I recently published two guides for new electronics projects around tracking your social media stats. The first is a YouTube subscriber counter that resembles a Play Button Award and shows your subscriber count across two seven segment displays behind the framed paper.
The second is very similar but tracks multiple stats with the same board, and has more displays connected.
Both projects use the NodeMCU ESP8266 microcontroller and LED backpacks from Adafruit.
Want to get started with physical computing? Learn to program an Arduino and interact with the physical world on Sunday, January 21st! In our Intro to Arduino: Sensors and Input/Output class, we’ll cover an introduction to Arduino and learn how to manipulate outputs based on sensor inputs.
This tutorial I just published on Instructables details the construction of an ESP8266 and Arduino powered soil moisture meter using a NodeMCU board, Adafruit IO, and IFTTT. The project is part of a larger free Solar Class with more solar panel projects and some backyard projects, too.
The Future of Resistor meeting. Photo by Billie Ward, licensed CC-BY
Photo by Becky Stern
I upgraded a cool vintage lamp to work with voice commands through my Amazon Echo using an ESP8266 microcontroller and relay circuit. The fauxmoESP Arduino library is what does the heavy lifting in this project; it emulates a Belkin WeMo device, so the Alexa app setup is exactly the same as the store-bought device. I hollowed out the wooden base of the lamp to enclose the electronics, and installed a power override switch that controls the light independently of the voice commands. The full tutorial is on Instructables, and I talk through the code in the video.
Wanna get started with Arduino? Sign up for our September 16 class: Intro to Arduino: Sensors and Input/Output
Join the fun at the NYC Resistor Interactive Show this Saturday, where you can play Dance Dance Running Man by Colleen AF Venable, Eric Skiff, and Astrida Valigorsky:
Dance Dance Running Man revives the dance-game classic DDR as dystopian chase game. Keep those feet moving while the chasers chase from behind the arrows and Arnold keeps them at bay. Featuring images from the film and pro-level DDR pads, you’ll be dancing for your life!
Come play with it yourself at The Interactive Show on May 13th! Tickets are just $15 in advance ($20 at the door), and the libations are on us. Get your tickets now!
Come to the NYC Resistor Interactive Show this Saturday to see “Who Do You Love” by Adelle Lin, Olivia Barr, and Matt Pinner:
A deplorable reality television host rises to power by exploit people for the sake of entertainment. He uses a nightmarish cacophony of violence and catch phrases to control his audience. In The Running Man this media mogul shouts, “Who Loves You and Who Do You Love?”
Who Do You Love is an interactive sound installation that samples Donald Trump saying the word “China” in phrases from his campaign and presidency. The interface device for the installation consists of three acrylic towers, dispersed through the space. Each tower houses three buttons where players can activate the sound from different locations. Pressing a button triggers the Commander and Chief to say “china”, “i love china”, “i know china very well”, or “china all the time”.
The phrases overlap each time a button is pushed to create an ambiance of garbled memetastic catch phrases. The towers encase a teensy audio shield, teensy 3.2, xbee, and our custom oshpark pcb. the devices connect to each other using these 900mhz xbee radios and light up clear acrylic portions with led sequins when buttons are pressed anywhere in the space. The new echo of “China” is channeled into the exhibition room’s speakers or through headphones. Multiple players of Who Loves You collaborate to compel the distortion of Trump’s reflections on China into noise.
We hope this raises some discussions about your feelings around entertainment media and representative governments.
More info on Github.
Come play with it yourself at The Interactive Show on May 13th! Tickets are just $15 in advance ($20 at the door), and the libations are on us. Get your tickets now!
Matt said he wished there were more projects on the blog. Well I published a project! It’s a Wifi weather display for the coat hook area of my entryway that helps me pick outerwear and shoes. I used an Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 wifi board, seven segment display, and some NeoPixels built into a shadowbox frame. Full tutorial with code, circuit diagram, and plenty of step by step photos is on Instructables.
