Exciting box of goodies just arrived for a collaborative project in January. I will be working with Bath Spa University Creative Computing course and Farnell Element14 to create an Internet of Things workshop.
RFID RC522 + Huzzah ESP8266
This revisits the RC522 RFID reader that we blogged about here. I wanted to be able to use it with a Wifi connection to ping RFID tag IDs over the ether so I started hooking it up to a Huzzah ESP8266 board I had and after a bit of fiddling it worked! Its only sending over serial right now, but if I can get it going over Wifi, this is an incredibly cheap RFID tag beamer. The new sketch with a description of the pin connections can be found here.
Cloud lamp
I've been wanting to make a cloud lamp for ages at Three Ways and there are a tonne of tutorials online if you want to follow one of them. I wanted to have a remote control for mine but didn't really want to bother with decoding IR or RF signals whilst trying to do lighting animations. I have used those key fob remote controlled relay modules before, but its massive overkill to control an Arduino pin. I spent a long time looking for a remote module that could control 5V pin logic and sure enough found one that is made by Adafruit, but unfortunately it is on 315MHz which is illegal to use in the UK. Seeing as it is the military channel I didn't want to mess with that really and couldn't find any UK options until I found this amazingly retro thing!
I found it on the 'Flux Workshop' eBay shop for £5.29 which is great for the time and extra hardware it saved me. I have not tested it extensively yet, but it seems to do what I want it to, is on 433MHz which is UK friendly and is the only option besides rolling my own apparently.
Anyway, we now have a way of selecting between 4 presets remotely so I can hang the cloud out of reach, which is good because it would be shredded in seconds!
I'm not sure what I am gong to do about dusting yet...
Paper craft electronics birthday card
It is my sons 7th birthday today and it has become a tradition to do a paper craft electronics card for him. These have tended to get a bit more complicated every year so there is a warning there to start simple! This one uses an ATtiny 84 chip programmed via an Arduino to run a seven segment display from a 3V button cell. I used very thin kynar wire and copper tape for the connections to make it count up to and flash his age. Definitely one to do before they reach double figures!!
It would be great to print the circuit outline onto the card to scale and do some nice design on the computer, my drawing (and writing!) skills are somewhat lacking!