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Our Experience At The Maker Faire Rome 2013

Entrance of the Maker Faire in Rome

Entrance of the Maker Faire in Rome

We’re proud to say that the Maker Faire Rome was a success! We say this not only because the of quality of the projects showed at the Maker Faire, or  because of the new Arduino (and non-Arduino, such as the Intel Galileo, thanks!) shields presented and the people going to visit the Maker Faire (more than 30.000), but also because we got to meet a lot of interesting people that were interested thethings.iO and the Internet of Things.

Before the presentation at the Maker Faire

Before the presentation at the Maker Faire

Marc’s goal when speaking was to try to give the audience a clear vision of the current situation of the Internet of Things. At the end of the talk, we gave a coupon to Internet of Things developers. There were several questions after the presentation relating to property of data generated by the gadgets.

We had the opportunity to meet Bruce Sterling. author of the book Shaping Things and writer of the Beyond the beyond at WIRED blog.

 

Bruce Sterling with the connected beer of the Oktoberfest of Things

Bruce Sterling with the connected beer of the Oktoberfest of Things

We got to chat with the founders of Arduino, David Cuartielles and Massimo Banzi, about a few of thethings.iO’s projects such as One Seat Away and Oktoberfest of Things, which was shown by Thomas Amberg at the IoT Zurich booth.

We also had the privilege of meeting the Internet of Things Madrid meet up organizers, Sara and César. Their booth consisted of Oblobots,

which are open sourced 3D printed robots’ pieces with a conductive dow that can teach children simple electrical circuits. Children at the Maker Faire were astonished by the Oblobots which were playing and challenging them to make a mega-robot.

Oblobots

Oblobots

A few other interesting groups we had the privilege of meeting were the Cooking Hacks team and Snootlab. The Cooking Hacks team helped us with some questions regarding the next project at the thethings.iO. The Snootlab is a French startup that is building things with technology using Arduino.

We feel very fortunate to have met such amazing and innovative startups, teachers, architects, and makers all who are interested in the future of the Internet of Things. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday weekly blog!

 

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thethings.iO at the Sonar+D 2013 with One Seat Away Project

As we mentioned some weeks ago, we attended the Sònar 2013 collaborating with the One Seat Away project. Simone Rebaudengo, Ken Frederick, Daniel Kluge and Marc Pous with thethings.iO were working hard to have the One Seat Away at Sonar and their hard work paid off!

The Sofa of the One Seat Away project

The Sofa of the One Seat Away project

Our main vision was to offer a new kind of interaction to citizens and Sonar attendants with music. Usually, we are familiar with interacting with music the our ears but why not convert the music into a haptic experience? By connecting objects to the Internet, we could send the physical music far away from the speakers played by DJs at Sonar music festival. In this case, we were exposing a sofa that was vibrating at the DJ’s Sonar Village vibe.

Getting interviewed by TVE during the Sonar+D

Getting interviewed by TVE during the Sonar+D

The architecture

The components to connect an IKEA sofa

The components to connect an IKEA sofa

The IKEA sofa was connected to the Internet through and Arduino UNO and Arduino Ethernet shield. At the Sonar Village sound technician table, we set up a laptop connected with a MAX/MSP software in which was converting music into analog music and pushing it into thethings.iO every second. Through thethings.iO API connected to the Arduino, it was able to request a “music package” to thethings.iO API and sending the signal to the motors installed inside the sofa, making them moving at the vibe of the music.

The modulator of the vibe at the connected sofa

The modulator of the vibe at the connected sofa

With some components we were able to modulate the potence of the vibe and the Arduino PWM. Like the volume on the music stereos.

Laptop converting music into analogical music

Laptop converting music into analogical music

The experience

The experience of people feeling the music was a great! The visitors were showing up at our space sitting on the connected sofa experiencing a new way to feel the music. People were impressed with the sofa and the vibe. We enjoyed receiving positive feedback and we hope next year we have the chance to repeat this experience!

Do you want to connect anything to the Internet? Just try thethings.iO and make it happen! And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

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We Were at Make Munich Last Weekend

 

Our booth at Make Munich

Our booth at Make Munich

Last weekend thethings.iO attended Make Munich.

On Saturday, we showed how to connect objects to the Internet using Arduinos and Ethernet Shielts. With the Arduino we were pushing real-time air quality data (with a hacked Air Quality Egg: temperature, humidity, NO2, CO) to Cosm and poll real-time data and embedded that data using D3.js in a map.

Actuators ready to hack chairs

Actuators ready to hack chairs

On Sunday, we wanted to show everyone how to connect a chair to the Internet. Sadly, the Wifi at the event went down so we were unable to show off our connected chair, but don’t worry we will explain the use and purpose of the connected chair in a later post.

All around though it was a great event to introduce the Internet of Things and what thethings.iO really is.

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