What better way for a father and son to spend the Thanksgiving weekend together than to build a robot out of a tin can and an Arduino. As far as robots go, this little autonomous aluminum can seeks out light and moves in the direction of it. The creator cleverly refers to this as a “flashlight leash.”

With an Arduino, a light sensor and a lower power DC motor, making your own light-seeking robot shouldn’t be too difficult of a task. With your kid helping you, who knows what you could accomplish?

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The name is a bit odd, I have to admit, but this looks like one fun toy for the DIY enthusiast out there. It’s called the Meggy Jr RGB and it’s a programmable handheld console that features an 8×8 LED matrix made up of wonderful colored lights. It uses an ATMega168 microcontroller, similar to that of the Arduino. In fact, you can use Arduino code to program the Meggy Jr. With six buttons available, you could end up making a game or an audio interface with this thing.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has a whole write up on it and how it can be used. It’ll be available next week.

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Jonah over at MAKE points out that you can actually make your Arduino a lot greener. How? Use a Solio with an external USB cable to provide your favorite microcontroller with power. If you don’t know what a Solio is, it’s essentially a small solar powered gadget charger. While this isn’t exactly a breathtaking hack or anything like that, it’s a new way of using a Solio and an alternative way to power your Arduino come this Halloween!

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Here’s an Arduino with a shitload of modules and shields attached to it. Blogger Matt sells these on his site, Liquidware.com, for $249.93. It comes with an Arduino, a MeCap Backpack, a TouchShield Stealth, an ExtenderShield and an InputShield.

The TouchShield reads the position of the joystick, and outputs a little colored dot on the TouchShield screen. It’s essentially an open source portable gaming system. With the appropriate programming, you’ll be playing Missile Command in no time. Hit the jump to check out the vid.
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Who would have thought that our favorite microcontroller, the Arduino Duemilanove, could be used for taking incredible pictures with high speed photography techniques? Using a laser and sensors, this photographer used an Arduino to capture these amazing photographs. Can you believe that’s paint? Hit the jump for more unbelievable photos.

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The Duemilanove (meaning “2009″ in Italian) is the latest addition to the Arduino line of microcontrollers. It looks like it’s predecessor, the Diecimila, and also shares similar specs with one main subtle difference: the Diecimila has a jumper which is used to select a power source (USB or external power) while the Duemilanove automatically selects the appropriate power supply , eliminating the need for the power selection jumper.

Other than that, you’re still getting all the luxuries you would from a Diecimila out of the Dueomilanove. Now, thanks to the removal of the power selection jumper, you’ll no longer have to worry about blocking the jumper after installing an Xport shield.

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I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. The Basement Scientist, a fine DIYer and hardware hacker, has finally received his MIDI shield boards from Batch PCB. What does this mean? It means that soon, he’ll do a run of MIDI shield PCBs that will be available for purchase. In turn, that means you can easily run MIDI through your Arduino, making it fun and easy to create your own instruments.

I received my two MIDI Shield circuit boards from Batch PCB over the weekend. I’m happy to report that they came out 100% error free. However, I think I’m going to make one or two minor tweaks before getting a bunch produced.

MIDI requires the use of the Arduino serial port pins, which are also used by the on-board USB programmer. With my current design the MIDI Shield has to be unplugged before the Arduino can be programmed, which is a pain in the ass. Instead, I’m going to add a jumper to the MIDI Shield. Remove the jumper, program the Arduino, then put the jumper back on. Much better than pulling the whole shield off every time you need to upload code.

I’m incredibly excited to get my hands on one of these shields. I was contemplating on building my own but TMS has done a fine job and I wholeheartedly support it.

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Think you can ride a Segway? Sure, it might look easy - until you fall. For those not skilled in the ways of a normal-sized Segway, perhaps a mini Segway would be more to your liking. This DIY project found on the Arduino.cc forums was posted by user Arduino.poet whose created this mini-Segway which has no practical purpose but does show his passion for hardware and the Arduino. Why else would he be the self-proclaimed Arduino poet?

Using some LEGO pieces and an Ardunio, this Segway is capable of self-balanced movement at a speed that could be deemed too fast. Just kidding, this thing is slow as molasses. Arduino.poet also uploaded his library to Sourceforge for all to use and is willing to answer any questions anyone has on the project over at the Arduino.cc forums.  My question: where’s the cup holder?

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Check out Guilherme Martin’s first attempt at making a robot. He uses an Arduino and motor shield with one servo for steering and a standard DC motor for movement. It’s dubbed “baratinha” meaning “little cockroach” in Portuguese. Using two micro-switches as if they were antennae, baratinha is able to detect obstacles in its way.  It’s just like a real cockroach except it won’t eat your food or leave a foul odor in its wake.  I wonder if it’d survive an atomic blast?

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Brady Clark and Mykle Hansen made this nifty DIY speed vest for bikers that displays a light-up readout of the wearer’s speed. The vest works thanks to an Arduino open source computer, wheel speed sensor, nine-volt battery, and electroluminescent display. Hansen and Clark describe the speed vest as a “bicycle safety device and advocacy tool.” I don’t really see how this vest does all that. It does manage to make the wearer look like a tool though. I can’t imagine anyone actually wearing this, but the work these guys did to make it happen is still very impressive.

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