arduino – Page 4 – Making Studio

I have been working hard on my Tide Clock. I have been making progress and throughout the process some things have changed since my original post. Initially, I planned on using a water pump and a solenoid valve to pump and drain water between the two chambers of my clock. After purchasing a water pump and experimenting with it I decided that the noise and size of the pump, in addition to a valve, were much too loud and large for what I want to achieve. The experimentation process with the pump was frustrating, but it was worth it because it lead me in the direction of water displacement!

My new plan is to use a large volume to displace the water from a back hidden chamber to a front visible chamber. I made a quick prototype to test my new plan. I simply created a divide between the front and back of a container of water and lowered and lifted a volume into the back section. With very little water overall, I was able to cause the water level in the front section to rise and fall:

I then sketched out how this would work in a circular form:

I created a more detailed prototype to test out the size and shape of the volume that will be causing the displacement:

It works really well! I am going to use a stepper motor to move the volume. It will be mounted above the water line and attached to gears that turn the volume.

Here is a side view:

My next step is to work on the electronics. I am going to control the stepper motor using Arduino. I will calculate how many steps it takes to get through a full cycle from high to low tide. I started by assembling my Real Time Clock. I will have more detailed instructions of this in my step-by-step tutorial . Here is a preview:

I am now in the process of getting the stepper motor up and running. I have it wired it up but I haven’t successfully managed to get it running.

I will keep you all posted on my progress.

mr indecision

a small felt version of myself that turns its head and looks at you.

[Instructable here]

This is a project on using 123D Catch to get a 3D scan of my whole body. Once I had the scan I cleaned it up and manipulated it ready for 123D Make. I sliced the model in Make and preped it for Laser cutting. Once done I lazer cut and integrated the componentry and Arduino to make the head turn. I created two functions an automatic tracking function and a manually controlled function through Max MSP. In a way this is a Modern Day Puppet.

Code below the jump:
Continue reading “mr indecision”

Junk-Mail Phone Case/Dock by Richard

Introducing the “ijunk” – the junk mail iphone / ipod dock

“the best thing to happen to iphone since iphone 5”

When an iphone or ipod is docked it activates a junk mail delivery mechanisim. This was a really project with no apparent purpose but gave me the opportunity to use a physical imput to create a digital action in the ardino code and then return a physical output. The physical circuit uses a tip120 transistor which acts as a electronically controlled switch allowing the motor to draw power from an independent power supply. This is important as if the motor were to be connected directly to the arduino it could fry the arduino’s chip. The code i used was a version of the button example featured in the continue reading section of this post. Ideally if I had more time I would have better integrated the iPhone charging into the arduino and have it actually recognized when it was being docked, rather than just using the phones casing to connect the circuit via contacts.

Some of the tutorials and useful sites I found and used are here: