Materials：water bucket, strainer, ceramic balls, plastic tube, water pump, air pump, plants, water, nutrient.

Modern smartphones come equipped with a whole array of sensors (GPS, accelerometers, compass, etc) and a CPU powerful enough to do most of the advanced processing required to do advanced decision-making and processor-intensive tasks like image processing.

In addition, smartphones communication capabilities (Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G) make them ideally suited to accessing large dataset and processing clusters hosted elsewhere.

Finally, all this functionality is available in a compact package at affordable prices due to large scale manufacturing.

The missing piece to the puzzle of smartphones and robots is a way to interact with arbitrary hardware, such as controlling servos or reading from additional sensors.

For that purpose, we’ve started developing a workshop to introduce people to using the Android Development Kit (SDK), Android Development Toolkit (ADT) – the latters using the powerful Eclipse IDE and most importantly the Android Open Accessory Development Kit.

The Android 3.1 platform (also backported to Android 2.3.4) introduces Android Open Accessory support, which allows external USB hardware (an Android USB accessory) to interact with an Android-powered device in a special “accessory” mode. When an Android-powered powered device is in accessory mode, the connected accessory acts as the USB host (powers the bus and enumerates devices) and the Android-powered device acts as the USB device. Android USB accessories are specifically designed to attach to Android-powered devices and adhere to a simple protocol (Android accessory protocol) that allows them to detect Android-powered devices that support accessory mode.

Workshops are weekly and will explore both the development on the Android-side and the micro-controllers side – touching on all aspects of mechanical, electrical and software engineering of a robot.

In particular, we will look together at the use of ADK-compatible hardware boards, such as the Google IOIO board or new hardware offerings from Seeedstudio.

Participation for XinCheJian members who’ve paid their dues is free. For the non-members, the fee is 50 RMB per workshop.

For more information, look at the “Android & Robots” wiki. Don’t forget to fulfill the necessary pre-requisites and join the android-robots+subscribe@googlegroups.com mailing list! Note that this is a collaborative workshop, so we expect everyone to contribute and participate actively.

Insect Robot Body

Inspired by Lumi’s Insect Robot, we had our first insect robot workshop today.

The BOM

• Cloth hanger
• 9v battery
• Batter Holder
• Ultrasound Distance Sensor
• Servo
• Arduino UNO
• Velcro!!!

Mitch Altman, Inventor of the famous TV-B-Gone, a remote control keychain that turns off TVs in public places. He is co-founder of Noisebridge, a San Francisco hackerspace, creator of the Brain Machine project in MAKE Magazine, gives workshops around the world on how to solder and make cool things with microcontrollers, and is CEO of Cornfield Electronics.

We’re very lucky to have Mitch visiting XinCheJian on April 17th and give a talk on Hacking Cool Things with Microcontrollers! Everyone can learn and have fun making cool things with electronics!

Please register here for the event.

Date: Apr 17, 2011
Time: 2PM-5PM
Location: No.76 AnHua Rd. Suite 301 (near Jiangsu Rd.)
Fee: 30rmb/person

Mitch Altman, Inventor of the famous TV-B-Gone, a remote control keychain that turns off TVs in public places. He is co-founder of Noisebridge, a San Francisco hackerspace, creator of the Brain Machine project in MAKE Magazine, gives workshops around the world on how to solder and make cool things with microcontrollers, and is CEO of Cornfield Electronics.

We’re very lucky to have Mitch visiting XinCheJian and give a talk on Hacking Cool Things with Microcontrollers! Everyone can learn and have fun making cool things with electronics!

After the talk, there will be a workshop for interested people to experience fun making cool stuffs:

The workshop is free, you only pay for the materials used for the project of your choice and you can bring it back home!

＊ TV-B-Gone (turn off TVs in public places!) Material cost：130rmb
＊ Brain Machine (Meditate, Hallucinate, and Trip Out!) Material cost：130rmb

Please register here for the event.

新车间的机器人课程是针对对物理运算有兴趣了解的朋友提供入门的课程和实践机会，适合十岁以上的人参加。

课程内容为：

8小时的授课时间：

• Arduino入门
  • 电子和物理计算硬件概念
  • 编程语言处理
  • 物理计算: 软件與硬件的互动
• 机器人入门
  • 什么是机器人？
  • 如何用遥控车和Arduino來做机器人
  • 自主玩具机器人 (A.R.T.) 入门

16小时的实验室时间：

• 实验室共有2〜3个教师提供援助
• 动手做自主机器车

对于15岁以下的孩子，我们希望看到家长一同参加。

课程总费用为1500元，包括8小时授课时间和16小时的实验室时间，Arduino材料费，玩具遥控车一台和基本传感器（价值500元），并赠送两个月的新车间超级会员（价值4000元）。

课程時間為周日下午，有兴趣参加可以写邮件到 info@xinchejian.com 报名。

Robot class@Xinchejian aims to promote the understanding of physical computing and provide hands-on experience with Arduino platform. This class is designed for 10 years old and more. The robot class consists of 8 hours of lectures and 16 hours of practice.

8 hours of lecture:

• Introduction to Arduino
  • Hardware Concept of Electronics and Physical Computing
  • Processing programming language
  • Physical Computing: Interface Digital and Physical world
• Introduction to Robotics
  • What’s robot?
  • Robotics using RC car and Arduino
  • Introduction to A.R.T.

16 hours of supervised hands-on labs:

• 2 ~ 3 teachers in labs offering assistance
• make your own autonomous robot car

For kids under 15, we’d like to see parent participate.

The cost of the courses is 1500RMB, including 8 hours of lecture plus 16 hours hands-on lab, the Arduino starter kit, RC car and basic sensor (500RMB in value). We will also provide you two-month Xinchejian super membership (4000RMB in value) for free.

The classes will be on Sunday afternoon. For class registration, please send email to info@xinchejian.com.

The Arduino Workshop Series

Physical computing are becoming popular with the wide availabilities of interesting and inexpensive sensors and actuators and the easy to use Arduino prototyping systems. Along with rapid growing of cloud based Web services, physical computing are posed to take off to become one of the key enablers for interesting new network based applications.

Arduino Workshop @Xinchejian aims to promote the understanding of physical computing and provide hand on experience with Arduino platform. The workshop series consists of 27 hours in total, including 9 hours of lectures + 18 hours hands-on. Each individual workshop consists of 3 hours.

Which covers:

Introduction to Arduino (overview, microcontroller and electronics) – 3 hours
Getting start with Arduino (IDE/Programming/Hooking up sensor) – 6 hours
How to prototype with hardware – 3 hours
Network communication with Arduino – 3 hours
Robotics with Arduino – 6 hours
Linking up with existing hardware – 6 hours
The classes may be adjusted according to the groups.

The cost of the courses is 2500RMB, including the Arduino starter kit (250RMB in value) and the storage box to leave your materials behind. We will also provide you two-month Xinchejian super membership (4000RMB in value) for free.

Arduino 工作坊系列

物理运算在微控制器逐渐便宜，配合不同种类感应温度，距离，方向，动作等的传感器和不同的执行器对环境的控制让物理运算开始被开发者发掘。从数位艺术到玩具应用让很多的人可以透过物理运算表达新的概念，实现新的应用。Arduino是一套支持物理运算的开源硬件，核心包含微控制器，有相当多的周边可以搭配。

新车间的Arduino工作坊是针对对物理运算有兴趣了解的朋友提供入门的课程和实践机会。工作坊课时为27小时，包括9小时授课时间和18小时的实践时间。每次课程共三个小时。

介绍Arduino （概述，微控制器和电子） – 3小时
入门Arduino（IDE /编程/挂接传感器）开始 – 6小时
如何与硬件原型 – 3小时
网络通信与Arduino – 3小时
机器人与Arduino – 6小时
集成现有的硬件 – 6小时

工作坊的总费用为2500元，包括材料费（价值250元）和材料储藏箱，并赠送两个月的新车间超级会员（总价值4000元）