Arduinos are pretty cool: the thread!

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

So, I got an arduino this past saturday. Some pictures are in spagbook. Rather than gush about it there, I figured I'd gush about it here.

I've written code for bare AVRs before, and the arduino isn't much different -- it's basically just an AVR on an AVR-programming board, but set up so that you can use (most of) the AVR lines without taking it out of the programmer. That small difference was actually a pretty huge difference -- I never got around to building/buying an AVR programmer, nor am I particularly good at soldering, so I did a lot of code and designs using bare AVRs and never built anything out of them. On the flipside, in four days I managed to implement what amounts to a low-power PDA using the arduino and an LCD tutorial. This little guy even has a couple features my old palmpilot lacks (nonvolatile memory, autosave on a timer, a reset button that I don't need a paperclip to press).

I'm certainly not the only one building really fucking cool things with the arduino. http://hackaday.com/category/arduino-hacks/ lists more than I can count -- among the coolest are speech synthesis (it also sings) and a glove-mounted rock-paper-scissors game with an AI opponent.

[PeregrineBF]

Arduinos are awesome. The folks over at evilmadscientist.com have some cool stuff with them too.

[Triple Zero]

What's an Arduino and what can you do with one?

I read that all the tech gear hackers are completely wild about the thing, but what does it actually do?

I suspect it's a tiny computer of sorts, but how is it better than, say, disemboweling a cheap throwaway nokia phone?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

What's an Arduino

It's a programmmable microcontroller on a microcontroller-programmer board with some slots for plugging in wires.

and what can you do with one?

To judge from what people have already done with them, I'd be somewhat surprised if someone found something provably impossible to do on an arduino. A multi-voice midi synthesizer is a two minute project, for instance.

I read that all the tech gear hackers are completely wild about the thing, but what does it actually do?

The main thing that kept me from ever actually using an AVR (I've had one for years, and there's a comparable AVR constituting the core of the arduino) is that I'd need to build or buy a programmer, probably find two sockets that will fit it, wire up my own boards, etc. Having the programmer built in is a huge improvement, though you wouldn't think so.

I suspect it's a tiny computer of sorts, but how is it better than, say, disemboweling a cheap throwaway nokia phone?

It's cheaper than a cheap throwaway nokia phone, it's designed to be disemboweled and reemboweled, and there are a lot of people already doing code and designs for projects using it. If you know C and you can plug wires into holes without getting confused, you can build something cool with it (either from a cookbook or just advised by other projects).

[Richter]

MAKE Magazine has articles daily on new crap people are doing with them.  It's worthwhile to check out.

Control your toaster with Arduino
Remote open your doors with Arduino
Make a roomba sodomize a segway with Arduino

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

For any noun or noun-verb phrase X, there is probably a project named "X with arduino"[/hyperbole]

[Bruno]

Actually, Arduinos are usually warmer than their surroundings due to thermal cascade effect caused by entropy.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

 

[PeregrineBF]

Well, that's what direct-die phase-change cooling is for.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

In other news, I recently discovered that I still suck at soldering.

I think that if I intend to build any more electronics, I should probably build one of these first.

I have, in the process, kind of screwed up several of the pieces of my TiZZI project, so I may build a little robot or something with my arduino until I can replace them. (The parts I have ruined are namely a resistor whose resistance I have yet to decode, several pleasantly pre-insulated bits of hookup wire, a solder-y breadboard, and quite possibly both of my LCD units).

[Triple Zero]

I still don't understand what I can do with one?

If I wanted to control my toaster, I have this timer-socket thing I sometimes use to make my coffee machine start 5 minutes before I wake up. Since you have to fill the damn thing (coffee machine or toaster alike) before it's any use to switch it on anyway, any more complicated behaviour would not be very useful.

No but seriously, I don't want to knock the Arduino, I just really want to know what you can do with one.

Ok and I'm looking at them, googled for "Arduino", clicked the link on where to buy one in the Netherlands and got this product listing:

http://www.eztronics.nl/webshop/catalog/index.php/cPath/36 (this is random product listing, not the cheapest I could find)

which one is the Arduino you were talking about?

If I check for special offers in the local hardware stores, car accesoires stores, supermarkets and/or office supply stores, they usually for some reason have ridiculous offers for prepaid SIMs including mobile phones in the price range of €19.95* - €30 ... at that price I can buy an "Arduino Duemilanove Color with 32K Atmega 328" what does it do? do you get just the board? is the power supply sold separate? no display?

is it really that much harder to take apart a phone? Burn Notice make it seem so easy ... I know if you can stand spending half an afternoon googling crappy "SIM UNLOCK" forums (they're awful, but the info is buried in there--now I know what I pay for when I ask the shady maroccan phoneshop to unlock my phone .. stamina to read that crap), you will come up with some pretty cool codes that will allow you to jailbreak the phone.

* special offer at the Albert Heijn supermarket last year. it included 10 euros in pre-paid credit. and another 10 if you agreed to provide them with personal details and your mothers maiden name. no I don't know how the fuck they make a profit on that either. I was tempted to get two, just for the fuck of it.

[Richter]

My (VERY) layman understanding is that it's a sort of way to write programs for a piece of hardware that can sort of go-between your computer and other electronics. 

Like if you got sick of pushing buttons to work an alarm clock or microwave, you could attach the hardware arduino to the proper parts, and write the code to do the button pushes.

[Elder Iptuous]

it's just a uController all packaged up nice with the necessary accouterments already there.
think single board computer, but with a uController instead of a more general uProcessor.
...
right?

[PeregrineBF]

Iptuous is pretty much correct.

Some projects & stuff form evilmadscientist.com (actually, these tend to be ATmega**8 stuff, but arduinos are very similar.)

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/pong

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/bulbdial and http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/bulbdialkit (cool clocks)

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/stockpumpkin (scary jack-o-lantern) and http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/larsonkit (kit for cylon eyes)

Best of all (perhaps) the Candy Fab is a 3d-fabrication machine. It makes things out of sugar, and uses arduinos for most of the control.

[PeregrineBF]

http://killerprojects.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/arduino-assisted-mind-controlled-tv-using-eeg/

Arduino + EEG + TV = pretty damn cool.