These are a few of our favourite Internet of Things, er, things ... to do with an Arduino.
Anyone with the right components, a breadboard and a basic grasp of electronics should be able to accomplish these projects, which for beginners is just a fraction of a glimmer of what can be achieved with the open source platform and the Internet of Things. Most Arduino boards can be used, but we recommend the Uno for its size and accessibility.
As Rapid prepares to launch a new range of model railway components, we take a journey through one of the wonders of the modelling world.
To call Hamburg's Miniatur Wunderland a model railway layout is like saying Disneyworld is an amusement park. Housed in a 70,000 sq ft former warehouse building and first opened to the public in 2001, the 12,378 sq ft layout features seven permanent sections depicting landscapes across Germany, Europe and the US.
It is not only a playground for train enthusiasts. Transport of all kinds move across the spectacular HO 1:87 scale layouts through city and countryside, over land and sea, during night and day. Planes touch down in a futuristic airport, trains climb through mountain passes, ferries float through Scandinavian seas and fire engines race to an emergency on a West Coast highway.
Miniatur Wunderland is the creation of twin brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun, and maintained by a team of modellers and technicians whose highly skilled work takes place behind the scenes while the main layout is playing host to thousands of visitors a day.
The airport alone took six years to complete, and incorporates 40,000 LEDs, 100 km
of electric wiring, 15,000 miniature figures and 1000 meters
of railway tracks. 50,000 lines of programming code were required to simulate a busy international hub with 360 take-offs and landings per day.
The sections include a modern cityscape loosely based on Hamburg, the Austrian Alps, the Grand Canyon and the Matterhorn. An Italian section is currently under construction, featuring iconic landmarks from Rome and Venice, with French and British landscapes planned to follow by 2020. As the layout has become one of Hamburg's leading tourist attractions, the only limit to its expansion is the imaginations of its creators and the available floorspace.
Mini cameras at the front of the model vehicles provide a bird's eye view of this magical world, giving viewers of Miniatur Wunderland's YouTube channel some fascinating rides.
Like a modern city the landscape changes from day to day, with temporary
structures reflecting events in the real world. A fan fest in an
urban park can mean only one thing: the World Cup is on and Germany are winning!
