Monthly Archives: May 2018

The Sparkfun mp3 player shield, is the AIR LAB default infrastructure for enabling the Arduino UNO's to play mp3 files. This guide is focusing on the exact steps you need to take, to make it work with our hardware, and the ressources we have tested are working together. This guide assumes a basic knowledge of Arduino (how to upload and run a program etc.)  DISCLAIMER: Working with mp3 files on an Arduino is often a bit of a struggle, which is why we always suggest to use something more suitable for playing sound. Our goto platform for this is a laptop running Processing code, if…

SDeraser is an AIRLAB Infrastructure that enables easy formatting of SD cards via a simple interface in the lab. This interface is useful when handling larger amounts of Raspberry Pi's, zoom recorders or similar where quick formatting of SD cards is necessary. The interface is a simple build consisting of a Raspberry Pi, an illuminated pushbutton and an SD card reader. The Raspi is running a python script that automatically detects newly inserted block devices (such as SD-cards or even USB drives), and subsequently erases the device using the ubuntu software called "parted". This tutorial will walk through setting up the Raspi, and explains the functionality of the…

In AIRLab we're lending out a lot of equipment to students throughout semesters. Some of this equipment holds an SD card for storage of data such as Raspberry Pi Kits and Zoom recorders, which means that data can easily be shared when equipment is inattentively returned and borrowed. It goes without saying, that AIRLab cannot take up responsibility for SD Cards that are returned with sensitive information. In AIRLab we therefore strictly require that SD-cards are formatted (wiped of data) before returned. This is primarily to avoid accidental sharing of sensitive data (eg. audio-interviews, photos, etc.), but it also makes it easier for the next borrower to get…

If you want to work with capacitive touch sensing in AIR LAB, we have several MPR121 modules available for Arduino. This is a tutorial of how to get started with the very basics of capacitive touch sensing. This includes how to establish electrodes as toggles, buttons, and proximity sensors via the MPR121 library, published by Bare Conductive. At the very bottom of this page, we have gathered useful documentation to help you get further with capacitive touch sensing if needed. What is capacitive touch sensing? Capacitive touch sensing, is at its very core a constant measure of the change in the conductivity of a circuit.…