Arduino

Meet your new table tennis coach, a tinyML-powered paddle!

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Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Samuel Alexander and his housemates purchased a ping pong set and began to play — a lot. Becoming quite good at the game, Alexander realized that his style was not consistent with how more professional table tennis players hit the ball, as he simply taught himself without a coach. Because of this, he was inspired to create a smart paddle that uses an integrated IMU to intelligently classify which moves he makes and correct his form to improve it over time. 

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Component Shortages Continue to Bite, Leading to Delays and Redesigns at Adafruit, Arduino, SparkFun

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Company representatives offer a look at the ongoing component shortages and their impact on the maker market.

Stephen Cass, editor of the Hands On DIY section of IEEE Spectrum, has warned of delays in the maker market caused by the ongoing industry-wide component shortages.

“Over the last few months it seemed that manufacturers catering to makers were offering fewer and fewer new products in addition to posting a lot of ‘out of stock’ notices on existing ones, with a knock-on effect on the maker scene as a whole,” Cass explains. “As the editor responsible for IEEE Spectrum’s Hands On DIY section, it’s taken longer and longer each month to find projects incorporating interesting new capabilities.”

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This Open Source Robotic Leg Performs Jumps and Walks All on Its Own

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Although it might look a bit weird on its own, the Overleap robotic leg is capable of some incredible things.

Aaron de los Santos has created an extremely weird backyard decoration: a single robotic leg that hops around in a circle. But do not let this simple premise fool you, as the device called Overleap has some serious engineering put into it. The leg is able to make quick jumps in rapid succession while remaining very accurate. It can also make small adjustments whilst it hops that causes it to almost run in a circular pattern.

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An open source desk to showcase your projects, complete with swappable panels

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Almost every maker has run into the problem of not being able to find a convenient display or power source for their project prototype, and thus leading to minor delays and some frustration. However, YouTuber Another Maker has come up with an open source desk concept that makes finding these things simple. The system he built uses a large grid of swappable panels that can simply slide into place within a wooden frame. Behind these are a few devices for both power and connectivity, such as power strips, an Ethernet switch (with PoE capabilities), and an HDMI switch for changing between a Raspberry Pi and a PC.

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Hacking an old Nintendo Zapper into a wireless remote

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Those of us who have experienced the Nintendo Zapper while playing games such as Duck Hunt will probably have fond memories of it. However, with the rapid disappearance of CRT TVs and the aging of the physical mechanisms, YouTuber DuctTape Mechanic wanted to give an old Zapper a new lease on life. His modification integrated a small RF transmitting module into the top of the device, allowing it to be switched on by the trigger’s microswitch. With everything in place inside the Zapper, he moved onto the receiver.

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This Freeform Sculpture Lets You Know When the Coffee’s Too Hot

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While I rarely drink hot coffee, there seems to be a sweet spot between scalding and lukewarm, where it doesn’t burn but emits a sufficient amount of heat when imbibed. You could take a guess at this temperature by the steam coming off of the surface of the liquid, and how long it’s been sitting. For a more direct way to sense this vital stat, YouTuber Make Fun Stuff has come up with a non-contact beverage temperature monitor.

The device holds an IR sensor on top of the cup, using a crane-like linkage structure that’s soldered out of 2mm brass rods. In addition to providing mechanical support, these rods transfer electrical signals to the sensor, as what turned out to be a beautiful angular circuit sculpture. Bent wire was also tried here in multiple configurations, but this acted more like a spring than the rigid platform that was needed.

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PactoTech’s Impressive Arcade Cabinet Has No Fewer Than Six Arduino Boards Inside

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Designed for emulating a range of arcade and console games — and playing PC games natively — this hefty build impresses.

Pseudonymous maker “PactoTech” has shown off an impressive four-player arcade cabinet build that uses not one but a total of six Arduino boards for handling various features.

Designed for emulating a range of classic arcade and console games, PactoTech’s build Super Smash Bros. Ultimate-themed arcade cabinet features four player control via arcade sticks and illuminated colour-coded buttons, a single trackball, and more traditional gamepad controllers — plus a wireless keyboard and mouse, handily accessible on a storage shelf above the main controls and below the screen.

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Control Your Displays with the Arduino_GFX Library

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The Arduino_GFX library is a versatile option that works with a wide range of displays and Arduino-compatible boards.

Adding a display to your microcontroller project is a great way to show logged data, a device’s status, and much more. There are a lot of affordable displays on the market that connect to development boards, including those made by Arduino. Those displays most often connect through an SPI, I2C, or parallel data connection. But microcontrollers don’t have plug-and-play display drivers like a computer; you have to program the microcontroller with exactly what bits and bytes to send to the display to draw the desired pixels. That isn’t a trivial undertaking, but libraries can help. The Arduino_GFX library is a versatile option that works with a wide range of displays and Arduino-compatible boards.

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