News

 A fellow Arduino enthusiast has devised a very simple and novel way of changing the playlist in Windows Media player using an Arduino board, RFID reader and some custom Windows software. The system is programmed so that each RFID tag is associated with a certain playlist - so instead of navigating around Windows the tunes can be changed with the wave of a tag. This would also be great for parties, or simplifying the use of home-theatre PCs. Here is a brief explanation and demonstration:

Always great to see something that should be simple actually simplified. To get started with your own version, consider using the Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino Uno-compatible with onboard prototyping area:

For more information, PC an Arduino code visit the project site here. 

 As part of a class Hawra was required to build a plush toy with intelligence, and decided to integrate a version of the "Simon" game into a plush octopus toy. For the unfamiliar, "Simon" was an electronic handheld game popular in the 1980s that would blink an ever-increasing pattern of lights, which the user then had to replicate by pressing matching buttons. In this project the lights and buttons are fitted inside the end of four of the octopus' tentacles, with a great result:

Apart from finding a suitable toy, building your own "Simon the Octopus" is relatively simple. Due to the limitations of the designer's lilypad board they could only have four legs active, and no USB interface for easy reprogramming. You could have up to eight legs going at once using one of our Freetronics LeoStick boards - a full Arduino-compatible with inbuild USB, pizeo and RGB LED in a tiny form factor:

Furthermore, for more information on the project visit here. 

 The team from dtbaker who sell their wares over the Envato system have developed an outstanding new sale notification system. Using a Freetronics EtherTen, a Power-over-Ethernet midspan injector, our DMD board and some crafty code - each new sale is notified with a beep and display message over the DMD. For example:

Note that you can run the DMD directly from the EtherTen board if you don't need to run at full brightness - and as shown in the video above it's fine for indoor use. Using the midspan injector saves having to have a power supply for the hardware at the point of installation, so the only cable required is the Ethernet run. This is a great example of Arduino, power-over-Ethernet and using our equipment. For more informaiton, visit this Envato page. 

If you have created something interesting with Freetronics products and would like to feature it here, email us via info at freetronics dot com, or post the details on our Freetronics forum Project Showcase. 

Mike Cook has published another simple and fun project that you can build around an Arduino board - his "Sneak Thief" game. It uses an infra-red sensor to detect changes in light around an object that can be "stolen". If you can remove the object slowly enough the alarm will not sound, however if you do it too quickly, the light level changes abruptly and the alarm sounds. For example:

This is a great example of a project for beginners or to entertain and educate younger people. It can be easily built around a standard Arduino-compatible board, such as our Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino Uno-compatible with onboard prototyping area. 

To get started, visit Mike's detailed website. 

After watching several futuristic movies, Will Bradley decided to build his own device that allowed computer visualisation of various forms of data. He has turned this idea into a successful project using an Internet-connected Arduino board, a whiteboard and a lot of LEDs. As you know an Arduino can easily control LEDs based on various parameters, and therefore the whiteboard can be customised almost anything using the LEDs. For example:

The benefit of using a glass finish allows the use of whiteboard markers to caption each LED with the required notation. And then it can be changed when required with a damp rag and a new Arduino sketch. To get started with your own display board, consider our range of Arduino-compatible hardware including the Freetronics EtherMega - the Mega2560-compatible with microSD socket, onboard Ethernet and optional PoE:

For more information, inspiration, hardware design and the code - visit Will's site. 

Using an Arduino board, LCD display and some simple code you can capture song information from the Pandora Internet radio service and display it on an LCD module. Often when listening to Pandora you may have the control screen covered by other software, and then miss out on the name of a song you were interested in. Therefore this project can solve that problem.

To make it happen a PHP script captures the required data and via a Chrome script sends the data to the serial port which is captured by the Arduino and then displayed. To make your own version is very simple - just use our Freetronics Eleven Arduino Uno-compatible board and an LCD Keypad shield:

To get started with your own version, check out the project page here.

 Eiji Hayashi has used a property of LEDs and used this knowledge to create a form of input using a laser pointer and an LED matrix. He explains that by reverse-biasing LEDs you can measure the brightness they're exposed to - and therefore if a laser pointer is aimed at the LED. So Eiji has put this to use and created a form of input that can also be used for gaming purposes. 

Well done Eiji. Remember when working with laser pointers to ensure the beam doesn't shine or reflect into someone's eyes. To get started with your own embedded Arduino project, consider our Freetronics LeoStick - one of the smallest Arduino-compatibles with onboard USB, RGB LED and piezo:

For more information on Eiji Hayashi's matrix project, visit his website. 

 Sometimes we get  carried away with complex projects, and neglect the simple and useful items that can be created in our Arduino ecosystem. One of these is weather monitoring - almost everyone is concerned with the temperature and so on. John Dimo thought so to and built a simple, neat and effective Arduino thermometer which is quite presentable:

John used a DS18B20 sensor for his example, and you can too with our TEMP: temperature module with the same sensor:

Combined with our range of Arduino-compatible hardware, sensor modules and display options, you're well on your way. So to get started check our John's blog, and our temperature sensor tutorials. 

For the paranoid twitter enthusiasts - this is the project for you. Instead of dedicating a browser page and possibly a PC just for twitter, instead make your own display using simple Arduino-based hardware. To build this project would take less than an hour, and then you can get back to work with the display in the corner of your eye:

To reproduce this, all you need is an Ethernet-enabled Arduino board, an LCD module and a housing. At Freetronics we've got that covered with our EtherTen - the Arduino-Uno compatible with onboard Ethernet, microSD socket and optional PoE:

Then slot in our LCD Keypad shield, and you're set:

So to get started, find the instructions and Arduino sketch here. 

Once again, Chris Debenham has taken a Freetronics product a made something amazingly useful - a giant dot-matrix display using not one or two... but six of our DMD display units. Mounted on a simple frame, the huge matrix looks great and performs smoothly using Chris' Arduino library and code. And it is driven with only one Arduino-compatible board!

Kudos to Chris for his work and sharing it with us. It's great what you can do with one of our DMD display units - let alone six. 

If you have created something interesting with Freetronics products and would like to feature it here, email us via info at freetronics dot com, or post the details on our Freetronics forum Project Showcase.