Editorial

Esta é a Newsletter Nº 245 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

Até amanhã decorre o certame anual CES em Las Vegas onde são apresentadas novidades tecnológicas por parte dos principais fabricantes. Nesse certame a Toyota anunciou que irá construir uma cidade prototipo do futuro. Localizada na base do Monte Fuji, no Japão, a cidade designada por "Woven City" será totalmente alimentada por células de combustível de hidrogénio. A cidade servirá de lar para residentes e investigadores a tempo inteiro que poderão testar e desenvolver tecnologias como autonomia, robótica, mobilidade pessoal, casas inteligentes e inteligência artificial num ambiente do mundo real.

Também no CES foi anunciado por parte da Arduino uma nova familia de placas, designada por Arduino Portenta H7. Esta apresenta tudo o que é preciso para começar a criar uma plataforma de hardware de IoT, incluindo um chip de autenticação criptográfica e módulos de comunicação para Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy e LTE, bem como IoT de banda estreita. Composto por micro-controladores Arm de 32 bits, Cortex-M7 ou M4, esses módulos de baixa potência destinam-se ao desenho de aplicações industriais, bem como soluções de processamento de de proximidade e aplicações de robótica. Ele corre o Mbed OS da Arm e suporta o código Arduino, além de aplicações Python e JavaScript.

Esta semana que passou ficámos também a saber que a Wi-fi Alliance se prepara para usar a banda dos 6 Ghz para comunicações sem fio. O Wi-Fi 6E traz um nome de referencia para os utilizadores de Wi-Fi identificarem dispositivos que oferecerão os recursos e capacidades do Wi-Fi 6 - incluindo maior desempenho, menor latência e taxas de transferência mais rápidas - estendidos na faixa de 6 GHz. Espera-se que os dispositivos Wi-Fi 6E sejam disponibilizados rapidamente após as aprovações regulatórias de 6 GHz, utilizando essa capacidade adicional de espectro para oferecer inovação contínua em Wi-Fi e contribuições valiosas para consumidores, empresas e economias.

E é já amanhã, sexta-feira que vamos ter um eclipse lunar penumbral, este será visível a partir de Portugal. O Eclipse terá início por volta das 17:06 horas em Portugal, logo a seguir ao pôr-do-sol. Às 19:10 ocorre o meio do eclipse e dez minutos depois, dá-se o instante de Lua Cheia em Portugal continental. A Lua permanecerá na penumbra até pouco depois das 21:00. A sua duração será de 4 horas, 4 minutos e 34 segundos.

Na Newsletter desta semana apresentamos diversos projetos de maker. É apresentado também um livro "Ubuntu Studio Audio Handbook".

João Alves ([email protected])

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

Toyota to Build Prototype City of the Future

"Today at CES, Toyota revealed plans to build a prototype “city” of the future on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Called the Woven City, it will be a fully connected ecosystem powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Envisioned as a “living laboratory,” the Woven City will serve as a home to full- time residents and researchers who will be able to test and develop technologies such as autonomy, robotics, personal mobility, smart homes and artificial intelligence in a real-world environment. “Building a complete city from the ground up, even on a small scale like this, is a unique opportunity to develop future technologies, including a digital operating system for the city’s infrastructure. With people, buildings and vehicles all connected and communicating with each other through data and sensors, we will be able to test connected AI technology… in both the virtual and the physical realms … maximizing its potential,” said Akio Toyoda, president, Toyota Motor Corporation." [...]

Arduino goes PRO at CES 2020

"We’re kicking off this year’s CES with some big news. Millions of users and thousands of companies across the world already use Arduino as an innovation platform, which is why we have drawn on this experience to enable enterprises to quickly and securely connect remote sensors to business logic within one simple IoT application development platform: a new solution for professionals in traditional sectors aspiring for digital transformation through IoT. Combining a low-code application development platform with modular hardware makes tangible results possible in just one day. This means companies can build, measure, and iterate without expensive consultants or lengthy integration projects. Built on Arm Pelion technology, the latest generation of Arduino solutions brings users simplicity of integration and a scalable, secure, professionally supported service. “By combining the power and flexibility of our production ready IoT hardware with our secure, scalable and easy to integrate cloud services, we are putting in the hands of our customers something really disruptive,” commented Arduino CEO Fabio Violante." [...]

Wi-Fi Alliance® brings Wi-Fi 6 into 6 GHz

"Wi-Fi Alliance® is introducing new terminology to distinguish forthcoming Wi-Fi 6 devices that are capable of 6 GHz operation, an important portion of unlicensed spectrum that may soon be made available by regulators around the world. Wi-Fi 6E brings a common industry name for Wi-Fi® users to identify devices that will offer the features and capabilities of Wi-Fi 6 – including higher performance, lower latency, and faster data rates – extended into the 6 GHz band. Wi-Fi 6E devices are expected to become available quickly following 6 GHz regulatory approvals, utilizing this additional spectrum capacity to deliver continuous Wi-Fi innovation and valuable contributions to consumers, businesses and economies. Wi-Fi is ready to utilize 6 GHz spectrum as it becomes available around the world. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to support international advocacy efforts to make this additional spectrum available to Wi-Fi users, while also protecting existing devices in the band. Wi-Fi has been recognized as a foundational technology for the Internet of Things, a necessary complement to delivering 5G, an important tool bringing communication networks to underserved areas, and a strong contributor to global economies." [...]

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Occurs Friday: Here's What to Expect

"Next time you're outside on a bright, sunny day, take note that the shadow you're casting does not have a sharp edge. In fact, a diffuse penumbra surrounds most any shadow, unless the light is a point source. A penumbral lunar eclipse is scheduled for Friday (Jan. 10). No part of the moon enters Earth's much darker umbra, as happens during a partial or total lunar eclipse. But on Jan 10-11 (depending on your location), just about the best penumbral eclipse possible will occur. The lower portion of the moon will track deep into the Earth's outer shadow, and the natural satellite's southern limb will miss the Earth's umbra by only about 225 miles (360 kilometers), or nearly 10% of the moon's diameter." [...]

Dubai says opens world's first functioning 3D-printed office

"Dubai has opened what it said was the world’s first functioning 3D-printed office building, part of a drive by the Gulf’s main tourism and business hub to develop technology that cuts costs and saves time. The printers - used industrially and also on a smaller scale to make digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic - have not been used much for building. This one used a special mixture of cement, a Dubai government statement said, and reliability tests were done in Britain and China. The one-storey prototype building, with floorspace of about 250 square meters (2,700 square feet), used a 20-foot (6-metre)by 120-foot by 40-foot printer, the government said. “This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it’s not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff,” the United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Mohamed Al Gergawi, said. “We believe this is just the beginning." [...]

STMicroelectronics STM32 System-on-Chip Accelerates Creation of Smart Devices with LoRa® IoT Connections

"Powering the search for sustainability through smart infrastructure and logistics, smart industry and smart living, STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, has revealed the world’s first LoRa® system-on-chip (SoC) for connecting smart devices to the Internet of Things (IoT) using long-distance wireless connections. The STM32WLE5 SoC lets product developers create devices such as remote environmental sensors, meters, trackers, and process controllers that help efficiently manage energy and resources The SoC combines ST’s proven skills in ultra-low-power STM32 microcontroller design with a LoRa-compliant radio in one single-die and easy-to-use device. With multiple ST patents pending, namely for radio Power Management Architecture, the STM32WLE5 will ensure unique performance. ST’s LoRaWAN software for wireless network communications has passed all regional certifications for use worldwide. “Our new wireless STM32 SoC extends the existing STM32W Wireless and simplifies new-product development while saving bill-of-materials costs and maximizing system reliability and energy efficiency,” said Ricardo De Sa Earp, Microcontroller Division General Manager, STMicroelectronics. “In addition, by leveraging the STM32 MCU architecture, we let developers easily introduce wireless connectivity in existing embedded designs by porting to the STM32WLE5.” STM32WLE5 users are supported by ST’s rolling 10-year longevity commitment for industrial products." [...]

Uber and Hyundai Motor Announce Aerial Ridesharing Partnership, Release New Full-Scale Air Taxi Model at CES

"Uber and Hyundai Motor Company have today announced a new partnership to develop Uber Air Taxis for a future aerial ride share network and unveiled a new full-scale aircraft concept at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Hyundai is the first automotive company to join the Uber Elevate initiative, bringing automotive-scale manufacturing capability and a track record of mass-producing electric vehicles. The air vehicle concept Hyundai released today was created in part through Uber’s open design process, a NASA-inspired approach that jump-starts innovation by publicly releasing vehicle design concepts so any company can use them to innovate their air taxi models and engineering technologies. In this partnership, Hyundai will produce and deploy the air vehicles, and Uber will provide airspace support services, connections to ground transportation, and customer interfaces through an aerial ride share network. Both parties are collaborating on infrastructure concepts to support take-off and landing for this new class of vehicles. “Our vision of Urban Air Mobility will transform the concept of urban transportation,” said Jaiwon Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Division." [...]

MakeCode Arcade Released for General Availability

"Ringing in the New Year with a New Release! The MakeCode team is very happy and proud to announce that MakeCode Arcade has been officially released for general availability today! For those of you who have been following our progress, you’ll know that we’ve been working on MakeCode Arcade for about 2 years now… and we’ve had it in Beta for the past year while we’ve continued to get feedback, fix bugs, make improvements and just generally polish up the experience. Huge thanks to everyone who has been using the Beta version, filing bugs and offering us suggestions (shout-outs to Kevin J Walters and Alex Kulcsar for helping us find a lot of great bugs!). Also big thanks to our amazing hardware partners who have worked with us to make super fun Arcade-compatible game devices that really bring the Arcade games to life! Check them out here – https://arcade.makecode.com/hardware." [...]

Qualcomm Accelerates Autonomous Driving with New Platform – Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride

"Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, today unveiled at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) its newest addition to the company’s extensive portfolio of automotive products with the new Qualcomm® Snapdragon Ride™ Platform – one of the automotive industry’s most advanced, scalable and open autonomous driving solutions, which consists of the family of Snapdragon Ride™ Safety system-on-chips (SoCs), Snapdragon Ride™ Safety Accelerator and Snapdragon Ride™ Autonomous Stack. Snapdragon Ride aims to address the complexity of autonomous driving and ADAS by leveraging its high-performance, power-efficient hardware, industry-leading artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and pioneering autonomous driving stack to deliver a comprehensive, cost and energy efficient systems solution. The unique combination of Snapdragon Ride SoCs, accelerator and autonomous stack offers automakers a scalable solution designed to support three industry segments of autonomous systems, namely L1/L2 Active Safety ADAS for vehicles that include automatic emergency braking, traffic sign recognition and lane keeping assist functions; L2+ Convenience ADAS for vehicles featuring Automated Highway Driving, Self-Parking and Urban Driving in Stop-and-Go traffic; and L4/L5 Fully Autonomous Driving for autonomous urban driving, robo-taxis and robo-logistics. The Snapdragon Ride Platform, based on the Snapdragon family of automotive SoCs and accelerator, is built on scalable and modular heterogenous high-performance multi-core CPUs, energy efficient AI and computer vision (CV) engines, industry-leading GPU. The platform with combination of SoCs and accelerator can be used as needed to address every market segment offering industry-leading thermal efficiency, from 30 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) for L1/L2 applications to over 700 TOPS at 130W for L4/L5 driving. This platform can therefore result in designs that can be passively or air-cooled, thereby reducing cost, and increasing reliability, avoiding the need for expensive liquid cooled systems and allowing for simpler vehicle designs, and extending the driving range for electric vehicles." [...]

AMD Announces World’s Highest Performance Desktop and Ultrathin Laptop Processors at CES 2020

"Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the world’s first x86 8-core ultrathin laptop processors1 as part of the AMD Ryzen™ 4000 Series Mobile Processor family, built on the groundbreaking “Zen 2” core architecture with innovative 7nm process technology and optimized high performance Radeon™ graphics in an SOC design. As the third generation of AMD Ryzen Mobile processors, the new 4000 Series provides unprecedented performance levels, significant design enhancements, and incredible power efficiency for ultrathin and gaming laptops. AMD also announced the AMD Athlon™ 3000 Series Mobile Processor family powered by “Zen” architecture, enabling modern computing experiences with real performance for a wider range of laptop users. Consumers will be able to purchase the first AMD Ryzen 4000 Series and Athlon 3000 Series powered laptops from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others starting in Q1 2020, with more systems expected to launch throughout 2020 with global OEM partners. In addition, AMD announced the highly anticipated 64-core, 128-thread AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 3990X will be available globally expected February 7, 2020. Purpose-built to enable extreme performance for 3D, visual effects, and video professionals, the 3990X delivers up to 51% faster rendering performance than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X processor5." [...]

In a shocking announcement, Sony just unveiled an electric car

"In a surprise announcement, Sony unveiled an electric concept car called the Vision-S during its keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas today. The company said the car has 33 sensors, including a CMOS sensor and a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor (both of which are typically used in cameras) to detect objects and people accurately outside and inside the car. In addition, it uses a Solid State LiDAR to gauge and map the area around the vehicle to avoid collision and drive at a safe distance and speed. According to its specification page, the Vision-S can go from 0-100 km per hour in just 4.8 seconds. In comparison, the top variant of Tesla 3 can hit that speed in 3.4 seconds. For in-car entertainment, the company has included a panoramic screen in the front, on the dashboard, to consume content." [...]

Boeing Rolls Out First Space Launch System Core Stage for Delivery to NASA

"Boeing today delivered the core stage of NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) deep space exploration rocket, moving it out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge. The event marks the first time a completed rocket stage has shipped out of Michoud since the end of the Apollo program. SLS Core Stage 1 is the largest single rocket stage ever built by NASA and its industry partners. The rollout follows several weeks of final testing and check-outs after NASA’s declaration of “core stage complete” during a December 9 Artemis Day celebration at Michoud. NASA will transport the SLS core stage to its Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in the next few days for “Green Run” hot-fire engine tests later this year. After inspection and refurbishing for launch, the stage moves to Kennedy Space Center in Florida." [...]

SpaceX launches latest batch of 60 internet-beaming satellites for Starlink constellation

"Update January 6th, 10:20PM ET: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off at 9:19PM ET from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and deployed the 60 satellites about an hour after launch. The rocket also landed on the company’s drone ship shortly after launch, marking the fourth time this particular rocket has gone to space and back. Original Story: Tonight, SpaceX is set to launch its third batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, part of the company’s ongoing initiative to create a mega-constellation of spacecraft that will beam internet connectivity to the Earth below. SpaceX will have 180 spacecraft in orbit following a successful launch, bringing the company even closer to having the most satellites around Earth at once. One of the satellites on board this launch will be slightly different than the other 59. One side of the satellite will be coated in a material meant to make the vehicle appear darker while in orbit." [...]

Tool predicts how fast code will run on a chip

"Machine-learning system should enable developers to improve computing efficiency in a range of applications. MIT researchers have invented a machine-learning tool that predicts how fast computer chips will execute code from various applications. To get code to run as fast as possible, developers and compilers — programs that translate programming language into machine-readable code — typically use performance models that run the code through a simulation of given chip architectures. Compilers use that information to automatically optimize code, and developers use it to tackle performance bottlenecks on the microprocessors that will run it. But performance models for machine code are handwritten by a relatively small group of experts and are not properly validated. As a consequence, the simulated performance measurements often deviate from real-life results." [...]

Stanford researchers build a particle accelerator that fits on a chip, miniaturizing a technology that can now find new applications in research and medicine

"Just as engineers once compressed some of the power of room-sized mainframes into desktop PCs, so too have Stanford researchers shown how to pack some of the punch delivered by today’s ginormous particle accelerators onto a tiny silicon chip. On a hillside above Stanford University, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operates a scientific instrument nearly 2 miles long. In this giant accelerator, a stream of electrons flows through a vacuum pipe, as bursts of microwave radiation nudge the particles ever-faster forward until their velocity approaches the speed of light, creating a powerful beam that scientists from around the world use to probe the atomic and molecular structures of inorganic and biological materials. Now, for the first time, scientists at Stanford and SLAC have created a silicon chip that can accelerate electrons – albeit at a fraction of the velocity of that massive instrument – using an infrared laser to deliver, in less than a hair’s width, the sort of energy boost that takes microwaves many feet. Writing in the Jan. 3 issue of Science, a team led by electrical engineer Jelena Vuckovic explained how they carved a nanoscale channel out of silicon, sealed it in a vacuum and sent electrons through this cavity while pulses of infrared light – to which silicon is as transparent as glass is to visible light – were transmitted by the channel walls to speed the electrons along. The accelerator-on-a-chip demonstrated in Science is just a prototype, but Vuckovic said its design and fabrication techniques can be scaled up to deliver particle beams accelerated enough to perform cutting-edge experiments in chemistry, materials science and biological discovery that don’t require the power of a massive accelerator." [...]

ORNL researchers advance performance benchmark for quantum computers

"Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a quantum chemistry simulation benchmark to evaluate the performance of quantum devices and guide the development of applications for future quantum computers. Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information. Quantum computers use the laws of quantum mechanics and units known as qubits to greatly increase the threshold at which information can be transmitted and processed. Whereas traditional “bits” have a value of either 0 or 1, qubits are encoded with values of both 0 and 1, or any combination thereof, allowing for a vast number of possibilities for storing data. While still in their early stages, quantum systems have the potential to be exponentially more powerful than today’s leading classical computing systems and promise to revolutionize research in materials, chemistry, high-energy physics, and across the scientific spectrum. But because these systems are in their relative infancy, understanding what applications are well suited to their unique architectures is considered an important field of research." [...]

Computing with molecules: a big step in molecular spintronics

"Spintronics or spin electronics in contrast to conventional electronics uses the spin of electrons for sensing, information storage, transport, and processing. Potential advantages are nonvolatility, increased data processing speed, decreased electric power consumption, and higher integration densities compared to conventional semiconductor devices. Molecular spintronics aims for the ultimate step towards miniaturization of spintronics by striving to actively control the spin states of individual molecules. Chemists and physicists at Kiel University joined forces with colleagues from France, and Switzerland to design, deposit and operate single molecular spin switches on surfaces. The newly developed molecules feature stable spin states and do not lose their functionality upon adsorption on surfaces. They present their results in the current issue of the renowned journal Nature Nanotechnology." [...]

New method gives robust transistors

"A new method to fit together layers of semiconductors as thin as a few nanometres has resulted in not only a scientific discovery but also a new type of transistor for high-power electronic devices. The result, published in Applied Physics Letters, has aroused huge interest. The achievement is the result of a close collaboration between scientists at Linköping University and SweGaN, a spin-off company from materials science research at LiU. The company manufactures tailored electronic components from gallium nitride. Electric vehicles Gallium nitride, GaN, is a semiconductor used for efficient light-emitting diodes. It may, however, also be useful in other applications, such as transistors, since it can withstand higher temperatures and current strengths than many other semiconductors." [...]

Communications device offers huge bandwidth potential

"Scientists at the University of Illinois have created sugar cube-sized blocks of an electromagnetic material with potential to transform communication networks. Several countries are building futuristic communication systems using higher frequency electromagnetic waves to transfer more data at faster rates, but they have lacked network components to handle these higher bandwidths. Researcher J. Gary Eden proved his new device can rapidly switch functionality to perform the varied tasks needed to support a network with carrier frequencies of over 100 gigahertz. The miniscule-scale architecture concealed within the sugar cube blocks is described in Applied Physics Reviews. "This technology is particularly interesting, because it generates multiple channels operating simultaneously at different frequencies. Basically, this allows multiple conversations to occur over the same network, which is the heart of high-speed wireless communications," explained Eden." [...]

Ubuntu Studio Audio Handbook

"Peter Reppert was kind enough to donate his time and work on an audio handbook targeting musicians for Ubuntu Studio. After contacting the team, he decided to open the book to being a living document on this wiki with constant updates. The Ubuntu Studio team would like to thank Peter for his selfless contribution to Ubuntu Studio and for providing a guide for newcomers and experts alike. Please bear in mind that much of this handbook was written in the first-person perspective as this is Peter's personal work. Also, there are some places in this handbook that, due to inavailability of certain software, are not supported. Those items are highlighted with black text on a yellow background." [...]

Kinetic Courier

"Something happened? Ring a bell, wave a flag, light some lights! A physical notification platform for IoT events. Story The Kinetic Courier is an alert system for your IoT things. When something happens, it can ring a bell, wave a flag or light some NeoPixels. You can even connect it up to Alexa and IFTTT." [...]

How to Make Mini CNC Machine

"Let's make a cool project using scrap/ used parts of the computer's DVD writer. Let's make a mini CNC. Hello all hope you are doing good. I'm here with another very cool project which you can build using some scrap/ used parts of the computer. In this tutorials I'm going to show you how you can make a mini CNC Machine at home from the old DVD Writers of the Computer and the Arduino UNO. by using this CNC machine you can draw logo and can write text also." [...]

Mastermind Numbers Game

"An Arduino version of the game Mastermind where you can try to guess the computer's number or it can try and guess yours. Story After looking at the Knights Tour puzzle which was based on the Krishna Lalith version, I was intrigued by another one of her projects which is her Mastermind Game. All the implementations I have seen in the past are where the computer picks a random number and the player must guess it. However in Krishna’s version, it is the computer that must guess the players number. I decided to make my own version to run on an Arduino UNO. You can choose to have the computer guess your number or try and guess a random number that the computer generates." [...]

Embedded Machine learning on Attiny85

"You won't believe it, but you can run Machine learning on embedded systems like an Attiny85 (and many others Attiny)! When I first run a Machine learning project on my Arduino Nano (old generation), it already felt a big achievement. I mean, that board has only 32 Kb of program space and 2 Kb of RAM and you can buy a chinese clone for around 2.50 $. It already opened the path to a embedded machine learning at a new scale, given the huge amount of microcontrollers ready to become "intelligent". But it was not enough for me: after all, the MicroML generator exports plain C that should run on any embedded system, not only on Arduino boards. So I setup to test if I could go even smaller and run it on the #1 of tiny chips: the Attiny85." [...]

Robot Arm with Controller

"Robot arm and its controller. The robot arm uses three conventional PWM servos, and each angle is controlled by a variable resistor. The rotary potentiometer used B curve 10kohm. Two DS3115 servo motors were used in the vertical direction, and MG995 servo motor was used in the swing direction. " [...]

Wilderness Labs Meadow LoRa Field Gateway Client

"A sample Wilderness Labs Meadow 433/868/915MHz client for my Windows 10 IoT Core RPi LoRa telemetry field gateways. The design goal was to provide a simple demo application that illustrated how to use my LoRa library and an application that students could be use as a basis for projects which upload data to the cloud via one of my telemetry gateways. This sample is a plug-and-play Wilderness Labs Meadow F7 client for my LoRa telemetry-focused field gateway projects for Adafruit.IO, Azure IoT Hubs/Central, and (MQTT for a growing number of other SaaS IoT platforms). It would also be possible to modify the sample code and configuration for peer-to-peer/star communication with other *duino, Netduino, Maduino, Windows 10 IoT Core and Meadow devices. This sample has been tested with AdaFruit 433MHz, and 900MHz featherwings. The Wilderness Labs Meadow.Foundation Periperals Library supports a variety of sensors and actuators which could readily be integrated into a custom solution." [...]

Solar Powered Cellular Weather Station

"Measure wind, rain, temperature, humidity, and light in remote locations using ThingSpeak, Particle, and the Sentient Things IoT Node. This project describes the latest generation of a weather station used by the ThingSpeak team at MathWorks (see ThingSpeak Weather Station & Data Analysis for an earlier version). This weather station provides the following improvements: Optional solar power for locations without power Easily repeatable and maintainable packaging and electronics based on the Sentient Things IoT Node Updated firmware with micro SD card data logging, store and forwarding of data to overcome communication outages, and optional automatic ThingSpeak channel creation" [...]

MLX90640 IR Thermal Camera Working with Raspberry Pi 4

"Using Raspberry Pi 4 to drive MLX90640 IR Thermal Camera var I2C interface in order to detect calorific objects. Story Want to detect something that can emit heat and figure out their temperatures? The MLX90640 IR thermal camera can display the relative temperature and shape of the objects as long as you put them in front of the IR thermal camera. IR thermal camera connects with Raspberry Pi 4 var I2C interface, after reading the data from the camera, raspberry pi 4 would process these data and convert them to numbers of pixels and finally displayed as a thermal image on the Raspberry Pi display. Hardware Here is the 40 pin schematic of the Raspberry Pi, you can easily find I2C interface SCL and SDA. The IR thermal camera has an I2C Grove interface, so a transform wire is needed from Grove to jump wire." [...]

LoRa E32 Device Arduino Shield - 8Km Support

"Story E32-TTL-100 is a wireless transceiver module based on SX1278 from SEMTECH(can be transmitter and receiver both). It adopts LoRa spread spectrum technology, with this technology the transmitting distance and penetration ability of the module improved more than 1 times compared with traditional FSK. " [...]

SAMD21G18A Development Board

"An Open Source SAMD21 Development Board This board is a development board centered around the SAMD21 MCU. My first personal PCB based project, this project is sure to evolve a lot over time as my PCB design skills improve and I learn more about board design. This project started after my first introduction to PCB design at my 2019 summer internship. At that internship, I designed a board that used a SAMD21 to control a GPS and LoRa module. This was my first introduction to the SAMD21 MCU and I immediately was interested in its capabilities. As a side project to work, I started to design a development board centered around this module." [...]

3D Printed ISS desktop beacon and IFTTT notifier

"Unique tool and desktop or wind sill trinket to alert when the ISS is overhead. The International Space Station (ISS) has been up and running since 2000. Since that time, we have always had humans living in space. (Pretty Awesome!) Making around 15 passes per day, this device combines 3D printing, coding, and soldering to notify you via blinking and IFTTT notification if its arrival. This project combined a number of different material including 3D printed parts, small circuit boards, solar panels, the Particle IO, a webhook, ISS Open Notify, and IFTTT." [...]

Magnetic Circuit Blocks

"Nothing is better for learning or designing electronics than building real circuits. The breadboard is a popular option but it often results in an incomprehensible spaghetti that has no resemblance to the original schematic and is hard to debug. I took inspiration from another instructable to make a set of magnetic blocks that can be combined into electronic circuits. The result is awesome: basic circuits are set up in seconds and they look just like the schematic! The connections between the blocks are very reliable since the copper strips of two different blocks are pushed against each other by the magnets under the tape. The blocks are made from recycled cardboard with small magnets on the borders." [...]

PyPortal MQTT Sensor Node/Control Pad for Home Assistant

"Using a computer or an app on a tablet is a good way to control all the things in your Smart Home, but sometimes it is overkill. So what if we had a small touchscreen device that would let you control just a few things that you need quick access to? Something like a super smart, but not too smart, light switch that uses much less power than a smartphone or tablet. Even better if it also had some sensors on it and could display some simple data on the screen like the weather forecast. The PyPortal is perfect for this kind of work with its built-in 3.2″ TFT Touchscreen, ESP32 WiFi controller, plenty of storage, and a SAMD51 M4 processor chip at its core. So we will be using the PyPortal to build out a user interface that will talk to our Smart Home system using MQTT." [...]

Smartplant

"Change relationship between plants and human and make much deeper relationship. We have so many plants in our house in daily life. When we grow plants, we face two problems. First, we should adopt ways to grow each plant, normally the ways are different, and it takes time and lot of efforts. Second, plants cannot talk with us. If we could resolve the above problems, relationships between human and plants would evolutionally be changed." [...]

An ATmega brushless sensored motor driver v02

"Brushless electric motor (BLDC motors) are synchronous motors that are powered by a DC electric source via an integrated inverter/switching power supply, which produces an AC electric signal to drive the motor. Hall sensored motors uses hall effect sensors or a rotary encoder to directly measure the rotor's position. For an introduction to BLDC motors, you can take look at my sensored motor driver post, here: http://davidegironi.blogspot.it/2013/09/a-simple-brushless-sensored-motor.html This library implements a brushless sensorled motor dirver for AVR ATmega. tl;dr Take this library: http://davidegironi.blogspot.com/2019/12/an-atmega-brushless-sensorless-motor.html Set BLDC_DRIVETYPE to BLDC_DRIVETYPE_SENSORED This is exacly the same library as the previous linked, so, for further information on this library please look at the link above. There are just a few difference due to the hall sensor presence. The motor position this time it is discovered using hall sensors insted of using the the ZC crossing detection." [...]

Isolated Gate MOSFET Driver Based DC Motor and Solenoid Driver Arduino Nano Shield

"This is an Isolated gate driver-based N channel Mosfet Arduino Nano shield based on Si8261ACC, which can be used in various applications like DC Motor driver, solenoid driver, led driver, bulb driver and heater driver, with 3A fast switching diode provided across the output for an inductive load which protects the circuit from back EMF. Arduino Nano can be used to generate on/off signal or PWM for speed control. The board can also be used as a standalone driver by feeding 3-5V directly to the LED of the Si8261ACC gate driver. MOSFET can handle up to load 3A and DC supply at 12-24V DC. PWM Pin D3 of Arduino connected to gate driver IC. " [...]

Transmit ESP8266 Data to Google Sheets

"This project allows you to transmit DHT environmental data from your ESP8266 to your Google Sheet for data logging. This project allows you to process data with your ESP8266 and send that data to Google Sheets in the cloud via WiFi. This project can be accomplished without any credit card sign-ups or use of proprietary, black box API’s. For this specific example I use the inexpensive and ubiquitous DHT11 environmental sensor, however you can easily alter the included Arduino code for any sensor or device you like. This is the first of four parts. In the first part of the project you will set up and configure your own Google Sheet to accept your WiFi Data by using the included Google App Script code." [...]

WiFi Controlled Audio Source Selector Switch (Wi-CASSS)

"This WiFi module makes it convenient for the user to switch between two audio sources without the need to swap and insert the audio cables. Most of the audio devices used even today, widely adopt the 3.5 mm or the differential audio jacks for the transmitting the audio signals via a cable. Though this concept is changing in mobile devices by shifting towards wireless audio, but most of the bulkier audio devices such as the TV or a bookshelf speakers, still use the wired medium for transmitting audio. These audio jacks are usually placed at the rear end of the devices which are difficult to reach once they're set-up on a desk or a stand unit. So whenever the user wants to connect a new Audio Device like an iPod or a new set of speakers, the user always has to unplug and re-insert the respective cable for the device. This makes it very inconvenient for the user, especially when the cables have to be frequently swapped in and out." [...]

RFID Activated LED

"RFID tag turns on LED. I made this because I wanted to try an RFID tag and thought this might be a simple project to start with. " [...]

DC Motor Position Control

"This instruction will show how to control motor position via Local web network. Now you can use smart phone or iPad connected to network, then type address of local web server of motor From here, we can control motor position disk by rotating the disk on web page when we touch the disk on webpage, it will send position setting to web server of motor, then rotate motor disk to reach that position setting on real time Step 1: Hardware Needed To make this project, we will need 1. nodeMCU 2. H-bridge L298 3. Motor with encoder 4. Motor base The heart of nodeMCU is ESP8266 which allow us connect to local wifi network. It also has GPIO and interrupt, PWM function like others Arduino microcontroller The motor base is made from MDF wood 3mm thickness, cut by laser cnc machine." [...]

Handwritten Digit Recognition Using Artificial Intelligence on a Low-Cost FPGA Board

"By harnessing the power of an FPGA and a simple camera, you can create your very own digit recognition system from the comfort of your own desktop. In the world of artificial intelligence (AI), the recognition of handwritten digits proves that you got your neurons right and in working condition. This application of AI is already quite old – its breakthrough came in 1989 when a reliable machine-enabled parsing of ZIP codes for postal services was achieved. Soon after, it was proven that multi-layer feed-forward networks can implement any function. Shortly, financial institutions adopted the technique for the automatic parsing of account numbers on remittance slips for wire transfers or bank checks. Today the recognition of handwritten digits using different AI-techniques is also famous in academia for teaching and learning purposes." [...]

Chiming Clock

"Clock that chimes on the hours, halves, quarters This clock has no display; it only chimes. It will chime on the hour and the count of the hour, or optionally the halves and quarters. The clock runs on an ESP8266 NodeMCU to drive solenoids (or voice coils) to strike chimes. The ESP8266 keeps time and synchronizes via NTP servers. The module has just one button to mute the clock, if desired. The module hosts a web page for configuration and testing of the clock." [...]

Cherry Remote

"I’ve got a TV in my garage that I use to test things out on, I lost the remote for it, when I did find it it had seen better days. This got me thinking that I should just make my own with just the basic functionally that I need. Join me below to see how it worked out Hardware Arduino pro mini MX cherry blue keys x5 GX-12 5pin connector TP4056 USB C charger DD0505MD DCDC boost IR LED 940nm IR receiver Lipo 3 way switch With most projects I try to introduce A new part or a new way of doing something, This time its the MX cherry blue keys I’m using as buttons. I could have just used boring clicky button which would have made it much smaller but I wanted to try using these as button to see how well they work. I have also got a 3d printer while doing this project which makes it easy to make custom key caps for it. I was going to use a Arduino pro micro because it has USB HID built in so I could use this in other ways but the IR library I use doesn’t play well with the ATmega32U4." [...]

Compact Si5351 based SDR

"This is a revised version of my FV-1 based SDR. I replaced the CS2100 clk generator with the Si5351 clk generator. The Si5351 has some advantages over the CS2100, namely you can generate quadrature clks directly. This simplifies the hardware design and improves the quadrature accuracy. The sideband rejection in LSB/USB modes is impressive..somewhere around 60 db as best I can measure. The DSP processing is accomplished by the use of a FV-1 audio processor." [...]

ESP-AHT10-Extra

"Minimalist ESP-8266 temperature/humidity sensor/programmer. This is a Kicad design which uses a PCB USB connector and integrates an ESP-12 (or 07), CH330N USB controller, a small voltage regulator (HT7233), and a AHT-10 temperature/humidity sensor. Flash and reset buttons are also included. This PCB is designed for reflow soldering of the SMD components. I'm sure someone can hand solder it, but it wouldn't be me. R3 should be left out if the ESP modules being used have an internal pullup between RST and 3V3 (which most newer ones seem to have)." [...]

Voice Controlled Hospital Bed by Wifi

"For many people with significant mobility impairment, the function of sitting up, raising the feet or changing the height of a hospital bed provides comfort throughout the night for sleeping and may even allow for greater independence. For myself, as an individual with a spinal cord injury who became paralyzed, I depend on the functions of the hospital bed every day. But sometimes it can be hard to find the control for the bed since I cannot feel my hands, move my fingers or move my arms under the blankets. Given the hospital bed is made up of simple switches I figured why not use an assistant like Google Home or Alexa to control the bed. This instructable builds off this project. We retain the original function of the controller so no bed function is lost or if power goes out or the Wi-Fi down nothing changes." [...]

HOW TO MAKE a TRADITIONAL WORKBENCH

"In this project, Im making a traditional woodworking workbench. I’ve wanted to build one of these workbenches for some time now. In fact, in this post, I talk more about how long I’ve had the lumber in my shop for this project and what my hangups about it are. I purchased these plans from Jay Bates. They were very detailed and spelled out everything from the dimensions to the shopping list you can take with you to the home improvement store to buy just the right materials. TOOLS & MATERIALS Japanese pull saw Table saw Miter saw Bessey parallel clamps DeWalt planer Random orbit sander Forstner bits Jointer Bandsaw 5 Minute Epoxy Drill & driver Stanley Bailey chisel set" [...]

336-digit 7-segment display with per-segment PWM

"Using 14 panels with ISSI IS31FL3733 I2C matrix controllers, this artwork can show 8-bit grayscale on 2,688 individual LED segments. This artwork has a large, handmade array of small, numeric displays that show a sequence of numbers. Using its infrared and microwave motion sensors, it watches for nearby people. After a certain amount of movement is observed, it slowly fades to a videogame-style display of a car driving along a winding road. There are 336 individual vintage numeric displays attached to 14 display boards, which each have their own display controller (ISSI IS31FL3733). I designed these boards and wrote the Python driver software for their display controllers." [...]

Make Custom LED Strips

"I recently made an infinity mirror cube and I wanted to have it be a specific size with a specific number of LEDs. None of the LED strips that I could find had the correct characteristics for what I wanted, so I made my own. These strips are not flexible, but that wasn't necessary for my project. The basis for these strips are custom designed circuit boards. I didn't make the boards myself, but I did design them. This Instructable is about the process of assembling these strips after I received them." [...]

Variometer for Paragliding

"A few years ago I built a Variometer with the help of Andrei's Instructables. It was working nice, but there were a few things I didn't like. I powered it with a 9V battery and this took a lot of space and endet in a bulky wooden case for the electronics. Often on the most promising day's the battery got empty and I didn't have a spare battery with me. So I decidet to change this and designed my own Version of a Vario inspired by Andrei. My main goal was to make it smaller and rechargeable." [...]

M5StickC Cool Looking Watch With a Menu and Brightness Control

"In this tutorial we will learn how to program ESP32 M5Stack StickC with Arduino IDE and Visuino to Display a time on the LCD and also set the time and the brightness using the menu and the StickC buttons. " [...]

Arduino RGB Color Picker Pick Colors From Real Life Objects

"Easily pick colors from physical objects with this Arduino based RGB color picker, enabling you to recreate the colors you see in real life objects on your pc or mobile phone. Simply push a button to scan the color of the object using a cheap TCS34725 colour sensor module and you’re given the RGB color values as well as an indication of the measured color on an RGB LED. If you enjoy this Instructable, please vote for it in the Make It Glow Contest. I’ve designed a simple 3D printed enclosure for the electronics to make the device portable, simply plug it into a USB port, charger or power bank to power it up. You could also modify the design to accommodate a battery to make it even more portable. I usually try to use an Arduino Uno as this is one of the most widely used Arduino boards, but to make this device portable, it has been designed around an Arduino Pro Micro board." [...]

Custom Designed Seven Segment Using LED's | Arduino

"In this article we will see how to make custom 7 segment display using smd LED's. and We will be interfacing with Arduino.This design can be use in the replacement of seven segement display and this is design is very cost efficient too. In this project i have used 2 led's for one segment of the seven segment but this can done with single led and for smaller display. " [...]

Christmas Tree - 555 TIMER

"Hey all! In this tutorial I will try to explain how to make christmas tree pcb. In the industry, very useful component, known as 555 timer will be used in this tutorial. We will use 555 timer in Astable mode to create square wave with varying frequency. " [...]

RC Tracked Robot Using Arduino Step by Step

"Hey guys, I am back with another cool Robot chassis from BangGood. Hope you have gone through our previous projects – Spinel Crux V1 – The Gesture Controlled Robot, Spinel Crux L2 – Arduino Pick and Place Robot with Robotic Arms and The Badland Brawler which we published last month. Looks cool with under glowing lights right? This time I have a rough Terrain Robot with 4 Wheel Drive and dedicated suspension for it to travel over rough terrain. Check it out. Why not build one for yourself?" [...]

Simple Line Follower Using Arduino

"Arduino Line Follower Robot In this tutorial, we will discuss the working of an Arduino line following robot which will follow a black line in white background and take the correct turn whenever it reaches curves in its path. Arduino Line Follower Components Arduino IR Sensor (Array Sensor or 2 Individual Sensors) DC Motor LIPO Battery Robot Chasis Arduino IDE Arduino You all might be familiar with Arduino; which is the most widely used and fastly evolving electronic platform with so many microcontroller boards and software. For our line following robot, I will be using Arduino UNO which is the most commonly used board. The Arduino Nano is the best option to get started with electronics and coding if this is your first experience with Arduino Platform. You can use any Arduino Board for this project. IR Sensor As mentioned earlier, our line following robot will be following a black line in a white background." [...]

Wiring a LOLIN WEMOS D1 Mini Pro to an SSD1283A 130x130 Transflective LCD SPI Display

"There's no good info on hooking this up online, so, here's how! The SSD1283A LCD is an awesome little transflective display - it can be read easily in direct sunlight, and has a backlight too, so can be read in darkness as well. The Wemos D1 Mini Pro is amazing - excellent wifi support, with easy step that make it OTA updatable - yes - you can update software and re-flash these things over wifi, without needing to connect it to your PC! I am in the process of building my own Infrared Camera, which shows temperatures on the screen and uploads the data in real-time to the internet as well. But that is for a future instructable - for now - let's get the screen going! Check the photo to ensure your board and screen match mine (this sketch probably works fine on any D1 model, not just the Mini Pro)." [...]

ACA: AEP's Can Do Anything

"A Two-Degree-Of-Freedom Ball Balancing PID Controller In this project, we implemented a two-degree-of-freedom ball balancing platform using a resistive touchscreen, two servo motors, and PID control. We used a PIC32 microcontroller to read position data from the touchscreen and drive the servos, adjusting the platform’s angle. We tuned the system to balance a 1 inch diameter steel ball using a PID algorithm. The screen mount was made from acrylic with one 3D printed connection for quick and easy manufacturing. We bought the largest resistive touch screen available for our budget which was a 7x4 inch 4-pin resistive touchscreen from Adafruit to use as our control surface. Using position data from the touchscreen, the microcontroller was able to control the platform position to stabilize the ball through the servos." [...]

Assistive Tongue Operated Mouse (ATOM)

"In the modern age, being able to interface efficiently with a computer is necessary in order to complete many everyday tasks. For individuals lacking manual dexterity, the task of using standard computer peripherals can prove to be nearly impossible. As technology becomes more integrated into different aspects of our society, being able to effectively use the internet is no longer just a matter of luxury or convenience but is instead closer to a basic right as a human being. Developing technology that can enable individuals to access the internet not only makes them more independent but can also aid in the advancement of our society. With a vast majority of modern jobs requiring workers to possess basic computer skills, there exists a market to produce assistive technology for individuals who are unable to effectively utilize conventional peripheral devices. Several current products fulfill this need, yet are often costly, restrictive, and undoubtedly have room for improvement." [...]

Matrix Slot Machine

"An alien-themed slot machine powered by an ATtiny85 microprocessor. Odds and payouts emulate typical slot machines found in casinos. A while ago, I was looking at the Arduino Slot Machine by seawarrior181. It seemed a good project to modify and try to get it to run on an ATtiny85 microprocessor. I decided not to include the 4 line LCD display because the statistics wasn’t my primary goal. (It still calculates and stores all the statistics that seawarrior181’s version has, it just doesn’t display them)." [...]

Multi-Key Electronic Flute

"Sensors and Synthesis Musical instruments such as the piano allow musicians to play in different keys on a single instrument. In contrast, bamboo flutes are designed for only one key. This means flute players must own a different flute for every additional key in which they want to play in. Learn how these three Cornell students built an PIC32 MCU-based electronic flute that reduces the need for owning multiple flutes by incorporating two buttons that allow a flute player to change the key and octave. Our goal for this project was to build an electronic flute that can play in any key. The first step in this project was understanding the design of a bamboo flute, which differs greatly from Western concert flutes." [...]