TechnologyIQ

One of the main reasons I purchased an Arduino Yun as my first Arduino board was it’s inclusion of WiFi right out of the box. This means you can start making Internet of Things projects immediately. As I have introduced myself to Arduino, I have also looked to learn more about the Linux side of the Yun, how it bridges to the Arduino side and how I can interact with it using standard Internet tools, like SSH and FTP. An Arduino with SSH Once the Arduino Yun is connected to a network, it is possible to use the Macintosh Terminal or other SSH client to log into the Yun and use it as you would any Linux computer. You’ll need an SD Card on the Arduino Yun to do much with SSH or ftp access, though, as you need a place to store the files you will be uploading or creating. This is fine if you just want to view files on the SD Card or other basic terminal operations, but as I was playing around, I realized i wanted to do more than use the built-in vi editor. I use a Mac OS X text edit...

Arduino and OLED based Cellular Automata via Hackster.io This is a great near-instant gratification project if you have one of the OLED screens I mentioned earlier here on TechnologyIQ. I don't think I had to alter the code at all to get it working with my screen and away it went. Now I can start digging into the code and see how it creates the game and learn a bit about game logic as well as ways of managing the screen. Parts : Blue 0.96" I2C IIC 128X64 OLED LCD Display Module For Arduino UNO R3 Breadboard Arduino Yun via eBay You can easily purchase your own via  Amazon ,  eBay  and other sources. Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon Get your own Arduino Gear via eBay

Working and learning with my Arduino Yun  ( also via eBay )and a new OLED 128x64 pixel display . This is such a tiny display that I needed to bump up the font size to make it a bit more readable and scroll through the data instead of trying to present it on one screen, like I had before. I am using the Adafruit SSD1306 library as the u8glib library was hanging after a few minutes of the running. The program would continue running in the background but the screen would stop updating. Frustrating and I found no easy answers to what it was happening.     You can read about this project in previous posts here on TechnologyIQ for a bit more detail. Blue 0.96" I2C IIC 128X64 OLED LCD Display Module For Arduino UNO R3 Breadboard Arduino Yun via eBay You can easily purchase your own via  Amazon ,  eBay  and other sources. Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon Get your own Arduino Gear via eBay

A great little learning project to use some of the components that might have come as part of your sensor starter pack . I wonder if you need the specific laser light detector or could use a photoresistor or phototransistor on the detecting end of the system, especially since my set didn't come with the former. Links : Easy Arduino Laser Tripwire Security System via Instructables SunFounder 37 modules Arduino Sensor Kit for Arduino Arduino Boards and Components via Amazon Arduino Boards and Components via eBay

Arduino Musical Weather Station This is a very cool project using a wide variety of sensors and input to create something fun for the garden or yard. I have toyed with similar ideas for wind chimes driven by environmental conditions like sunlight and wind, but this takes my ideas to an entirely different level.  It sounds the creator has tied the Arduino into a music synthesizer, which allows the Arduino to control a wide range of sounds and effects. Here is a demonstration video showing it in action. Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon Get your own Arduino Gear via eBay

Make With focuses on a collection of parts that can be used with Arduino, Raspberry Pi and more! Blue 0.96" I2C IIC 128X64 OLED LCD Display Module For Arduino UNO R3 Breadboard You can easily purchase your own via  Amazon , eBay and other sources. My Temperature, Humidity and Light Level Sensor Project with OLED Screen .   A cool, tiny, OLED display for your Arduino and Raspberry Pi projects. While I often like to send my data to “the cloud”, sometimes having a display on your project works well. With the u8glib , you can draw graphics and text in a large number of different fonts. See the setup and display at work in this video from Julien Ilett, one of my favorite channels on YouTube. Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon Get your own Arduino Gear via eBay

Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon This looks like something I might try to adapt to my own monochrome Led Matrix. It was an idea I was already thinking about and I hope I can draw some example from their code to develop my own. I love projects that interact with the real world, whether they are art pieces passively delivering information of some sort. It is a fairly complex project, but that often means there is a lot to learn within. Project: Tiny Arduino Music Visualizer: Maximum blinkenlights, minimum effort! via Adafruit Here’s an easy-to-build project that really packs a lot of blinkenlight for the effort: a little pocket-size music visualizer we call “Piccolo.” Set Piccolo next to the telly or some speakers and you’ll see the lights respond to music and sound — lowest notes toward the left end of the graph, highest notes toward the right. Technically this would be called a “spectrum analyzer,” but as this is not a precision scientific instrument, we’re more comfortable l...

Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon   128x64 pixel OLED Display. First task was displaying temp/humidity/light info from my test project.     More #arduino kit today - 128x64 pixel OLED Display. First task was displaying temp/humidity/light info from my test project. #technology #learning #education #fun #electronics via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

MAX7219 Dot LED Matrix Module MCU Control LED Display Module Wire for Arduino | eBay Get your own Arduino Gear via Amazon New piece of #Arduino lot arrived today. 8x8 LED Matrix. For it working, basically already. Now to learn more! #technology #coding #programming #education #learning #steam #stem via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

Reading here on TechnologyIQ, it should be clear that I have been doing a lot more coding than usual recently. Whether it's putting together Arduino code, python apps or PHP pages, life has had me staring at the computer screen trying to tell if that's a 1 or an l, a 0 or an O, a ( or a { or a [. Blowing up the font size only takes you so far, though. Having worn glasses since I was 10 years old, I can use all the help possible when reading my screen. A few days ago I came across a post about a new font, specifically designed for coding -- Mononoki . Mononoki addresses many of the issues I mentioned above right out of the box. 1'a and l's look entirely different as do 0's and O's. With the, now common, proliferation of braces, brackets and parentheses in all modern programming language, those are also addressed and made clearly different from one another. Can a new font make coding easier? It certainly has for me. Sure I push the font size a few m...

HackADay reports on the OpenRoberta project to help kids learn more about building and operating their first robots. Read Open Robots With Open Roberta at HackADay Visit the Open Roberta site for more information. You can also try out a simulated robot there. Open Roberta The Open Roberta project continues the Fraunhofer-Initiative »Roberta – Learning with Robots«. For more than ten years, this initiative enabled girls and boys to explore the world of robots and to learn about computer science, natural sciences and technology (STEM). The aim of Open Roberta is to overcome technical and professional barriers for teachers and students alike. The free cloud-based Platform »Open Roberta Lab" can be used at any time from any device using standard Internet browsers. Open Roberta Lab The programming environment »Open Roberta Lab" enables children and adolescents to program Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots. A variety of different programming blocks are provided to program motors...

Arduino parts start to arrive #Arduino #tech #technology #make #maker #build via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

Back to the basics with my learning project, a temperature, humidity and light level sensor with the Arduino Yun . While text printouts to the Serial Monitor, viewing text files via SSH and login the data to a Google Spreadsheet are fine, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to see your project’s data visualized in near real time? Sure it would.  Enter Ubidots , and IoT (Internet of Things) visualization service that can receive data from your Arduino projects and graph it in a number of ways. I was first made aware of Ubidots via this YouTube video from Acrobatic -  Visualize Sensor Data Using ESP8266 (ESP-12E) While I haven’t yet made the jump to using the ESP8266 myself, it was introduction to Ubidots as a service. They have a variety of libraries and code examples for connecting your Arduino projects and, in my case, there was a specific library for the Arduino Yun. While this library worked fine for sending 1 variable of data to the service, I ran into significant problems when ...

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  Get Your Own iFixit kit for 30% off at Geeky Gadgets! Salvaging Parts for Arduino projects et al. iFixItnkit makes it dead easy. #technology #electronics #fun #make #maker @hackerspacela via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

  25% Off All My iPhone Cases and Wallets Today! Over 30+ Designs #products #technology #garden #flowers #home #art #architecture via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

Salvage Parts For Your Projects and more! - iFixit 64 Bit Driver Kit - 30% off at Geeky Gadgets I have started to disassemble old technology like printers and such to harvest parts for my Arduino projects. My first foray into this, though, left me a bit disappointed, as many of the screws used in assembling these products are specialized pieces, designed to prevent disassembling them.  Enter the iFixit 64 Bit Driver Kit, something I have known about for a long time, but never actually purchased. It comes with a host of specialized bits and drivers used to build a lot of today's technology. While this kit is truly designed to help you repair your own technology, as you might imagine, it also helps a lot in tearing apart older, non-functional tech to get at the good bits! When I saw that Geeky Gadgets had the kit on sale today for 30% off -- and I had some funds in my PayPal account -- it was time to get one of my own. I have my eye on some stepper motors and senso...

  Make something cool today! #make #maker #Arduino #fun #learning #education via Instagram Follow me on Instagram

Learning: How To Use A Breadboard via Hackerspace LA Hackerspace LA shared this excellent article on “How to Use a Breadboard”, which is an integral part of any electronic prototype project. I have one setting on my desk right now, connected to an Arduino Yun , in fact. They can seem a little confusing, but this article explains things quite clearly. Read   Learning: How To Use A Breadboard via Hackerspace LA

Learning to code can be an empowering skill that can help anyone, but especially children, feel accomplished and in control of their education. We should all be learning something new every day, so why not take a few moments to learn how to code fun programs and apps and engage your creativity? Hopscotch is a visual programming language and development tool for the iPad and now the iPhone that allows you to drag-and-drop programming elements, code, graphics, sound and more to create apps that you can then share with your friends or the world. Hopscotch is similar to other desktop visual coding systems like Scratch, developed by MIT , but with the convenience of running on a mobile device that you can easily take with you wherever you go. Sometimes learning needs to happen in those small bits of free time we have available and a mobile device makes it even easier to take advantage of those small moments in our day. Hopscotch has highlighted 10 of their favorite apps d...

How to Set Up and Program an LCD Display on an Arduino via Circuit Basics Every computer (or microcontroller, which is truly what the Arduino is) needs a display. What good is gathering sensor data if you can see it, right? Enter the 16x2 line LCD that uses the Hitachi HD44780 driver chip/. These boards are available in many places, including eBay and Amazon, and libraries exist to let your Arduino talk to them in just a few minutes of coding. You’ll see them used in many Arduino and Raspberry Pi projects, so learning how to use them is a skill you can use over and over in your projects. This is s a very detailed walk-through of using these LCD displays including connection diagrams and code explain nearly all the functions of the LCD Display library. Check it out! More Arduino boards and components

I am now selling iPhone Wallets with my photography via RedBubble. This is a new item that just became available today. iPhone wallets are my preferred phone case, so it is great to have a way to make covers with whatever photo I wish and I hope you like some of them, too. More designs are coming as I work though my entire portfolio and set up the artwork specifically for the iPhone wallet shape and size, so keep watching for more items. Get yours today! See my entire portfolio

Taking a few minutes to strip any interesting parts from an old printer to use in my own projects.      

Project: The "Tennis Ball" Garage Stop Light by Stuart Mace via Arduino Project Hub This is a great practical project that can teach you how to use a lot of different components with your Arduino. It’s a high-tech version of the “hanging tennis ball” found in many garages so that you know your car is far enough inside to safely close the garage door. Of course, you could use in any situation where an object needs to be in the proper position. This project is clearly explained in get detail and the code for the Arduino is included, so you can see exactly what is happening and how you might make your own modifications. In this project you learn how to use: Arduino Uno (or similar) Ultrasonic Distance Sensor (to sense how close the object it) Relays (to control the 120v mains powered lights) Potentiometer (to set the distance) Find more Arduino boards and components on Amazon.com  

Make With focuses on a collection of parts that can be used with Arduino, Raspberry Pi and more! Many microcontroller projects are based around detecting movement and then reacting to that movement by triggering a relay, and alarm, a light or more. The HC-SR501 seems to be the motion sensor that is most available and most used in projects. You can easily purchase your own via Amazon , eBay and other sources. The HC-SR501 only requires one digital pin for signalling to an Arduino or other microcontroller and reports with 5V HIGH when movement is detected. Other pins connect to VCC and GND. Two on-board potentiometers allow adjustment of motion sensitivity and time delay between motion detections. Links: HC-SR501  Basic Datasheet from GitHub HC-SR501 at Amazon.com

My next Arduino lesson, after learning about reading sensors, data logging, and the Linux/Arduino Bridge for web logging and dat/time stamping in the last installment of Arduino Life ( Arduino Life 2: Getting Geeky in the Garden: Temperature, Humidity and Light Level Sensor [Video] (20:21) ), I wanted to turn the process around on itself and learn how to poll the Arduino sketch for information and settings using the provided YunServer and YunClient software so that I could receive results directly into a web page, via a web request. The Arduino and Breadboard setup remain the same as before. I had a bit of an issue when starting to work on this version, as the DHT11 had become unplugged from the board. When re-inserting it, I was off by 1 pin on the breadboard and ended up running +5v through the sensor and “letting the magic smoke out.” (LAUGH) This is one disadvantage to using a breadboard instead of male/female jumper wires (which I plan on purchasing in my next order.) Directly ...