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109

Shop vac becomes a Roomba on steroids

from Arduino Blog [alt+shift+b] in technology

A robotic vacuum, such as a Roomba, offers a lot of convenience. Instead of having to vacuum and sweep your own floors, you have a little maid robot to do the job for you. But these devices have very little power and capacity, which makes them useless for anything other than light cleaning. Clay Builds […] The post Shop vac becomes a Roomba on steroids appeared first on Arduino Blog.
29th Apr 2024

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This mouse droid knows how to party

Not a lot of thought went into the “mouse droid” in the first Star Wars movie. It was just a bit of cute world-building, created by putting a box on an RC car. But it became a fan favorite and that in-universe model, the MSE-6, appears throughout subsequent movies, TV shows, and video games. All […] The post This mouse droid knows how to party appeared first on Arduino Blog.

1st Oct 2026 • 1 votes
From voice command to robotic arm: how agentic AI on the edge is changing the factory floor

For years, bringing real intelligence to industrial automation meant expensive infrastructure, proprietary systems, and steep learning curves. That’s changing – fast. Foundation models powerful enough to run at the edge are turning natural language into machine control, and the factory floor is starting to look a lot more like a conversation. AI as the new […] The post From voice command to robotic arm: how agentic AI on the edge is changing the factory floor appeared first on Arduino Blog.

1st Sep 2026 • 1 votes
Build your own handheld retro console with the Arduino® UNO™ Q board

Arduino® Project Hub has featured a lot of DIY handheld consoles on this blog over the years. Most of them are impressive, and most of them require at least some custom hardware – a purpose-designed PCB, a specialized connector, a part you can only get from one supplier. They’re great projects, but they can feel […] The post Build your own handheld retro console with the Arduino® UNO™ Q board appeared first on Arduino Blog.

6th Aug 2026 • 1 votes
How to achieve cost-effective predictive maintenance with the Arduino® UNO™ Q board

Most machines warn you before they fail. A motor begins to vibrate differently. A pump slowly drifts out of balance. A bearing develops a new mechanical signature. A cooling fan starts producing frequencies that were not present during normal operation. These changes can appear well before a complete breakdown. The challenge is detecting them early, […] The post How to achieve cost-effective predictive maintenance with the Arduino® UNO™ Q board appeared first on Arduino Blog.

2nd Jul 2026 • 1 votes
The Pinecone DAISY-1 is a fantasy 8-bit computer that exists in reality

There was a time when computers were exciting and fun. Now most of them feel like commodity appliances — no more interesting than a washing machine or a toaster. Joe longed for the good ol’ days of 8-bit personal computers, so he used a trio of Arduino development boards to design his own “fantasy computer.” […] The post The Pinecone DAISY-1 is a fantasy 8-bit computer that exists in reality appeared first on Arduino Blog.

2nd Jun 2026 • 1 votes

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A Mastodon bot powered by iOS Shortcuts

In short: I use iOS Shortcuts to run a Mastodon bot. I run a Mastodon bot that posts random quotes from The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. (The writing in that game is so charming!) I used to run it off a server, but for the past few days, it’s used an iOS Shortcut on my phone. How it works The bot is called Ulrira, named after a beloved Link’s Awakening character. Ulrira (the bot, not the character) samples a line from the text dump, then makes an HTTP request to post it. Here’s a screenshot of the full thing: As you can see, everything here is hard-coded, from the server credentials to the file name. (It probably wouldn’t be hard to make this more generic, but I didn’t bother.) This used to be a short, hand-written Bash script. I used the new AI-powered Shortcut creator and prompted this into existence. I said something like, “Here’s a Bash script. Turn this into a Shortcut.” Like a lot of LLM output, it wasn’t quite right, but it was useful for getting started. Shortcuts doesn’t seem to have an elegant way to express something like “run this every 6 hours”, so I created four additional scheduler Shortcuts that call the main one. They run at 12am, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. That means there are five shortcuts in total: one to actually make the post, and four to schedule the main Shortcut at different times. Why do it this way? I didn’t want to pay for my server anymore, nor did I want to maintain it. When I went looking for alternatives, they either (1) cost money (2) had some significant limitation (for example, GitHub Actions requires me to update the repo every 60 days). This solution runs on a device with high uptime and is effectively free. If you’re a pro software genius, you might complain that this is not reliable! It doesn’t work if my phone is offline, for example. Or what if I change timezones? But in the words of Link’s Awakening: You’re good! You’re a pro, aren’t you? ………… Well, beat it! Pros aren’t allowed in here! Follow the bot here.

20 hours ago • 1 votes
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