I love that Arduino enables me to throw together a proof of concept prototype in just a couple of hours. My bigger Arduino projects have their own pages:
For 12 years I taught a university module on Arduino and Physical computing, In that time I have helped my students to create over 300 student Arduino projects.
Below are some of my smaller prototypes and sketches:
Auto-fluxus (2018)
The Torofluxus a cool physics toy. I created a motorised version, with a loop of string, motor, and a distance sensor to pull the string up as the Torofluxus rolls down.
I thought it was going to be easy to detect the height of the Torofluxus. It was not! We spent days trying all the common distance sensors; Infra-red, ultrasonic, Time-of-Flight. Nothing was reliable. Some mad props go to Danny’s mega brain for figuring out how to detect the position of the Torofluxus.
With thanks to Danny, Aran, Jarkman and Max for advice and to MCP for playing too.
Kat’s Scary Baby (2011)
Kat and I had a lot of fun making this creepy robotic baby as an interactive art project for London Burningman Decompression 2011.
Kat Writes:
Around my waist was a TV held up by braces with baby legs and the baby itself was emerging from my belly. Passers-by were invited to come and say hello to my baby at which point baby would start waving its arms and its red led dummy would flash.
… The electronic baby on my tummy was a pretty good disguise for the fact I was 6 months pregnant at the time. At the Bristol zombie crawl a couple of weeks later, the bump was a bit more apparent and a couple of people were a little taken aback by the zombie baby sitting on my actual baby!
These photos show the baby in the making stages and at the Bristol Zombie Crawl 2011.
Arduino with a Cough (2020)
My Arduino caught a cough. The original idea was to make the air quality monitor cough when it detected high levels of particulates in the air, to respond to people smoking outside my office window… then Covid happened…..
Made with an Adafruit feather, DFRobot SD and amplifier module and a servo synced to the sound.
Light Painting Arduino (2016)
My first project using an strip of neopixels. With MCP.
Pintograph Drawing Machine (2011)
My first project making things move. With Aran.
Shonky Self Balancing Robot (2017)
Smashed together this quick self balancing robot using an MPU6050 and budget gear motors. My first project using PID control on an Arduino. Great learning.
Kim’s Tea Temperature Monitor (2013)
In June 2013 Kim asked a question on fb that she has wanted to know the answer to for many years.
“Ok…this has been bothering me since I was asked this at 13 & not told the answer….if you made a cup of tea & then the phone went a gentleman asked your for a dance, would you add the milk before or after taking the call if you wanted a hot tea? Discuss….”
Lots of physicists friends chimed in with theories, I thought that this was a perfect opportunity for a spot of experimenting…. Arduino, tea, thermistor cake, excel, tea dance, humour – SCIENCE!
Camera Flash Trigger (2009)
My first Arduino project. I wanted to take water drop photos. It has a laser trip wire, a small delay, and triggers the camera, and then the flash. The core of the circuit is an optocoupler to protect the Arduino from the high voltage spikes that some flashes can deliver. With thanks to Glacial Wanderer for the blog post that it was based upon.
