This is one of the new and emerging trends we've seen really take off over the last few years. Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 60 projects/kits - it's incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (now shipping over 60,000 units) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities - we think we've captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers - but since it's open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, everything is available.

You can also call this guide... "The Open source hardware gift guide - The one and only, 3rd annual celebration of open source hardware!" - we think these are some of the best things to consider for the holidays and it supports an exciting development in hardware design.

So sit back and get ready to scroll through the list! Here we go!

Arduino Duemilanove - The new classic
Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It's an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board. "Duemilanove" means 2009 in Italian and is named after the year of its release. The Duemilanove is the latest in a series of USB Arduino boards.

Features:

• Microcontroller ATmega168
• Operating Voltage 5V
• Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V
• Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
• Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
• Analog Input Pins 6
• DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mA
• DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mA
• Flash Memory 16 KB (of which 2 KB used by bootloader)
• SRAM 1 KB
• EEPROM 512 bytes
• Clock Speed 16 MHz

In order to improve on this first design I modified the top to be 14 inches in diameter as opposed to the original 16 inch diameter, which some people said was too big. I used part wizard's vector modification tool to alter this. I had recieved positive feedback on the handles, so I kept those by sliding them towards the center in part wizard. I cut too more legs for this new top to sit on using an irregular piece of scrap plywood. By modifying the angle of the toolpath I could very efficiently use the wood. I found that plywood is thicker than avantech when I tried to fit these legs together, they were much more difficult and ended up slightly warped, creating a tip in the stool. The top still slid on just fine.

Tim was enrolled in the Engineering the Future course several years ago. The ETF curriculum was developed by the Museum of Science in Boston. and learned some effective ways of working with the Design Process.

Shopbot is a great tool. Are you using it? Does your school have computer controlled tools? Does your school encourage students and teachers to be innovative and creative while making real things? Have you seen great projects done with CNC tools? Post your pictures in the Make Flickr pool, and add your ideas to the comments.

I made this scorpion toy with a Twitchie Robot Kit. I'm really afraid of scorpions where I live in Arizona, so I thought a friendly toy would help me get used to them. I made his plush body from some fabric I had around, aiming to make him look like an Arizona bark scorpion, which are tan/yellowish/translucent. Watch the video for build details, and here's a list of materials I used:

• Twitchie Robot Kit
• 3 pieces of scrap wood
• 1 drywall screw for non-driven front leg
• hot glue
• fabric for plush body
• plush stuffing
• thread & embroidery floss

Twitchie is Arduino powered and comes pre-programmed, so it's an excellent kit for beginners in robotics, because no programming is required! You can download and modify the code if you want, and it's pretty light on the soldering, too. I'd recommend Twitchie for young makers (boys & girls, too!) interested in robotics or moving plush toys. If you have an idea for what I should name my new friend, let me know in the comments! All I've come up with so far is "Scott."

Music in the video is "At the Crack of Noon" by Shuutobi.

Twitchie Robot Kit

More build photos:

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

The biggest challenges I see ahead involves the use of the term "Open source hardware" - for the folks who have been doing OSH, it's pretty specific - basically others can use your stuff in a commercial way, Arduino being a specific example, you can manufacture you own and sell them if you wanted (some have). The flipside is, some makers don't want to allow commercial use of their projects but *do* want to share their works in a non-commercial way. The term "open hardware" has been gaining some interest along with a specific Creative Common-like license, for example - "Open Hardware Project" with a "Non-commercial manufacturing license".

Post your thoughts in the comments!

More:
Open source hardware, what is it? Here's a start...

Michael Una brings us the Beep-It optically controlled squarewave generator in a petri dish enclosure -

This minimalist electronic musical instrument eschews esoteric interface in favor of intuitive, expressive control. One button turns the device on or off, which can produce a continuous tone or a rhythmic sequence. One sensor varies pitch of the output waveform in response to ambient light. The resulting system encourages playfulness and body movement.

[via Create Digital Music]

The Italian design firm Arduino makes one of the hottest circuit boards used by gadget builders today. Since mass production began two years ago, the company has sold about 50,000 units - not bad for a small start-up nestled in the medieval foothills of Milan.

But there’s something different about Arduino – their business model. They give everything away. On their Website you can download all the design plans, send them off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the boards, and sell them yourself. There are no patents. You can pocket the change without paying Arduino a dime. Sounds crazy? It’s part of a new movement called open source hardware.

WIRED Magazine contributing editor Clive Thompson wrote about Arduino and this new trend in technology, and he joins Word of Mouth with more on how open source hardware makes sense as a business model.

The latest incarnation of the Dutchtronix AVR Oscilloscope clock, the Hardware 3.1 Enhanced kit, uses the Atmega328p AVR with twice the code space. Using a 1KB bootloader (Arduino compatible) makes 31KB of application space available. This extra code space makes it possible to support multiple pre-loaded applications (clock, terminal, function generator).

Once the Arduino system has been officially upgraded to use the Atmega328p (or at least is an official option), I'll make the Enhanced kit code available for the Arduino Scope Clock shield.

Programming the Arduino using the bootloader outside the IDE is possible using the batch file "uploadm168.bat". If there is a way within the IDE to uploaded external files, I'd like to know. Hitting the reset button at the right time with the Diecimila is sometimes a challenge.

In the vein of Arduino-controlled espresso machines and Lego bots, we’ve been playing around with Flash and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. With its flexible Linux-based OS, the Nokia 770 is great for rapid prototyping. Plus, you can snag one on the cheap ($65-170 on eBay).

Hardware aside, Flash is a great language for quick prototyping. It’s an environment that many designers are already familiar with, and it enables the user to create a graphic interface in minutes. For prototyping on small screens, Flash Lite can be used, but Flash Lite cannot communicate to other devices outside of the device it’s running on (aside from calling other phones). The Nokia Internet tablets are interesting because they are essentially tiny Linux computers and run full-fledged Flash. We got one of these tablets to run Flash and talk to an Arduino board. This enables any kind of sensor to communicate with the Flash application and allows the app to control things like lights and motors.

Detailed instructions for setting this up can be found in our Google Code wiki (here and here)...

Phil Endecott has done a bit of hacking with the Linksys NSLU2 "Slug", the low-power network storage device which runs Linux under the hood. His SlugPower project is a switched outlet that can be controlled from the Slug. This enables his print server to power up the printer when it needs to be printing, and automatically cut power to the device when it's not in use.

This page describes the hardware and software design of a printer power switch controlled over USB from my Linksys NSLU2, aka Slug. The unit can, however, be controlled from any Linux box, and can switch anything, not just printers.

My NSLU2 acts mostly as a file and print server. I can go for weeks without printing anything, so I want to keep the printer switched off when I'm not using it (it takes about 4W while idle, which must be more than 99% of its total energy consumption). But it's upstairs, and I don't want to have to go up and down stairs once to switch it on and again to collect my printing. So I decided to get a power switch.

Remote power switches are pretty common in server rooms, but they are costly. This is a pretty affordable way to control the power to any device from anywhere in the world.

SlugPower - A Slug-Controlled Power Switch
Phil Endecott's Slug Projects
NSLU2-Linux

If you built a kit in the Maker Shed at Maker Faire Austin, you might have gotten some help from Jimmie Rodgers, the creator of one of the newest additions to the Maker Shed Store, the Open Heart Kit. It's an array of LEDs that you hook up to an Arduino, and can be programmed to display an animation sequence.

The Open Heart is an LED matrix of individually addressable LEDs. It can be used to create a brooch or bag light with highly customizable animations. It can be configured so that you can temporarily attach it to fabrics with headers that you simply push through, or you can configure it to be sewn into a project using conductive fabric for a more permanent setup. You'll need an Arduino to complete this project as well as a soldering iron and basic hand tools.

You don't even have to learn Arduino programming to use it, because Jimmie has created a web application where you can sketch out the animation frames. This application generates the Arduino source code, which you can upload to your Arduino.

It's not only a beautiful wearable piece, but it's a great introduction to multiplexing digital outputs. Jimmie's kit uses a technique called Charlieplexing, in which you can drive multiple LEDs using only a few digital outputs. Jimmie's kit uses six digital pins on the Arduino to drive 27 LEDs.

Jimmie's original Open Heart project is featured in the Best of Instructables, and is also available at the Instructables web site. Jimmie is also involved with the Willoughby and Baltic Hackerspace, and he can often be found at Willoughby and Baltic's First Friday open hacking sessions:

Held on the First Friday of every month, the Open Hack is an opportunity for the public-at-large to use the Hackerspace, and hack with Willoughby and Baltic members. Come on over and bring your gear from 7-whenever.

Age 18+. For more information, visit www.willoughbybaltic.com

Accessible via the Red Line Davis Square Stop.

If you have an Arduino project where the dev board is stuck inside a machine, or attached to the rafters or is inaccessible in some other way, a wireless programming/debugging link will save you tons of time. This tutorial is an extension on Rob’s version. In this version, no extra firmware or hardware (other than a capacitor) is necessary. Just use the default bootloader. I demonstrate it with a ‘classic’ Arduino but of course this can be easily adapted to any version or clone.

You will need 2 XBee adapter kits, 2 matching-protocol XBee modules, an FTDI cable (or other FTDI breakout board, if you can wire it up correctly) and a 0.1uF capacitor (although sometimes a 1.0uF capacitor worked better)

The big trick is turning on “Digital I/O passing” where the reset pin is wirelessly mirrored from one XBee to the other. I spent a few hours reading the datasheet to figure it out!

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

The LilyPad e-sewing kit contains the bits to sew LEDs into any piece of clothing. Add turn signals to a jacket, accentuate a t-shirt, or light-up your favorite pair of jeans with this simple to use kit. This kit contains the very basics to the LilyPad system. It's a great entry-level kit for people who want to experiment with wearable electronics. Consider adding the LilyPad Pro Kit to extend control and use of the LilyPad system.

Features:

• 5 LilyPad Bright White LEDs
• 3 LilyPad Button Boards
  
• 2 Coin Cell Batteries 20mm
  
• 1 Coin Cell Holder
• 1 Spool 4Ply Conductive Thread

LilyPad Pro Kit

Think of this kit as an 'add-on' to the LilyPad E-Sewing Kit. The LilyPad Pro Kit gives you the full flexibility and power of the LilyPad system. Program the LilyPad main board to respond to physical changes in light, sound, or motion. Create displays of light, sound, and get physical feedback using the various LilyPad periphery boards.

Features:

• LilyPad Mainboard
• LilyPad Power Supply
• LilyPad USB Link
• Mini USB Cable

Here are some project we've featured on the CRAFT/MAKE blogs to get you inspired:

Electronic Embroidery - CRAFT Video Podcast

HOW TO - Make a Turn Signal Bike Jacket

Dress with Electronic Flapping Butterflies

TV-B-Gone Hoodie and Zipper Switch

WAY more projects after the jump including how to make soft sensors! If I forgot your favorite soft circuit project, post it up in the comments.

I just wrapped up a little step-by-step on turning an FTDI cable into a Parallax Propeller programmer. The instructions can be applied to any FTDI breakout board, might be handy if you have a Propeller but no propplug kicking around.

More:

From Hackszine... Robert Quattlebaum undertook the task of creating the new version and teamed up with ladyada to help bring the new kits to the hacker masses. It's built around an 80MHz 32KB Propeller chip, supports NTSC and PAL, and comes prepackaged with a bootloader that allows you to upload new firmware over ethernet instead of requiring you to use a programmer cable. This is an open hardware project, so you can either build it from scratch or purchase a kit from the adafruit store - YBox2 - DIY Networked Set-top Box.

Have you ever wanted to build a robot or an interactive art installation? Have you ever wondered how LEDs, sensors and motors work? Through collaborative exercises and the development of in-class projects, you will learn how to program and prototype with an Arduino microcontroller. This class is geared towards beginners, and no prior knowledge of electronics or programming is required.

The class will demonstrate programming and electronics basics through hands-on microcontroller projects. You will learn digital and analog input and output techniques for controlling motors and interpreting sensors as well as the programming skills necessary to use these components effectively. By the end of the class, students will have a firm understanding of how microcontrollers, sensors and actuators work and how to utilize these tools in their own creative projects.

Microcontroller Progamming for Artists: Introduction to the Arduino System
Tuesdays 11/4, 11/11, 11/18, 6:30-9:30 pm

As an inventor, I was taught that patents encouraged creativity and entrepreneurship. So, after finishing my first TV-B-Gone universal remote control prototype, I naturally called my brother the patent attorney, and together we filed a patent application.

Was that the best move?
TV-B-Gone remote controls are key chains with one button that make it fun to turn off almost any TV in public places. Oddly enough, within weeks of the first day of sales, the TV-B-Gone story appeared in major and minor newspaper, magazine, radio, and even TV outlets throughout the planet. It was a hit!

With this vast popularity, what might have happened if my packaging had not displayed the words: “Patent Pending”? Maybe it stopped some large companies from copying TV-B-Gone remotes, since selling copies would open them up for being sued once my patent was granted.

Would it be different if my product were open source?
I knew about open source, of course, but never considered it viable for hardware until going to my first hacker convention. There I met people who are very critical of patents and other forms of intellectual property law. They see these laws as obsolete and obnoxious. Individuals who want to hack cool ideas to improve upon them and share their results are often preyed upon and silenced by corporate lawyers protecting their clients’ patents. Paradoxically, this stifles the creativity that patents were supposed to encourage. This point of view was an eye-opener for me.

I decided to go for it. Together with Limor Fried (who makes lots of great kits), we’re making open source kits available so anyone can build and hack TV-B-Gone remote controls (look for an upcoming MAKE article about this). The firmware source code will be available online, as well as the board layout, lots of TV power codes, and all documentation.

Even though my project was not open source, I benefited from the open source community. People hacked TV-B-Gone remote controls in wonderfully creative ways. (Search online for “TV-B-Gone hacks” and you’ll get the idea.) These hacks increased the product’s popularity, resulting in more sales and more people around the world experiencing the satisfaction of turning off TVs. Also, since there was an army of TV-B-Goners who emailed me with ideas on how to improve upon my initial design, the next versions of TV-B-Gone remotes were considerably better than the original. Everything added up for me to look seriously at Creative Commons, a form of open source licensing.

The added buzz will likely also help sales of ready-made TV-B-Gone key chains, since not everyone wants to build their own. Everybody wins. In the words of my brother the patent lawyer, “The old way of patent law is to think: ‘This is mine and I’m going to keep it.’ This may have some advantages, but with open source you can share and bring more creative minds to the process. What’s really nice is that you don’t have to give up all your rights. With open source you can have the best of all worlds.”

Mitch Altman’s next products, based on the “Brain Machine” article he wrote for MAKE, Volume 10, are also open source.

For all of November, I’m going to be producing a video for every weekday! I’m kicking it off early with this video about Raphael Abrams probe thing!

Raphael Abrams of teuthis is one of those people who doesn’t sit around daydreaming projects up, he just does them. He was recently featured in Wired magazine and is a forerunner in the open source hardware movement.

We were recently chatting about digitizing human bodies and making 3D bodyscans and Raphael jumped into action, created a file to make some lasercut parts. Together with his acrylic bits and a stepper motor and an arcade button he made this probe.

Stay tuned for a follow up episode when he finishes the coffin sized XY platform and starts digitizing humans at an amazing 1 DPI!

For those of you who are in to MAKE trivial, Raphael is also the maker of the Daisy MP3 player and Twitchie.

• Heart matrix kit for Arduino
  
• HOW TO - Build a flashing heart

OpenCores.org, a community developed around open-source hardware intellectual property (IP) blocks, announced it has passed the mark of 20,000 registered users, reflecting a growing interest for open-source hardware IP cores. OpenCores received a new impetus in November 2007 as ORSoC AB (Stockholm, Sweden), a design house that uses open hardware IP blocks, agreed to take over the OpenCores brand and website.

Launched in 1999 by Damjan Lampret, OpenCores said its website is now visited by about 70,000 engineers every month with everyone helping to contribute to the development and verification of the existing and new IP cores. The number of newly registered users is increasing by about 200 users a day, and OpenCores expects it will have over 50,000 registered users within the next six months.

Users, specified OpenCores, are FPGA and ASIC developers with many years of experience as well as users from major universities.

A redesigned website is due to be launched in November.

Ok, so ever since middle school I've wanted to make one of these... but I only now have enough know-how and support to make it, ... an Open Source game boy :) Actually, it's a little smaller than a game boy, but it's 1000% cooler (in my opinion) because it uses an Arduino as the "core", and a few modules and shields that already exist.

Ever wanted to grow grass in your cubicle? I did. But the grass kept dying. So I made a custom grow light out of LEDs, and now I have the nicest lawn on my block. Build photos, schematic, sourcecode, etc. are on the project page.

Hi there, at the beginning of this year, Gordan Savicic (who did the infamous "contraint city" wifi-nds-corset project, featured on MAKE blog, WMMNA and others) and myself desperately needed an I/O card for the Nintendo DS for a project of ours. So we set out to build one, reverse engineered all missing bits of documentation, build prototypes, wrote software for it and finally had a small batch of our printed circuit board designs made in China, we now want to share with our fellow makers. The device allows for easy, Arduino-style access to all kind of hardware interfaces, like an UART, GPIO pins, PWM output, analog/digital converters, I²C bus - which allow you too get readings from all kinds of sensors and control devices, all directly from within Nintendo DS code. Best of it: it's all open, and the code running on the embedded Atmega168 chip can be very easily updated/tinkered around with, using available and free tools.

I took the schematic and theory of a MiniPOV2 and adapted it to make a hat for Halloween. It is basically the same circuit as a MiniPOV2 but with a few different components to make it fit the hat better. As usual, I never take the time to document things as I'm building them. I'm just too excited to get the project built. So what you'll see is a retrospect of what I did, and some changes in what I would do again.

More:

Mini-POV kit! The 3rd generation MiniPOV is perfect for beginners who are looking to learn how to solder, how to program microcontrollers, or make LED blinky toys. Because the programmer is built into the kit, you don't need a special "microcontroller programmer". This version can be used with PCs (Linux/Unix or Windows) and Macs (running MacOS X and with a USB/serial converter).

Just some background, Josh is behind the very cool Stribe project and we've posted about it before (and again right before Maker Faire since it was there). When it was posted up we said "open source" project, but since some folks consider "open source" as something you can sell I added an update that said, it's actually non-commercial since that's what the Maker (Josh) wanted, no commercial versions... Well, this sparked off a very, spirited, discussion about what "open source" is. So check out the thread and comment there (or here) with your thoughts. It's all very new and it seems like a lot of hardware is now released under Creative Commons, folks are calling things open source hardware, open hardware or just not calling it anything... and some are releasing all but one part of a project. I think we're going to all end up calling things "Open Hardware" and then have some indicator of the usage... This is an "Open Hardware Project" with a "Non-commercial manufacturing license". Dive in!

Clive Thompson wrote an article about open source hardware, particularly the Arduino, in the November issue of Wired:

Check this out," Massimo Banzi says. The burly, bearded engineer wanders over to inspect a chipmaking robot--a "pick and place" machine the size of a pizza oven. It hums with activity, grabbing teensy electronic parts and stabbing them into position on a circuit board like a hyperactive chicken pecking for seeds. We're standing in a one-room fabrication factory used by Arduino, the Italian firm that makes this circuit board, a hot commodity among DIY gadget-builders. The electronics factory is one of the most picturesque in existence, nestled in the medieval foothills of Milan, with birdsong floating in through the open doors and plenty of coffee breaks for the white-coated staff. But today Banzi is all business. He's showing off his operation to a group of potential customers from Arizona. Banzi scoops up one of the boards and points to the tiny map of Italy emblazoned on it. "See? Italian manufacturing quality!" he says, laughing. "That's why everyone likes us!" Indeed, 50,000 Arduino units have been sold worldwide since mass production began two years ago. Those are small numbers by Intel standards but large for a startup outfit in a highly specialized market. What's really remarkable, though, is Arduino's business model: The team has created a company based on giving everything away. On its Web site, it posts all its trade secrets for anyone to take--all the schematics, design files, and software for the Arduino board. Download them and you can manufacture an Arduino yourself; there are no patents. You can send the plans off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the circuit boards, and sell them yourself -- pocketing the profit without paying Banzi a penny in royalties. He won't sue you. Actually, he's sort of hoping you'll do it.

Read the article on Wired: "Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?"

Here is a timely project for an electronic halloween pumpkin. With a bit of hacking a $1 plastic pumpkin is upgraded: a sensor embedded in the nose detects when people get close and will randomly play scary sounds and animate the LEDs on its face. The sounds are stored on an SD card so its easy to change and customize what the pumpkin says/screams, while the code is written for an Arduino so its easy to modify the behavior. I'm going to have this pumpkin outside my door to freak out the little kids who go to daycare nearby. Boo!