30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius

This book has a new website, from which you can download the sketches for the projects, view pictures and videos and generally get a feel for the book.

The book assumes very little in the way of prior knowledge of electronics or programming.

Simon Monk.

I'm hoping mine will be with me on Monday! Looks interesting and fun.
It's a present from my wife! XD
regards

Fenris

Hey! another Brit - thanks for buying.

There was a reprinting not so long ago, that means that the US copies (certainly from Amazon.com) have some errors corrected that people have found.

If you have the older printing, then there is an Errata page on the website http://www.arduinoevilgenius.com

Good luck with it and let me know how you get on.

Si.

I'm working through the Evil Genius book and really like it. But I have some questions about it. I'm trying to set up the circuit for the Tune Maker (Project 19), but I'm unclear on a couple of things. I went to the website and was delighted to see the Project photos, but I believe that the one for the Tune Maker is incorrect and is, in fact, the same one as the Light Harp (Project 20). It has 2 light sensors that aren't in the Tune Maker and it doesn't look anything like the photo in the book.

Yes, you are correct - 2 photos of project 20.

I have changed the website, so there is one of 19 there too.

Glad you are enjoying the book.

Si.

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Can I have the big pic too?

It should be there now.

I see it. Thanks.

Hi there

Got my copy a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be the 'corrected' version. I'm just waiting on some parts to make up the LED strobe. A good read and liking it so far!

So many projects so little time!!

regards

Fenris

Got the book this week and have started to do some of the projects. I can't download the sketches. I can see the link "button" at the top of the dounloads page and the link at the bottom that link to evil_genius.zip. But neither Internet Explorer 8 or Opera can access the file. Have the same problem with the Ruby code for the o-scope. Any ideas? Got another place to link to? I can retype the code but I would ranther modify what is already done.

This is the direct link to the zip file full of sketches.

If that doesn't work I don't know what will. Anyone else had any problems?

http://www.arduinoevilgenius.com/downloads/evil_genius.zip

I'm not a Windows user, so to get Ruby working on Windows, I can only rather unhelpfully say do some googling on getting Ruby working on Windows.

At some point I want to re-write it in 'Processing'. When I do I'll post something on the books Facebook page (Arduino Evil Genius)

Simon Monk.

Simon, I've been going thru the book from cover to cover. Nice work! and great ideas...

If there's another reprint, I hope they can correct the photo reproductions; that's a detractor to the book.

If you send me all the originals I'll spend an hour in Photoshop and send them back :slight_smile:

Evil Genius has this problem with other products too, so it's probably totally on their pre-press end, not you!

Getting good 'Product Shots' is non-trivial and takes a lot of work and lighting setup etc.

...you don't LOOK Evil.

This is a great book. I'm learning a lot and would recommend it to anyone.

There is a problem with the digital version however (at least the one I purchased from Amazon and am reading on my iPad Kindle app). All less than signs (<) are missing (blank). And there is some other symbol that is replaced with a square (eg: Project 14 source, the symbol between '255' and the color in the analogWrite lines of the setColor method. I'll just download the sketch zip so get around this.

Hey, I am trying to make the Multicolored Light display from project 14 work and am running into some trouble. My main issue is that the led that I am using (datasheet at http://dlnmh9ip6v2uc.cloudfront.net/datasheets/Components/General/YSL-R1047CR4G3BW-F8.pdf) does not display all of the 48 colors specified in the script. It will only show 6 different colors (light blue, blue, pink, red, yellow, green). Also, the colors only loop in one direction (i.e. it will always go from blue to pink to red, etc. and never from red to pink to blue). I am not very experienced and I want to know how to get the program to differentiate between a clockwise turn and a counterclockwise turn of the rotary encoder.

Thanks,
Eric_R

P.S. Simon, what program did you use to create the diagrams in the book. Fritzing is ok, but not very user-friendly.

I'm getting some odd results on Experiment 30- my display shows "0000" properly when I start, but then it doesn't clearly display any other digits. I can get the sense that it's showing something, but no segment is ever off completely, just slightly dimmer. Can you explain the code in this section a bit more? I've adjusted the timing for flicker/blur, and found 200 to be optimal, but it had no impact on readability of display.

void setDigit(int digit)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
digitalWrite(displayPins*, (digit != i));*

  • }*
    }
    void setSegments(int n)
    {
  • for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++)*
  • {*
    digitalWrite(segmentPins_, ! digits[n]);
    * }
    }*_

I fixed it- the digits were backwards for me, so I rewired those, and because I'm using a common anode display, I had to drop the != from the setDigit function. Works pretty okay now!

Hi, I'm attempting to find all the parts that go with this book and I can't seem to find the Luxeon 1W LEDs.

It appears they have been discontinued.

I was wondering if there is an alternative or an updated version of them? I found some 3W LEDs on AdaFruit, but am unsure how I would adjust things to make them work in place of the 1W.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
~Nickie