14/05/10 Greendix announces the first leaf shaped crystalline silicon solar panel in the world.Greendix’s President Mr. Joseph Lin:In order to provide a new life to a conventional technology and help it merge more naturally into our surroundings, my team has developed a new process to design and produce leaf shaped solar panels.This will revolutionize users and designer’s stereotypical thinking that Solar panels can only come in rectangular shapes.Our vision is to be able to build green solar trees using this product and plant solar trees even in places that real trees can’t grow or survive.Other than the cosmetic advantages of this product, the solar tree concept can be a renewable energy source for different types of applications, for example it can be used in decorative home and garden products, infrastructure projects, electric car charging station, consumer products, etc.Our company would like to pass on this concept and help conserve our environment one leaf at a time!
French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's New commission for The Curve, Barbican, London, a work drawing on the rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways.
For his installation in The Curve, Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.
27 February 2010 - 23 May 2010
The Curve, Barbican, London
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery...
Another approach to getting a pay check without having to play the music
This Pat Metheny project is very interesting. He has built/had built (they look like Eric Singers work to me??) an Orchestrion, a robotic orchestra that is responding to his guitar playing style on the fly - check it out
A video of the early tests of my new Singing Bowl robot - the sound is not good yet, but there is more experimentation in the beater leather to soften the sound timbre
Version 2 of the Singing Bowls robot. This one is excellent - the motors are really wuiet - the foam works really well - easy to work, good quietning characteristics and really strong. I am very proud of the spring loaded servo connection to the playing stick - this allows for small variations in pressure and for minor in-consistencies in the bowls symetry. You can see the Arduino and Xbee in a poacket and the battery pack goes in the other side.
the This is a great little, Arduino compatible board, which has an XBee slot on the back, making it cheaper than purchasing an Arduino and XBee shield and also giving it a much much smaller form factor. It is compatible with the Arduino API although you need to download the Funnel library as it has some other functionality. - well worth a look
It based on the original design from LilyPad Arduino v1.6. It has connections for a Lithium Polymer battery and includes a charge circuit over USB. An XBee socket is available on the bottom of the board
Interesting new sensing platform which looks great for bio-sensing
Shimmer Small Wireless Sensor Platform Designed to Support Wearable Applications
Wireless Sensors have progressed in recent years due to the development of micro electromechanical MEM technology. However, traditional constraints such as size, weight, reliable wireless communication and power consumption are issues that wireless sensors must contend with. Shimmer provides and extensible platform that allows you to overcome traditional hardware and software constraints through the following features:
Very low power consumption
Soft power switching
Small form factor: 50mm x 25mm x 12.5mm
Light weight: 15 grams
Readily connects via Bluetooth or 802.15.4 radio
Platform Features
Compact Form Factor, Light & Wearable Weight: 15 Grams, Volume: 50mm x 25mm x 12.5mm
Wireless communications via Bluetooth and 802.15.4 WML-C46A, CC2420
Offline Data Capture Micro SD Card Storage 2 Gigabytes
SD data bypass 8MHz MSP430 CPU 10Kbyte RAM, 48Kbyte Flash, 8 Channels of 12 bit A/D
Open Platform, driven by TinyOS
Internal and external connectors for expansion
Includes simple serial command interface for Bluetooth
Integrated TCP/IP stack for 802.15.4
Integrated 3-axis MEMs accelerometer with selectable range
Integrated tilt / vibration sensor
Integrated Li-ion battery mgmt.
Supported by BioMOBIUS graphical software platform
Available as add-on extension boards and accessories
Kinematics sensing Designed for motion capture applications. The design uses a pair of dual-axis gyroscopes.
3 Lead Micro-power electrocardiograph ECG Utilised for the capturing of ECG data
2 Lead Micro-power electromyograph EMG Utilised for evaluating and recording the activation signal of muscles
Passive Infra Red -
USB dual UART programming dock for programming and applications where wired serial communication are desirable. Also acts as a single SHIMMER charger
SHIMMER Charger dock battery charger cradle that can charge 6 SHIMMERs simultaneously
Analog Breakout board to thru-holes for rapid prototyping enables multiple analog signals to be plugged into SHIMMER.
A Useful tute from
The Daily Duino Blog Archive
DS18B20 Temperature Sensors and Arduino
Spent the day working with DS18B20 temperature sensors and getting an Arduino to read the data they spit out. Lucky for me and you, we have the shoulders of giants to stand upon as we copy and paste some magical code to get us started
June 4th, 2010 by 
Garth
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