MMMM: Monitoring Motion

Eyes!
photo by peej

That time is once again upon us! This coming Monday, October the 10th, is our second installment of the Monthly Monday Microcontroller Madness series!

 

This month’s workshop will feature the concept of motion sensing in relation to microcontrollers. We’ll be taking a look at passive infrared sensors (PIR) for motion detection, ultrasonic range finders for distance measuring, and even looking at how to integrate a webcam into your Arduino project for motion analysis. These sensors and techniques are great for adding to your Halloween projects (wink, wink).

 

In addition to talking about motion, we will be offering our usual advice and guidance to those currently working on projects, or looking where to get started. All skill levels are welcome and we look forward to seeing you on Monday!

 

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the Arduino Reference page for the Parallax ultrasonic sensor and a code page for the Parallax PIR.

Manufacturer information can be found here and here, respectively.

ICM7228 Libraries in Development

Here’s a video of a preliminary version of PJ’s ICM7228 library for Arduino.  The 7228 is an LED driver chip that is particularly suited to driving 8×8 LED matrices.  We have a lot of these chips at the Hive, and plenty of 8×8 displays as well, so we’ll see what gets created as a byproduct of the library.