MAKER | CREATOR | INNOVATOR From Idea to Invention
In this issue: Meet the students who are changing our world FALL 2014
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“ Don’t be bored.
Make something.” Joey Hudy
“ I love to pursue
irrational ideas.” Arjun Dhawan
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A good idea is at the heart of every discovery. It doesn’t have to be complex. In fact, often, it’s quite simple. One sees a need… …and envisions a solution. Thus, the making, the creating, the innovating begins.
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FROM MARSHMALLOW CANNON TO MIND-READING GLASSES Adopting the Maker Mentality When Joey Hudy, Phoenix, Arizona, attended his first Maker Faire in 2011, he found his people. For as long as he could remember, the 14-year-old had loved learning about science and electronics by simply making things. Suddenly, he was among kindred spirits equally jazzed about creating and building innovative stuff, as well as sharing their know-how in the process. The enthusiasm was contagious. Over the next few years, Hudy attended a handful of Maker Faires around the world and went on to build a series of inventions. He built a bicycle-pump-powered air cannon, which earned him an invitation to the White House Science Fair in 2012, as well as the opportunity to launch a marshmallow at the East Room wall with the aid of President Obama. He built Dawg, a dog jacket to monitor how active a canine has been during the day. He built a solar-powered computer to make technology accessible to people in rural areas. He also delved into some serious tinkering with Arduino microcontroller boards, including the development of a 3x3x3 LED Cube Arduino Shield. Hudy sells the latter online, but in true maker fashion, also shares the instructions for others who want to make it themselves. This year, Brilliant.org named Hudy one of the ten smartest kids in the world. No wonder, then, that when Intel CEO Brian Krzanich met Hudy, he was so impressed he offered him a summer internship on the spot. As a result, Hudy, now 17, became the youngest intern ever in Intel’s Corporate Internship Program, traditionally geared for college-age students, working in the Intel New Devices Group. Tasked with developing new products for the wearables market, Hudy has conceptualized a design for smart, mind-reading glasses that include prescription lenses, built-in headphones, 3-D cameras and sensors to read gesture control, plus EEG sensors to monitor brainwaves. Additionally, Hudy has developed a 10x10x10 LED Cube, which was presented at the 2014 White House Maker Faire, and
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a 3-D body scanner, both based on Intel® Galileo boards. “The Galileo has been fun to work with,” he says. “It allows for nice wireless connections, among other things. Having been an Arduino user, it was especially nice to work with the Intel Galileo.” Now a prominent member of the maker movement, Hudy’s motto is, appropriately, “Don’t be bored. Make something.”
So what’s the maker movement all about? “ A maker is really anyone who has the passion to make or build a physical object,” says Shery Huss, vice president of Maker Media. “Making is just inherent in who we are as human beings.”
“ Don’t be bored.
Make something.”
Many of these makers and builders have been inspired to find innovative, tech-inspired, do-it-yourself solutions to problems or opportunities they see in the world around them. Part of the process of creation involves sharing information and inspiration via social spaces, such as hackerspaces and Fab Labs, and social events, such as the global network of Maker Faires. These innovators often employ cutting-edge technologies, such as microcontrollers and 3-D printers, to turn their dreams into realities and drive advances in manufacturing, engineering, industrial design, hardware technology, and education.
Joey Hudy
Intel is a proud supporter of the maker movement and a sponsor of Maker Faires around the world, as well as the source of many of the high-tech tools that innovators use in the process of creating, including Intel Galileo, an Arduino-compatible development board based on Intel® architecture, designed for the maker and education communities, and Intel® Edison, a tiny computer that serves as a development system for wearable devices.
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THE NEW SMARTW Engineering Wearable Healthcare When Marek Novak’s grandfather suffered a stroke two years ago, the outcome could have been better if help had arrived sooner. Unfortunately, he was alone at the time and lay on the ground for some time before rescue, resulting in further brain injury and permanent loss of the use of his arms and legs. Distressed over his grandfather’s sudden quadriplegia, Novak—a high school student and lifelong tinkerer with a couple of small inventions already to his credit—decided to put his considerable smarts, creativity and technical know-how to work to design a remote healthcare monitoring system that could spare others the same fate. His goal: to design and develop a wireless body area network for monitoring and processing personal physiological data. Novak’s system, dubbed Artemis, makes use of a number of small sensors, attached to a user’s body or clothing, to relay information, such as heart rate, blood oxygen level, temperature, degree of mobility and location, to a smartwatch. This data is then shared remotely with a central unit, run by an Intel Galileo development board, which performs data processing and shares results with appropriate parties. Unlike other sensors on the market today which are geared to sports and outdoor use, measuring only motion and heart rate, Novak’s design is one of the first, if not the first, to combine multiple low-power sensors, tracking a multitude of health indicators, via smartwatch and send data continuously to remote
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WATCH THAT READS HEALTH locations for analysis and, if need be, emergency response. Additionally, the range of other (more limited) devices tends to be a maximum of ten to thirty feet. Novak’s smartwatch device, in contrast, includes a GSM module, which means range is only limited by GSM coverage, which is common and worldwide. Additionally, his system can relay information up to 300 feet, via a long-range wireless link, to reach a Web interface developed with the Intel Galileo board. “I chose the Galileo board because it offered the most advanced technology, consumed little power
“ You know, creating something meaningful requires knowledge in a particular field, but also a much broader range of skills. As a developer, I have had to be a bit physicist, a bit biologist, a bit chemist, a bit marketer, but also—and perhaps most surprising—a bit psychologist and a bit philosopher.” Marek Novak and was affordable,” says Novak, who notes that the expense of equipment and components was perhaps the biggest obstacle he faced in his work. Whereas professional labs may think little of spending thousands for a single part, Novak built his prototype at home and on a shoestring budget.
company, and offered a significant scholarship to study bioengineering at Czech Technical University, as well as a job as a developer. In the latter role, Novak is developing pediatric care instruments, including novel sensors for neonatal incubators and devices for the treatment of jaundice.
For this work, Novak was awarded a Second Award in the category of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, as well as special awards from NASA and United Technologies, at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Additionally, Novak, now 20, has continued to enhance his Artemis design, developing a new prototype for use with the elderly and quadriplegics. The new prototype transmits data continuously over an 868 MHz wireless link to an Intel Galileo-based web server, which then sends e-mails or SMS via the Internet when intervention is required.
As a result of media exposure from this event, Novak was approached by TSE s.r.o., a Czech electronics
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Designing 3-D Sensor Technology to Help the Blind “See” Arjun Dhawan’s family has a legacy of giving back. So three years ago, when he and his family visited a school for the blind in New Delhi, India—an institution multiple generations of the Dhawan clan have supported through charitable donations—Dhawan was moved to give something even more significant to the unfortunate children living there.
Dhawan, of Newburgh, Indiana, had been surprised to discover that the sight-impaired kids lacked even basic tools, such as white canes or sticks, to help them navigate their world; instead, he watched them feel along walls or walk with their arms extended to avoid collisions. If they were in need of a particular object, they patted along surfaces, grasping—often, unsuccessfully—for the desired bar of soap or hairbrush. Dhawan was struck by the idea that, despite the fact he was only thirteen at the time, he could help.
HIGH-TECH VISION FOR THE BLIND
“ I love to pursue irrational ideas and try to make them work.” Arjun Dhawan
Over the next two years, Dhawan researched open source technologies and then designed and built a computerized device with 3-D sensors and speech capabilities to enable the blind to “see.” Specifically, the device was designed to respond to a verbal request from a user asking for help finding a specific object. The computer was programmed to process raw images from a 3-D sensor in order to locate the item based on features the processor had been trained to recognize. A computerized voice would then direct the user to the items. In testing, the device was able to detect and guide a user to an object with over ninety percent accuracy. For this work, Dhawan won local and regional science competitions, earning a spot at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Since Intel ISEF, Dhawan, now 15, continues to expand the list of objects recognized by his device, while also reducing the size. In order to achieve the latter, Dhawan plans to integrate an Intel Galileo board. One day, he envisions making his device small enough to fit in a pair of sunglasses or even a button, offering the blind hands-free use. He also plans to continue the family tradition of giving back by designing other devices to improve people’s day-to-day lives.
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Makers’ Essentials Developing the Tools of Innovation Intel knows that innovation comes from the minds of those who are natural tinkerers and problem solvers. Those who see challenges as opportunities. Those who think outside the box. Those who believe the impossible is possible. That’s why Intel has developed tools to serve the makers, students, educators, and DIY electronics-obsessed who feel driven to create. Intel® Galileo Gen 2 is a Linux*-powered, Arduino-compatible development board loaded
with Intel® architecture to deliver great performance, as well as a broad spectrum of hardware peripherals and software support. This makes prototyping easier than ever, all at an affordable price. Intel® Edison is a small-sized, feature-packed development platform that offers users the opportunity to create wearable and other devices for the Internet of Things, at low cost. These are just the first of many in a line of Intel products being designed to help today’s makers, creators, and innovators turn their visions into reality.
“ Through our ongoing efforts in education, we know that hands-on learning inspires interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. I’ve been a ‘maker’ for many years and am passionate about the exciting possibilities of technology and what can be created with it.” – Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO
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FROM CAR OF THE FUTURE TO PICK-AND-PLACE STARTUP Making Sophisticated Technology Accessible to All When Romanian high school student Ionut Budisteanu learned that 90 percent of the 1.24 million vehicle accident fatalities each year are caused by driver error, he was determined to find a way to prevent these unnecessary deaths. The teen had read about Stanley, the robotic car that won the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge competition for driverless vehicles, and how mass use of such vehicles could improve road safety. But Stanley’s 3-D radar system, created by a team of engineers from Stanford and Google, cost a reported $75,000. Budisteanu suspected he could create one for less. Far less.
And so he did.
Budisteanu developed his 3-D Lidar system using three mounted cameras along with several software applications running concurrently to process data. Though much simpler than Stanley’s expensive, high-resolution radar design, Budiseanu’s model could accurately detect traffic signs, traffic lanes, and curbs, as well as the real-time position of the car on a computerized 3-D map. His system could also
“ Intel Galileo combines po capabilities with the poss
It offers the ability to interface components—SPI, I2C, etc.— Ionut Budisteanu calculate exactly, or use probabilities to determine, the position of the car on the road and safely steer it along its intended path.
And the cost? Only $4,000. As a result, autonomous navigation features and all the benefits that come with them—more efficient travel routes, fewer traffic jams, and improved safety, for starters—are a step closer to the masses. For this work, Budisteanu won the Gordon E. Moore Award and $75,000 at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
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But the teen didn’t stop there. While working to bring his self-driving car to market, Budisteanu needed a pick-and-place machine, a robotic machine used to place surface-mount devices onto a printed circuit board. He soon discovered that these machines were prohibitive, costing anywhere from several thousand dollars to more than $100,000.
owerful processing sibility of prototyping.
e both the low-level —and the high-level devices.” So Budisteanu did what makers do: he created one for less. Using the Intel Galileo microcontroller, Budisteanu created an industrial quality pick-and-place machine for less than $1,000. Recognizing the needs of others—small electronics companies, makers, and hobbyists—to manufacture professional-quality electronic boards for a reasonable cost, Budisteanu, now 20, decided to turn his latest invention into a startup which he plans to launch via Kickstarter late in 2014.
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Innovators’ Building Blocks Making it Wearable Wearables are the next frontier in the evolution of computing, and it’s easy to see why. With boosted processing power, more sophisticated batteries and hands-free capabilities, wearables can now move into arenas which were previously prohibitive to technology and improve the human experience in a myriad of ways. Today’s makers are limited only by imagination as they envision ways for wearable technology to enhance lives. Intel, a company whose history is synonymous with innovation, proudly supports the wearable tech revolution and the creators who fuel it. That’s why Intel has developed a line of easy-touse, perfect-for-prototyping tools for the makers, creators, and innovators among us. This includes the Intel® Edison, a full Intel® Pentium® processor-based PC in the form of an SD card, making it ideal for use in the development of wearables.
It’s also why Intel has created an online forum where makers can gather to share ideas and inspiration, as well as seek technical support. Additionally, Intel is the sponsor of the Make It Wearable challenge, a competition to help promote and explore the next big ideas in the field.
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A COMPUTER Building a Voice for Those Unable to Speak When Amrit Sahu, 14, was approached by a speech-impaired man on the streets of Bhubaneswar, his hometown in India, he found it frustrating not to be able to understand him. Worse, he saw that it was even harder for the man in front of him, trying so desperately to communicate. Then and there, Sahu—a natural problem-solver who loved nothing more than a technological challenge—decided to do something to help. By all appearances, there was nothing wrong with the man’s mouth or tongue, so Sahu assumed the problem must lie elsewhere, perhaps in the larynx. But if the mouth and tongue, the tools that form the sounds that make words, were functional, Sahu wondered, might it be possible to
“ Nothing is impossible in this world.”
Amrit Sahu
RIZED VOICE THAT READS LIPS train a computerized device to read the movements that produce particular sounds, and thus, train a device to speak for the speechless?
The result of Sahu’s efforts? The Voice-o-nator, a device able to turn tongue movement into an impaired user’s intended speech.
In the following months, Sahu studied the motion of the tongue and lips for various consonants and vowels, analyzing these movements via slow motion videos and graphing the trajectories for a small set of specific sounds. Having confirmed the relationship between these specific trajectories and sounds,
For this work, Sahu earned a spot as a finalist at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, where he was honored with a Fourth Award in the category of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. Sahu, who has since presented his work to the President of India through an Intel-organized event, intends to continue development of his Voice-onator with the goal of creating a working prototype. Ultimately, he hopes to secure the support of industry or academia since getting his solution from his room at home—where he has done most of the work—to market would be cost prohibitive.
But the value? Sahu then used a three-axial accelerometer, connected to an artificial tongue, to “sense” or capture the three-dimensional wave patterns by graphing them on X, Y, and Z axes with respect to time. Finally, Sahu used this data to program an Intel Galileo-based device capable of interpreting the data and transforming it into speech via a computer speaker. “I used the Intel Galileo,” he says, “because the processing capacity is higher and faster, plus it did not require complicated programming.”
“ Priceless,” says Sahu, “since the Voice-onator could improve the lives of millions of speech-impaired people around the globe.”
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What will you make? Learn more about the Maker community. http://makermedia.com/
Learn more about Intel’s Maker community. https://communities.intel.com/community/makers
Learn more about Intel Galileo. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/galileo-maker-quark-board.html
Learn more about Intel Edison. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html
Learn more about Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/competitions/internationalscience-and-engineering-fair.html?wapkw=isef
Written by Joyce Riha Linik Designed by HB Design
Š 2014 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.