Open Hardware/Modding: Raspberry Pi, Jetson Nano, Arduino

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 26, 2022

• Raspberry Pi Bird Cries When Users Leave Twitter | Tom's Hardware

  Raspberry Pi makes for a great notification platforms as it can be easily integrated with many APIs. Maker and developer Dr David Pride saw a glowing opportunity and seized the chance to make this clever Twitter-based project he dubbed “Bye-Bye Bird”. This project keeps him up to date on when his friends are leaving the social media platform with a tearful notification system.

  Dr Pride laser cut a board to resemble Twitter’s bird logo. Behind this bird is a Raspberry Pi that listens for Tweets using the #RIPTwitter hashtag. If it detects a tweet using this farewell hashtag, it triggers a system that causes the bird to release a single tear using a syringe of water.

• Critter - Guitari’s 201 Music Synthesizer is the long-awaited successor to its Pocket Piano | Engadget

  Like the Organelle, you can actually hack together your own patches for the 201 using Pure Data or Faust, but that's more of a nice bonus than the main selling point here. Under the hood of the 201 is a 900Mhz ARM processor with 512MB RAM, which should be plenty for most synth patches, but it's not quite as powerful as the Organelle M. The 201 also has a built-in speaker, a 1/4-inch stereo out jack, 1/8-inch MIDI in and out, USB-A for connecting MIDI controllers, and USB-C for accessing the files on the microSD card.

• Raspberry Pi Pauses Ad Blocking with Big Red Button | Tom's Hardware

  Installing ad blockers on every machine has become somewhat of a standard for modern internet users. But makers in the Raspberry Pi community have found a way to stop them at the source with the advent of Pi-Hole. This is a system designed to stop advertisements at the DNS level on your network but what if you need to let them through for a little while? That’s where maker and developer Kris from Planet Kris comes in with his Pie Stop button project.

  To dig into this project, it helps to know how Pi-Hole works. Check out our guide on how to install Pi-Hole to get an idea of what the application does and how to set it up on the Pi. Unfortunately for Kris, Pi-Hole prevented critical access to important work-related websites. He didn’t want to remove the system so he opted to devise a way to temporarily disable Pi-Hole on his network.

• The NVIDIA Jetson Nano is Coming Back! - News - SparkFun Electronics

  If you’ve been following or trying to get your hands on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano, then you’re probably aware that global supply chain constraints and component shortages hit hard last year. Since then, we’ve received an impressive number of backorders for our Jetson Products. Well, we’re here to deliver good news for all of you that have been waiting: We have Jetson Nanos that will be trickling in, starting after Black Friday!

  If you have a current backorder, we will do our best to get it fulfilled as soon as we can. For those who are interested in a new Jetson Nano 4GB, backorders are now open! We will make effort to keep you up-to-date on forthcoming ETAs. You may also notice the price of the Nano and its associated kits have gone up - this is unfortunately a necessary consequence of global supply chain changes. We hope you understand.

• Designing a 3D-printed EMG bionic hand as a low-cost alternative to prosthetic limbs | Arduino Blog

  The cost of a new prosthetic arm can range from several thousand dollars to tens of thousands, putting them out of reach for many people. Ahmad Ikram recognized this need and decided to design and build a far cheaper, open source version that has myoelectric capabilities.

  To begin this project, Ikram decided upon using the InMoov 3D-printed arm design from French sculptor Gael Langevin due to it being easy to construct. The hand itself contains a single wire connected to each finger, while the other end gets wrapped around a servo motor horn so that the finger can bend whenever the serv moves. A Myoware muscle sensor is responsible for reading the electrical signals generated by muscle contractions and converting them into a readable analog voltage, which is read by an Arduino Nano’s analog pin.