In this small tutorial or better called experiment we take a look at touch sensors.
Touch sensors are used for faucets, industrial switches and so on. You can imagine a nice solution..

So to get started we look at the components
- QT113-D Touch Sensor (parallax)
- 5 V voltage regulator (if you use a 9V battery
- 1 led for testing
- off course some wires and a test-board
- 2 resistors.
- cap 103 or 104

* additional look at the parallax scheme in the data-sheet on the page:
http://www.parallax.com/

Or just connect the parts like the picture to make a switching touch sensor:

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Today i was wondering if it’s possible to developing a low cost GPS tracking device. After playing around with the basic stamp, I found a GPS module that outputs the standard world coordinates in NMEA0183. For more details read the wikipedia page.

The GPS module can send coordinates of your current position by means for an SMS module to another mobile phone which can be attached to the PC. The easiest way then is to store the data in an XML type of file.
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Before we start throwing you guys into the deep we first talk a little about what microcontrollers are and where you can use them.

A microcontroller is an computerchip including a ‘little’ microprocessor. Microcontrollers are frequently used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine control systems, remote controls, office machines, appliances, power tools, and toys. By reducing the size, cost, and power consumption compared to a design using a separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output devices, microcontrollers make it economical to electronically control many more processes.

What is the BASIC Stamp microcontroller?

The BASIC Stamp module is a microcontroller developed by Parallax, Inc. which is easily programmed using a form of the BASIC programming language called PBASIC. It is called a “Stamp” simply because it is close to the size of an average postage stamp. The basic stamp is one of the most used Microcontrollers for hobbyist and professionals.

Blinking the led!
i start interesting in microcontrollers when i read an article to use sensors interacting the computer with Adobe director. So a start thinking of what you can make.. Thats alot of fun projects!

After a long trip over the internet i found a book called: physical computing. This book contains al the basics (and advanced) to get started whit the microcontrollers. I would deffinately recommend buying this book! In one of the first chapters you get starting making your own led blinking. Thats what we gonna show you first, because we need this basics to get understanding our future projects!

To keep in mind this is not a replacement for the book physical computing! It only describs the set up for starting bigger projects. We also dont describe the dangers and basics about electronics. For example if you want to know how a ristor operates you have to buy the book!

Get started!
first like you expected, we started with the shopping list:

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Today we are gonna take a look at how we can control your Windows or Mac with the Ipod touch.

Because I just bought the ipod I don’t want to start jailbreaking it. So we first take a look at the possibilities of a web application.

The ipod touch supports most of the funcions of the safari browser. Unfortunately this means it doesn’t support flash.

Apple has a small developer website for ipod and iphone web applications. We need to get access to these files, so you need to register for free and get a Apple ID. ( if you don’t already have one).

see: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/devcenter/

But what now?

First we explain the theory of what we would like to accomplish.

Of course there will be better and stable solutions but today we are gonna choose the quick and dirty way!

The idea is to browse (on your iPhone) to a (local) website interface (the web application), through this web interface we will set and save a variables to a XML file. This XML file is stored on a server or a local server. On this server there will be a small application made with Adobe director (because it supports Mac and PC), which will frequently read the XML file. Optionally you can of course make your own application with C++ or something…

When this little application notices a change (to the XML file) it will ‘do something’. You can really make a function for whatever you want. To keep it simple we are launching some Adobe applications remotely. (See the image above). After processing the request we need to clear the XML file, to allow input of new commands.

Look at this image for a general idea:
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In this project we are gonna take a look at this movieFlow project. This is the first of the first beta in line. So don’t expect a totally bug free program!

The goal is to make a part of the total ‘media player’ concept like shown in the topic “concept media ui design and adobe director“. This little program should also be developed in adobe director, for the main reasons, fast and easy flash integration.

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We are currently working on a easy to use media user interface that support more then only the basic media files. To easily develop our concepts we use adobe director. Mostly for the reason that flash can easily be integrated. On the other hand we dont think you want a program running on a desktop (windows kind machine) to be your ‘home media player’. its not that stable, a dedicated device would be more stable and much faster. But that would be of the record to get started. So this will be basicly a experimenting program and UI design study for the big public. We are currently working on, music and video selecting trough the coverflow design. To keep this for the ‘big public’ we are using the wiimote (wii remote) as controlling device. For testing the keybord is also working. Lateron we discuss the code and development of this new concept.

Here you can see the first design concepts. All comments would be welcome!