04
June 2010
Ralph J. Coppola
r_j_coppola<at>hotmail.com
SAS Disclaimer
The Amateur Scientist 3.0 CD-ROM is
available from Bright Science for
$27.
Get your Complete Collection of Wanderings, from
#1 (March ’02) to #165 (Dec ‘09). To receive your free copy, send me an e-mail
stating your preferred format --- MS Word or htm.
Feature:
For
this month’s Feature we will be looking at the Arduino microcontroller.
Microcontrollers
are small computers, often housed on a single chip, that are capable of
performing many types of programmed tasks. One common function of the device is
to replace a circuit made of a complex array of discrete logic gates by a
computer program. An advantage of this is that the application can easily be
modified by changing some program code instead of doing actual hardware
modifications.
Before
we go too far, I’d like to mention that the Arduino is not the only show in
town. There are many excellent systems on the market, with vastly different features, so you should be able to find one
that fits your needs.
You
have probably come across several of the most popular:
Recently,
I came across NGX Technologies’ BlueBoard-LPC1768-H which looks
quite impressive.
A
few of the reasons that I like the Arduino are:
- There
is a large user presence on the Web.
- It
has a small foot print.
- Its
architecture is “open source.”
- There
are a large number of “daughter boards” or “shields” available.
- There
is a SD shield available that gives several gigs
of data storage.
Is
there anything that I do not like about it? Yes, I wish that there was a
mounting hole at each corner. Other than that, I haven’t found anything more.
Granted, I have not had too much time to “play” around with my board.
The Arduino
Home Web Site
The current basic Arduino, the Duemilanove, is based
on the Atmel ATmega328 chip.
Duemilanove means
2009 (in Italian), the year that it was released. You can hear its proper
Italian pronunciation in the following sound files --- WAV, OGG, MP3, FLAC, WMA 8-)
The
Arduino @ Goggle Code
Join the AVRFreaks for discussions on the
ATmega386 and other Atmel products.
The
book, Getting Started with Arduino, that was written by Massimo Banzi, one of
the Arduino developers, is a good place to start.
The Arduino Tutorial Bundle is a collection of 11
tutorial experiments.
Here
are a few of the many sites that host Arduino project collections:
Eric Rosenthal designed and built an Arduino based Liquid ID Spectrometer that can be
adapted for either transmissive or reflective modes. See Wanderings #160, 03 July 2009 for further
information.
An Arduino based ph Meter
Arduino controlled Magnetic Stirrer --- Part 1: The
Hardware
Arduino controlled Magnetic Stirrer --- Part 2: The
Software
Be
lazy and build an Arduino RC Lawnmower
Arduino based serial RC servo controller
Arduino RFID Door Lock
How to Install the Arduino to the Lithium Backpack
The Arduino AA Undershield
Arduino Sound – Part 1
Arduino Sound - Part 2: Hello World
Arduino Sound - Part 3. Playing a Melody
Use an Arduino and a SRF-05 ultrasound range finder
to make a radar.
How to connect LCDs to the Arduino
The Maker Shed has a 4 digit / 7 Segment Display shield available for
$50.
The Reverse Geocache Puzzle --- This Arduino / GPS
based puzzle is a box that won’t open until its owner figures out where on
earth to move it.
Follow the Puzzle Box saga on Arduiniana
Ferret was a high altitude
balloon tracker that was constructed for a balloon launch (Project Orion)
launched on 07/03/10 from Churchill College, Cambridge.
Here’s
how to Hack a Keychain Digital Camera for Arduino control.
Digital camera control using Arduino
This Arduino-based camera, designed by Flickr
arms22 , includes a LS20031 GPS receiver and a C328 640x480 camera module plus a SD
card to store images. Unfortunately, it’s mostly in Japanese. But you might be
able to glean some information from it. Give it a try.
Here
are some of Flickr arms22’s other work.
Arduino I/O Pin Performance
Solarbotics Ardweeny --- The little friend of the Arduino
How to build the Ardweeny
Kimio
Kosaka’s Burning the Arduino Bootloader without external
AVR-Writer
How to use an Arduino to program an Atmega168 /
Atmega328
A Simple Arduino Robotics Platform
The Proto Shield is an open-source prototyping shield
for the Arduino.
An Arduino board layout library, in Eagle format, is available for download at Adafruit.com.
The Jedi Mind Control Game uses EEG
technology to read your alpha and beta brain waves to control
the levitation of a ball. It’s a simple task to hack into the game and possibly
control other tasks. Brain Control for the Arduino. May the force be with
you!
The EyeWriter is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus
that allows a person with paralysis resulting from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
to write or draw using only their eyes.
The Eye Shield is a circuit board that
allows the Arduino to have the power of sight. It interprets analogue video (PAL or NTSC) from a camera or other
source. It gives the Arduino the power of sight.
Core2duino --- See how to build an Arduino
shield that adds another Atmega 168/328 on top of your Arduino,
If the Core2 wasn’t
enough, try the Core3duino
Expand the Arduino I/O with the I2C bus
I²C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) is a multi-master serial single-ended computer bus that
is used to attach low-speed peripherals to a motherboard.
The Philips I²C Bus Manual
How to update the Arduino
Parallax has an easy-to-use GPS module for DIYers
PIC
Projects and how to construct a GPS data logger using a PIC16F88
and a Delorme Tripmate GPS receiver
So, where can you buy an Arduino?
Wanderings:
The White House Wants to Hear from
You --- Join the Conversation on the Future of Science in
the US.
Bruce Hegerberg’s DIY Sun Gun, a solar
telescope that allowed one to safely observe the sun was the topic of Scientific
American’s Amateur Scientist Column in August 1999 and was also listed in Wanderings #145. You should check his complete
work on his site and perhaps you might
be able to spot a Super Solar Flare like Richard Carrington’s
discovery in 1859.
Dr. David R. Brooks, whose
site I included in Wanderings #169, has
alerted me to a couple of interesting links that are located on his site:
The Vostok Ice Core has yielded
a 400,000 year profile of Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 Concentration.
See the link, about “official” US weather stations that I placed in From the Far Side:
AccuWeather.com Global Warming Center offers links to some of
the latest research and commentary by experts from both sides of the global
warming/climate change debate. For example Evidence Suggests Man-Made Warming Greatly
Exaggerated.
The
University of Wisconsin’s Video Lab Manual , covers
many DIY projects that are aimed at helping us to explore the nanoworld. For
example, see how to make your own Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED).
Take some time wander around the rest of their site as there is a
lot of good stuff there such as --- Exploring the Nanoworld with LEGO® Bricks.
Tho X. Bui briefly describes his Solar Catenary Reflector, in
Issue #21 of Make:
Magazine but his Web Site covers the reflector in much greater detail.
The Icarus Project ---- “Who needs a Space Shuttle? Amazing pictures of
Earth captured by one man, a balloon and his compact camera.” Robert Harrison received much British media attention for the series of pictures that he took from his
balloon launch.
Robert’s work is a bit more advanced than The Balloon Project: San Francisco.
About the Balloon Project
All
these balloons reminded me of Nena’s 99 Luftballons.
A Peltier Cooler is used to make a Cloud Chamber
Build a CD spectrograph in a cardboard box.
This
Instructable will show you how to build a "Baghdad Battery."
You can find all kinds of good stuff on eBay. For
example, these inexpensive Panasonic WM-61A microphone capsules
were used to build a DIY Hydrophone.
DIY Conductive glue, paint and thread might prove useful to
the experimenter. How about making a papier-mâché high-voltage terminal for a Vann de
Graaff generator?
Acrylic sheet stock can be used as a project
building material.
Here is a Passive Infrared (PIR) Motion Sensor Tutorial from Adafruit.
Creating Printed Circuit Boards with a INKJET
Printer.
Many activities related to amateur science “stink” so it might be advisable
to make use of a fume hood. Here is one idea
showing you how to build a small fume hood for stinky projects.
But, before you roll up your sleeves and start construction of your
hood, you should look at the Fume Hood Standards from the
University of Waterloo and take special note about using spark free electrics
(fans / switches / etc) if you ever intend on using substances that give off
flammable vapours.
You could also expand the fume hood into a combination with a glove box. I wanted to give you
a link to a better DIY glove box but unfortunately, the best one that I found
was on a DIY Designer Drug site and for obvious
reasons I did not want to use it.
The TeleToyland site consists of web
connected applications, such as robots. Through these projects you can reach
out of the Internet virtual world and affect the real world.
See
how TeleToyland’s Marble Maze was built.
Download
your free copy of VirtualBreadboard, an easy to use virtual simulation
tool that can be used in place of a real breadboard to quickly model electronic
and microcontroller applications. Now it is equipped with a virtual Arduino!
Raven Lite is a free software program, from
the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, that lets users record, save, and visualize
sounds as spectrograms and waveforms. Raven Lite is intended for students,
educators, and hobbyists, and can be used for learning about sounds, as an aid
in birdsong recognition, and in musical instruction. Download your copy of raven Lite.
Here is another freebee --- Inkscape is an open source vector graphics
editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator or CorelDraw.
Chuck McManis’ site covers the theory of H-Bridges.
Here is a schematic for a “better H bridge” design from Eugene
Blanchard.
Basic Testing of Semiconductor
Devices
With a suitable digital multimeter, you should be able
to do a fairly accurate go/no
go test of MOSFET transistors.
Max’s Little Robot Shop was founded as a
resource for the amateur robotics community. Look here for a page on his DIY 3D
milling machine.
Do you know that your Roomba vacuum cleaner can form an excellent
robot platform? See
how to communicate with your Roomba via a serial link.
Is our
response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Investigate
the question with Bobby McFerrin in Notes & Neurons at the The World Science
Festival.
Digital Signal
Processing (DSP) is a tool that is used to process signals (or data) by digital
means.
This Digital Signal
Processing Tutorial from 101
Science is but one from their extensive selection of tutorials.
For those of you who are running a Linux system here is a
collection of Signal Analysis/Processing Software.
Dr. Dan Russell’s Acoustics and Vibration
Animations page contains animations which demonstrate
various concepts concerning acoustics and vibration. I especially like this visualization of Longitudinal
and Transverse Wave Motion.
Here
is a didgeridoo that was modified to
provide electronic
manipulation.
Build a Hydraulic Ram
Pump that can pump water with no energy input except gravity.
One down side, this pump requires a head of at least
1 meter in order to work.
Use
your PC’s serial out put to control a small variable speed motor.
Do you remember the Rubik’s Cube? How fast could you solve it?
What is the Infamous Double Slit Experiment? Here, you can run the Double Slit Experiment yourself.
Mike Davey built this excellent example of a Turing Machine. The
concept was originally the result of a “thought experiment” by Alan Turing, one of the
fathers of the computer age.
This Java applet is a
Simulation of a Turning Machine.
In
1999, Sarah Flannery, a 16-year-old Irish girl, won the Esat Young Scientist
Exhibition and the EU Young Scientist of the
Year Award for her project entitled "Cryptography - A new algorithm versus the RSA". Her paper described her
discovery of the Cayley–Purser Algorithm. Even though she later reported
that the algorithm was flawed, the whole thing attracted considerable media
attention.
GRID-Arendal is an official United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) collaborating center that supports informed
decision making and awareness-raising
SciVee is a leading provider of Internet
video and rich media solutions for the scientific, technical and medical
markets.
Educypedia is an
information resource about Scientific and Educational material: Electronics,
Science, Engineering, Encyclopedia and Information Technology.
The Integrated Publishing site contains a wealth
of assorted information, such as this section on Radiation
Detection Technology. Some of the items are free while others are available
as user pay subscription service.
Intute is a free online service that
helps you to find the best web resources for your studies and research.
The
following is an excellent collection of descriptions of the myriad of different
screws that are available. There seems to be as many screw types as there are
stars in the sky. Well --- almost.
Personally,
I strongly dislike Phillips, Posidrive, Reed and Prince or any other “cross”
head screws. In fact, I refuse to use them unless forced to under pain of death
– Well not quite J --- My preference is the Robertson AKA Square Recessed
screw.
Alt Codes is a
collection of 256 decimal numbers that give the user access to characters that
are not normally available on the standard PC keyboard.
Anyone who is running a web site or contemplating doing so may
be interested in the following sites:
Some like it hot! In 2007, Guinness World Records certified the Bhut Jolokia as the world's
hottest chili pepper with a Scoville rating of between 855,000 and 1,050,000.
Patent
medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety
of names and labels.
The
Kids Room:
SURFING the NET with KIDS offers a vast
collection of resources for kids. Have a look at their Science Section. They even have a selection
of Science Games such as Assembler.
It’s
alive!
Collin's Lab Notes @ Make Magazine --- DIY
Cymatics..
You could use this free download version of the NCH Tone/Waveform
Generator, with a suitable amplifier and speaker, to drive your “corn
starch monster.”
Experiments
in Psycho-Acoustics --- Does the ear and brain mix signals?
Funology --- The science of
having fun.
The Science Explorer --- An Exploratorium at
Home Book.
How
to make an Awesometastical PVC Flute.
What
is the Game of Life?
The
Little Shop of Physics is a group of science educators and students
who travel their region with a van full of hands-on experiments teaching people
that science is something that anyone can do.
From
The Far Side:
It
is utterly unbelievable that these are the locations of some “official”
US weather observation stations!
James Randi talks about the ADE651 aka Quadro Tracker.
Here
is a REAL ADE651
promotional video.
You, too, can purchase an ADE651.
Eric Krieg, of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking
(PhACT), follows the “work” of Free Energy Gurus Dennis Lee and Joe Newman.
EarthTech International (ETI) is a privately funded
research organization dedicated to the exploration of new frontiers in physics.
John
Hutchison and the Hutchison Effect.
Bill
Beaty demonstrates Antigravity and the
Beaty-tchison Effect.
_____________________________
The
Citizen Scientist (04 June 2010).
|
