Posted May 24, 2011 by Chris

Even though it may not rival a wristwatch for james bond, the Biojoy wristwatch offers many cool features like measuring blood pressure or heart rate. The fairly complicated design is documented in a project pdf available for download in the article. A fun concept to look at and even funner to have something like this in DIY form.

Posted May 18, 2011 by Chris

MPLAB can run with Wine in linux, however I found another IDE for PIC dev work for linux called Piklab. It is dated with an update timestamp of 2007, but the raw source code is available for viewing along with the program. If you’re curious what it takes to program a MCU IDE take a look a this project and source code.

Posted April 24, 2011 by Chris

This robotic project is an attempt to build an open source project with everyday products. The main sensor feedback comes from an Xbox Kinect, with a laptop for processing with the entire assembly ontop of a roomba-like device, making the system mobile. The project website is very transparent about how everything is being done, so no need to hunt for the details.

Posted March 28, 2011 by Chris

Hot on the heals of the previous i2c tutorial, here is a great summary of what you need to know about communicating between two Arduinos using i2c. The article describes things from the hardware perspective, since the software is mostly just API functions.

Posted March 27, 2011 by Chris

This semi-new development set was a war-waging act by Texas Instruments to force their way into the hobbyist market. Put out in mid 2010, the MSP430 launchpad has all the features of all the other PIC or AVR’s in the world, but at the price of less than $10 a unit, it a bargain for any DIYer.

Posted March 23, 2011 by Chris

If ever there was a project that reinforced how cool LEDs are, this one takes the cake. A huge matrix of surface mount LEDs are controlled by an ATMEGA168 to do some cool stuff. Hardware schematics and source code provided in the write-up.

Posted March 18, 2011 by Chris

Today’s project shows you how to make a simple and low cost heartbeat sensor with the added bonus that it’s hooked up to the internet through an ethernet shield. The project write-up has all the details for building your own, plus explanations of the software.

Posted March 9, 2011 by Chris

This project builds a pretty decent volt/ampmeter using an ATmega8 microcontroller. He designs his own PC board for the project and explains out all of the details in the project write-up. Hardware schematics and lots of pictures guide you through building this project.

Posted March 8, 2011 by Chris

If you’re an AVR fan, here’s a great tutorial on getting external interrupts working. It explains everything from the schematic hardware level through the software level of interrupt addresses. Using interrupts is a necessity for embedded systems, so better to learn about them now, rather then later.

Posted March 7, 2011 by Chris

Another great arduino project builds an electric Ethch a Sketch. The mechanics are drop dead simple along with the electronics so this is a great project for anyone just starting with the arduino. The project write-up has all the details you’d need to build your own, schematics and software included.