GuruBlog

Blinking Logfile Map

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:17:00 GMT

I always wanted to see where the readers of my blog are comming from, so I took a picture frame and inserted a world map, a handfull of leds and an arduino. Some soldering and some rubyscripts later I had my hardware geo-aware logfile visualization.

I have a script running at the server that parses new ip adresses from the log file and geocodes them. Than the continent code is sent to my mac where i have a little script that forwards the continent code to the serial port. And finally the arduino in the picture frame is making the leds blink. The whole project was hacked together as a weekend project so the scripts might need some "fine-tuning" :-)

This is my day 5 project for 30DaysOfCreativity

so please read my blog to make the leds blink :-)

Tags Creativity, arduino, hardware, ruby, visualization | no comments

Smiley-O-Mat

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:20:00 GMT

I just finished my Smiley-O-Mat - it's a tin-box with 3 turning knobs that allows you to controll the appearence of a smiley. With 3 simple turns I can now tell your co-workers, familymembers, ... how you feel at the moment and if it is wise to talk to me right now :-)

The controllerbox is made with an arduino, the smiley generator is written in processing, and the turning knobs are printed on my makerbot

This is what the controller looks like

and here are some smileys i generated

Tags arduino, makerbot, processing | no comments

Using an arduino as a AVR Programmer

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:53:00 GMT

I managed to use an arduino as an isp programmer for my ATTiny13. I first i tried to use the avr910 program described in this blogpost from Randall Bohn, but avrdude could not flash my hex file :-/

then i found a newer version of the code that emulates an avrisp at googlecode

Tags arduino, attiny13 | 4 comments

My name is 192.168.159.16

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:44:00 GMT

Varvara Guljajeva is using my processing tts library for her lates project My name is 192.168.159.16.

My name is 192.168.159.16 - is a metaphorical visualization of nowadays-human beings. In my point of view we are not bounded to one body anymore. We are extended through networks to infinity. The location does not matter, what matters is connection. Thus, at this point I totally agree with Mitchell “disconnection would be amputation. I link therefore, I am.” We are becoming gradually fully equipped and totally dependent on technology cyberorgs.

The installation consists of 4 dolls in each a speaker inside, 4 relays, arduino, a computer, and a modem. We are using Processing, TTS (text to speech), and Arduino. The independent and at the same time isolated network is created. IP addresses are continuously renewed and sent to a random doll. Thus only one doll is speaking at a time (4 speakers are controlled by 4 relays through arduino).

the installation looks really cool - a bit creepy what she did to the dolls :-)

Tags arduino, art, processing, tts | no comments | no trackbacks

Adrduino Counter with lcd Display

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:03:00 GMT

I made a small device that has 3 independent counters which are shown on a lcd-display. The device uses an arduino and has 3 buttons on the front that are debounced in software and used to increment a variable. The variables are printed on a 1x16 char lcd-display.

the red switch on the side is a power-switch.

i really like the "frankenstein"-look of the eclosure :-)

Tags arduino | no comments | no trackbacks

Arduino based Office-WTF-Counter

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:37:00 GMT

As in any office, my co-workers and I experience several WTF-Situations during our working day. So we decided to implement a simple system to count the WTF's and use them as a metric for our working climate :-)

we use an "emergency stop"-Button which is connected to an arduino. This arduino sends the string "WTF" on the serial line a little python scrip writes them to a file, another processing app count's the lines in the file and offers the result via http, which is read by a processing app for visualisation ...

Tags arduino, processing, python, wtf | 21 comments | no trackbacks

5x7-ledmatrix-shield

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:41:00 GMT

I managed to solder the 5x7-ledmatrix i wrote about some days ago to a arduino-proto-shield (without any injuries or short cuts - i am sooo proud :-))

now it looks really fancy (well the upper side at least)

Tags arduino, Ledmatrix | 1 comment | no trackbacks

5x7 LED Matrix on my arduino

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:36:00 GMT

I just hooked up my 5x7 led matrix to an arduino :-)

very cool, i use the led matrix without any other parts as shown in the arduino playground

the next thing i want to do is solder it to one of my protoshields

(ignore the right part of the circuit, it is a currency regulator from another project, but i had no empty breadboards left :-))

Tags arduino, Ledmatrix | 6 comments | no trackbacks

processing ical-flowers-2.0

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:15:00 GMT

I made a new version of the ical flowers sketch i wrote in dezember. This time it doesn't only show a flower for every event in my calender, it also shows

• the current weather (using the rubyweather library)
• the current temperature outside
• the min/max temperature outside
• the current temperature inside ( using my arduino i2c thermometer sketch)
• the sky color changes depending on the current time

the system consists of a ruby-proxy, an arduino sketch and a processing sketch.

the ruby proxy starts a web-server on port 2000. It fetches the current weather using the rubyweather gem, fetches the events from the configured caldav calenders, and fetches the current temperature from the arduino using ruby-serial

the arduino sketch is basicaly the same as in this blog post. the only change is that the arduino only sends the temperature when the host sends a 'C' over the serial line

the processing sketch finally fetches the data via http from the proxy and displays it ( using my icap4p library. the screen is updated every 1/2 hour using the method described here

the code can be downloaded here

it's published under the LGPL

have fun :-)

Tags arduino, caldav, calendar, i2c, ical, ical4p, processing, ruby, visualization | no comments | no trackbacks

i2c thermometer on arduino

Posted by Nikolaus Gradwohl Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:07:00 GMT

I have hooked up my c-control i2c thermometer-module (link in german) to my arduino and wrote some code to read the current temperature in Celcius.

The module uses the maxim DS1631 chip.

The temperature is send as a 2 byte value using a 12 bit resolution. in the MSB the first bit is used as a sign bit, the other seven bits are represent the part before the comma, in the LSB the first 4 bits are used as the fractional part.

the code below doesn't handle negative values yet. i want to use it in my livingroom - i never ever want it to deal with negative values!

Tags arduino, ccontrol, i2c | no comments | no trackbacks