My new Fall 2011 class at NYU’s ITP has just been announced. Students taking Sensitive Buildings will have the unique opportunity to invent large-scale sensor and device networks, and test out their prototypes in a 28-story New York City apartment building. Naturally we’ll be using Building Wireless Sensor Networks as one primary source, and I’m also on the hunt for a …
Botanicalls is listed first in Wired Magazine’s compilation of “21 Awesome DIY Projects” this month! This has me inspired to work up some nifty and needed software upgrades for the kits.
Botanicalls is back with a brand new leaf kit from SparkFun Electronics! Solder it together and you’ll have your plant tweeting in no time. This new kit comes pre-programmed to connect to a Botanicalls Twitter test site so your favorite flora can feel the joy right away. Botanicalls uses Arduino to help your houseplant let you know when it needs water, and then …
At last! The Building Wireless Sensor networks Basics Kit is now available from Sparkfun Electronics. It includes many of the components you will need to build the examples and projects in the book. Parts include: 1x – AA battery holder, 2x – 10uf 25v capacitor, 2x – 1.0uf 50v capacitor, 1x – mini-USB cable (6ft), 1x – buzzer, 1x – 9V …
Hostile Doorbell Towel Spy Christmas Intruder Alert Dog Bowl Monitor Traffic Light Doorbell Bathroom Duck Yury Gitman‘s Making Toys class for the Parsons MFA in Design and Technology program has been using my book to create “physical interfaces for play.” The students have put some serious creative spin on the example projects! My Doorbell Example, among others, has been turned into traffic …
Matt Richardson of Make Magazine has created a networked on-air light using the XBee Internet Gateway. The Gateway (running on a ConnectPort) grants Make: Live high-tech flexibility in placement of its old-school warning. Matt writes that the XIG and its open-source code, “allowed us to hang the light wherever we wanted without the need to run an Ethernet cable to it. Having …
All the breadboard layouts and circuit diagrams in “Building Wireless Sensor Networks” were created with Fritzing, a terrific initiative that’s creating an open-source electronics layout tool. Fritzing is designed to make it easy for prototypers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to work creatively with interactive electronics and there’s lots of news about it this month: The latest new release adds features, parts, design …
Benjamin Zaitlen just alerted me to the charming new BeeSim project he helped create at Indiana University. A paper about it was presented at the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children. BeeSim uses the LilyPad XBee that I co-designed, to teach children the basics of honeybee behavior as an interactive and physical game. Want some of this project’s sweet wireless …
I’ve been working with Bug Labs on ideation and prototyping for miniBug, a new modular computing platform for sensor and device networking. The project has been a lot of fun and allowed me to work with two of my smart friends, Alicia Gibb of Bug Labs and Dan Steingart of CCNY. Some of our initial work is described in a paper that …
We’re working with Sparkfun Electronics to re-release the Botanicalls kit. The brand-new version will use the WIZnet W5100 chip that’s supported by the Arduino Ethernet library. The plan is to have it available in February, along with updated code and instructions to empower your favorite plant to Tweet when it needs water, and thank you when you’ve met its needs.
