Have you ever been on a swing set and suddenly noticed that the person on the swing next to you seems to be swinging almost exactly in time with you? You go up and down at either the same time or exactly opposite each other. This might seem random—but it’s actually physics! Like many things in nature, swing sets have a resonant frequency, which means they have a “favorite” frequency (or speed) of movement. The swing set will naturally want to swing at its favorite speed. You might have experienced this if someone has ever tried to push you too fast on the swing; the preferred speed can actually make you go slower.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
Have you ever been on a swing set and suddenly noticed that the person on the swing next to you seems to be swinging almost exactly in time with you? You go up and down at either the same time or exactly opposite each other. This might seem random—but it’s actually physics! Like many things in nature, swing sets have a resonant frequency, which means they have a “favorite” frequency (or speed) of movement. The swing set will naturally want to swing at its favorite speed. You might have experienced this if someone has ever tried to push you too fast on the swing; the preferred speed can actually make you go slower.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
I’m on a quest to learn more about DIY alternative energy, and while last week I investigated wind turbines, this week I decided to look for a decent water turbine. Although not everyone has a stream near their home, for those that do, a turbine can be an interesting addition for energy. This water generator by Angry Ram certainly fills the bill with its up-cycled Fisher&Paykel washing machine. The maker explains how to strip the machine down to the important parts like the tub and rotor. He offers a generous warning about working with the electricity on these appliances and then dives in, adding a Pelton wheel, access hatch and rectifier. There’s some helpful hints along the way like making a pad to protect the bearings, creating a simple gasket for the acrylic hatch and even adding a coat of paint to protect the plastic from UV rays. In the end the rig is attached to a battery bank and an inverter takes voltage from DC to household current. It’s a well thought out tutorial and Angry Ram has created additional videos that explain the initial rewiring of the rotor, as well as the build for the charge controller, which handles the energy levels in the batteries. This setup is producing 21A at 29V, which seems to work well for the maker’s home.
If you are water deprived in your area, you might want to experiment with solar energy. We’ve got a great tutorial that explains how to turn solar energy into a battery charger for your LiPolys. Although you won’t be able to heat your home with this setup, you will be able to charge batteries for your little projects. It’s a great way to supplement energy and also a fun introduction to the science of the sun for younger family members. Go to the light!
Planetenkugel-Manufaktur shared this video on Vimeo
Earth globes? Those are so 1492. Here is our handcrafted mars globe showing the famous “Mars Canal” map by astronomer Percival Lowell (1905). This lovely film gives a glimpse into my world as a globemaker.
Core77 has elaborated on Dr. Michael Plichta’s Martian globe making here!
Maps and globes have been valuable commodities since we figured out how to make them, but not all maps get the full globe treatment. Spacey places like Mars have been long mapped from afar, but there are nearly zero globe makers offering these historical maps in globe form.
Dr. Michael Plichta is one of the few who does. His Mannheim, German company, Planetenkugel Manufaktur, specializes in traditional handcrafted globes with extra faraway subject matters.
Plichta’s first design, titled “Mars and its Canals,” is based on the observations and map made in 1906 by astronomer, Percival Lowell. Lowell was a vocal believer in intelligent Martian life and thought the patterns he interpreted as canals were proof. Unfortunately for him, closer photos taken just a few decades later debunked not just the presence of Martians, but their canals too.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
The presence of famed Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins (d. 1916) has long been felt at PAFA, but Fernando Orellana’s new installation, His Study of Life, aims to evoke Eakins’ spirit in a very direct way–via machines attached to objects used by the painter that seek to register his ghostly presence, measured in terms of fluctuations in electromagnetic fields, temperature, and infrared light. These are not the first so-called ghost machines that Orellana has made, but this is the first time he has attached his machines to both historic objects and a historic setting. The juxtaposition of old and new produces a resonance between past and present that activates the space of the Morris Gallery, a former studio in PAFA’s historic Furness building, opened in 1876. Orellana and Curator of Contemporary Art Jodi Throckmorton confront some of PAFA’s ghosts, putting together a thought-provoking installation that offers a new perspective on the life, art, and legacy of Thomas Eakins.
Orellana’s installation consists of four machines constructed to interact with a paint box, palette, and paintbrush from Eakins’ studio, and a large armchair from his home. Each of these objects, taken from PAFA’s archives, are attached to machines designed and engineered by Orellana. Together, the paint box, palette, and paintbrush reminded me of the relics of saints–the remains of holy men and women, or the objects, earth, or clothing that came in contact with them during their lives. Too precious for human hands to touch, too powerful to stay buried in the ground (or archive), they can only be accessed through the containers that surround them. The saint’s (or artist’s) power is manifested by his ability to produce miracles through his relics. With His Study of Life, Orellana offers us the possibility of a sort of post-modern miracle, making a tongue-in-cheek yet deeply serious exploration of the religion of art, and of the ghost in the machine.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
The presence of famed Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins (d. 1916) has long been felt at PAFA, but Fernando Orellana’s new installation, His Study of Life, aims to evoke Eakins’ spirit in a very direct way–via machines attached to objects used by the painter that seek to register his ghostly presence, measured in terms of fluctuations in electromagnetic fields, temperature, and infrared light. These are not the first so-called ghost machines that Orellana has made, but this is the first time he has attached his machines to both historic objects and a historic setting. The juxtaposition of old and new produces a resonance between past and present that activates the space of the Morris Gallery, a former studio in PAFA’s historic Furness building, opened in 1876. Orellana and Curator of Contemporary Art Jodi Throckmorton confront some of PAFA’s ghosts, putting together a thought-provoking installation that offers a new perspective on the life, art, and legacy of Thomas Eakins.
Orellana’s installation consists of four machines constructed to interact with a paint box, palette, and paintbrush from Eakins’ studio, and a large armchair from his home. Each of these objects, taken from PAFA’s archives, are attached to machines designed and engineered by Orellana. Together, the paint box, palette, and paintbrush reminded me of the relics of saints–the remains of holy men and women, or the objects, earth, or clothing that came in contact with them during their lives. Too precious for human hands to touch, too powerful to stay buried in the ground (or archive), they can only be accessed through the containers that surround them. The saint’s (or artist’s) power is manifested by his ability to produce miracles through his relics. With His Study of Life, Orellana offers us the possibility of a sort of post-modern miracle, making a tongue-in-cheek yet deeply serious exploration of the religion of art, and of the ghost in the machine.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
Artist Ailish Octigan used her painting talents to create a Halloween look people won’t be forgetting anytime soon. She used a basic face paint palette with six colors to make it look like she had a floating head. She crafted the illusion at just the right angle to make viewers or passersby to a double-take. Octigan explained on Twitter that she “I started with a red oval about halfway up my neck then filled above that to my jawline with black facepaint.” The detached head effect looks solid from above, underneath, and even at 3/4 profile, but Octigan said a side view isn’t ideal to sell the look.
Artist Ailish Octigan used her painting talents to create a Halloween look people won’t be forgetting anytime soon. She used a basic face paint palette with six colors to make it look like she had a floating head. She crafted the illusion at just the right angle to make viewers or passersby to a double-take. Octigan explained on Twitter that she “I started with a red oval about halfway up my neck then filled above that to my jawline with black facepaint.” The detached head effect looks solid from above, underneath, and even at 3/4 profile, but Octigan said a side view isn’t ideal to sell the look.
Hopefully you’ve already got your Halloween costume in order – heck hopefully you’re wearing it right now, at work or school or at whatever maker-party you’re attending! So bookmark this for later: if you’re looking for a craft-friendly Stormtrooper helmet, be sure to check out Dali-Lomo’s template, made from former cereal boxes, hot glue, plastic bottles – you get the idea. There’s a 4-part video timelapse series on their blog as well – and you are free to easily customize the helmet to your own design (I say “easily” because it is, after all, mostly cardboard!).
Hopefully you’ve already got your Halloween costume in order – heck hopefully you’re wearing it right now, at work or school or at whatever maker-party you’re attending! So bookmark this for later: if you’re looking for a craft-friendly Stormtrooper helmet, be sure to check out Dali-Lomo’s template, made from former cereal boxes, hot glue, plastic bottles – you get the idea. There’s a 4-part video timelapse series on their blog as well – and you are free to easily customize the helmet to your own design (I say “easily” because it is, after all, mostly cardboard!).
I like to go a little crazy with costumes for my daughter every year. We have fun making them together. This year’s costume may be a bit impractical for actual trick-or-treating so she’s going to go with her original plan of being wonder woman. Made with a blow up suit, digital LED strips and a programmed arduino.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Halloween is here again. That means your co-workers have planted surprise spiders around the office. You’ve been invited to a haunted hayride. Your neighbor’s yard has a full cemetery, rigged with motion detectors and pop-up zombies. Chicken-livered from the start, I have always dreaded this time of year. Haunted houses, ghost tours and horror film fests are not my thing, and why people love having the daylights scared out of them completely escapes me.
I decided to try to understand my friends who are on the lookout for thrills this time of year. As it turns out, there are many possible reasons some people like to be scared stiff. Each person’s threshold for experiences that provoke fear is made up of a unique recipe that blends nature and nurture. “The ingredients vary from person to person,” said Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University and a former president of the American Psychological Association.
Dr. Farley is interested in what draws certain people to extreme behaviors, like driving racecars, climbing Mount Everest and flying hot air balloons across oceans. In the 1980s, he coined the term “Type T” personality to refer to the behavioral profile of thrill-seekers. What makes someone thrill-seeking, he said, comes down to a mix of genes, environment and early development.
DIY LED aquarium lighting project for my reef tank. The 660 watts fixture simulates the weather from Cayman Islands in real time. 3 x 100 watts and 18 x 20 watts multi-chip leds controlled separately by an arduino sitting on the lamp). Weather simulation is done by requesting weather info from weather underground by a Raspberry Pi and send the data wirelessly to the lamp. Fixture supports 5 different cloudiness levels. Exact sunrise/sunset and moonphase. Wind speed and direction (defines in wich direction and speed the cloud animation scrolls over the leds). Moon travels over the lamp over night. Soft start function. Remote controllable via Web application running on Raspberry Pi. Accessable over internet.
The music is also DIY
first i want to introduce myself a little bit. My name is Michael and i’m in the hobby for about 16 years now. My tank is a decent 520g mixed reef tank. I’m a sps lover, but dont ask me about colors of my corals I rather have a growing brownie than i dying pinkish purple yellow one.
I have to thank all contributors here on RC, fantastic! I’m silently reading here for years and learned a lot, thank you!
For now I want to introduce my new baby. A big LED fixture build on my own, completely. A big problem with commercial fixtures is often, that you have no chance to see them in action. You dont know if a fixture has enough power for your tank. And then there are all the LED ‘haters’ out there… But i wanted to switch from a MH, T5, Led combo (800 watts) to pure LED, nevertheless. Because i like to start demanding projects and i had absolutly no idea about electronics this was a nice project. So here are the facts and finally a video:
660 watts total (for the moment, upgrades are on the way…)
3 x 100 watts multichip led 12 K
18 x 20 watts multichip led 8 450 nm leds, 10 x 12K cool whites
real time weather simulation updated every 2 minutes, weather data taken from a weather station on Cayman Islands, or any other station i want.
5 different degrees of cloudiness
exact sunrise/sunset time
moonphase and moon travels over the lamp over night
softstart after sudden power off
remote controlling and monitoring via web application from everywhere on the planet where i have access to the internet.
What i like with this build is the possibilities you have with leds. Once I turned the fixture on, I never ever wanted to go back to the old 1980’s style metal halides!
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
DIY LED aquarium lighting project for my reef tank. The 660 watts fixture simulates the weather from Cayman Islands in real time. 3 x 100 watts and 18 x 20 watts multi-chip leds controlled separately by an arduino sitting on the lamp). Weather simulation is done by requesting weather info from weather underground by a Raspberry Pi and send the data wirelessly to the lamp. Fixture supports 5 different cloudiness levels. Exact sunrise/sunset and moonphase. Wind speed and direction (defines in wich direction and speed the cloud animation scrolls over the leds). Moon travels over the lamp over night. Soft start function. Remote controllable via Web application running on Raspberry Pi. Accessable over internet.
The music is also DIY
first i want to introduce myself a little bit. My name is Michael and i’m in the hobby for about 16 years now. My tank is a decent 520g mixed reef tank. I’m a sps lover, but dont ask me about colors of my corals I rather have a growing brownie than i dying pinkish purple yellow one.
I have to thank all contributors here on RC, fantastic! I’m silently reading here for years and learned a lot, thank you!
For now I want to introduce my new baby. A big LED fixture build on my own, completely. A big problem with commercial fixtures is often, that you have no chance to see them in action. You dont know if a fixture has enough power for your tank. And then there are all the LED ‘haters’ out there… But i wanted to switch from a MH, T5, Led combo (800 watts) to pure LED, nevertheless. Because i like to start demanding projects and i had absolutly no idea about electronics this was a nice project. So here are the facts and finally a video:
660 watts total (for the moment, upgrades are on the way…)
3 x 100 watts multichip led 12 K
18 x 20 watts multichip led 8 450 nm leds, 10 x 12K cool whites
real time weather simulation updated every 2 minutes, weather data taken from a weather station on Cayman Islands, or any other station i want.
5 different degrees of cloudiness
exact sunrise/sunset time
moonphase and moon travels over the lamp over night
softstart after sudden power off
remote controlling and monitoring via web application from everywhere on the planet where i have access to the internet.
What i like with this build is the possibilities you have with leds. Once I turned the fixture on, I never ever wanted to go back to the old 1980’s style metal halides!
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
I like to go a little crazy with costumes for my daughter every year. We have fun making them together. This year’s costume may be a bit impractical for actual trick-or-treating so she’s going to go with her original plan of being wonder woman. Made with a blow up suit, digital LED strips and a programmed arduino.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Hari Wiguna doesn’t think regular Sudoku is enough. So be build Mega Sudoku – via Arduino Blog
Most people, buy a book and play Sudoku with a pencil or perhaps just get an app. Those that are really dedicated buy a standalone game, but this wasn’t good enough for Wiguna, who made his own electronic board not out of a normal LCD screen, but from 27 three-character LED modules to display the game on a glowing grid. Input is done via a keypad, which uses the grid layout to allow for two-button selection of any square.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
I use my garage as a workshop and on more than a few occasions I’ve left the garage doors open and forgotten about them. This project is the solution for that issue.
Using an HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor mounted on the ceiling above the garage door allows the sensor to detect if the garage door is open. When the door is open, it’s quite close to the ceiling. When it’s closed, there’s nothing close to the ceiling. With some tuning, the sensed distance can tell you if the garage door is open. Since my garage has two doors, I use two sensors to detect them.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Thanks to Alexia for writing in to share this project! Check out more here and follow Deltu on instagram, Facebook, and twitter.
Deltu is a delta robot with a strong personality that interact with humans through two iPads.
Depending on its mood, it plays with you but if you make too much mistakes, Deltu just might get upset and decide to ignore you. Frustrated, Deltu will leave the game and take some selfies to post them on Instagram.
Deltu post himself all its selfies on instagram, twitter and Facebook simultaneously.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Thanks to Alexia for writing in to share this project! Check out more here and follow Deltu on instagram, Facebook, and twitter.
Deltu is a delta robot with a strong personality that interact with humans through two iPads.
Depending on its mood, it plays with you but if you make too much mistakes, Deltu just might get upset and decide to ignore you. Frustrated, Deltu will leave the game and take some selfies to post them on Instagram.
Deltu post himself all its selfies on instagram, twitter and Facebook simultaneously.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Thanks to Alexia for writing in to share this project! Check out more here and follow Deltu on instagram, Facebook, and twitter.
Deltu is a delta robot with a strong personality that interact with humans through two iPads.
Depending on its mood, it plays with you but if you make too much mistakes, Deltu just might get upset and decide to ignore you. Frustrated, Deltu will leave the game and take some selfies to post them on Instagram.
Deltu post himself all its selfies on instagram, twitter and Facebook simultaneously.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Makerbot co-founder and CEO Bre Pettis launches an heirloom-quality gift company.
Bre & Co. is launching today at www.bre.co and I’m very happy to have it live. Bre & Co. is making heirloom-quality gifts to give to your loved ones or to mark an achievement.
It’s Halloween so chances are good that your co-workers are dressed up today. Redditor caronarnold’s office observed the holiday on Friday, and caronarnold claimed the title of costume contest winner with an Amazon Prime costume. The ensemble mashes Optimus Prime with Amazon boxes — get it? Though it’s only made from cardboard, the look required thoughtful construction and probably wasn’t slapped together in a couple of hours. It actually took about 10 hours and lots of hot glue. On top of that, it’s an insanely creative idea.
It’s Halloween so chances are good that your co-workers are dressed up today. Redditor caronarnold’s office observed the holiday on Friday, and caronarnold claimed the title of costume contest winner with an Amazon Prime costume. The ensemble mashes Optimus Prime with Amazon boxes — get it? Though it’s only made from cardboard, the look required thoughtful construction and probably wasn’t slapped together in a couple of hours. It actually took about 10 hours and lots of hot glue. On top of that, it’s an insanely creative idea.
This one in via @boe_dye. A bit buchla-esque. See if you can identify the classic dial-up modem transitions.
“You know how when you slow a Justin Bieber song down by 800%, you get a neat ambient track? Well if you do this kind of thing with the most horrible sound in the world OH MY GOD I CAN NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.”
“This was made with a program named PaulStretch, which can make this sort of thing from any sound files. I edited the final product a bit to remove long silences and some white noise length, and to try to even the volume out a bit. I didn’t add any echo or whatnot, that’s just what happens when you want to slow down a sound file without affecting the pitch or sounding like shit, so blame the program, not me.”
Neat video from Reactions. How many pieces of fun size candy could kill you based on the formula below? For me it’s 188!
Before you stuff your face with candy until you max out this Halloween, we want you to ask yourself how much is too much. Well folks, in keeping with the dark, spooky atmosphere of late October, we’re taking a look at how many pieces of fun sized candy can kill you – if all eaten in one sitting. Oh and for you candy corn lovers out there, we’re crunches those numbers too.
For those of you out there who want to figure out the oral LD50 for yourself fill in the variable “W” with your own weight in pounds:
“The voices, music, city sounds and other random noise are shaped into complex algorithmic compositions, which can be played after it has collected enough of them,” says Morozov. “It is a kind of reality re-mixer—by simply removing the silence and pauses between loud sounds and words, it creates the sense of very rhythmical and organised aural experience, which sounds very musical to me.”
“The voices, music, city sounds and other random noise are shaped into complex algorithmic compositions, which can be played after it has collected enough of them,” says Morozov. “It is a kind of reality re-mixer—by simply removing the silence and pauses between loud sounds and words, it creates the sense of very rhythmical and organised aural experience, which sounds very musical to me.”
Soundwave are a pair of gloves that work your computer as a midi controller. It allows the user to create music and sounds with their hands. Soundwave and its technology takes inspiration from a film called, The Dancer, which was made back in 2000. It is about an inventor who both likes and is inspired by a female dancer who is mute. So he then creates a system that allows the woman to create music and sound by dancing with multiple movement capture devices on her body.
Inside each glove, Soundwave uses an Arduino Lilypad an xBee module, an accelerometer and a bend sensor each finger. The user can bang, hit, tap, wave or bend their fingers to create music. The data captured from the sensors are then sent to your computer wirelessly via Bluetooth where the information is turned into musical notes and sound samples.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Soundwave are a pair of gloves that work your computer as a midi controller. It allows the user to create music and sounds with their hands. Soundwave and its technology takes inspiration from a film called, The Dancer, which was made back in 2000. It is about an inventor who both likes and is inspired by a female dancer who is mute. So he then creates a system that allows the woman to create music and sound by dancing with multiple movement capture devices on her body.
Inside each glove, Soundwave uses an Arduino Lilypad an xBee module, an accelerometer and a bend sensor each finger. The user can bang, hit, tap, wave or bend their fingers to create music. The data captured from the sensors are then sent to your computer wirelessly via Bluetooth where the information is turned into musical notes and sound samples.
Each Monday is ArduinoMonday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Arduino related products. Adafruit manufactures the Arduino right here in the United States in cooperation with arduino.cc. We have a huge selection of Arduino accessories and all the code and tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Each Monday is 
