We saw a tweet from Atmel that Qtechknow’s Fuzzbot—a robot based on a Zumo that helps clean floors by dragging a dust cloth around while avoiding obstacles—won the New York 2013 World Maker Faire Educator’s Choice award. Qtechknow was recently featured in a Popular Science article.

Related post: Fuzzbot

Our 170-point solderless breadboards, which we already offer in black, red, green, blue, and white, are now available in orange. Add some color to your next electronics project!

For more information, see the product page. For other options, you can take a look at our full selection of solderless breadboards.

In this video, forum user Dev255 controls a standard (HD44780 parallel interface) 4×20 LCD display with a Mini Maestro 24-Channel USB Servo Controller and displays the value of the potentiometer (converted to a percentage) on the screen. You can find out more about his project and see his Maestro script in his forum post.

Featured link: http://forum.pololu.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7402

We are now carrying the V4 revision of the RoboClaw 2×60A motor controller from Orion Robotics. This new revision is similar to the original 2×60A version but has a new board design and some new features like USB connectivity. We expect to have an updated datasheet soon.

Read more on the product page.

Jacques Bitoniau built a custom control system for his quadcopter that replaces a conventional RC transmitter/receiver and features the ability to switch between two different operators for training purposes. In his system, the operator moves a joystick and a WiFi-equipped PC sends commands to a Raspberry Pi, which communicates with one of our Maestros to produce signals for a flight controller.

Jacques also wrote a C++ library for Windows, Linux, and Mac to control the Maestro using its serial interface. (You can now find this as a Recommended Link on our Maestro product pages.)

You can read more about Jacques’s control system in his forum post.

Featured link: http://forum.pololu.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7351

We are now carrying the Arduino Yún, an exciting new board that combines Arduino with Linux. From the official announcement:

Arduino Yún is the combination of a classic Arduino Leonardo (based on the Atmega32U4 processor) with a Wifi system-on-a-chip running Linino (a MIPS GNU/Linux based on OpenWRT). It’s based on the ATMega32u4 microcontroller and on the Atheros AR9331, a system on a chip running Linino, a customized version of OpenWRT, the most used Linux distribution for embedded devices.

Like a Leonardo, it has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 7 can be used as PWM outputs and 12 as analog inputs), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator and a micro USB connector.

Like any modern computer, it’s Wi-Fi enabled, it has a Standard-A type USB connector to which you can connect your USB devices and it has a micro-SD card plug, for additional storage.

For more information about the Arduino Yún, see the product page.

Writing a computer program to interface with a USB device from scratch can be tough. Luckily, many users of our Maestro Servo Controller who have tackled this problem have been kind enough to share their results with the community. Example code for interfacing with the Maestro is available for over a dozen platforms: Arduino, C, C++, C#, LabVIEW, MATLAB, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic .NET, and Visual C++.

You can now find all of this, and more, in the new Related Resources section of the Maestro User’s Guide, which we added last week. The new section also links to tutorials, example projects, and commercial software that is integrated with the Maestro. We hope this will make your next Maestro project easier!

This bipedal robot is controlled by an Android smartphone through a game pad, voice commands, or sensor gloves. It uses a custom Android API, which the creators plan to make open source, and two Maestro 24-channel servo controllers connected to the smart phone via USB. One Maestro is used to read 12 digital and 12 analog inputs, and the other is used to control 24 servos.

This robot was designed and made by Seeberger Robotics & Design, a startup company based in Switzerland. You can see more of their designs on their website.

Featured link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_S4LsHqUA

Those encoders we mentioned last week are finally here! Here are some pictures:

Check out the product page for more details.

We’ve published a new sample project that shows you how to use the Wixel and its Joystick App to convert a non-USB joystick into a USB device. This guide walks you through the whole process: all you have to do is make the right wiring connections and configure the app on the Wixel; no programming is required.

Check out the project page to see how we converted a Tandy Deluxe Joystick and learn how to adapt your own input device with a Wixel!

Related post: Joystick App for Wixel now available