element14 Presents

Almost everything is connected to the internet now, your fridge, your child, your car and your pet. In industrial environments the internet of things can be very useful! But, what could be the most useless IoT device? Well we have an ESP8266, arduino and the internet - what could go wrong? Let us know what your ideas are for the most useless or useful internet of things device could be on the element14 Community!

R.O.B. was a Robotic Operating Buddy, created as a companion for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), now far beyond their end of life, it's time to bring back the little robot companion with the help of a Raspberry Pi. In this episode, we tear down R.O.B. and implement a Raspberry Pi, motor and voice control with a miniature projector to create a motorised retro gaming setup themed appropriately for the earlier days of home gaming! Find out more about the build on the element14 Community!

First manufacturers stopped you from adding an sdcard, then they took away our ability to replace the battery! Now the headphone jack is replaced solely with Bluetooth. It's time to take back control and produce your own cell phone, and you can using a Raspberry Pi and ATMega32u4! What alterations would you make to your own mobile phone? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Clem ramps up CNC control by taking apart his CNC Router to create something new! So out with the old GRBL controller board and in with the Arduino Mega 2560 and RAMPs to create a CNC pyrography wood burner with the Marlin firmware and appropriate power supply and limit switches, though it's not without its difficulties! What do you think? Let the team know on the element14 Community.

Clem was so pre-occupied with whether he could, he didn't stop to think whether or not he should! Most prehistoric creatures should probably stay in the ground, but with the use of resin, silicone and polymer clay Clem brings an anomalocaris back to live using motor control and an Arduino Nano! What animatronics have you made? What would you do differently? Let us know on the element14 Community.

Whether you call them "blinkies", "throwies", "sparklers", or anything else, LED art is an interesting nexus of street art and hacker culture. Events such as DEFCON even have exhibitions for the most creative blinky designs while maker storefronts sell them in every conceivable shape. In this video, Matt collaborates with his friends at the National Upcycled Computing Collective to build a solar-powered "smart" blinky that not only looks cool at night, but contributes its computing power to a worldwide network that's looking for disease cures, extraterrestrial intelligence, rogue asteroids, and more! Let the Matt know if you’ve done any Rube Goldberg projects using the Raspberry Pi or Solar Power on the element14 community

Whether you're saving up for a rainy day or you're adding that bit of realism to your mame arcade cabinet to handle those extra coins for credits, join the bald engineer as he adds capacitive sensing to organise and sort coins using Arduino and Texas Instruments microcontrollers helped out by an oscilloscope. Do you think it works better as a coin bank or useful in a vending machine? Let the team know how you've used capacitive sensing or coin returns on the element14 Community.

Do you own a Raspberry Pi? Ever wanted to host your own Radio Station? Did you know that you can make an FM Radio transmitter with a Raspberry Pi? That's right, to transmit audio over the radio waves all you need is the right programming code, the appropriate wiring and away you go! Have you tried this yourself? What other uses can you think of for transmitting radio like this? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

When 3D Printing and Lasers don't cut it - how about vacuum forming? Vacuum forming is still a valid technique for creating well fitted enclosures, cases or to duplicate items where fine detail may not be required. So join Clem as he creates his own rig with a heat gun and vacuum cleaner - extending its functionality with an Arduino based microcontroller all controlled with C++ programming and remote power socket control. Do you use vacuum forming? What would you do differently about this build? Let the team know on the element14 Community.

It all started with Pong, gaming that is. A digital version of tennis created and presented in an arcade machine, likely made for a pub. So what better way to start with programming on a custom microcontroller than with your own game of Pong using a NES controller? In this episode, find out how to use an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) such as Altera's DE0-Nano to make your own Pong game and output it to a monitor. Do you have experience with FPGAs? Or do you code your own games? Let the team know on the element14 Community