Shake ups in 1.0

The 1.0 environment updates include a new file extension, toolbar icons, and color scheme, as well as a progress bar on compilation and upload. In the creation of the remote-controlled shredder (I know what a practical device for would-be embezzlers or amateur sleuths) my co-creators and I had to try several code sketches before finding one that worked. Each time we uploaded a sketch to the board, we had to wait patiently for the minuscule confirmation message to appear at the bottom page.  The status bar in version 1.0 will be a welcome change for developers with little to no experience working with this or similar devices. The bulk of the 1.0 changes, deservingly, seem to be address the Arduino language. Language changes consist of modifications to the Serial class, the addition of DHCP and DNS support to the Ethernet library, a new SoftwareSerial library, multi-file support in the SD library, modifications to the Wire library and UDP class, and more. Now I don’t know what ANY of these changes meant, and neither might you, so let me break it down for you.

Some  Arduino software changes step-by-step

File extension for sketches has changed from .pde to .ino, to avoid conflicts with the Processing software

• Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions (processing.org)

• The Arduino IDE is derived from the Processing programming language. This change in the file extension creates a division between the two programming languages. Developers using both languages will no longer have conflicts between the two.

The Serial class now contains functions for parsing incoming data. They include find() and findUntil() to search for data, parseInt() and parseFloat() for converting incoming characters into numeric values, and readBytes() and readBytesUntil() for reading multiple bytes into a buffer.

• Parsing (or breaking up) data into pieces will be more clear through the addition of these functions.

The String class has been reimplemented. This new version is more memory efficient and robust.

• Functions like trim() and toUpperCase() which previously returned new string instances have been changed to instead modify strings in place
• Strings (lines of text eg. “hello world”) will be more effectual with this update

There have been many additional changes to the Arduino software. Read up on them in these official blog post:

• http://arduino.cc/blog/2011/10/04/arduino-1-0/
• http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ReleaseNotes

Time to bring it back

There is a lot of great information out there on how to develop using the Arduino platform. Perhaps the best experience I had while working with the Arduino is the sense of support and comradely from the  extensive community of developers who gather around this technology. As a result of this network the Arduino is a more friendly device for novices. Hopefully these changes will provide increased awareness of this niftly little italian, awesome projects, and cool new gadgets.

Cool Arduino Projects

Hover robot controller by Arduino

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–mcCDSaXmw

Micro wave that plays youtube videos for the duration of your cooktime, texts you when your food is done, and has its own twitter account that tweets about your using it.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDyDCBK828

Cat bed that signals a noise when the cat enters and continues to display glowing LED lights as the cat is sleeping in the bed.

• http://vimeo.com/32851478

David Neumann, a prof at Sheridan, introduced us to the Arduino micro-porcessor in one of his experiments called the “Arty Party”. He could change the music being played at his party just by having people tag into or out of the room. Interesting thought… it made us curious.

Shortly after that we had a half dozen of these things floating around the class, working on little side projects and playing with them. It was fun.

When the opportunity to explore remote control surfaced in another class with Dan Zen, our group started banding together around this device to see what could be done with it. We quickly discovered that we could buy a bluetooth shield (Arduino’s fancy way of saying add-on). We also knew that all mobile smart devices had bluetooth technology in them… a match made in the future? the devide to control all other devices?? Could it be???

We started hacking away at it! Research this, look for that… we looked for different ways to access bluetooth from laptops, iPhones and Android devices. Z-Term (for the mac, other similar programs exist for those on a PC) was recommended to us in some of our research, so we tried it. It didn’t work… or so we thought. After hours of frustration, testing, more frustration and mass confusion, we went to talk to another prof, Felix. He took the time to explain network protocols which I must admit I only understand the basics of. He looked at our attempts and with a little guidance got us up and running! The man is brilliant!

If you are trying this route and don’t have a “Felix” to talk to, hold the “shift key” down when you are starting Z-Term, you’ll get a screen that allows you to access different ports on your computer or paired device. Pick the Arduino on and start playing… once we understood that, the magic really started to work for us!

Our sketches for the most part were ones that we found on the net. Some are listed in other posts here so I won’t republish them. I will say that Arduino runs on Processing, a Java based language. Look at the sketches, take your time and then start to play.

Arduino is a rapid build quick prototype system with almost instant gratification. I love it!

Mobile remote Control…
One tech to find them, one tech to bind them and in the end one tech to rule them!!!

Joel

Arduino opens a whole range of possibilities for artists, designers and programmers. Class members of Interactive Multimedia (IMM) at Sheridan Institute of Technology were first introduced to the technology through David Neumann, the Web Design and Application Development professor.

Students were right away amazed by some of the really cool displays, applications, and devices produced through this technology. The Mobile Remote Control group within the Interactive Multimedia Program decided to experiment with the technology and were able to connect the device with a android based mobile device. This allowed them to control various devices connected with the Arduino board including lights and paper shredders through a mobile device.

The group later formed a student club and introduced to the technology to the rest of Sheridan college by bringing in members of other groups and programs. By creating an interest for this technology for the other programs at Sheridan, the IMM class members will be able to collaborate on future projects through a blend of talents.

This is just the beginning for The Mobile Remote Control group at IMM. As the program progresses to next semester, students will continue to experiment with the technology and innovate by going beyond the limits of their imaginations!

In our group, Joel headed up the technical configuration for Arduino. It was by no means easy to get started with Arduino, as it uses its own IDE and language. One needs to have a basic understanding of circuit wiring, which is were Roger and Travis were essential in the project. One also needs to know Programming Basics. If one has these on their back, then you will find these resources very helpful:

Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi (O’Reilly Press)

Arduino Cookbook by Michael Margolis (O’Reilly Press)

I especially like Massimo Banzi’s introduction to Arduino, as it gives you a light and interesting read on Arduino. The Arduino Cookbook could be a bit dense at times. These books do start from the beginning though, lighting an LED! 

It is not that challenging to light an LED as long as you get the wiring right! I suggest that this be your first Arduino exercise, as it will build confidence and excitement in you. Out group decided to use a Bluetooth interface to communicate with the Arduino Board. This was a great challenge for us, as we had multiple obstacles in making the Bluetooth on an iOS Device be seen by the Arduino Board. We tested the connection out on an Android Mobile Device and it worked! 

I am definitely interested in doing more idea implementation using Arduino. Even though the learning curve might be a bit steep at times, I feel that it is such a rewarding experience in the end that it is just hard to ignore. Give it a shot! You will feel like the ultimate McGiver. 

Stay fresh, 

Ricardo

Caitlin and myself made posters and spoke in front of other classes on the Sheridan College campus in Oakville to draw attention. We were even able to get up to 22 members on facebook! I put out a live broadcast to my networks and people were genuinely interested in the fun twist of “controlling robots” we branded our club with.

To be fair, Roger, Saad, Travis and above all else Joel Brown did the majority of the coding and testing and messing around. I want to be clear — those guys are power horses who won’t stop until every circuit has been explored.

So anyway – how did we do it? What did we decide to use in terms of tech?

• Arduino circuit boards – These things are open source and gaining a ton of support in the development community. Essentially it’s a circuit board you can upload code/instructions to and it will do it for you via “ports”. See the image of it below.
• Bluetooth – most people know this technology from the loud-talking douchebag lawyers on Bay Street wearing it down the sidewalk for some reason (I mean come on, bro, really?). This tech communicated from our phone to the device (it activated our arduino code).
• Android-powered phones – Nerds rejoice because we couldn’t get it to run at all on our iPhones. As a designer that was a bummer, but oh well. Apple is a bit of a  bastard, what more can you say?

Check out our connection and set up:

As my best friend Roger would say: “Arduino Bluetooth Magic, baby!”

Wowzers! I know what you’re thinking: for wireless Bluetooth that sure is a lot of wires! It’s very important to set this stuff up correctly – but it just takes some trial and error for people who aren’t familiar with technology (kind of a trend — just have fun and play around with new tech — if you read my multi-user post below!).

We used a “sketch” (a snippet of code) from www.amarino-toolkit.net — see below:

#include<MeetAndroid.h>
MeetAndroid meetAndroid;
int onboardLED = 13;

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
meetAndroid.registerFunction(testEvent, ‘A’);
pinMode(onboardLED, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(onboardLED, LOW);
}

void loop()
{
meetArduino.receive();
}

void testEvent( byte flag, byte numOfValues)
{
flushLED(1000);
flushLED(1000);
flushLED(1000);
flushLED(1000);
}

void flushLED( int time )
{
digitalWrite(onboardLED, High);
delay(time);
digitalWrite(onboardLED, LOW);
delay(time);
}

So there’s that. It essentially tells the board to send power to a certain port (we plug the led light in to that port) when it receives a message from the bluetooth attached to it.

Pretty simple for connecting something remotely. Arduino runs on a language called Processing which is eerily similar to Javascript. So coming from a web coding background it’s really easy to manipulate the data and code.

During our gathering our goal was to get the light on the board to turn off and on as we texted/pinged it a message through a wireless bluetooth connection. It took about 20 – 30 minutes of troubleshooting and setup but we got it to work!

If you require proof (what are you a detective or something?):

So why is turning a light on important? Well for one it means the Arduino is listening to our code. And considering how many attachments Arduino’s can attach the possibilities of that are endless. When you’re coding the rule of thumb is to dream big but start small. Don’t bite off more than you can chew — you get frustrated and turned off if you do that. This isn’t even our first step — it’s our first crawl in to the realm of remote computing.

Our inaugural meeting, Nov 24th, 2011:

Some guy came and wanted to take footage of us working with our gadgets and gizmos so we acquiesced. The more the merrier! Also it’s a good opportunity to potentially get more members to join our group.

Dreaming Big
So what can be done with this technology once we master it? A few ideas we came up with:

• Remote controlled juke box for bars and pubs – with digital money exchange. You could queue songs up you wanted without having to even get up from your table. Just download an app and you’re done!
• Home stuff – turning on and off lights, and things of that nature already exist. But it would be wholly inexpensive to utilize these boards and this technology/code to do it yourself giving you full control.
• Mixing yourself a margarita by turning on your blender as you pull up to home after a hard day at work!
• Add a humidity sensor to your flowers and have the Arduino automatically water them for you when it’s too low!
• Stopping bloodthirsty robots from uprising and killing all life on earth (except turtles of course, not even robots could hate those little scamps).

If you’re interested in this stuff please join us on facebook and keep up. Hopefully it catches on because it’s inevitable robots will try something funny. I don’t trust them.

And as a survival tip always remember — when the robot invasion happens be on the second floor.

- Andrew Corway