When I was still a teenager, I used to fascinate about the GameBoy and I spent countless money on the GameBoy equipment and games. Although I had already grown up, but I still have the same feeling about the GameBoy…

Well, for those of you that also owning GameBoy here, then today will be your lucky day, as you will learn how to create an incredible “ArduinoBoy”!

For your information, ArduinoBoy is the magnificent combination between the Arduino and GameBoy. ArduinoBoy is software for the Arduino hardware platform, which it allows serial communication (MIDI) to the Nintendo GameBoy for awesome music applications, such as LittleSoundDJ, Nanoloop and mGB!

Meanwhile, you should know something about the mGB. This mGB is a GameBoy cartridge program, where you will need a Flash Card and transfer handware to enable the GameBoy to act as a full MIDI supported sound module. Beside that, it also compatible with the old DMG Gameboy and GBC/GBA as well.

However, there is no interface as of yet so all sound parameters in this moment are fully addressed via MIDI.

Here is the video clip of this ArduinoBoy and hope you will enjoy it!

Cheers.

Do you love to eat Pistachio? Stop right there! You have already read the above title that this “Pistachio” is not the nut that you always eat; instead, it’s a nickname for the W5100-SPI board, “Pistachio”!

So, not matter you’re mouth watering now, please forget about the food first and concentrate on this W5100-SPI board “Pistachio”.

Before you’re starting the project, do you know what the meaning of SPI is? Well, the SPI is a shortened form of “Serial Peripheral Interface Bus” and it’s a synchronous serial data link, which it standard is named by Motorola. SPI is normally operates in full duplex mode. It’s a devices communicate in Master/Slave mode, where the master device will initiate the data frame. Beside that, multiple slave devices are allowed with individual slave select or chip select lines. Sometimes, SPI also being called a “four wire” serial bus, due to its ability to contrast with three, two and one wire serial buses!

By the way, the W5100-SPI is only a very small hardware TCP/IP processor and it requires a small fix to make the board work. In addition, this Pistachio can be operated on 3.3V or you can connect it directly with 5V system like Arduino as well!

Are you nterested in MP3 Players? Ok, would you like to create a portable and cute little Daisy MP3 player, if you’re giving the chance here?

Don’t be fooled about the size of this Daisy MP3 Player, as this Daisy is a multipurpose sound player for embedded applications. As a result, it can be used as a standalone personal music player, as the sound for any art projects, as a museum tour guide (if only you have the chance to involve yourself in this job!), in a toy or whatever embedded audio that required high sound quality.

Since it uses MMC or SD flash memory cards, thus the storage size is unlimited. Meanwhile, it also has several interface modes for human or machine control purposes!

For your information, this Daisy is based on the Microchip PIC 18F45j10 and it’s a new family of PIC microcontrollers. Although this PIC18F45j10 is a new microcontroller but it is capable of running at a full 40MHz at 3.3 volts. Furthermore, most of the pins are 5 volt tolerant, which it will ease the interface with other microcontrollers.

The other chip on this board is a VS1011 and it’s an combination of MP3 and .wav decoder chip, a DAC and a headphone amplifier all in one 28 pin package!

Do you sometimes feel that you can’t get photos at the right moment. Finger probably trigger the camera too late or to soon leaving you with meaningless image. So why not to leave this job for electronics. Arduino is suitable to do the job.

There are two tasks for arduino to do – one is to control camera trigger and another to sense right moment when to trigger. Trigerring can be very simple – just use right circuit connected to camera electronics.

Another task require more imagination on how to detect right moment. Solutions may be sound and light. Use simple light sensor made of cheap laser pointer directed to photoresistor and let arduino trigger camera when laser beam is broken by obstacle.

Using sound sensor is more interesting as it allows to photograph splashing water drops or anything that makes noise. Using simple techniques you can get really professional photos with simple camera.