IEEE Spectrum: The Making of Arduino

An excellent article in IEEE Spectrum magazine gives a rundown of the origin of the Arduino board, outlining the motivations behind the open source design and the increasing impact it has on creative communities all over the world. It's a good read for answering the question, "What is Arduino?"

Flight Suit Excursions, Grinder Timer V4

I've had a lot of fun with my Arduino-based projects lately! I got the flight suit working again for Decompression last month and had a blast dancing and hanging out in the crushing crowds. I wore it again last Saturday night for the work Halloween party and then again Monday night for 7 Walkers at the Great American Music Hall where Liz balanced out my high tech audio meter with her low tech VU meter-- analog and fully manual :)

Next up is V4 of the coffee grinder timer, a one-off to replace the V2 timer we're using now. It's an all-in-one circuit board designed to fit in a Hammond 1455-series case. There's an AC-DC converter on the board to supply 5V, and breakouts on the left (in white) for power and on the right (black) for the display, light sensor, rotary encoder, and lit button. I may finish it without the light sensor since it's so close to being done and looks so much better (especially on the inside!) than what we're running now.