Costura

On one of Barcelona’s cutest streets, (Doctor Dou), near one of the most perfect bakeries, (Reykavik), is a little store called Costura. Two friends decided that the city was in dire need of some serious sewing commodities and after much thought and care, their small dream was born. Asami and Sonia have created the perfect blend of quirky clothing, Japanese fabrics, sewing items, customizing kits and best of all, sewing machines that can be rented by the hour. As flats become smaller and smaller, there just isn’t any room (or money for that matter) to actually own a machine. Costura offers the perfect solution, just pop round and use one of their machines for a few hours.

Not All Arduino Uses are Created Equal: Context & Gender

The below article ran in the IEEE Spectrum Tech-Alert under the awful title, “With the Arduino, Now Even Your Mom Can Program.” The IEEE Spectrum editor immediately sent out an email retraction of the title as being offensive.
But even with the retraction, I don’t think that the piece adequately explores how different the populations are of Arduino users. The below picture is from Leah Buchele at this last May’s NCWIT Summit in NYC.


The graph on the left describes the gender makeup of the Arduino-using community. The graph on the right describes the gender makeup of the LilyPad-using community. The IEEE article simply describes the LilyPad as “waterproof.” Huh? Don’t they know about e-textiles? The red in the graphs are male, and the aqua are female. In statistics, this is called “inter-occular occlusion” — you don’t need a t-test, this just hits you between the eyes. Women like the LilyPad. The Arduino community has almost no women in it. The context matters.

If you’re going to make some crack about mothers programming, then you’d better speak to the significant gender issues. And if you’re going to write about Arduino, you should really know about the different communities. Arduino matters for women, because it led to LilyPad. Arduino itself plays no role in being a technology environment for mothers or just about any women at all. They’d better figure that out before they further explore “integrating it more deeply into the education system.”
To fuel greater adoption of Arduino, the team is exploring how to integrate it more deeply into the education system, from grade schools to colleges. Several universities, including Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, already use Arduino. Mellis has been studying how students and laypeople take to electronics in a series of workshops at the MIT Media Lab. Mellis invites 8 to 10 people to the lab, where they’re given a task to complete over the course of a day. The projects have included building iPod speakers, FM radios, and a computer mouse using some of the same components that Arduino uses.

But spreading the Arduino gospel is only part of the challenge. The team must also keep up with demand for the boards. In fact, the Arduino platform doesn’t consist of one type of board anymore—there’s now an entire family of boards. In addition to the original design, called the Arduino Uno, the new models include a more powerful board called the Arduino Mega, a compact board called the Arduino Nano, a waterproof board called the LilyPad Arduino, and a recently released, Net-enabled board called the Arduino Ethernet.

http://computinged.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/not-all-arduino-uses-are-created-equal-context-and-gender/

The Making of Arduino: How five friends engineered a small circuit board that’s taking the DIY world by storm

By David Kushner / October 2011

The Arduino core team [from left]—David Cuartielles, Gianluca Martino, Tom Igoe, David Mellis, and Massimo Banzi—get together at Maker Faire in New York City.

Photo: Randi Silberman Klett

The team recently unveiled the Arduino Due, a board with a 32-bit Cortex-M3 ARM processor that offers more computing power for makers with complex projects. Click to enlarge.

The picturesque town of Ivrea, which straddles the blue-green Dora Baltea River in northern Italy, is famous for its underdog kings. In 1002, King Arduin became the ruler of the country, only to be dethroned by King Henry II, of Germany, two years later. Today, the Bar di Re Arduino, a pub on a cobblestoned street in town, honors his memory, and that’s where an unlikely new king was born.

The bar is the watering hole of Massimo Banzi, the Italian cofounder of the electronics project that he named Arduino in honor of the place. Arduino is a low-cost microcontroller board that lets even a novice do really amazing things. You can connect an Arduino to all kinds of sensors, lights, motors, and other devices and use easy-to-learn software to program how your creation will behave. You can build an interactive display or a mobile robot and then share your design with the world by posting it on the Net.

Released in 2005 as a modest tool for Banzi’s students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII), Arduino has spawned an international do-it-yourself revolution in electronics. You can buy an Arduino board for just about US $30 or build your own from scratch: All hardware schematics and source code are available for free under public licenses. As a result, Arduino has become the most influential open-source hardware movement of its time.

The little board is now the go-to gear for artists, hobbyists, students, and anyone with a gadgetry dream. More than 250 000 Arduino boards have been sold around the world—and that doesn’t include the reams of clones. "It made it possible for people do things they wouldn’t have done otherwise," says David A. Mellis, who was a student at IDII before pursuing graduate work at the MIT Media Lab and is the lead software developer of Arduino.

There are Arduino-based breathalyzers, LED cubes, home-automation systems, Twitter displays, and even DNA analysis kits. There are Arduino parties and Arduino clubs. Google has recently released an Arduino-based development kit for its Android smartphone. As Dale Dougherty, the editor and publisher of Make magazine, the bible of DIY builders, puts it, Arduino has become "the brains of maker projects."

But Arduino isn’t just an open-source project that aims to make technology more accessible. It’s also a start-up company run by Banzi and a group of friends, and it’s facing a challenge that even their magic board can’t solve: how to survive success and grow. "We need to make the next jump," Banzi tells me, "and become an established company."

Arduino rose out of another formidable challenge: how to teach students to create electronics, fast. It was 2002, and Banzi, a bearded and avuncular software architect, had been brought on by IDII as an associate professor to promote new ways of doing interactive design—a nascent field sometimes known as physical computing. But with a shrinking budget and limited class time, his options for tools were few.

Like many of his colleagues, Banzi relied on the BASIC Stamp, a microcontroller created by California company Parallax that engineers had been using for about a decade. Coded with the BASIC programming language, the Stamp was like a tidy little circuit board, packing the essentials of a power supply, a microcontroller, memory, and input/output ports for attaching hardware. But the BASIC Stamp had two problems, Banzi discovered: It didn’t have enough computing power for some of the projects his students had in mind, and it was also a bit too expensive—a board plus basic parts could cost about US $100. He also needed something that could run on Macintosh computers, which were ubiquitous among the IDII designers. What if they could make a board that suited their needs themselves?

Banzi had a colleague from MIT who had developed a designer-friendly programming language called Processing. Processing was rapidly gaining popularity because it allowed even inexperienced programmers to create complex—and beautiful—data visualizations. One of the reasons for its success was an extremely easy-to-use integrated development environment, or IDE. Banzi wondered if they could create similar software tools to code a microcontroller instead of graphics on a screen.

A student in the program, Hernando Barragán, took the first steps in that direction. He developed a prototyping platform called Wiring, which included both a user-friendly IDE and a ready-to-use circuit board. It was a promising project that continues to this day, but Banzi was already thinking bigger: He wanted to make a platform that was even simpler, cheaper, and easier to use.

Read more at http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-making-of-arduino

Techy way to spice up that costume for Halloween!

By Tim Teatro

Ever wanted to make your own Halloween costume, or personalize one you bought from the store? There can only be so many devils and naughty kitties at one party!

If you’ve got the artistic spark, then the Arduino LilyPad can help you put a little techy spice into your clothing.

The LilyPad Arduino is a small circuit board containing a really small micro-controller designed to be stitched into clothing. It can be programmed to blink lights, read data from sensors, make sounds, move servos or motors or any number of things your creative mind can conjure. With very little electronics knowledge and some patience, you can come up with some amazing things! A hat that blinks when you jump, a shirt that displays the strength of wireless signals around you? Sew some tactile pads onto the thighs of your jeans so that when you slap your needs you get a drum beat or a light show. How about a colour organ style light show on your shit that pulsates based on the music around you. Possibilities are endless.

Halloween is the perfect time to show off your creative projects. Feel free to post pictures here in the comments section of this page!



on’t forget to check out YouTube to get some inspiration from others!

You can Google around for a local retailer, or order on-line. In the GTA, you can buy Arduino products and accessories at Creatron. Creatron also does on-line orders. A LilyPad costs about twenty bucks, and then you need some conductive thread and some components!

For ordering LED lights, sensors, and various components, DigiKey.ca is a great source with a flat rate shipping and free shipping on orders over $200.00. For projects where you need perhaps bulk quantities of LED lights, DigiKey price adjusts for volume. That is, you pay less per piece if you buy 10 instead of 5, and even less if you buy 50. If anyone is interested, I have a parts list for some good quality but inexpensive LEDs available from DigiKey.
Also from WhatsYourTech.ca:

More about Tim Teatro
More on digital creativity

Wi-Fi haptic ‘Le-Chal’ shoes to guide the blind navigate city streets now

A new device for the blind not to hold in hand but inserted into their shoe was made by an Indian engineer from Hewlett-Packard Lab in Bangalore aptly named “Le Chal“, which means “Take me there” in Hindi.

Anirudh Sharma’s Le Chal shoes help the blind to navigate city streets, especially those beset with potholes at every corner or even in the middle of a footpath. These haptic (touch) shoes send vibrations inside the shoe to the holder about the impending obstacle on the road.

The shoe was featured in MIT Review in August 2011. It has four mini-motors which vibrates when ditches or potholes are on the way and it is GPS-synchornized with Google Maps so that the person can follow the route easily. When it vibrates on the left side of the palm, he takes the turn accordingly and the intensity of vibration shows the distance where he or she has to take a turn.

Aided with a Le Chal Android app on a smartphone, the blind gives commands orally on the destination, which is relayed by a bluetooth with Lilypad Arduino circuit board, which takes care of the navigation.

The prototype, priced $20, will be given to 20 persons from a Bangalore blind school on a pilot basis before launching it commercially. “We intend doing about 20 shoes (priced at Rs 1,000 or $20 USD a piece) and distribute them to the visually challenged. After the feedback, we will make all the improvements suggested by the user group before going for future plans,” Anirudh Sharma told the local media.

Wired Textiles for a Phone as Useful as the Shirt on Your Back

John Volakis wants to make the world hands-free.

The director of the ElectroScience Laboratory at Ohio State University, he is trying to end the need for cellphone hardware like the Bluetooth earpiece by fabricating communication devices out of something that most states require we carry with us all the time anyway: clothing.

“You won’t have to hold your cellphone to your ear,” said Dr. Volakis, an electrical engineer. “We’ll eliminate all that. It will be part of your attire.”

His effort is part of a broad technological effort to make “smart textiles”: wearable fabrics with embedded electronics that can collect, store, send and receive information. His lab is focusing on the sending-and-receiving part, trying to transform military apparel, hospital gowns, even everyday T-shirts into antennas.

Aside from enabling a science fiction luxury — simply speaking into your collar when you want to talk to somebody — antenna clothing could offer covert communication for soldiers, wireless monitoring for the sick and much better reception in general.

Though it will take at least a year for Dr. Volakis and his team to develop antenna clothing for civilians, his lab built antennas into a United States Army bulletproof vest last summer.

The vest, with a square antenna panel embedded in the front and three in the back, is like “having more sets of eyes or ears,” said Chi-Chih Chen, the electrical engineer who led the team that developed it.

Antennas lose reception when blocked by a human body — as evidenced by the static an FM radio spurts out when you walk in front of it — and the cumbersome rod-shaped antennas used by soldiers cannot capture signals from directly above. Communication is severely limited when an antenna goes horizontal, as it does when soldiers duck, crouch or crawl.

“This is where a body-wearable antenna will shine,” said Steve Goodall, chief of antenna technology and analysis for the Army’s office of communications and electronics research, development and engineering. “You can flare the antennas out to cover a larger area,” turning a single one-dimensional rod into multiple two-dimensional panels.

Dr. Chen is working with Applied EM, an antenna research and development company in Hampton, Va., to commercialize the technology, with the help of a grant from the Army Small Business Research Innovation Program. According to the company’s president, C. J. Reddy, each unit will start around $1,000, but the price should come down as production volume rises.

Wearable communications equipment dates back at least to the late 1990s, when a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology developed the Wearable Motherboard, an electronic T-shirt with no antennas but with ports for multiple inputs and outputs — including a thermometer, a microphone, a blood oxygen monitor and headphones — to help monitor soldiers’ health.

“If you want information about me, that information has to come from my clothing,” said Sundaresam Jayaraman, the textile engineer who led the team. The patents were sold to a private company in 2000, Dr. Jayaraman said, but the technology was never commercialized.

Dr. Volakis shares Dr. Jayaraman’s interest in using clothing to monitor vital signs. He is working to develop an antenna hospital gown that can transmit data like heart rates to a health professional’s computer. Such wireless monitoring could be used not only in hospitals, but also in people’s houses, to remotely keep tabs on the sick and elderly while they move about unencumbered.

“When elderly people stay home, we want to give them independence,” Dr. Volakis said. “People are not going to be tied to a wire.”

The challenges are different from those of a bulletproof vest, which does not need laundering and whose natural bulk can accommodate antenna panels.

By contrast, an antenna gown needs to flow, so it must be made of threads that not only conduct electricity, but are soft and washable. Dr. Volakis’s team is experimenting with high-tech materials like carbon nanotubes and graphene to try to satisfy these requirements.

Beyond that, he says smart textiles could improve the life of anybody who yearns for a stronger cellphone signal.

“We have a huge amount of room on ourselves,” Dr. Volakis said; why not cover it with antennas?

“I’ll make sure you have five bars all the time,” he said. ”Not even five bars; let’s make it 10.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 25, 2011, on page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: Wired Textiles for a Phone as Useful as the Shirt on Your Back.


Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25shirt.html?_r=1

LilyPad Arduino Brooch!

Makeshift Magazine

Makers of the world

From the favelas of Rio to the alleys of Delhi, Makeshift Magazine is combing the world and documenting the cultural contexts of the emerging global maker movement. Through stunning photography, video, and writing, Makeshift shares the stories and street-level ingenuity of people whose creativity is as much a mode of self-expression as it is one of survival.

For more

Electronics for everyone

Curious if you've got what it takes to program robots, make art with lights, or build speakers? Teagueduino makes it easier than ever to get started with programming electronics. Just grab a board, plug in a sensor, and start developing — no soldering required! Whether you're 8 years old or 80 years old, there's never been a better time to tap into your inner geek.

What is Teagueduino?

Teagueduino is an open source electronic board and interface that allows you to realize creative ideas without soldering or knowing how to code, while teaching you the ropes of programming and embedded development (like arduino). Teagueduino is designed to help you discover your inner techno-geek and embrace the awesomeness of making things in realtime — even if you’ve only ever programmed your VCR.

Make

Teagueduino makes making things really simple.

Want to build a light-controlled alarm clock? A harmonic music generator or a light that changes color based on temperature? How about a magnetic field meter or a robotic frog? These are just a few of the things that have been created so far, and with integrated project sharing you can always share your work or see the latest things being built as you go!

Just plug in a sensor to one of the input ports (for example, a knob), hook up an output device (a speaker, perhaps?), and use the awesomely simple Teagueduino user interface to make it work (a single line of code can map the knob's rotation to a musical tone on the speaker)! And since everything changes in realtime, there's no waiting for things to compile or the device to reset.

Learn

Teagueduino makes learning about electronics and programming intuitive.

Beginners can jump in without needing to know how to solder or write code. Of course, there's still lots of room to grow and we're working hard to make the transition to more advanced topics as easy as possible.

For those interested in learning how to work with electronics, there will be step-by-step tutorials for wiring up custom sensors and outputs. If writing software is more your thing, there will be arduino project templates to help you migrate to working directly in C. And for the truly advanced, the main control board (Teensy++) can be popped off the the Teagueduino board for full-out embedded development.

Teach

Teagueduino makes teaching engaging and exploratory.

Conceptually, we've built everything from the ground up to support a low floor (very easy to get started), wide walls (lots of things you can do), and a high ceiling (capable of very advanced projects as needs grow).

Teachers can browse projects in related fields to get ideas about where to start and build interactive models and experiments in realtime with students to increase understanding. Teach the basics of programming and hardware development, or use Teagueduino as a tool to teach others topics (math, physics, biology, interactive art, cooking, automation, and more...) you want to bring to life!

Technical Details

Each board has 5 inputs and 5 outputs, and a full kit comes with a variety of each (knobs, buttons, speakers, lights, servos, and more). These can be easily combined in countless ways and programmed using the Teagueduino software and then shared with the community to use and build on.

One full Teagueduino kit contains:

• 1 Teagueduino main board with Teensy++ loaded and ready to go.
  
• Inputs wired and ready to use (2 buttons, 2 potentiometers/knobs, 1 switch, 1 magnetic field sensor, 1 light sensor, 1 temperature sensor)
  
• Outputs wired and ready to use (2 piezo speakers, 1 red LED, 1 green LED, 1 blue LED, 1 Vibration motor)
  
• Servo bundle (2 servos, 1 servo power-up board, 1 5V DC power supply)

Source: Kickstarter site

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teague/teagueduino-learn-to-make?ref=NewsSep1511&utm_campaign=Sep15&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter]

Interactive T-shirts by Think Geek!

Check these out -- e-textiles are just booming!

See this shirt and even a proximity sensing t-shirt at: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/