Arduino is Rails for hardware hacking – Greg Borenstein
Intro
Obligatory safety talk
Electrical engineering is for experts!
Physical computing is for everyone!
- Artists!
- Idealists – Fab labs in India
- Hackers – Cockroach driven robot. Cockroach runs, spins ball, drives robot
Physical computing is programming for stuff
read inputs from your surroundings and modify them based on logic
[Arduino](http://www.arduino.cc/)
Open source hardware and software project that makes physical computing really easy
- Program via USB
- power via 9v
- 14 digital i/o pins
- AVR microcontroller
- 6 analog i/o pins
Most of the API is for sensing and controlling the physical world.
HELLO WORLD – make an LED blink on and off
class HelloWorld < ArduinoSketch
output_pin 13, :as => led
def loop
led.blink(500)
end
end
RAD is Ruby Arduino Development
In a hardware demo, everyone is required to go “Oooooooooooh” (even if it doesn’t work)
rad command generates a project directories
You can buy an Arduino board for ~$30 from Make
or a Dorkboard for ~$6
Bell rings as a post commit-hook for git
.git/hooks/post-commit
require ‘bell.rb’
Bell.ring
exit 0
Demo Reason + Archeopteryx playing a drum
- Play midi via Reason
- Playing same midi through arduino, a motor, a drumstick and a snare drum
Archeopteryx: code describes patterns with channels, and randomness.
Reason sends midi to Tascam midi device, Tascam sends to Arduino, which turns solenoid attached to drumstick.
Physical computing is for everyone, if you’ve ever wanted to make your code interact with the world, now you can.
Q: Can you use this to play rockband?
A: Yes. You can use a photoresistor to detect notes coming across the line.
Q: Are there latency problems with midi playback?
A: The clockspeed of the arduino is fast enough to keep up with the playback.
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