With a connected PC you can control all aspects of an Arduino with the right code and a USB serial interface, and another example of doing so is with Blender and brought to us by the "funkboxing" website. For the uninitiated, Blender is
... a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. It also features a built-in game engine.
In other words, a creative and possibly very fun software tool. And now that it can control real hardware, there's another dimension of creativity made possible with Arduino - and demonstrated in the following video:
Although a little light on detail, you can download the Blender code and Arduino sketch from the project website. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you're looking for an Arduino Uno-compatible board to work with the projects inArduino Workshop, choose what thousands of others have done and use our Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino-Uno compatible with low-profile USB socket, onboard prototyping space and easy to view LEDs:
