Digital Fanatics

For just a few Euros, a basic plotting robot can be constructed. Based on two servos, an Arduino and a pen, it is hard to build a more simple construction than this. From the video, you can see that cheap servos combined with far from ideal mechanics introduced quite a bit of errors into the system. The result can be referred to as artistic – or noicy. Still, the idea of a polar-coordinate-based plotting robot is not new.

Tap to the beat of your favorite song on the switch, and the Arduino will learn and follow. As soon as the beats-per-minute has been calculated, a LED-array will start to animate to the beat. All this is implemented in this Arduino project.

Teaching you about measuring time, the project is interesting from more than an entertainment perspective. Adding bigger lights, more colours and loud music can expand the system’s entertainment potential. Which way you choose to go is up to you.

Racing slot cars can be fun, but knowing who’s fastest when requires precision measurement equipment. Enter, an Arduino-based lap timer. The timer detects the cars using an infrared beam and records the lap time. For each track, the best lap of a race and the time for the last lap are shown.

As the timer is aware of the concept of a race, it also provides race start lights. Something that really adds to the atmosphere. The link above not only provides schematics and software – the end result is a impressive model landscape.

Using a small Arduino and a couple of sensors, a segway-like, self-balancing robot can be constructed. The most interesting part of the project is not the construction, but the utilities developed in the project. Using the Arduino2Lego library, Lego NXT components such as motors and sensors, can be used in combination with the Arduino platform.

Getting started with the Arduino toolchain is not hard. This week, we will look at the development environment, some tips and tricks for Ubuntu users and, as the grand finale, we will look at working with the Arduino using only plain C.

If you don’t feel like working with C, do not panic. We will start by exploring the IDE and examples provided from the Arduino project.

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The Sanguino board is a Arduino-derivate offering a more powerful CPU, more pins and more FLASH. All this, while being compatible with existing Arduino software. It is not physically compatible, so shields will not fit.

The core of the Sanguino board is the ATmega644p chip, a bigger brother to the ATmega328 of the Arduino UNO board. The Sanguino board provides, 32 GPIO-pins, 8 analog pins and 6 PWM pins. On the memory side, 64kB of FLASH and 2kB EEPROM provides non-volatile storage, while 4kB of RAM provides space for your stack and variables.

The Sanguino can be bought or built. For the builders, instructions are provided for a soldered custom PCB, a strip-board style construction and even a breadboard version. For the tinkerers out there, a break out sheild is also available. This way, you get easy access to IOs via terminal blocks for attaching your wires.