Wiring challenge 2 /  v.2.0

¿Cómo entendemos los fenómenos físicos que nos rodean y cómo podemos transformarlos en información que mejore o enriquezca nuestra experiencia en un espacio determinado?

Este viernes 9 y sábado 10 de marzo de 2012 estaremos llevando a cabo la versión 2.0 del Wiring challenge 2 en los laboratorios de ingeniería de Universidad de Los Andes. Será un taller en el que los estudiantes del curso Estudio 1 de Diseño e Ingeniería Mecánica participarán para crear diferentes objetos de información a partir de las situaciones e interacciones dadas en los diferentes espacios de la universidad.

El reto esta vez es entender una problemática existente en un espacio determinado a partir de las personas y la naturaleza que lo habitan y las interacciones que allí ocurren. Esta problemática debe ser resuelta a partir de  la exploración de diferentes fenómenos físicos del ambiente; transformados y traducidos en objetos de información que aumenten, mejoren o enriquezcan nuestra experiencia en ese espacio. 

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How do we understand physical phenomena and how can we transform them in information that improves or enriches our experience in a specific place?

This Friday and Saturday we will be developing the workshop: Wiring challenges 2 version 2.0 at the engineering labs of Los Andes University. In this workshop students of the course: Studio 1 Design + Mechanical Engineering, will be participating to create different information devices based on situations and interactions of different places in the campus. 

The challenge this time is to understand a problem in a specific place, considering people, nature and existing interactions within that place. The problem has to be solved based on the exploration of different physical phenomena that will be transformed and translated into information objects that increase, improve or enrich our experience in that place.

“This release is a milestone for open hardware. It is the sum of work and contributions from many, and the synthesis of ideas gathered and experimented in the last seven years. At the same time, it is also a start, as once again Wiring has opened up prototyping with electronics to wider audiences by defining an extensible architecture for future hardware, software and courseware; where novice, intermediate and experts will materialize their ideas, design and support for their new open hardware devices as well as develop applications unlocking new ways of thinking, and making, in an even simpler way.” — Hernando Barragán

What’s New in Wiring 1.0?

Wiring 1.0 supports almost 80% of the Atmel megaAVR microcontrollers with it’s Atmel 8 Bit AVR Framework core.  As soon as Wiring 1.1 is released, new Framework cores for other microcontroller series and vendors will be added, including AVR XMEGA, Atmel tinyAVR, Texas Instruments MSP430, Microchip PIC32 series, and STMicroelectronics ARM Cortex M3.
 
When Hernando created Wiring in 2003, his goal was to create a platform which was easy to use, both in hardware and software, but it was only for a limited amount of hardware.  In Wiring 1.0, we have expanded the vision to make the Wiring Framework easily portable to a lot more hardware. This vision allows the Wiring Framework to unite the programming of different brands of microcontrollers, enabling an easy way for artists, hardcore hobbyists, and even engineers to share code and ideas despite using different hardware.

For example, you can use the same sketch you use with your Wiring S board on a LeafLabs Maple.  The Wiring S board uses an Atmel megaAVR controller, whereas the LeafLabs Maple uses an STMicroelectronics ARM Cortex M3 controller. [1]

Example of Different Target Hardware from Same Sketch
 
The merits of this may speak for itself, but we see the idea of people being able to share ideas and concepts no matter what type of hardware they use as a unique and expressive concept.
 
If you have a microcontroller series that you’d like to see use the Wiring Framework, please contact dev@wiring.org.co.
 
As well as new Framework cores, Wiring 1.0 also has a super easy way to define your board hardware.  So, for example, if you have created an Arduino compatible board, but uses different pin definitions, crystal frequency, or even a different controller, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to add your board to the IDE.
 
In fact, we have created several board definitions for Sparkfun, and their plethora of boards which are Arduino compatible.  All you have to do is download the definitions and unzip the file into your sketchbook folder.  For more information, seehttp://wiki.wiring.co/wiki/SparkfunHardware.
 
Along with the release, Wiring has a new affordable prototyping board to use with the Wiring Framework, called the Wiring S.  It uses the Atmel ATmega644PA microcontroller, with 64 kilobytes of flash (code) memory, and 4 kilobytes of RAM. The New Wiring S Hardware
 
More detail can be found here:  http://wiring.org.co/hardware/ 
 
However, you are not limited to using only Wiring hardware. One of Wiring’s goals is to provide a homogeneous framework for all microcontrollers so that ideas and inventions can be shared.  You can use a variety of different hardware that is already available (such as the popular Arduino hardware, various Sparkfun hardware, or even plain-jane Atmel DIP parts, like ATmega168, ATmega328P, or ATmega644PA).  But, by buying the Wiring hardware, you help support the development of Wiring.
 
The libraries have been separated into categories. Core libraries are coded for specific hardware (microcontrollers). Cross-platform libraries are libraries which do not depend on hardware. And, of course, contributed libraries which come from all over the internet.
 
The fantastic reference has been expanded immensely.  If you need something done, chances are, you will find a solution in the reference.
 
To make installation easier, there are installers for Mac OS X and Windows (XP and 7).  A Linux package installer will be available in the near future.

About Wiring

The Wiring project was initiated in 2003 by the Colombian artist and designer Hernando Barragán while he was studying at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy, and the project is currently developed at the School of Architecture and Design at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. The Wiring IDE builds upon the Processing IDE, of the open source Processing project initiated by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, both formerly of the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab.
 
Using the Wiring IDE and Framework, people design and create projects which interact physically with the environment.  Furthermore, people use it to prototype electronic projects and even use the Framework in products.
 
In 2005, Wiring spawned another project, Arduino, which uses the Processing IDE together with a simplified version of the Wiring Framework.  Since then, the Arduino community has grown to hundreds of thousands of people, all enjoying the simplicity of the Framework on the Arduino hardware.

Who is Wiring?

The core Wiring team is composed of Hernando Barragán, Brett Hagman and Alexander Brevig, while a small team of volunteers have been making additional contributions to Wiring.  For a full list of contributors visit http://wiring.org.co/about.html.  The current state of the project wouldn’t have been possible without this assistance.

More Information

Website: http://wiring.org.co/ 
Forum: http://forum.wiring.co/
Feed: http://feed.wiring.co/
Wiki: http://wiki.wiring.co/

[1] The Wiring Framework core for the LeafLabs Maple, will be available in Wiring 1.1, by the end of 2011, with more cores being added all the time!  Please check http://wiring.org.co/ for more information.

Hola a todos! El próximo viernes 7 de 2-5pm y sábado 8 de Octubre de 9am-4pm de 2011 en la Universidad de Los Andes, salón R204. Esta vez el reto es pensar en la forma como entendemos los fenómenos físicos con los que interactuamos a diario, como la temperatura, la humedad y la luz entre otros, y a partir de estos diseñar pequeños dispositivos de información que propongan nuevas formas de interactuar con los datos recogidos.

Este workshop hace parte del proyecto Wiring challenges que inicialmente se esta desarrollando la Universidad de Los Andes en Bogotá, Colombia pero que próximamente compartiremos con todos ustedes en el sitio web. La idea es que los challenges que hemos venido desarrollando puedan ser replicados en diferentes lugares del mundo y nos encantaría que aparte de compartirnos los resultados tambien compartan nuevos challenges con nosotros.

Fecha y Hora:

Viernes 7 de octubre de 2011 de 2pm a 5pm

Sábado 8 de octubre de 2011 de 9am a 4pm

Lugar: 

Universidad de Los Andes - salón R204

Carrera 1a No 18A-10

Entrada por el Edificio W

Hi everybody! Next friday and saturday we will be developing the sencond workshop of Wiring challenges. This time the challenge is to think about the way we understand and interact with different physical phenomena such as temperature, humidity and light among others and to design little friendly information devices which propose new way of interacting with the data collected.

This workshop is part of the Wiring challenges project that has been developed at Los Andes University in Bogota, Colombia. Soon, we will be sharing the project in the website so that you can replicate the existing challenges in different parts of the world. We will like you to share feedback and results when replicating a challenge but we will love to recieve new challenges created and developed on your own.

Dear all, we are very happy to share with you the Wiring 1.0 Beta release.

In the last few years we have seen the Wiring language and model being ported successfully to other platforms, so this is a special occasion. This release is a milestone for open hardware. It is the sum of work and contributions from many, and the synthesis of ideas gathered and experimented in the last seven years. At the same time, it is also a start, as once again Wiring has opened up prototyping with electronics to wider audiences by defining an extensible architecture for future hardware, software and courseware; where novice, intermediate and experts will materialize their ideas, design and support for their new open hardware devices as well as develop applications unlocking new ways of thinking and making in an even simpler way.

A summary for new features:

First, you don’t need a Wiring board to use Wiring, you can use your Wiring boards (even the first ones ever made) and any other board. In the Tools menu you’ll find a selection of manufacturers, for those who like to start from scratch will find definitions in the Tools->Board menu for popular bare ATMEL DIP parts like atmega168, atmega168p, atmega328p and atmega644p. Wiring also supports directly the Arduino hardware, Rogue Robotics, BDMicro and others.

The new Wiring Cores architecture will allow to create cores for other hardware manufacturers. The first core available is the AVR8 which supports most of Atmel atmega parts. The roadmap for next releases include cores for AVRTiny, Microchip and ARM.

A library system for “Core libraries” implemented on a specific core, cross-platform libraries which are libraries not depending on any hardware and of course the user contributed libraries.

New API members for advanced PWM settings like frequency and resolution, polyphonic tones on pins, advanced power and timer management etc., for a full list please check the menu Help->Reference in the application.

Reference in english and spanish included in the application and selectable in the Preferences menu. The language reference is set by default to english and can be accessed on the Help->Reference Menu. The preferences also allows for auto-start the Serial monitor after uploading, playing a sound after compiling/build/uploading and in case of errors. The interface also features progress bar for processes like compiling and uploading. The current selected hardware and serial port are shown in the Editor Line status at the bottom. We have added features to the original Processing editor like the Window menu for easy sketch window switching as well as open recent sketches option.

Libraries for Processing and Openframeworks based on the Firmata protocol and tutorials for interfacing Wiring with third party popular software.

Proper installer for macosx and Windows (Linux will be available in the following days).

New examples including Basic, Topics, Core libraries, Cross-platform libraries and more, available with the application download and the Web site. The schematics button on the interface allows to open the circuit diagram directly from the sketch if the sketch includes schematics.

For developers/experts we have many surprises: support their own hardware directly from Wiring. Doing a little research in the hardware folder included in the application you’ll find it only takes to create a few definitions in two files for any new part, basically these definitions tell Wiring the pin layout and cpu resources management.

New boards based on any atmega cpu (i.e. AVR8 core) at:

Documents (or My Documents)/Wiring/hardware/myhardwarecompany/mynewboardmodel

New libraries at:

Documents (or My Documents)/Wiring/libraries

Regarding the new Wiring hardware we have different flavors (Wiring S, M, L and XS), the first one coming out is the Wiring S, which is the first board from the new hardware generation. The Wiring S features the atmega644p microcontroller. With 32 I/O pins, 8 analog inputs, 2 hardware serial ports, 6 PWM (analog outputs), SPI, TWI, 3 external interrupts pins, power regulation with output for both 5V and 3.3V. 

Besides the highest manufacturing standards it also features standard .100 pin spacing which allows for immediate prototyping of shields and expansion boards without having to print a custom pcb. The board is available now from our distributors worldwide for less than USD$28.

Along with the new hardware there a shield adapter to use third party Arduino shields out of the box with the Wiring boards leaving the Wiring extra pins available for other applications.

Please let us know how it goes for you with this release and thank you for your support and help. As you might know this require a lot of work and we will be updating the site with documentation about the wiring development framework in the following weeks.

Finally the download link: http://wiring.org.co/download