Sand Clock to Laser Time Writer conversion kit

In the Sand Clock, every minute, two vibrator motors shake the sand to erase the time before writing the new time. To avoid the noise this causes, Elektor Labs thought of replacing the stylus and the sand by a small laser module (under 5V) and a sheet of phosphorescent self-adhesive paper: the result is a bright display with plenty of contrast, perfectly readable from afar, and perfectly silent.

This kit enables the rapid development of applications for fun, sound, useful or just pleasing. With conductive ink and other conductors of adhesive copper track. These components form switches and sensors which are controlled by a programmable board such as an Arduino. It can also make sounds. Five minutes after unpacking, thanks to the included accessories, you’re already having lots of fun.

This new kit is a variant of Elektor’s earlier published sand clock. Instead of writing the time in a layer of sand, it uses a laser module to plot the time onto a piece of glow-in-the-dark sticker material. The original design of the sand clock was modified to fit a laser module running on 3 - 5 V. A switch allows starting the time writing sequence at will rather than at a preset interval. This upgrade-kit is nowavailable in your Elektor store.

Not long after the announcement by Intel that they would be withdrawing many of their embedded products, Sony have decided to enter the fray and will be showcasing an Arduino-compatible development board at the Tokyo Maker Faire. The board specification promises a multi-core ARM processor and built-in GPS/GLONASS capability...

Designed by Clemens Valens at Elektor.LABS, the AVR Playground – a playful reference to the Arduino forum known as the Arduino Playground – is a hybrid of an Arduino Uno and a traditional micro-controller development board. It is intended for ‘doing Arduino’ without bad connections and loose wires (although it doesn’t disallow it). It provides an easy way to start learning the microcontroller without having to solder or add other components. 

As you well know, the Arduino is "the" basic component in the maker community, however to expand its capabilities makers are still largely on their own. To really make the most of the Arduino, and explore the projects in which it can be used, it means getting back to basics which can often cause major problems — and that's where the book Home Automation Projects with Arduino begins.

This timelapse video shows you how easily the Arduino Tinkerkit* Braccio Robotic Arm kit can be assembled. While manipulating the different parts and screwing it together, you will learn a lot about how it actually works. The assembly is real fun, and thanks to the Arduino test sketch found in the examples, aligning the servomotors is a piece of cake too. Soon you’ll be familiar with the arm itself and learn how to control its movements through your smartphone.

Described in the January & February 2017 edition of Elektor, the Sand Clock project, unique for its mechanical design, is all the better for its availability in kit form, which I’ve wanted to examine more closely. The principle of this gadget is amusing: to write the time in sand every minute, with a stylus on a pantograph and some servomotors, and erase it just before the next minute, and repeat endlessly.

Now available in the Elektor Store is the Arduino Project Handbook from No Starch Press. This book is a beginner-friendly collection of electronics projects using the low-cost Arduino board. With just a handful of components, an Arduino, and a computer, you'll learn to build and program everything from light shows to arcade games to an ultrasonic security system.

As far as Arduino users are concerned the disagreement that made the Arduino group split into two entities .CC and .ORG is finally over with the introduction of version 1.8.0 of the Arduino IDE. Up to this version users needed to install two IDEs on their computer – v1.6 and v1.7 – to support all the ‘official’ Arduino boards available; version 1.8.0 (and up) knows them all.