The march of time has officially brought us from February, when the organisers of Liverpool MakeFest put out the call for makers for MakeFest 2017, to June, when the MakeFest itself will be gracing the Liverpool Central Library.

Taking place on Saturday the 24th of June, the Liverpool MakeFest 2017 is the third in what has now become an annual staple of the maker calendar. The original Liverpool MakeFest back in 2015 was an amazing experience, and each year that passes the MakeFest grows bigger, brighter, and better. This year, in particular, attendees will be greeted by participants from a range of local hackspaces, makerspaces, and similar collaborative ventures - our personal highlights from which follow.

Confirmed as participating this year are the tinkerers from DoES Liverpool, who are - unsurprisingly - bringing along the excellent Arduino-powered Made Invaders Nerf shooting gallery which always proves a hit at these events. They'll be joined by Make Liverpool, a makerspace located in an 18,000-square-feet warehouse in the heart of Liverpool's North Docks, and representatives from FabLabs at Liverpool John Moores University and FabLab Warrington.

Other makers who have announced their attendance include members of the Preston Hackspace, who will be showing off - among other things - a CNC plotter made from two CD-ROM drives, youth education project Liverpool Code Club, and Funky Aardvark's Inventor's Asylum. Naturally, there are plenty more sights to see, and if you've never been before we can heartily recommend a visit.

As always, Liverpool MakeFest is an entirely free event, but those interested in attending are asked to register their interest ahead of time to help gauge numbers. More details about the event can be found on the official website.

The most wonderful time of the year is nearly here once more. No, we're not talking about Christmas: there's less than a month to go to Maker Faire UK 2017, the greatest show and tell on Earth - and we're absolutely thrilled to be attending once again.

Last year's Maker Faire was absolutely jam-packed with wonders, from singing Tesla coils courtesy the Lords of Lightning to Mitch Altman's soldering workshop, Copenhagen Suborbital's space rockets to Matthew Little's clever electronics kits, and from the Newcastle Maker Space's Penguin Race to Leeds Hackspace's interactive light display, there was something for everyone - and we're expecting even more sights and sounds to enjoy at the Maker Faire UK 2017.

Naturally, we'll be there showing off OOBB, our open hardware building block system which allows you to create almost anything using standard pieces produced on a laser cutter or 3D printer. We're not going to be alone, either: the list of makers is impressively long, with everyone from local radio control group Take-Off and Grumpy Mike Cook's Electro Gadget to various national Hackspaces and Maker Spaces signed up to show off their creations.

As always, Maker Faire UK is being held at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle. If you're interested in attending, tickets are available from the official website with a 25% discount for all Life Annual Pass holders and free tickets for under fives. Be sure to drop us a line if you're coming along, and we'll see you there in April!

Members of the Open Source Hardware User Group (OSHUG) are once again descending on the UK Maker Belt for the Open Source Hardware Camp (OSHCamp) 2017, which is taking place during the Wuthering Bytes festival in Hebden Bridge in early September.

Organiser Andrew Back has opened a call for participation on an open theme, asking for anyone interested in giving a talk or running a workshop as part of OSHCamp to get in touch. As with previous OSHCamps, the event itself is split across two days: attendees on Saturday the 2nd of September will be treated to topical talks and demonstrations, while Sunday the 3rd is given over to hands-on workshops. As always, all are welcome upon purchase of a ticket - there's no need to be an active OSHUG member to attend.

While there's no formal topic for either day, the event's organisers have suggested a few possible subjects for anyone looking to submit a talk or workshop to cover: any open source hardware projects recently completed or currently in progress, a look at tools in both the hardware and software sense, skills ranging from printed circuit board fabrication to do-it-yourself automated surface-mount technology (SMT) assembly, and technologies such as a look at programming different bus types - or anything else a community of open source hardware enthusiasts might find engaging!

More details for the Open Source Hardware Camp 2017 are available on the official Wuthering Bytes website, along with preliminary schedules for other events which are to take place on the festival's impressive ten-day schedule. Tickets, meanwhile, are available from Eventbrite priced at £10 plus fees (£11.04 total) including lunch.

Our friend Ben Gray is back crowdfunding a new revision of his fantastic open hardware robotic arm MeArm, only this time he's bringing integrated smarts with it in the form of direct compatibility with the Raspberry Pi microcomputer.

We've long been fans of Ben's MeArm design, which hit v1.0 back in 2015, and the revised design includes numerous improvements made together with Mime Industries partner Ben Pirt. Chief among these is a simpler build process, with the redesign doing away with a full two-thirds of the screws and each servo being sent out fully pre-calibrated - doing away with one of the trickier parts of the original MeArm build process.

The biggest change from the original design, though, is the integration of computer-controlled smarts to make the new MeArm - known as the MeArm Pi - an entirely standalone device. Based on the MeBrain microcontroller, the two Bens have built a Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) board for the Raspberry Pi which provides full joystick control and drivers for the servos. Better still, the MeArm Pi includes the same in-browser programming capabilities as the Mirobot robot - meaning that, in addition to addressing it from any GPIO-compatible programming language on the Pi itself, you can program the arm in any browser using languages including Python and JavaScript or the block-based Snap!.

Unsurprisingly, the MeArm Pi crowdfunding campaign has been a smashing success: with more than two weeks to go the pair have almost quadrupled the modest £10,000 project goal. Full information on the new arm is available from the campaign page, with pricing starting at £25 for the Pi HAT, £60 for the HAT and MeArm Pi kit, and £110 for a bundle including the Raspberry Pi and all required accessories.

The organisers of the excellent Liverpool MakeFest, now in its third very successful year, have opened up an official Call for Makers with a focus on this year's theme of interactive arts, crafts, and music - and you've got until the 31st of March to get your application polished and submitted.

Held in the Liverpool Central Library, a short walk from Lime Street Station, the Liverpool MakeFest is always a blast - as you can see from our field report covering the first back in 2015. Described by its organisers as " a fun, free, family festival of everything makey," it's first year was a major success and things only got bigger and better in its second year.

For each event, the organiser pick an overall theme - though makers from any discipline are always welcome. The first year was about making and how hobbyists and small to medium enterprises can work together; the second was a blend of makers, comic-book and cosplay enthusiasts.

"This year we'd really love to focus on interactive arts, crafts, fabrics and costumes, jewellers, metal workers, wood workers, glass workers, music," the event's organisers have announced. "Whether that's making in the analogue sense (we'd love an application from anyone prepared to help people turn old tee-shirts into tote bags!) or making in the digital sense (we'd love to hear from people merging hardware and "soft-wear" together!)"

The Call for Makers is open until the 31st of March, with the LiverPool MakeFest 2017 itself taking place on Saturday the 24th of June at Liverpool Central Library. Interested makers can fill in the official application form to exhibit or run a workshop on the day.

The UK now has a National Festival of Making, and there's little surprise to find that it's being held in the UK Maker Belt - Blackburn, Lancashire, to be precise - on the 6th and 7th of May 2017.

With the venue chosen for its links to manufacturing - a quarter of Blackburn's population works in the making and manufacturing industries, far higher than most UK cities - and organised by a group led by designer Wayne Hemingway, the event is billed a "a new kind of festival for a new age of making." The prime attraction is to be the unveiling of a series of commissions, created by UK manufacturers in collaboration with artists and makers and designed to celebrate the UK's making heritage and place in the future.

As well as a weekend public event featuring hands-on activities, tours, talks, craft drinks and food, the Festival includes two additional tracks: The Art in Manufacturing, where the result of the commissions will be showcased for the first time; and Front Room Factories, a series of documentary films looking at local makers who use their homes as miniature production lines.

"This is a new kind of festival for a new age of making, one where the economy is centred around not only quality, skill and ingenuity, but one that fits into a shifting landscape of social change, of a welcome diversity of people and one of a networked, digital age," said Wayne Hemingway, joint founder of the Community Interest Company (CIC) behind the Festival. "By commissioning artists to work with manufacturers in Blackburn and Darwen, the festival is provoking new and exciting ideas that strike a chord through creativity and imagination. Yet we’re here also to underscore the remarkable fact that this area still has a successful manufacturing economy unlike of a scale greater than just about anywhere else in the UK and can provide inspiration to others.

"Above all we are here to have a celebration so expect The Festival of Making’s music to make you move your feet, its street food to tickle your taste buds, its craft beers to hit the spot and its workshops to introduce you to new skills."

More information on the event can be found on the official website.

Our friends at MadLab, the Manchester not-for-profit which has hosted events ranging from hands-on electronics workgroups and Mitch Altman soldering workshops to regular Game Jams and the Maker Assembly, are looking for feedback from their users and visitors in the wake of an application to the Arts Council to help grow the facility.

If you've ever been to MadLab, whether it's to attend one of the aforementioned events or for one of the regular meet-ups that occur there, the team behind it is seeking your input. If you've got a handful of minutes, consider completing the quick survey on exactly what, why, and how - and you can also have a say in MadLab's future direction by offering your opinion on development programmes, exhibitions, and workshops you'd like to see in the future.

The UK Maker Belt is filled with makerspaces, hackspaces, workshops, and other areas where talented makers gather, and MadLab is definitely a major jewel in an impressively bejewelled crown. If you've never been, consider making 2017 the year that changes and find out more about the organisation and its aims on the official website.

It doesn't seem more than a few minutes since we were eating mince pies and singing Auld Lang Syne, but the year is already whizzing past - in particular the countdown to Maker Faire UK 2017, with those interested in participating as a maker left with just this weekend in which to complete and submit their applications for consideration.

Described, entirely fairly, as the greatest show and tell on Earth, Maker Faires are always a blast for exhibitors and attendees alike. Our highlights from last year's Maker Faire UK include hands-on soldering workshops with Mitch Altman, Copenhagen Suborbital's crowdfunded manned space mission, Matthew Little's clever little electronics kits, Newcastle Maker Space's Penguin Race, and the smart Arduino-based Mirobot robot, among other attractions too numerous to name.

As always, Maker Faire UK is asking for applications from those wishing to exhibit at the event - and you don't have to run a company to consider doing so: hackspaces, partnerships, and individual hobbyists are all welcome to head to Newcastle this April and show off what they've been working on, from complex electronic creations to the softer art of knitting.

If you're interested, though, you're going to have to get a move on: the application period closes at 5PM on Monday the 23rd of January, leaving you with just this weekend to polish off your plan and submit your application through the official exhibitors' form.

Maker Faire UK 2017 takes place on the 1st and 2nd of April at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle, with full details available from the website.

As we head into December and the run-up to Christmas, many people's minds turn to the topic of making - even if it's something as simple as working on a hand-made card or perfecting your wrapping skills. For those around Manchester next week, the lovely people at MadLab have an event to help you delve a little deeper into maker culture with everything from Arduino and soldering lessons to wearable technology and live demos.

Unusually, the Make Stuff event isn't taking place in MadLab itself; instead, the team is taking over the basement of arts and crafts specialist Fred Aldous to run the event. Attendees can learn to solder an LED badge, work with Arduino microcontrollers, scan their heads as a means of learning about 3D printing and modelling, and use conductive thread to sew circuits for wearable technology - always a fun time for anyone not terrified of needles.

As if that weren't enough, Make Stuff also provides an opportunity to see stuff others have made: MadLab has confirmed that Gemma May Latham's PatternCraft punchcard reader and Chris Ball's Arduino-powered Laser Harp will both be in attendance, along with other creations and prototypes developed at MadLab.

The Make Stuff event is to run on Sunday the 11th of December, and is free entry for anyone who fancies seeing what others are up to or rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in to a bit of making - and we'd highly recommend you do! Full details are available from the official announcement.

We’re heading to the basement of Fred Aldous for a FREE day of: Soldering: Hone your soldering skills with MAKE STUFF’s LED-tastic badge-making activity; Arduino: Learn basics of Arduino, and how to apply it in creative contexts; 3D Printing: Explore the possibilities of 3D printing, and 3D scan your head (or other appendages); Wearable Tech: Create sewn-circuits using conductive thread (and more LEDs)

Our friends at MadLab have announced the final Manchester Game Jam of the year, running from Saturday December 10th to Sunday December 11th and offering a two-day scramble to produce a game for presentation on the evening of the Sunday for individuals or teams willing to roll up their sleeves and get busy.

A regular event, Manchester Game Jam is timed to coincide with a worldwide movement dubbed Ludum Dare in which programmers and other makers compete to build a functional game in just two days. Those participating in the official Ludum Dare competition are invited to MadLab to work on their project their, but the Manchester Game Jam is also its own thing and open to absolutely anyone interested in rapid-fire game development.

For makers with a penchant for physical creations, the MadLab event is definitely worth a visit: although most attendees typically concentrate on computer games, previous events have seen the creation of card games, board games, and even giant electronic creations powered by Arduino microcontrollers and played by leaping up and down on a series of oversized floor-mounted buttons. The organisers are also welcoming of teams looking to collaborate, and younger makers too - though MadLab's Sophie Ashcroft jokes that "unattended children will be taught FORTRAN and released into the wild."

More information on the event can be found on the MadLab website, while tickets are available via Eventbrite priced at £6

Manchester Game Jam is coming back to MadLab for the final Jam of year! This Jam is a great chance for games designers, artists, audio designers, and indie game fanboys and girls to get together and make a game from scratch in just one weekend. Part of the Ludum Dare online community, games devs and enthusiasts alike come together online or off four times a year, to work on something special.

When people make their own printed circuit boards at home or in the workshop, they typically try to make things as simple as possible: that usually means single- or at most double-layer designs at a pretty hefty feature size, hand-soldering, and minimal complexity. Sometimes, though, you need to use smaller components, particularly when working with surface-mount parts - a bonus for the homebrew PCB maker, as surface-mount technology means you don't have to drill any holes through your board. To add to the excellent guides from Chris Holden we showcased back in June we now have Emiliano Valencia's latest Instructable: TinyDice.

Emiliano's TinyDice tutorial guides the reader through making some of the most impressive and compact homebrew printed circuit boards we've yet seen, as a means of building button-activated and - impressively - Arduino-compatible electronic dice. The project walks through every possible step: designing the circuit, gathering materials, transfer and etching of the circuit, addition of a solder mask layer - a step most home-etched circuit makers skip but which is a necessity when working with fine-pitched surface-mount parts - and even writing the final code such that it draws a bare minimum of power.

Emiliano's approach to PCB manufacture is far closer to that of a professional design house than a hobbyist, involving multiple mask layers and the creation of an aluminium stencil - made, ingeniously, from a flattened-out section of a pop can - for application of the solder paste. There's even the use of the reflow technique for soldering, but in place of a professional reflow oven or even a repurposed toaster Emiliano using a frying pan and a trivet made of mails to solder the components.

This project was my attempt at doing things right; making an SMD circuit, a professional quality PCB, a good PCB design, and an effective code, that allows for a very energy efficient project (when not in use, the whole thing consumes less than 0.1 micro amps, yes, less than 1 ten-millionth of an amp!).

We've spoken about ways to reduce the power draw of Arduino-based projects in the past: last year we were fascinated by Nick Koumaris' temperature sensor running for an entire year from just three cheap rechargeable AA batteries, while Edward Mallon had some tips in October this year on minimising power drain in a data logger by removing unnecessary components. Other approaches have included zero standby current circuits and a switch to solar power, and now our friends at SparkFun have published a tutorial on reducing the power draw of any Arduino-based circuit.

Designed to be accessible to beginners, although some of the more advanced tips will require a steady hand with a soldering iron, SparkFun's guide covers how to monitor the power draw and techiniques on dropping the device's lower current level from 15mA to around 10uA - a massive saving in power equating to a major jump in battery life. Naturally, some of the tips look familiar: the guide begins with removing unnecessary components, just as Edward Mallon advised, as well as switching away from Arduino models which include a USB bridge and swapping out a linear regulator for a switching regulator.

Other tips are accessible to those who don't fancy heating up the soldering iron: SparkFun's guide includes advice on dropping the operating voltage from 5V to 3.3V, reducing the clock speed, and using various software tricks including disabling the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) when it's not required and using a special low-power library to power on and off various parts of the microcontroller and send it to sleep when it's not actively processing things.

The full guide is available over on the SparkFun website.

When it comes to portable electronics, one of the most important features is how to maximize the battery life. The ATmega328P, used on popular boards like the SparkFun RedBoard, Arduino Uno, and Pro Mini are actually quite power hungry. The RedBoard and Arduino Uno, draw around 15mA minimum, which doesn’t sound like much but as you’ll see in this guide, we can drastically bring that down with just a few tricks. In this guide we’ll see if we can reduce the supply current to less than 10uA with a couple hardware and software tricks.

Growing a plant indoors can be a surprisingly tricky proposition. Too much or too little light, and it will wither and die; forget to water it or pop away on holiday for a week or two and you'll likely have the same outcome. Design house Letmeknow believes it has a solution: an open-source Arduino-based all-in-one device it calls the Jarduino and describes as "the first smart and autonomous vegetable garden."

While 'garden' may be pushing it a little - the Jarduino being roughly large enough to hold a single small plant - the project is nevertheless interesting. A custom Arduino-compatible microcontroller board provides the logic to drive a built-in water pump and hose which can keep the plant of your choice properly hydrated, while an LED lamp gives it enough ultraviolet light to keep it happy and healthy. The status of the system can be seen on a simple LED panel built into the Jarduino itself.

Although Letmeknow has turned to crowdfunding to support the creation of the Jarduino, the company has pledged to release all source code and hardware design files under a permissive, open-source licence. Sadly, it has yet to make good on that promise: the company's official website includes a GitHub repository icon which is sadly inactive, displaying a message promising files are 'coming soon' - and suggesting, unfortunately, that Letmeknow may be guilty of a little of what our friend Ben Gray calls openwashing.

Assuming Letmeknow makes good on its promise, though, the Jarduino certainly looks like a project to follow. More information, including pledges for the hardware starting at €29 for a bare-bones kit and rising to €99 for a full kit bundle or €999 for a twelve-pack, can be found on the Jarduino Kickstarter page.

Pour être honnète, personne chez nous n'a la main verte. Mais nous sommes plutôt bricoleurs ! C'est pourquoi nous avons décidé de déléguer l'entretien de nos plantes à un objet programmable. Après plusieurs essais le résultat nous a plu, et nous avons décidé d'en faire un objet fini : Jarduino.

Many makers consider batteries to be a consumable object. Even rechargeable models have a finite lifespan, and when they're done they're done. Some, though, dive deeper: we've looked at Micah Toll's customisable Maker Batteries in the past, and the impressive ground-up iron-air open hardware battery project, but Well Done Tips' latest Instructable sits somewhere between the two in terms of complexity and accessibility: refurbishing old multi-cell nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries.

The project began as a means of eking a little more life from power tool NiMH battery packs. Inside each pack is a series of cells, soldered together using spot-welded tabs; when the battery goes 'bad,' it's often the case that only one or two of the individual cells is actually faulty. Rather than throw out the entire pack, Well Done Tips demonstrates how to find the faulty cells, cut them out of the pack, and replace them. While admittedly a lot more involved than simply buying a new battery pack, it's a considerable money-saver: where a brand-new pack for a power drill can cost upwards of £30 for even the lowest capacity in an off-brand compatible, the cells used in Well Done Tips' guide cost just €3 each with the pack requiring two replacements.

There are a few caveats, of course. The project does require handling batteries that can hold quite some considerable charge, which should always be done with care. Under sustained use the connectors can be subjected to considerable currents, too, meaning your soldering skills should be reasonable before attempting the repair. You're limited, too, to buying cells which already have solder tabs applied, increasing the cost - unless you've something like Jack Davies' homebrew resistance spot welder somewhere in your workshop. Still, it's a great way to get a little more life out of your hardware, and a good overview from Well Done Tips.

I have two Bosch NiMH batteries from cordless power tools. One is performing very well, but other not so good. Most of the case there are two reasons of that: first - natural battery wear down or only few cells just die inside battery pack.

"Standards are great," the old saying goes; "everyone should have one of their very own." Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Internet of Things (IoT), where products from one manufacturer - Philips Hue lightbulbs, for instance, or Google-owned Nest's thermostats - so rarely integrate with those of another.

Shiny things vendor Apple has a standard of its own, dubbed HomeKit, which is designed to heavily integrate into its iOS mobile operating system and the Siri voice-activated assistant thereon. It's seen reasonable uptake with third party manufacturers, but it can still be difficult to find exactly what you need - unless, of course, you take the maker route of building it yourself.

Galen Wollenberg has published an Instructable which walks the reader through using an Arduino-compatible microcontroller with network connectivity - an Arduino MRK1000, for example, or ultra-affordable ESP8266 - to build a motion sensor which integrates with Apple's HomeKit. Each sensor can also be upgraded to include ambient light, temperature, and humidity sensing, at a cost a fraction that of a similar commercial product.

The secret behind Galen's success is HomeBridge, an open-source gateway which allows devices on the network to interface with HomeKit systems. Open source and compatible with a range of devices through Node.js-powered plugins, HomeBridge is quickly installed on any always-on computer, whether that's a home server, an open-source router, or a low-powered single-board computer (SBC). If you have an iOS device already, it's a great way to quickly build a clever network of devices on a very tight budget.

Galen's full guide can be found on Instructables.

I can put one of each of these in each room, and then use the iOs 'Eve' app to publish automatic HomeKit Automation rules and triggers, i.e.: "if is motion detected in the bedroom, automatically turn on the Bedroom lights". This can be combined with my CurrentAmbientLighLevel plugin, and the DS18B20 or DHT11/DHT22 plugins (or HttpTemperatureHum plugin) to make a super room sensor for HomeKit / HomeBridge.

If you're a maker in the Manchester area, or fancy a trip to Manchester on the 12th of November, we've got an event you're likely to love: Manchester MS Ideation Day, a 'hack-day' taking place as part of The World vs. MS in an effort to improve the lives of those with multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a debilitating disease the cause of which is not fully understood and for which there is no cure, though treatments exist to improve function and reduce the chances of further attacks. MS is suffered more than two million people people world wide, with attacks twice as common in women as in men. The World vs. MS is a global search for ideas to solve the challenges faced by those with MS, and Manchester MS Ideation Day just one of a range of similar events taking place globally this month.

Those taking part in Manchester MS Ideation Day will be fed, watered, and given a chance to participate solo or in teams to come up with ideas to make the lives of those with MS easier in some way. The best idea will take home a £300 cash prize, while those choosing to submit their entries into the global The World vs. MS challenge will have a shot at a €100,000 development grant to take the idea further.

Keynote talks also form part of the event, with The Bank of Creativity founder Nick Entwhistle, Havas Lynx chief creative officer Tom Richards, and creative technologist Dan Hett, who regular readers may remember from his work on the Arduino-powered Scribbler interactive art installation.

More information, and free tickets, can be found on the Eventbrite page.

To show our support for The World vs.MS, the team here at Havas Lynx decided we wanted to hold our very own Manchester MS Ideation Day, in order to tap into the amazing creative talent the North West has and together try to change some people’s lives!

Makers rarely need an excuse to build weird and wonderful creations, but if excuses were necessary then today provides a doozy: it's All Hallows' Eve, or Hallowe'en, the time of the year when people pull out their creations, spooky or otherwise, and show off their creativity in a variety of ways.

Naturally, the Arduino is a common theme in interactive Hallowe'en projects: its low cost and simplicity make it a great choice for projects which, like zombies, require a little more in the way of brains than simply sticking a candle in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Arn Dubreuil's Jack O' Lantern project is a great example: an Arduino Uno is connected to a passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor, and triggers a series of LEDs, servos, and a small MP3 player to scare any unsuspecting children sneaking up the steps for a handful of sweeties.

Mike Gilbert has gone for an alternative approach for his project, building 'Spooky Eyes' which stare down from an attic window. While it'd be perfectly possible to replicate the overall effect using dumb LEDs, the Arduino Uno in Mike's project allows for various effects including blinking and 'breathing', while his use of a telephone extension cable to easily wire the LEDs in the window to the Arduino is a masterstroke of component reuse.

If you don't have an Arduino, that doesn't have to stop you having a good maker time this Hallowe'en, either. Simple LEDs can transform a pumpkin without the fire risk of open candles, while computer numeric controlled (CNC) engraving mills can be convinced to take the hard work out of pumpkin carving by milling any design you'd care to choose directly out of its flesh with millimetre accuracy.

If you've built a project you're particularly proud of this Hallowe'en, get in touch and share it with us - we'd love to see it!

Arduino is a platform which lends itself well to data logging, at least when its relatively small internal memory is enhanced with the inclusion of external storage for the data so logged. When building a device that will sit by itself gathering data, though, power draw becomes a concern, and saving micro-amps becomes the watchword - which is where Edward Mallon's latest data-logger design comes in.

Built as part of his work with the Cave Pearl Project, which we covered late last year as part of our overview of Arduino-based flood monitoring systems, Edward's data logger is designed around the compact Arduino Pro Mini. It's a tweak of a previous design, modified for simplicity: at around two and a half hours, Edward has measured the build time as being a third lower than the design it replaces.

It's possible to follow Edward's build entirely step-by-step to end up with your own data logger, but taking the time to read through as a study rather than a tutorial unveils plenty of interesting techniques for improving the longevity of the battery-powered device. Tricks like removing the resistors through which power flows to status LEDs on the Arduino Pro Mini, real time clock (RTC) module, and the external pull-up resistor from the micro-SD card module all help to drop the power drain down to the point where the system can run for around six months on three AA batteries, based on a 15-minute duty cycle.

Its been almost a year since the last stand-alone logger tutorial, and I continue to receive questions from people adopting the platform in education settings. That feedback makes it pretty clear that soldering is the biggest stumbling block for beginners, so I have reconfigured the promini build to use pre-made DuPont style jumper cables wherever possible. The basic wiring diagram is unchanged, but I use a different SD card adapter and changed resistor locations to reduce component prep and make the overall assembly easier.

Earlier this year we looked at a project aiming to create an open-hardware iron-air battery, partly as an experiment and partly to give makers more flexibility in how they power their creations. For those who don't fancy mixing urea and hydrochloric acid in their kitchens, though, Micah Toll has launched a Kickstarter project for self-assembly battery packs.

Dubbed Maker Batteries, Micah's kits take common Panasonic 18650 lithium ion battery cells and spot-weld them in triangular or straight configurations. Spot welding is the trickiest part of combining cells into batteries: you can't solder to the top of a lithium ion cell, which means you need specialist equipment like Jack Davies' laser-cut spot welder. Micah's kits remove the need for owning a spot welder, while still allowing the combination of cells into custom shape and capacity batteries.

Each kit, available in a variety of capacities, comes with groups of cells, connecting strips, an optional battery management system for balanced charging, and the foam and heatshrink material required to put everything together. Backers will still need to provide their own tools - a soldering iron for the wiring, hot glue to provide structural rigidity, tape, and a heat gun for the heatshrink - with Micah promising that assembly is quick and easy.

If you're planning a build which needs considerable power - such as an off-grid long-term sensor system or autonomous electric vehicle - Micah's campaign, which is aiming to raise $10,000 to fund production, is live now on Kickstarter.

I write for a few educational sites, and I began teaching others how to build their own lithium batteries. The problem is that most people that wanted to build their own batteries couldn't follow along with my lessons because they lacked the proper battery building tools, namely a battery spot welder. That's when I decided to design a battery building kit that anyone could use with only basic hand tools found in most toolboxes - no spot welder needed.

We've looked at a few security-related projects here in the past, ranging from RFID-tag unlocking for your PC to using a pepper mill to unlock a door. The Home Guarduino from Allan Murray, though, really takes the cake in terms of the scope, power, and flexibility of the finished project.

Designed as a drop-in driver for Allan's existing wired passive infrared (PIR) motion sensors and smoke detectors, the Arduino-powered Home Guarduino is a considerable upgrade from the stock system. Replacing an original alarm system to which nobody knew the unlock code, the Home Guarduino offers a list of features you'd be hard pushed to find on an off-the-shelf alarm: it includes support for eight programmable tamper-proof zones, can be armed and disarmed through an RFID or Near-Field Communication (NFC) tag, connects to the internet via Wi-Fi and mobile data for uninterruptable monitoring and alerting, and even includes a further five zones to which wireless sensors can be added.

Impressively, the system is driven using low-cost hardware: the keypad unit features the popular Arduino Nano installed into a custom-build PCB, while the main board uses another Arduino Nano coupled with an ESP8266 module for wireless connectivity. A lot of the more expensive parts - such as a 7Ah lead-acid battery backup, lockable anti-tamper chassis, siren, and the sensors - were salvaged from Allan's previous alarm system, rendered useless when the code was forgotten and the manufacturer proved of little help.

Allan has gone into considerable detail in his Instructable, and if you're thinking about upgrading your own home security system it's a must-read.

We moved into a new house a couple of years ago, and it already had a security system installed. Problem was that nobody knew the password! The previous owners never used it, and the manufacturer had gone out of business. Despite extensive internet searches, and even consulting a security expert, the system remained a 'brick on the wall'. SOLUTION: A perfect opportunity for DIY.

Maker Faire Shenzhen 2016, preparations for which we covered earlier this year, has been delayed for an entirely unforeseen reason: the untimely appearance of Typhoon Haima.

Taking place at the heart of the electronics world, Maker Fair Shenzhen has long been a jewel in the crown of the maker event calendar. This year's event promises to be an improvement on the last thanks to a new, more accessible location, but where last year's weather was a little too hot for comfort the shift to October - chosen for, as we wrote at the time, Shenzhen suposedly being "at its most accommodating weather-wise" - has brought with it a badly-timed typhoon.

Typhoon Haima was, at its strongest, a Category 5 storm with wind speeds of up to 165 miles per hour. Thankfully, most of its energy has been expended over open ocean, but as the storm made landfall it was still peaking at a Category 3 between 111 and 130 miles per hour. Now, though, it is beginning to peter out, dropping to Category 1 status (74-95 mph). Even as a Category 1 storm, though, Typhoon Haima has the potential to do significant damage, especially to the types of temporary structures you'll see around a Maker Faire event.

As a result, the organisers of Maker Faire Shenzhen have taken the decision to push the event back by two days. The ZAO Talks Form portion will now take place on Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd of October, while the main event opens on Sunday the 23rd and runs to Monday the 24th. Those travelling to the area specifically for the event are advised to change their travel and accommodation bookings accordingly.

We have no choice but to dismantle and remove all the booths and set-up at the Maker Faire Shenzhen venue, suspend all activities on Friday and to re-build the scene on Saturday because the super strong typhoon Haima is heading to Shenzhen.

If you're going to be in or around Manchester in November, we've got a date to stick in your diary: Maker Assembly is heading to Manchester's MadLab on the 12th of November, and it promises to be another unmissable gathering of the maker scene's best and brightest.

We wrote about the first Maker Assembly to hit the UK Maker Belt earlier this year, ahead of Maker Assembly Sheffield at the end of August. Created in partnership with the V&A Digital Programmes initiative and the Lighthouse arts and culture agency, Maker Assembly aims to foster discussion within the realm of maker culture, tools, makerspaces, and other areas of interest.

Previous speakers have included Liz Corbin, founder of the Open Workshop Network, Restart Project co-founder Janet Gunther, Kickstarter outreach lead Heather Corcoran, Craftivist Collective founder Sarah Corbett, and Makerversity coworking incubator creator Tom Tobia. The list for the Manchester event is no less illustrious: confirmed speakers include Adrian McEwen of MCQN Ltd. and DoES Liverpool, MetaReciclagem co-founder Felipe Fonseca, urban researcher and POC21 eco-hacking camp co-founder Justyna Swat, and Autodesk's Paul Sohi.

If you went to the Maker Assembly Sheffield in August, or the earlier Belfast or London events, you'll know that attendees are in for a real treat; if not, you'll have to just take our word for it. In either case, we'd recommend reading more about the event on the V&A blog by Irini Papadimitriou, or just heading over to Eventbrite to pick up a ticket.

Maker Assembly is a gathering of people interested in making. We bring people together to have a critical conversation about cultures of making: their meaning, politics, history and future. We encourage everyone to participate by combining short talks with contributions from the attendees. It is peer-to-peer, informal and conversational. We're organising this event in conjunction with the Crafts Council's Make:Shift conference.

We love building things that make our lives easier, from the RECO resistor cutting robot that measures out and slices ribbons of resistors to the ICSQ Integrated Circuit Squisher, if we can put something together that shaves a few minutes off our day we'll gladly spend weeks perfecting it.

We're not alone, of course, and Instructable user Caspar has uploaded a neat trick for recycling an old or worn 12-inch ruler: building a drill bit gauge. Designed to help you quickly distinguish a 1.5mm drill bit from a 1.6mm drill bit, or any other sizes, a traditional drill bit gauge is made by drilling holes of varying size into a lump of wood, plastic, or metal. It's a system that works, but it's pretty time consuming: you need to drill a fresh hole for each size you want to measure, and make sure you do so cleanly with no wobble and label everything neatly.

Caspar's drill bit gauge, by contrast, comes pre-labelled. Taking a 12" metal ruler showing inches and tenths and cutting it in half, then gluing the two halves into a clapperboard-like arrangement, Caspar's creation uses the already-present markings to read off drill bit sizes: simply insert your bit and slide it from right to left, and wherever it comes to rest is the size in millimetres.

As well as working for a wider range of sizes than a traditional hole-based gauge, Caspar's creation requires no lengthy drilling or even pre-measurement: simply grab a 1mm drill bit and place it at the 1" mark then place a 5mm drill bit at the 5" mark before gluing the ruler pieces into place; everything in-between will naturally fall into place along the resulting angle. (You may, of course, need a separate drill bit gauge to find your 1mm and 5mm drill bits first...)

If that seems like magic - and, frankly, using inches markings to read millimetres strikes us as the darkest of dark magics - you can see the device in full on Caspar's Instructables page.

I made this a few years ago, and use it often. As my eyes age, this gauge makes selecting a drill from an assorted collection of odd sizes easy.

Makers love making things - that's where the word comes from, of course - but most also love remaking things, reusing existing components or re-purposing something outside its original designer's intentions to create something new and exciting. Something like a door lock powered by an electric pepper mill, perhaps.

Mario Mueller's latest project is exactly that: an electronic door lock capable of recognising gestures, powered by an Arduino microcontroller. The pepper mill comes in because Mario didn't want to take the approach of many electronic door lock projects and replace the existing lock or add a second, but rather wanted to add new capabilities to the existing door lock. The pepper mill features a surprisingly powerful motor, used to grind the peppercorn into powder, which is perfect for rotating the existing lock system on demand.

The gesture sensor is configured to recognise a specific pattern, known only to those authorised to enter. While obviously less secure than a biometric system or good old-fashioned key - anyone standing nearby can observe the gesture required to unlock the door and duplicate it - it's a neat trick for lower-security areas, and one which serves as a great variant on the traditional pattern-recognising knock-sensor locks.

Although it would be possible to create a neater solution with a dedicated geared motor, Mario's implementation has the advantage of price: high-powered geared motors capable of turning the lock aren't cheap in single units, while the pepper mill added just a few pounds to the project's bill of materials (BOM).

Full details are available on Mario's Instructables page.

I was searching for an Instructable that is reusing the built in door lock to make an electric door lock without using the key manually. All I found were Instructables with a separate additional second door lock. So I started to build my own one to reuse the built in door lock.

We've talked before about the gulf that traditionally exists between hobbyist and commercial electronics, and how rapid prototyping and small-scale manufacturing technology is shrinking that gulf every day. Reading about such things is one thing, though, but hearing about it from someone who is living the life is something entirely different. Enter Ronald Sousa.

Based in Leeds, at the heart of the UK Maker Belt, engineer Ronald has started a fascinating podcast about his experience running the electronics contracting business Hash Define Electronics (styled as #Define Electronics, because hashtags are #hip). Whether you have a dream of getting into the business yourself, have used an electronics contractor in the past, or simply have an insatiable curiosity about how that side of the industry works, it's a must-listen and jam-packed with tips and tricks that can make your life easier.

The opening episode includes advice on the importance of variable naming, while the second episode covers issues common to running a contracting business. The third episode, the latest at the time of writing, was of particular interest to us, covering as it does a look at how to track and manage a project to build a line-following robot as well as a quick overview of real-time operating systems (RTOSes).

A full episode list is available on the #Define Electronics website, along with links to subscribe via a variety of platforms and devices - and we strongly recommend you do if you want to avoid us talking about spoilers from future podcast episodes before you've had a chance to listen!

This show is for anyone who is interested to hear and possibly learn from an embedded engineer turn contractor that occasional is joined by guests. Theme-wise, it's Embedded electronics with a bias to robotics and humour.

When it comes to games for engineers, few companies do it better than Zachtronics. From Ruckingenur and its sequel to pseudo-80s programming hit TIS-100, Zachtronics' games appeal to those who like to tinker and hack - but the company's latest is something special indeed: Shenzhen I/O.

We're no strangers to the Shenzhen region of China ourselves. A technology hub, Shenzhen is a must-visit for anyone interested in electronics and technology. Where tools like Andrew 'bunnie' Huang's Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen provide a handy reference to those lucky enough to be on a trip to the region, though, Zachtronics' Shenzhen I/O provides something a little different: the chance to simulate a life there.

The game opens with the story of an engineer, fresh from university, who discovers that nothing in made outside of China in the not-so-far-off year of 2026. As a result, said engineer packs a bag and heads to Shenzhen for a job with the Shenzhen Longteng Electronics Company, and that's where you come in: throughout the game, you'll be asked to build various devices based around a simplified microcontroller family using a clever user interface.

A real highlight of the game, though, is the manual. For anyone who has genuinely worked to build a product from Chinese components, it's a cracking recreation: the various parts used in the game each have their own data sheets, some of which are more readable than others and one of which requires you to translate from the original Chinese. Interspersed among these are emails welcoming you to the company, a reference guide for the microcontroller, and even a photocopied page of a bartenders' guide should you be expected to entertain your new colleagues - and, in the game as in life, entertain you shall.

To go too deeply into the game would be to spoil the enjoyment of discovery, but it's an experience we can heartily recommend. Grab the game via Steam, print off a copy of the manual, assemble yourself an entirely convincing three-ring binder of reference material, and prepare to immerse yourself in the Shenzhen experience - albeit a gamified, simplified version.

Although the Arduino is a compact development platform, with examples like the Arduino Nano and Arduino Pro Mini being particularly pocketable, sometimes you find yourself eager to try something out but without access to hardware - either the Arduino itself or the components needed for your particular circuit. Traditionally, the solution to this problem is to walk through your design using good old fashioned pen and paper, but there are alternatives.

One such alternative is Autodesk Circuits, a web-based platform which allows you to design projects in a visual environment and run them on a simulated Arduino Uno. Maker Christian Bodington is currently publishing an impressively detailed guide to using Autodesk Circuits, starting with the basics and running through a constantly-updated string of increasingly-complex projects which really showcase the impressive capabilities of the platform.

The strengths of Autodesk Circuits are its ability to step through your program line-by-line, providing an invaluable aid to debugging, and its visual breadboarding system which works in a similar manner to the popular Fritzing circuit design tool. Experts, though, are likely to find it restrictive, especially when it comes to hacking around with unusual hardware in unusual ways.

For the curious, Christian's tutorials can be found over on Instructables, while Autodesk Circuits requires free registration on the official website.

Before you buy an Arduino Uno, you need to know that you can simulate a lot of ideas just using Autodesk Circuits. The purpose of this Instructable is to make a guide that allows the user to learn to simulate programming for Arduino Uno through the web application Autodesk Circuits, building a lot of examples that will guide them in learning to program I/O ports, serial communication between devices, electric motors and servo motors, 7-segment displays among others.

The Arduino is a fantastic platform for beginners and experts alike, but sometimes flashing a new sketch onto it can be awkward. If your Arduino is built into a project, having to crack open the case in order to connect a USB cable or use the ISP header can be annoying, and it's that annoyance that Petunia Tech is aiming to fix with its WiLoader add-on design.

Currently in the early stages of Kickstarter crowdfunding, the WiLoader is relatively simple yet promises much. Based around the popular low-cost ESP8266 Wi-Fi microcontroller, the WiLoader sits on top of an Arduino's in-system programming (ISP) header to allow the user to flash a new sketch onto the board entirely wirelessly, or to read or write serial data from the controller.

Wi-Fi-equipped Arduinos and Arduino compatibles often include over-the-air (OTA) programming functionality, but the WiLoader is designed to work with any ATmega-based Arduino or compatible regardless of existing connectivity. Integrating into the IDE, the WiLoader could ease development while reducing costs: instead of having to include a Wi-Fi-equipped Arduino in your project simply to make it easier to flash sketches as you go through the development process, you can stick a WiLoader on top then remove it when you're finished ready for the next project.

Petunia Tech has promised to make the WiLoader hardware and software design files available under a permissive licence as open hardware and open software, though they are not yet publicly accessible. More information is available from the official campaign page.

WiLoader easily connects to your Wi-Fi network, then you can program your AVR, Arduino boards, robots and other targets like them. It doesn't need any kind of cable for computer connection, especially those huge old USB ones. Because it employs Wi-Fi, even your smartphone can be used to configure, communicate, control and monitor your targets via a Wi-Fi-UART bridge.

The long-running legal battle between Arduino LLC, also known as Arduino.cc, and Arduino SRL, also known as Arduino.org, is over: the two companies have agreed to kiss and make up, forming a holding company and a non-profit foundation, and as always in these cases it's the customers that are most likely to benefit.

The biggest impact felt by the Arduino-versus-Arduino battle, which stemmed from trademark disputes, was in the launch of the Genuino brand. While Arduino.cc held the rights to the Arduino trademark in the US, Arduino.org held the international trademark; thus Genuino was launched by Arduino.cc for international use. Now, with the two companies working together once again, it's possible that we'll see the Genuino brand abandoned in favour of a unified Arduino front.

The potential abandonment of the Genuino brand isn't the only move likely to reduce confusion in the market, either. Since the disagreement began, Arduino.org has been producing a modified version of the Arduino IDE software to support its tweaked Arduino-branded product designs like the Arduino Zero Pro. Now, the two codebases can be merged, and support for all Arduino-branded products will be available in a single IDE.

There's still a long road ahead in the reunification of Arduino, of course. The two companies have confirmed that Arduino Holding, a joint venture, will launch by the end of the year alongside a non-profit dubbed the Arduino foundation. The former company will concentrate on wholesale distribution of Arduino products, while the latter will take over responsibility for the Arduino IDE while also offering scholarships and community initiatives.

More detail on the agreement between the two companies, along with comments by Arduino.cc co-founder Massimo Banzi and Arduino.org president and chief executive Federico Musto can be found in the official announcement.

It's no secret that we're big fans of open-source software and open hardware here at oomlout, which is why we're proud as punch to be a supporter of the upcoming Open Hardware Summit 2016 - and if you're anywhere near Portland, Oregon next Friday, we'd love to see you there!

Organised by the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), which has as its founding goals a desire to spread technological knowledge as far and wide as it possibly can, the annual Open Hardware Summit is a must-attend even for anyone with an interest in how collaboration can drive technological innovation. The event schedule includes talks on subjects as diverse as open source architectures for robot platforms and the BBC's micro:bit project through to how open hardware is revolutionising education and even space exploration.

For those hanging around for more than one day, there's also the social events. Thursday the 6th of October sees the OSH Park Open House and '#bringahack' event, while the Pearl District Business Association (PDBA) is hosting a tour of Portland's most established art galleries. If you're still around on Saturday, there's the Science Hack Day. Even if you can only make it for the Friday main event, there's an after-party hang-out at the summit itself, complete with drinks, demos, and hacks.

The Open Hardware Summit is always well attended, and you only have to look at the list of sponsors to see how popular the event is among both big companies and hobbyists: we're to be found next to companies including Intel, CircuitMaker, Octopart, SparkFun, Seeed Sudio, OSH Park, Hackaday, and even VR specialist Oculus. It's far from a 'corporate' event, though: expect to see plenty of crazy hacks and amazing inventions from individual makers right through to seeing what technology giant Intel has been up to over the last year.

Full details are available on the official website, and if you're attending then drop us a line and we'll see you there!