This project is for beginners, but even people with experience can find it interesting the solution for doubling the columns of the display. They say that a picture worth a hundred words, then what would worth a movie? I recall when i was learning micro controller programming, after i made the led blink, and a few led animations the next step was to build a display suited for text or animation, at this moment everybody tries to power each led individually but since you can’t use a 150 pin micro controller you look for more clever solutions, which is the row-column addressing.
On the video the author explains step by step how to control 120 LED’s with just 16 pins, with normal row-column addressing you can control only 64 LED’s, by using a simple trick you can double your resolution. Although they omitted the fact that you need to use some buffer circuit, or limit the total current of your LED’s in a row, be aware that a micro controller pin can handle only 20mA.
If you will be interested, I can post a more advanced method which uses only 7 pins and can control a display with a few thousand LED’s.
Simple LED display board: [via] – [Link]
Yes, the title is tricky, don’t be afraid Arduino still uses the ATmega168, this project is very similar to the Arduino concept, but also very different. It is a small development board which uses a PIC micro controller with native USB support, the author states that this is the main advantage over Arduino, but there isn’t available a user friendly IDE with custom language. Although not everything is lost since for the PIC18F family you have a feature limited C compiler made available from Microchip, C18. The author also states that he launched his CUIduino board in 2005, roughly the same time with Arduino, maybe is true but at least the name was inspired from Arduino.
It is a great alternative for the PIC community, but in lack of simplified language, it still remains just another development board.
PIC based Arduino: [Link]
If you are interested about parking radars, or any short range distance or object sensing, this is the right project for you. The author uses the SRF04 sonic module for ultrasound generation and reception, the controller used is ATmega128, but probably a smaller one would also do the job. The device is nothing less nothing more then a radar system, measures the time between the sent sound wave and the reflection, then calculates the distance.
Is is easy to extend this project to a parking radar for your car, not to mention the great potential it has in robotics. The schematics, source code is available for download.
Sonic distance measurement: [Link]
This is an advanced robotics project, the robot arms follows a moving object, anyway that’s the idea. The arms moves a little sloppy, it surely isn’t in the final stage of development, but the author explains what problems encountered. The motion is detected using IR leds and receivers, and subtracting the ambient light from the readings to get the reflected light from the object which is tracked.
If you are interested in motion tracking this is a good place to start, my opinion is that the analog part needs to be reviewed, the IR leds should be mounted inside a tube, otherwise interferes with the reflected light and reduces the sensibility.
Object tracking robot: [Link]
Ever wondered how can hundreds of fish or birds follow the same rout without crashing into each other? The answer is: interaction with the closest members, based on this algorithm several complex mathematical models were developed, using neuronal networks and other complicated solutions. The project presented doesn’t rely on any complex model, but the result is astonishing, each device interacts with its neighbors and after a while they synchronize each other to the same blink pattern.
You only need one rgb led, light sensor and Attiny13 the led is mounted into a ping-pong ball to diffuse the light, the pcb’s can be connected into a stream.
This is one of my favorite projects, because its simple to replicate, and the effects are very complex, basically this is a neuronal network regardless of the start up blink pattern in the end they will get synchronized. After settling you can interfere with any light source to disturb the system.
Self organizing blinker: [Link]
