Miro's Blog

Using proximity sensors for playing midi tones combined with LED visualization Description The aim of this project was to create a table sized device with multiple proximity sensors that can play midi tones. Each sensor had a few LEDs to show hand distance above the table. This table could be used by one or more persons at once. Hardware setup First I created a prototype from a cardboard to test sensors and some logic behind. Than I ordered a customized plottered sticker with a design which was painted with bare conductive paint. Afterwards I drilled some holes and connected the touchboard with 7 arduino Nanos. Each arduino was connected to 13 LEDs diodes. At the end I added two potentiometers. One for controlling volume and one for changing notes setup. Programming Programming consists of two parts. Master(touchboard) program that reads values from proximity sensors and sends messages to slaves(arduinos). Second program for slaves that reads messages from m

How to crate fake sent and received SMS Android fake SMS I was curious about how hard it can be to create fake SMS. So I decided to do a small research. I found a simple app that allows you to create a fake SMS. The interface is very straightforward. User can set a type of message,date and time. The only thing you have to agree with, is to set this app as a default message application. At this point, I was sure it is possible to do this without root permissions. My first idea was to send some fake intent to pretend the system received a new SMS. I did some searching but any of it works. Lots of answers were pointing to "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_DELIVER" which is the system intent action for broadcasting. But since android 4.4 (KitKat) there is only one app, that is selected as default messaging app and can receive this intent. Broadcasting of this intent is allowed only for system applications. The permission for reading/writing SMS is also allowed only for def

Connecting Android to servo motor via USB OTG Hardware I recently put together a Lego phone holder that can be rotated in one direction (y-axe the longer side of phone). The end of the holder is attached to a servo motor. Servo motor is connected to Android smart phone with USB OTG via motor module. Motor module is controller that can control up to 24 servo motors and runs on 5 volts. Software The module controller part has already burned its own protocol. It was a combination of rotation and speed separated by new line symbols. Second part was Android application that sends messages via serial protocol to this servo-module. I used an example of USB serial communication with Arduino and rewrote it for my device. Game For this exercise I chose a game that I made about year ago. It is a simple game that uses accelerometer to move the rocket through gates. Leaning device to sides allows you to control the position of the rocket. The goal is to run through as many gates as y

Wall clock made of avr mcu and led display using internal timer Idea The main goal was to try numeric LED display with MCU, so to make it a little bit more interesting I decided to create a clock that shows time in digital and analogue way. I used Atmega16L MCU because I needed 26 I/O pins (12 for numeric display, 12 for 2mm LEDs and 2 for buttons). The clock has got two buttons - one for adding hours and one for minutes. 2mm LEDs around edge shows seconds while numeric display inside shows hours and minutes. Display I bought my display from ebay without any data sheet, but it is almost the same for all kinds of displays. You can easily find the right combination of pins. Four 7-segment digits are controlled via 12 I/O pins. Each digit is made of 8 parts (7 for number, 1 for dot). The other four pins are ground for each number. So to light up 4 different digits you have to toggle between all of them quickly. Timers A timer is a simple counter. The ATmega16 has two 8 bit and