The next time you wish to take a random photoshoot with one of these phones, do make a note that they are Arduino powered! The makers Chris Bell, Liangjie Xia, and Mike Kelberman built the Rotobooth as part of Twilio’s Photohack Day 2 event designed to showcase Twilio’s cloud computing capabilities.

When users lift the handset and dial their digits, an Arduino (you just knew there’d be one involved didn’t you?) takes in the information and then initiates the camera.

Four photos are taken — just like a photo booth — and they are sent to a Mac Mini. The photos are resized, watermarked and uploaded to Flickr. The photo links are then texted to your phone using Twilio.

If you decide not to enter your number just dial “0″ and one photo is taken and is uploaded to Rotobooth.com

Now just dial your number on the Rotobooth’s rotary dial and once your photo is taken, the shot is uploaded to Flickr and you are texted with the link.

Via:[Dvice]

Want a timed egg thrower? Or a thrower triggered by motion?

A step-by-step instruction on how to make your own Arduino controlled catapult is here.

Looks like it can be built over a weekend!

Via:[Instructables]

The build is part of a high school class and they packed in some really nice features. The first is the parabolic mirror which focuses the sun’s rays on the chamber of the engine. The heat is what makes it go, and the video after the breaks shows it doing just that.

But the concept behind the mirror makes for an interesting challenge. The light energy is focused at a narrow point. When the sun moves in the sky that point will no longer be at an efficient position to power the engine. This issue is solved by a pair of stepper motors which can reposition the dish. It’s done automatically by an Arduino Uno which makes readings from four LDR (photoresistors) in that cardboard tube mounted at the top of the dish. If the light intensity is the same for all four, then the tube is pointed at the sun. If not, the motors are tweaked to get the best angle possible.

Via:[Hackaday]

A blog post touched my heart.

While learning Clojure some years ago I stumbled upon a project that used Clojure and Arduino. Immediately, I wanted to try it out, I searched for where to get a board within my city(Port-Harcourt) or my country. I was disappointed , there was not a single distributor within the whole West Africa. It occurred to me that I may not be the only one facing this challenge and for my subcontinent to reduce poverty, we need to be part of Arduino world. How would they hack if there is no prototype board to play with? Who would supply boards when there is no distributor? These were the questions that came to my mind. Thereafter, I seized this wonderful opportunity and approached Arduino manufacturing team for distributorship. I was surprised that my application was approved. They even encouraged me to have online presence which they would link to.

Such a problem is faced by many people of the developing economy world. The first step to learning is to have access to learning tools.

One may ask what about Electrical/Electronics engineers? Well, we have them, and they have started showcasing their “unique capabilities”. Most University kids in Nigeria do not spend enough time with Micro-controllers and Microprocessors or should I say that they are intimidated. But they still yearn for a simple platform to help them get started.

“Now the good news, school kids in faraway Ghana are using Arduino boards in their Physics practicals. This is amazing! Thanks to a dutch volunteer who asked for Arduino boards in order to engage his pupils. Another wonderful story , very close to my heart is that of a secondary school kid from a privileged home(in Lagos) whose hobby is to hack Arduino board.” Writes the Nigerian Distributor.

Are you a maker in a developing nation? Would you like to spread the Arduino message? Or has Arduino touched your life in a special way? Do write to us.

Via:[emekamicro]

A sparsely known fashion label C&A introduces a new initiative called ‘Fashion-like’ in it’s Brazillian store. A unique feature to import ‘likes’ on a particular clothing as compared to another may interest other labels too!

In an age when the ‘likes’ can be bought and influenced using facebook Ads, maybe if an unbiased way of finding that out is tailored, it may prove to be the next generation deciding feature in fashion and apparel design.

This is doable using an Arduino too! Probably with a lot more features!

Is there a maker in the house?

Via:[TheVerge]

A device that opens the websites using physical world interaction? This is a step closer to the internet of things. Using our beloved Arduino and RFID tags, we can think of a lot many applications of this device!

Too lazy to create your own Arduino + RFID reader? No fear! Arduino internet Gizmo is here.

A detailed Step-by-step making instruction is given here.

What websites are you going to keep as your shortcuts today?

Via:[TheVerge]

Remember this?

A good tutorial by Sparkfun will help us make the above display. Before we begin let us take a few questions on Open Frameworks.

Q> What is Open Frameworks?

openFrameworks is a very handy software library written in C++ that is written for the sole purpose of reducing the software development overhead faced by designers and artists that would like to create pieces that use various media (graphics, sound, video, electronics, etc.).

Q> Why Open Frameworks when there is Processing?

Because there are some things that oF is well suited for that Processing just can’t handle. oF is much better at creating projects that use a lot of 3D Graphics, computer vision libraries like OpenCV or projects that involve the real-time manipulation of video. Also, while Processing requires a Java backend, oF is simply a set of C++ libraries, meaning that developers comfortable with C++ will be right at home.

Q> Where can I find more data and examples on Open Frameworks?

You can start by reading this article.

Try it, it works!

Via:[sparkfun]

“MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. MATLAB, the language of technical computing, is a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation. Simulink is a graphical environment for simulation and Model-Based Design of multidomain dynamic and embedded systems. ”

Now that the basics are clear, let us enjoy the beauty of the new feature!

“Simulink built-in support for hardware is a big boost to project-based learning,” said Dr. Farid Golnaraghi, professor and director of Mechatronic Systems Engineering at Simon Fraser University. “Our engineering students who learn control theory by creating and running models in Simulink can now easily test and tune their algorithms on hardware, without knowing embedded systems.”

Simulink provides built-in support for the following platforms:

Arduino Uno and Mega 2560 microcontroller boards for robotics, mechatronics, and hardware-connectivity tasks
BeagleBoard-xM single-board computers for audio, video, and digital signal processing
LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics platform for robotics applications

As you know MATLAB is a product of MathWorks, and is widely used for data visualization, attaching an Arduino would be really beneficial and wonderful applications from the maker community can be expected!

Via:[Businesswire]

The musical interfaces can sometimes be extremely curious. That’s the case of  the chess sequencer.

The Chess Sequencer is a step matrix sequencer made from a chess board, where placing the pieces make music. The sequencer is connected to software synths on my Mac trough USB and a Processing patch to convert the serial data to internal midi.

The core here is an Arduino Mega. I was planing to use the Duemilanove but laziness caught me. The Mega has tons of IOs so I do not have to make a lot of multiplexing saving me hours of work.

Check here the full instructions to build your own!

Alasdair Allan, author of Learning iPhone Programming, Programming iPhone Sensors, and iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino, sat down with MAKE’s Dale Dougherty to talk about getting iOS devices and Arduino talking to each other.

The words of an Astrophysicist turned maker!

Hear-hear!

Via:[Makezine]