Quartz Composer is a graphics development environment that gives you access to the graphics stack of Mac OS X. Quartz uses a Visual Programming paradigm which enables you to combine the capabilities of Cocoa, Quartz 2D, Core Image, OpenGL, and QuickTime. You can create Image filters, screen savers, data-driven visual effects, live performance animations and custom user-interface widgets. The Visual programing...

I assume you have either made the leap from the Arduino Duemilanove to an Arduino Pro Mini or you are contemplating to do so. In a nutshell the Arduino Pro Mini is basically an Arduino Duemilanove ATMega328 without a USB port and FTDI chip. It’s a really small board, approximately 0.7″ x 1.3″. You can find Arduino Pro Mini’s in semi-permanent installations, in objects or exhibitions,...

The other day I received an email from an associate, who inquired if I was familiar with the Polaroid sx70 SONAR module. I replied with a simple NO, but I do have experience working with low-cost ultrasonic sensors like the Parallax’s PING)))™ ultrasonic sensor, Maxbotix ultrasonic rangefinder and the Devantech SRF02. Sonar or ultrasonic sensors are often used in mobile robotics for obstacle avoidance,...

As mentioned in my previous post Arduino Night Light using a Photocell, I was awaiting the arrival of a BlinkM via snail mail. Days later the good ole mail man handed me the package which contained my BlinkM(s) and warranted this post. The night light prototype that we will be building basically, changes the color of the BlinkM based off the photocells reading. For simplicity and for testing purposes, it...

Well, here I go again, another adventure into the land of Arduino. I am in the midst of building an art project which requires the ability to keep accurate time. My first inclination was to create a software solution only using the Arduino. But after a few minutes of research I was aware of the disadvantage of a software solution, mainly, that the time would be incorrect if the Arduino was ever reset. I continued...

Hooray It’s Saturday, instead of making music, painting or coding Actionscript I decided to tinker with my Arduino. I started off my day by heading down to the coffee shop and picking up a cup of Joe. As I was waiting in line, I decided I would take a drive up to my local Radio Shack and peruse the component bins for some ideas. Now, this isn’t an ideal situation, since Radio Shacks components are...

The other day I was trolling SparkFun’s website for Arduino related items and came across a standard 16×2 character display with a black background and a red back-light. Being addicted to all things Arduino, I decided to purchase the display and get a bit more acquainted with it. Liquid crystal displays (LCD) come in different shapes, colors and sizes. The most basic is a 16X2, which means 16 character...

(continued from Arduino & Flash AS3 (part 4)). At this point you should have the Arduino communicating with Flash. Unplug the Arduino from the USB cable. We are now going to build this simple button circuit : Grab your bread board, button, resistor and jumper wires and lets build a button. The button schematic is quite simple, but for some it may seem daunting, so I broke down the symbols. The following...

(continued from Arduino & Flash AS3 (part 3)). Bring the NOISE! This post originally started from a conversation I had with a fellow Flash engineer who attended my past exhibition. In my last exhibition I created an Arduino based synth in which users could interact with. So in keeping with the audio spirit, I decided to show you guys how you could easily control an mp3 in Flash with the Arduino micro-controller...

(continued from Arduino & Flash AS3 (part 2)). If you have successfully uploaded a sketch to your Arduino, it’s time to configure the Serial Proxy Application. Install the Serial Proxy application. After the installation, navigate to the folder where you installed the application and open the serproxy.cfg using your text editor. Update your file with the following information : # Example configuration...