标签: kickstarter

I'm really, really keen on laying my hands on a drone. Ideally, I'd like one of the "Big Boys" -- a hexacopter about 2-3 feet across carrying a meaty digital video camera and capable of flying for about 30 minutes with a couple of miles range control-wise, streaming video capability... the list goes on.   In reality, of course, I'd settle for something a lot smaller and cheaper (LOL). One thing I've discovered to my cost is that many of these little rascals may not be as easy to control as one might wish. A couple of months ago, I was visiting a local hobby shop looking for servo parts for my Animatronic Robot Eyes . As I approached the checkout, I saw one of the guys behind the counter playing with a teensy-weensy quadcopter just a couple of inches in diameter. He appeared to be totally engrossed in what he was doing, but I now realize I'd been marked as a target.   He made it look so easy. Using a small handheld controller, he had this little beauty zipping back and forth around the store. Eventually, he flew it back and landed it in the palm of his hand, and then he looked up and said, "Are you ready to check out?" There was a pile of boxes on the counter in front of me, each containing one of these drones. They were only $29.95 each. I am a man of little willpower when the "Oooh, shiny" factor rears its seductive head. The long and short of it is that I splashed the cash for one.   When I returned home, I immediately charged the battery. Then I took my little drone outside and started to play with it. At first, it seemed easy. I managed to make it rise a couple of feet and hover in place for a few seconds. But then it started to drift, and I overcorrected. Then it started to drop, and I overcorrected again. To cut a long story short, I got flustered. The quadcopter shot up into the sky and then vanished over the roof of my house. I ran around the house shouting my mantra of "Don't panic! Don't panic!" I was wrong; it was indeed time to panic. I never saw my little quadcopter again. It may still be soaring above our heads as far as I know.   But now it's time to dry the tears and turn my frown upside down, because the Torquing Group has created a mega-cool quadcopter called Zano. As you can see in this video , having a Zano at your fingertips takes selfies to new heights.     The great thing about the Zano, from my point of view, is that it is designed to be really easy to control. In addition to magnetometers, accelerometers, gyroscopes, the device boasts IR obstacle avoidance, echo-sounding sonar, and a high-resolution air pressure sensor for altitude control. Coupled with the software (which is iOS and Android compatible), this produces a nano-drone that you can control with a gesture.   Furthermore, there is a LED display panel on the front, LED landing lights, and a five-megapixel HD video camera coupled with digital image/video stabilization for clear and precise images and video capture. Also of interest is the fact the Zano boasts xPico WiFi technology from Lantronix embedded inside. (See Lantronix xPico WiFi Shield for Arduino .)   The promise of the Zano is that even a drongo like yours truly should be able to capture stunning aerial photographs and videos with no complex flight training required. This looks sooo tasty. I've just been rooting around the Zano Kickstarter Project page, where we discover that this project has already met its fundraising goal more than three times over (and there are still 16 days to go).   "Daddy wants him a Zano," is all I can say.

Do you have already have an idea about the ScratchDuino ? This little scamp is a simple, interactive, highly customisable open-source robot construction kit based on the Arduino.   The basic kit includes two light sensors, two contact sensors, two reflective object sensors, and an infrared eye. Everything is designed in a rugged, kid-resilient way; for example, each sensor is protected by an individual plastic shield.     One thing that makes this really easy and intuitive to use for younger experimenters is that the sensor packages attach to the robot base magnetically (up to five sensors can be attached to the platform simultaneously), thereby facilitating fast and easy reconfiguration and customization of the robot.   Another thing I really like for younger users and/or those who aren't experienced at creating programs is the use of the visual programming language MIT Scratch.     The Scratch user interface provides a visual representation of the program. Each command appears in an individual colored block (the blue blocks above), which is highlighted as that command is being executed. Meanwhile, control statements like "if-else" (the yellow shapes above) graphically surround their associated command blocks.   The reason I'm telling you all this is that I just heard the folks behind this little beauty have launched a ScratchDuino Kickstarter project . I must admit that I'm hard pressed to decide which I like best -- the glittering plastic version (ooh, shiny) or the more Steampunk look and feel of the laser-cut plywood implementation. I really want to get myself one of those laser cutters.   I'm really starting to get interested in hobby robotics and animatronics. I would have loved to have had access to something like the ScratchDuino when I was a kid. Heck, I would love to have one now (LOL). How about you?

Several days ago, I got a rather cheery email from Joshua R. Perk starting, "Hey Max, I love the work you do, so I thought I might write."   He certainly started off on the right foot (LOL). Joshua went on to say: "We've created the first desktop circuit board printer that makes it easy for any maker to etch circuits at home. We're Kickstarting, and would love to hear your feedback." Of course, I immediately bounced over to Joshua's Kickstarter page to feast my orbs on his BreadBox desktop circuit board printer .   Unusually for me, I can keep this short and sweet. My immediate feedback for Joshua is "I want one!" As he points out in this video , the maker community is booming. Microcontroller development boards like the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are really affordable, thereby allowing us to do all sorts of interesting things. However, when it comes to implementing homegrown circuits, most of us are limited to using solderless breadboards.   Ideally, once we have a prototype working, like the breadboard on the lefthand side of the image below, we'd like to transfer it to a professional-looking printed circuit board (PCB), like the one on the righthand side of the image.   Joshua R. Perk shows a PCB created using the BreadBox desktop printer.   A variety of low-volume PCB services are available to us, but they aren't cheap if you are doing a lot of this sort of thing. Also, it can take several weeks before you get your board(s) back in your hand. The thought of a desktop PCB printer is certainly appealing.   Initially, I had dreams that you would be able to upload a standard design file to the BreadBox via a USB connection, press the "Go" button, and sit back while it printed your design, etched the copper, and drilled the holes for you. I'm sorry to relate that life is not quite so sweet. As you'll see in the Kickstarter video, it's up to you to draw or transfer your design to the bare board. Then you use the BreadBox for the etching, after which you'll still have to drill the holes through the board.   Even so, this is nothing to be sneezed at. Etching your own boards in the family's Pyrex cooking dishes is problematic at best (and the chemicals tend to smell really bad). The great thing about the BreadBox is that Joshua and his team have performed loads of experiments to get everything just so.   As Joshua says on his Kickstarter page, the project's backers went out to get "some of the best minds we could lay our hands on" (which certainly gives one pause for thought). As a result, after you've poured in the chemicals and pressed the "Go" button, the BreadBox handles things like timing, mixing the chemicals, and agitation to produce a really professional looking, predictable, and repeatable board.   All I know is that I would love to have one of these little beauties sitting on my desk right now. What say you?

WidgeDuino – 最近在Kickstarter上亮相 – 是一个智能的易配置的窗口- 基于Microsoft Windows平台和基于像 Atmel-based Arduino board 的微控制器系统通讯应用。 实质上, WidgeDuino 通过串口协议或者 TCP/IP 与微控制器系统通讯。 “这包括, 除其他外, 键盘, LED灯, 压力表, 旋钮, 滑块, 温度计, 容器及按钮. 其直观方法是，通讯简化了快速原型和完整的自动化系统发展.” 更准确的说, Widgeduino 是基于Microsoft的。NET framework, 使用流行的Visual Studio Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) 设计.它利用 国家级仪器控制设备连接微控制系统. 就像上面提到的，在Windows系统上运行的应用同时支持有线和无线连接。 “Widgeduino 带有内置 API， 方便用户友好的小部件增加到嵌入式设计中,” Nazir 继续说道. “这些库文件主要是给Arduino板的通讯设计的.” Widgeduino 提供两个主要的操作模式: Widgeduino 通过串口: 在 Widgeduino 应用和 Arduino 板之间的串口通讯，基于点对点(使用 RS232) 或 无线点到多点 (通过 Xbee 802.15.4). Widgeduino 通过网络: 基于IP协议的网络使物联网成为可能. 这种模式也可作为混合式(例. 带有串口和 IP 协议)应用，来通过带有Widgeduino应用的网络连接串口设备。 更多信息

Jack Gassett over at the Gadget Factory never ceases to amaze. Jack is famous for creating the Papilio -- an open-source FPGA development board intended for education, hobbyists, engineers.   One key aspect to the Papilio is the fact that it supports add-on application modules called "Wings" (equivalent to Arduino "Shields"). Another really clever idea was to provide users with the ability to load the FPGA with one of two Arduino-compatible soft processors -- an AVR8 (an 8-bit clone of the AtMega103 chip with standard AVR peripherals) or an ZPUino (a 32-bit Arduino on steroids). The really cool thing is that users can work with the familiar and easy-to-use Arduino IDE to run their existing Arduino sketches (programs) on the soft processor core on the FPGA. Alternatively, they can implement designs in the FPGA in the regular way.   Well, now Jack is taking things to the next level. He's just launched a Kickstarter project for something he calls the Papilio DUO . This little scamp features the combination of a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA along with an Arduino-Compatible MCU (the same chip as found on an Arduino Leonardo).   You really need to check out this video . The way Jack describes this is "Like having an Arduino with a full circuit laboratory connected to it!"   The really cool thing is that when it comes to using the FPGA, users don't need to understand hardware description languages (HDLs) like Verilog and VHDL. Instead, there's an easy-to-use graphical schematic interface that allows you to drag-and-drop functional units and wire them together. These functional units can be as simple as digital gates and counters linked by virtual wires, all the way up to soft processor cores and peripherals linked using a virtual Wishbone Bus. All of this logic is then implemented in the FPGA, which can "talk" to the Arduino-Compatible MCU.   There is so much here that it's difficult to wrap one's brain around all the possibilities. In fact, I'm about to bounce back over to Jack's Kickstarter project to have another read. In the meantime, one of the most important things about Kickstarter projects is to get the message out, so anything you can do to spread the good word would be very much appreciated.