IRC on an Arduino-powered GLCD

IRC on a GLCD!

I found this thing about making an IRC bot in Python, and thought: since I know how to send serial information from Python using pySerial and how to receive serial information on the Arduino as well as knowing how to output text on a GLCD, why not make an Arduino program that shows IRC text on a GLCD?

Basically, the IRC bot connects to a server and channel you choose, and it just stays in there, sending serial information to the Arduino. Using the GLCD library 3 beta, the Arduino simply prints each character received to a text area and checks for newlines.

The IRC bot isn’t that great (probably still needs a lot of work) but it gets the job done.

Source code available here and in the full post. Note that the Python script requires pySerial and Python 3.1.

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Tri-color LED

Bought one of these RGB LEDs from Adafruit; here’s a video of it in action. I didn’t save the Arduino sketch, but I simply declared the PWM out value for each pin as a random byte between 0 and 255 in the setup() function and just added 1 to each value every iteration of the loop() function (since they were declared as bytes, it wraps around after exceeding a value of 255).

Animations on KS0108 GLCD

The source code for Running Marisa can be found here.

Included with the Arduino GLCD library is a Processing program by Michael Margolis that converts an image into a header file that you can include in your Arduino sketch to display bitmaps using GLCD.DrawBitmap(). It’s pretty convenient, but what if I wanted to include lots of bitmaps, to be used as frames of an animation? I’d have to generate the header files one by one and include all of them, then define some arrays to point to the different frames.

I decided to modify the program to accept a folder as an input, and the output would be a single file containing the headers for all of the files in the array. In addition, at the very end of the file, a pointer array is declared, with each entry in the array pointing to the address of each image. The length of the array is also stored as a variable.

The lines appended to the end of the file.

You can download the Processing file and java applet here.

Game of life on KS0108

Included in the GLCD library beta is life.pde, an Arduino sketch that runs Conway’s game of life. Here’s a video of it running on my MONOCHRON KS0108 screen.

Desk made from a door

It¥'s a desk made from a door!

Note the convenient use of the doorknob hole!

I came home this weekend and my dad made an electronics work desk out of a door. It’s pretty much awesome.

KS0108 GLCD shield with cardboard box enclosure

Part 1: Lots of wires

Part 2: Made a GLCD shield. No more annoying wires!

Part 3: An enclosure made from a SparkFun cardboard box!!

Ika Musume pixel art by @bitmapchaos. More information about the construction in the full post!

Image mirroring

Mirrored images

I made a program for @bitmapchaos that takes an image and creates two mirrored image files (images are mirrored across the horizontal center of the original image) in the same folder. You can download a java app here, and the Processing source code is in the full post.

Audio playback assignment

One of our microcontrollers assignments was to use a digital potentiometer as a digital to analog converter. We were given a file with thousands of numerical values, and had to use a digital potentiometer to convert the values to an analog voltage, and using an audio connector and headphones/speakers, had to identify the song. In addition, a potentiometer is used to change the playback speed.

Sorry about the fact that the audio is kinda low.

Messing around with DC motors

Making things spin is fun.

Arduino softpot potentiometer game

Made a cave-navigation game using a Spectra Symbol softpot. The resistance of the softpot changes depending on where you press it, so you can do an Arduino analogRead() on the voltage output to determine where the circle goes on the screen. You have to make sure to add a resistor (I think I used a 100k resistor) going from the middle pin to ground (or power), or else the output floats.

Code available in the full post.