Excellent find! I will have to play around with that this weekend.

Ultimately, I want a standalone module, but this will definitely help me understand all the concepts needed.

Sounds like he only want to trigger the taking of a picture. MATLAB will do the actual capture.

Sorry, OP, I have no experience with MATLAB interfacing. It doesn't look especially difficult though since there is already support for a serial connection between MATLAB and Arduino:
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/arduino-software/arduino-matlab.html

I found a nice post of someone playing with something similar:
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,8386.30.html

I guess it depends on the effect you are trying to acheive. If you are looking to make it dance at will, you might want to look at transparent conductive tape of some sort. However, if the plasma beam is focused on one point for too long, it will burn the glass.

May have been RetroLefty. There are two Retros on this forum.

Not sure if you are aware, but if all you wish to do is play MP3s streamed from an SD card, there are already libraries for the VS1053:
https://github.com/maniacbug/VS1053

Here's a tutorial:
http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/VS1053_MP3_breakout_board_with_SD_card

It shouldn't matter using two separate modules instead of this particular one in the tutorial.

Is it this module that you have: http://www.lctech-inc.com/Hardware/Detail.aspx?id=2f34bdb6-0a1d-4cf4-846f-ca010614064e

If so, I also have one, but haven't messed with it yet. My plan was to follow the development board schematics from VLSI and make it a standalone MP3 player since the VS1053 can run its own code. I wanted to have a module that would play MP3s and also serve files to the Arduino through a serial interface.

http://www.vlsi.fi/en/support/evaluationboards/vs10xxprotoboard.html

On VLSI's site they have several apps and libraries to put together a program like this in VSIDE. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Yep. Can't see them either

I am assuming that your smoke alarm is connected to pin 12 somehow? I think your trouble is in your wiring, not your code. What is your wiring to trigger the smoke alarm?

Am I missing something? If the potentiometer is aranged like a rheostat and put in series directly with the solenoid, wouldn't that just change the current flowing through the solenoid? Ohms law says at 90 ohms, you get 100mA or max air flow, and at 225 ohms you would get 40mA for minimum airflow. Of course, you need to subtract whatever resistance is in the coil inside the solenoid.

A 500 ohm potentiometer with a 91 ohm resistor also in series would keep the max current in the safe range, though I wouldn't be surprised if the coil itself is about 90ohms which is why it is the limit. And if it IS 90ohms, then leave out the 91 ohm resistor and only use the 500 ohm rheostat.

(A rheostat is just a potentiometer with the center tied to one of the other legs so it is just a variable resistor.)

You could put a 510 ohm resistor in parallel with the rheostat and you would get a range of 91 to 250 ohms. Right around what you need.

Current will be .9W at 100mA, so use a 1/2W resistor and rheostat. Or if only using the rheostat, use a 1W.

If you ONLY want to use a potentiometer to control the valve, I would think that is all you need to do. No need to convert a control voltage to current here. That would be if you were trying to control it with an Arduino or other microcontroller.

That description is way too vague. You mean, like, override what is already playing unauthorized? As in take over the sound system at a club? Or do you mean come up with a system to request a song from the DJ?

Yep. That should work

If you don't want screw holes showing on the top of the box, get some threaded nylon standoffs and glue them on the inside of the box. Glue will depend on what two surfaces you are gluing to. You will have to cut the standoffs to the height you need.

For accessing the switches, you could drill holes as you say, but the buttons will not raise above the surface of the panel. There are different ways to deal with that. One would be to use rubber feet like these (we can find these in hardware stores) https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10594

I tend to use these type of switches when I do something like this:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10302
If you have them available locally.

One tip I have for when cutting your panel (or even drilling) is to place a few layers of painters tape (masking tape) around the area you will be cutting. This helps protect the rest of the panel from slips. Also, it allows you to draw your dimensions right on the tape to help you when you cut. When you are done, you just peel the tape off. Also cut from the back side, not the side to be seen.

For rectangular cuts, drill holes along the inside of the rectangle edge. This will make it easier to cut. If the material is thin like crossroads posted, you can just use a razor knife to finish it. If it is thicker a side-cutting bit in a rotary tool might work.

Yes. Well, except for calling pinnum+14 to set it up and not the same when writing, but I assume that is a typo.

And yes about 0 and 1, but why not just use INPUT,OUTPUT and HIGH,LOW? It doesn't use anymore space in code and makes it easier to read.

Code:

//sets the pin
pinMode(pinNum+14, OUTPUT);
//writes the pin
digitalWrite(pinNum+14, pinState);

That would make a pinNum of 0 control A0, pinNum of 5 would control A5. And pinState would set it to either HIGH or LOW as you designate. Though if the pin is always going to be an OUTPUT, I would put that part in the setup, personally.

Keep in mind that there really is no reason you need to use 12V steppers. But assuming that you used them, you would power everything off the 12V. The Arduino boards have an on-board regulator that can handle that. The current capability of whatever power supply you use will need to be enough to power everything, though.

Here are 5V steppers:

http://www.adafruit.com/products/858

Since you will be using steppers, you can keep track of the position of the blinds by the number of steps. However, you could also add feedback in the form of switches. Again, the most complicated part of the project is going to be the mechanics. The code will be simple in comparison. When I build a project like this, I always start with the mechanical part first. That almost always determines the code and control.

So your first step is to take a close look at the mechanisms in the blind and figure out how you are going to control them and how you are going to mount everything. The cleanest solution is to interface to the pulleys directly. The easiest solution would be interfacing to the cords, but then you have motors mounted on your wall.

Here's one that will do two steppers.

http://www.robotshop.com/productinfo.aspx?pc=RB-Ite-53&lang=en-US

You would need two of those if I read it correctly. Figure if it is meant to control two motors, it can control 1 stepper. Better to buy a stepper shield. (I don't have a lot of experience with shields since I usually just build my own hardware instead of buying shields.)