Device of the week 4 – GoBone

GoBone is a smart bone designed for the dogs and puppies and is available(currently out of stock) in Amazon at $200 currently and had raised $180k in the Kickstarter campaign in the past.

KickStarter Campaign

Amazon

Basically, it is a interactive automatic dog entertainer that rolls around like a remote-controlled car where the dog will chase it around like a cat chasing a mice. The wheel could also store treats that the dogs could eat from it and according to the maker, apparently the user could rub peanut butter over the shell for the dogs to lick… which.. seemed like a bad idea to me because think about running peanut butter all over the house and the mess it will make.

Looking at the process and timeline for developing this device seemed really doable even for our standard. since it started it’s development in an Arduino Uno, two DC motor with gear box that is available from china at around a dollars each which I happened to have the gearbox that I purchased to test my final project out but did not use it in the end.

so the connection to the phone and developing an app for it seemed quite hard for us, but the technology in the GoBone itself seemed relatively simple, receive inputs from the phone, turn MotorA and motorB in the same direction to move forward or backwards and turn both motor in different direction to spin the dog bone.

Although it is said that GoBone was designed for the dogs, I personally feel that it is still designed for humans to be lazy. And a $200 for a “smart” dogbone is rather expensive, but I can understand that pet owners are more willing to spend on their pet and hence they make a good target audience to begin with.

 

 

 

Interactive Devices – Device of the week 3: Electric Paint Lamp Kit

Conductive paint had been here for some time and the application for seemed to be really a next level to interactive devices. This is an example of the usage of a conductive paint, Electric Paint Lamp Kit.

The Conductive Paint Lamp Kit is a simple product which springs from the novelty of Conductive Paint and what made it so special is that it is the most basic element of any circuits- forming connections between parts. With conductive paint, we could form electric circuits on any paintable surface which means the possibilities are only restricted by the surface and our imagination, In the Lamp Kit, it uses only simple Light up board, some printed paper and Conductive Paint in different combination to form 3 different variation of lamp, if we were to use other modules of sensors or output, I am sure that it would be really fun to play with these.

Like for example, if we were to use projections on top of the conductive paint on a wall, it would be like so.

This is definitely an interesting project to be done and would be possible for us to complete with our current knowledge after some explorations.

Another project which latches on the idea on a set of more advanced conductive paint is this, the Electroluminescent (EL) Device.

The Electroluminescent Strips could be created by using a few layers of different paints.

and how to create that exactly could be found here:

In Conclusion

The element of interaction within the Lamp kit not only acts like a Lamp, it is also a DIY kit which the user would participate in making it into a final product which gives the user a sense of involvement and increase their liking on the product as it was made by them. Maybe I could incorporate this idea of involvement into my final project where the users could create something that runs in the system which I created.

Also, Conductive Paint seemed really interesting to play with it and the potential of it is endless, we should be able to see better Conductive Paint and Conductive Paint Projects in the market really soon and I probably will purchase one to play with and maybe make it into a project or something.

 

Interactive Devices – Device of the week 2: Boscloner

There are a spectrum of devices that serve its purpose to the user, devices that save people’s life, make live easier, and there are devices that would be a disaster when fall into the hand of the evildoer, Ladies and Gentlemen, today I present to you the latter, *Drumroll* THEEE BooosssCLONER!

The Boscloner is an RFID capture and cloning machine that will clone the proximity card(Read: NTU Matriculation card & Hall’s Key fobs ) wirelessly and send a notification to the user’s phone when the cloning process is done and the user could use the cloned card just like the victim card to access into restricted areas. Just how wicked is that! Boscloner is an open source project that they also sells the its components for enthusiasts to build them from ground up!

Heres a video that explains how it work:

Amazing right!!!

Boscloner is an advance system that could clone the RFID proximity card just by being near the target, there are less complex system that could duplicate our matriculation card if we scan the card physically and write it into the empty proximity card and it could be built using Arduino.

Heres one video tutorial of Arduino proximity card cloner.

The basic idea here is to use RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag(card) that consist of an integrated circuit and antenna built into the tag:

Image result for RFID card cut up

and having a RFID system that could read or write the information stored in the tag. Image result for arduino RFID

as simple as it would sound, there are a multitude of applications for it, we could not only open doors to our class room, the industries had been using for task like inventory management, counterfeiting prevention, race timing tracking and Library system. Since RFID is a cheap and adaptive system, it could be applied to countless of projects, what if we use RFID system as an installation piece where every visitor was given a unique RFID tag and upon going close to the installation, it reacted differently to every visitor? It may be really amusing as a visitor.

Device of the week 1 – Pokemon Go Plus

Pokemon go plus is a small bluetooth device that allows the user to play the mobile game “Pokemon Go” even when not looking at the phone or while the phone is in the locked screen, it will notify the user about the events in the game in realtime like the appearance of Pokemon which the player could catch or the Pokestop where the player could get items from just by clicking the button when the LED flashes and the pokemon caught or item received will be added to the player’s inventory instantly.

Since I own one of these devices, I thought that I could open it up and study the component and how does it work.

Pokemon Go Plus in Bracelet form, it could be changed to a clip form.

It runs on CR2032 coin battery which is a 3V, 210mAh and could run for weeks before the battery dies.

when fully opened, the components are really simple.

Thats the basic component that does all the function it needs to, Flash in RGB, Vibrate, press the button and connect to the phone.

While researching on this device, it showed that the Pokemon Go Plus could be built by using Arduino, however the hardest part was the encryption to the Pokemon Go game as it is really complicated and every user have their own encryption, more info on the project Pokemon Go Plus Reverse Engineering and an ongoing tutorial built on the reverse engineering link – Pokemon Go Plus DIY.

Also, I’ve done modification to my Pokemon Go Plus Device where I remove the circuit to the Vibration Motor and linked the connection to the push button, this way, every time when the motor is supposed to vibrate, it will send the signal to the push button, removing the needs for me to press the button physically and hence having the “Auto Catch and Auto collect Item” mode. As long as I am connected to my phone and having the Pokemon go App running in the background, I will have a chance to catch everything in my path even without touching the device or game at all.

Overall, Pokemon Go Plus is a very simple device which does what it was supposed to do and is a great add-on for the Pokemon Go Players which save a lot of the phone’s battery as the app only need to be ran in the background. I think this idea of producing a special device that links to an app in the phone could be possible for FYP and although it may seems easy, the connection and encryption between the app and the device might be really difficult.