [...]

Build your own IoT/MQTT node for less than $2

"In this post, I will be explaining ESP-12F module usage with minimal set of components. ESP-12F as a stand-alone module is of no use unless mounted on a base board like wemos-d1-mini. " [...]