Celebrate Success. Share It with Others

Can there be a better way of remembering the tsunami that hit Japan’s nuclear reactor and the stoic bravery of the people who survived this disaster than designing a Geiger counter that’s built into a mobile phone, to constantly monitor and feed radiation

Open source radiation detector

http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2218 Following the terrible earthquakes that shook Japan in March 2011, radiation concerns increased and the international sales of Geiger counters that measure nuclear radiation soared. As companies like International Medcom ran out of stock, they made it a policy to first provide the instruments they had to those who could share the readings with others. At this time, Safecast–an open sensor network and a terrific example of the open source philosophy—was formed to collect as much radiation data as possible and share it with others. This is when open source advocate Dr Andrew ‘Bunnie’ Huang created a reference design for a compact Geiger counter that people could carry around, and record data with, all the time.

The open twist: The device revolves around a LND T31T pancake Geiger tube, a large sensor capable of detecting multiple kinds of harmful radiation including Alpha, Beta and Gamma particles. Since Dr Huang wanted to make sure that people would carry the device all the time, he decided to design the Geiger counter into a mobile phone battery pack–something that is sure to accompany people all the time! So, the design turned out to be a battery pack that can charge a smartphone, but also incorporates a Geiger tube, an LED flashlight (handy in an emergency when there is no power), and some logging circuitry. The Geiger counter would upload its log data to the Safecast network every time the user plugged in the phone to charge. Dr Huang open sourced the designs, thereby enabling companies like International Medcom to manufacture and distribute the devices.

Create your own robot with Multiplo

http://multiplo.org/Multiplo is an open source system to design and build things, especially robots, in an easy way. The founders were teachers, who were upset by the lack of flexible teaching aids for robotics. Not satisfied by what was available in the market, they started prototyping robots by laser-cutting acrylic and wiring some breadboard to it. Soon, they were

giving lessons and designing parts that could be moved around to achieve the functions needed for the robot being built. As they worked around with these laser cut parts, they slowly found themselves working towards a larger dream – a flexible kit that people could use to learn, teach or simply play around with!

The open twist: Multiplo is a kit that has everything you need to build a robot. All the parts have been tested for compatibility, and there is also the flexibility to add your own parts. It comprises a set of mechanical parts that are easy to assemble, difficult to break and simple to customise. The system is based on a mathematical relationship between the dimensions of the components, making them match each other. The makers also decided to design and manufacture their own controller because they wanted something user-friendly, yet powerful and hackable – so they developed DuinoBot, an all-in-one, expandable, Arduino-compatible robot controller with motor outputs, easy to use sensor connectors, etc. While they provide graphical software for programming the system, for beginners they also have a simple set of pre-recorded actions that can be commanded with a common TV remote control. The system works completely out-of-the-box, and you can easily build a robot within an hour. You can re-program its controller, add Arduino-compatible shields like Wi-Fi and GmS, or your own custom-made parts. The whole system is open source, and the parts have also been designed such that they can be reproduced using simple tools. All mechanical blueprints, laser-cutting files, robot projects, software examples and documentation are open source and have been released under the RMmL licence.

An 83.82 cm (33-inch) open source multi-touch table

http://playsurface.org/ A multi-touch display is a wonderful thing to have – whether for entertainment, collaboration or for teaching. However, it is also expensive, placing it out of the reach of most people. mlaysurface, which was demonstrated at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, might change all this. The project is an attempt to bring large format touch computing tables to developers, consumers and home users. It is based on what the team believes to be a new mechanical and electronic design approach. The kit, which will start shipping in the near future, will include a complete touch table and all the open source drivers and demo programs needed to start working with it. The mlaysurface features a new, application-specific closedloop digital image processing module to provide touch detection and tracking functions, apart from the gaming/ application computer. It also includes an open hardware cabinet and surface design developed for cost optimisation and flat-pack shipping, as well as a USB interface and driver that makes the touch table implementation as easy as plugging in a mouse or a hard drive.

The open twist: mlaysurface was incubated within Templeman Automation (TA), a product development firm in Somerville, Massachusetts. At TA, a team of engineers was working on developing software to manipulate digital representations of physical assets in a given spacefor example, moving furniture around when designing interiors. In the midst of their efforts they realised that a multi-touch interface would be much more useful for this purpose than a mouse. They checked out existing multi-

touch displays and found them to be too expensive. However, during their search they happened to find open source resources that provided a wealth of knowledge, designs and software to get started with building their own touch table. Starting off with the open source plans, they built a couple of touch table prototypes to try out their in-house software, mostly as a design experiment to explore the space within the context of the firm’s software needs. When it worked well, they started the mlaysurface project to share their hardware and software with a larger community as well as to provide a platform to enable further development.

Electric cars for a greener world

http://www.indiegogo.com/wWheelz The Ew- EV Open Source Electric Kit Car is a very easy- to- assemble three- wheel all- electric kit car that anybody can build and maintain. Gary Krysztopik, an electrical engineer, started working on electric vehicles inspired by the movie Who Killed the Electric Car. He has been working on electric cars full- time for about five years now. He is currently updating his prototypes and uploading them as open source. His prototypes are simple vehicles for basic transportation but can be upgraded, modified and maintained over the years as the design continues to evolve. The idea is that anybody can build one or buy parts and kits from anyone who wants to sell them. Krysztopik’s idea of open sourcing a car design has many benefitsW first, it would support local manufacturing; next, people get a car that they will always get parts for; plus, they can always change it to suit their needs due to the very modular design and the continuously emerging ideas from the community.

The open twist: While working on the electric kit car, the maker found it helpful that many of today’s computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines and 3D printers are based on open source designs, making it possible to email files and build products locally. He also found it possible to do inexpensive rapid prototyping with scale models using the same CAD model. So, for the car frame, he plans to cut fiberglass/honeycomb sheets with a CNC machine and stack them together, forming interlocking 3D shapes. This will be strong, light, easy to manufacture and assemble, besides being nonconductive and non-corrosive. All the CAD files, parts, materials, tools and machines are available online and he will continue to publish everything about the car at the wWheelz Indiegogo campaign page. He also aims to create accurate, functional scale model kits for science and technology education in schools.

A low-cost, do-it-yourself 3D printer

http://www.eventorbot.com/Eventorbot is an open source 3D printer. The machine melts plastic filaments (ABS/ mLA) and builds objects, one layer at a time, from the bottom up. It features an easy-to-assemble, simple design, using a sturdy frame and fewer plastic parts compared to other such projects.

By using a single solid steel frame, it eliminates 40 per cent of the parts and costs that other 3D printers incur for the housing structure.

The open twist: The project is 100 per cent open source, and all the plans are available online. The blueprint, a complete hardware list with model numbers and links to the official websites, etc, are all available. Another interesting aspect is that 80 per cent of the parts can be self-replicated using the printer; so once you build a machine you can easily use the designs to print out the replicable parts for your family or friends to use! By making the project open source, the founder expects that there will be several interesting attachments and upgrades from the community, in the future.