How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination
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0:00 - 0:03So a few weeks ago, a friend
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0:03 - 0:05of mine gave this toy car to his
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0:05 - 0:078-year-old son.
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0:07 - 0:09But instead of going into a store and buying one,
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0:09 - 0:12like we do normally, he went to this
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0:12 - 0:14website and he downloaded
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0:14 - 0:16a file, and then he printed it
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0:16 - 0:18on this printer.
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0:18 - 0:20So this idea that you can
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0:20 - 0:22manufacture objects
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0:22 - 0:24digitally using these machines
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0:24 - 0:25is something that The Economist magazine
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0:25 - 0:28defined as the Third Industrial Revolution.
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0:28 - 0:32Actually, I argue that there is another revolution
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0:32 - 0:34going on, and it's the one that has to do with
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0:34 - 0:37open-source hardware and the maker's movement,
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0:37 - 0:41because the printer that my friend used
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0:41 - 0:43to print the toy is actually open-source.
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0:43 - 0:47So you go to the same website, you can download all the files
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0:47 - 0:51that you need in order to make that printer:
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0:51 - 0:54the construction files, the hardware, the software,
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0:54 - 0:57all the instruction is there.
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0:57 - 0:59And also this is part of a large
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0:59 - 1:02community where there are thousands of people
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1:02 - 1:04around the world that are actually
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1:04 - 1:05making these kinds of printers,
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1:05 - 1:07and there's a lot of innovation
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1:07 - 1:08happening because it's all open-source.
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1:08 - 1:12You don't need anybody's permission to create something great.
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1:12 - 1:15And that space is like
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1:15 - 1:18the personal computer in 1976,
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1:18 - 1:20like the Apples with the other companies are fighting,
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1:20 - 1:22and we will see in a few years,
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1:22 - 1:25there will be the Apple of this kind of market come out.
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1:25 - 1:29Well, there's also another interesting thing.
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1:29 - 1:31I said the electronics are open-source, because at the heart
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1:31 - 1:34of this printer there is something I'm really attached to:
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1:34 - 1:37these Arduino boards, the motherboard that sort of
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1:37 - 1:39powers this printer, is a project
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1:39 - 1:42I've been working on for the past seven years.
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1:42 - 1:43It's an open-source project.
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1:43 - 1:46I worked with these friends of mine that I have here.
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1:46 - 1:49So the five of us, two Americans, two Italians
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1:49 - 1:52and a Spaniard, we — (Laughter)
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1:52 - 1:55You know, it's a worldwide project. (Laughter)
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1:55 - 1:57So we came together in this
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1:57 - 1:59design institute called the Interaction Design Institute
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1:59 - 2:02Ivrea, which was teaching
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2:02 - 2:04interaction design, this idea that you can take
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2:04 - 2:06design from the simple shape
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2:06 - 2:08of an object and you can move it
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2:08 - 2:10forward to design the way you interact with things.
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2:10 - 2:13Well, when you design an object that's supposed to interact
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2:13 - 2:15with a human being, if you make a foam model
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2:15 - 2:18of a mobile phone, it doesn't make any sense.
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2:18 - 2:19You have to have something that
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2:19 - 2:22actually interacts with people.
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2:22 - 2:25So, we worked on Arduino and
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2:25 - 2:27a lot of other projects there to
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2:27 - 2:29create platforms that would be
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2:29 - 2:31simple for our students to use,
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2:31 - 2:33so that our students could just build things that worked,
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2:33 - 2:37but they don't have five years to become an electronics engineer. We have one month.
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2:37 - 2:40So how do I make something that even a kid can use?
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2:40 - 2:43And actually, with Arduino,
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2:43 - 2:45we have kids like Sylvia that you see here,
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2:45 - 2:47that actually make projects with Arduino.
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2:47 - 2:50I have 11-year-old kids stop me and show me
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2:50 - 2:53stuff they built for Arduino that's really
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2:53 - 2:54scary to see the capabilities
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2:54 - 2:57that kids have when you give them the tools.
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2:57 - 3:00So let's look at what happens when you make a tool
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3:00 - 3:03that anybody can just pick up and build something quickly,
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3:03 - 3:05so one of the examples that I like to sort of
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3:05 - 3:06kick off this discussion is this
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3:06 - 3:08example of this cat feeder.
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3:08 - 3:11The gentleman who made this project had two cats.
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3:11 - 3:12One was sick and the other one
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3:12 - 3:15was healthy, so he had to make
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3:15 - 3:17sure they ate the proper food.
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3:17 - 3:19So he made this thing that recognizes the cat
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3:19 - 3:21from a chip mounted inside
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3:21 - 3:24on the collar of the cat, and opens the door
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3:24 - 3:25and the cat can eat the food.
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3:25 - 3:27This is made by recycling an old CD player
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3:27 - 3:29that you can get from an old computer,
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3:29 - 3:33some cardboard, tape, couple of sensors, a few blinking LEDs,
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3:33 - 3:36and then suddenly you have a tool. You build something
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3:36 - 3:37that you cannot find on the market.
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3:37 - 3:40And I like this phrase: "Scratch your own itch."
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3:40 - 3:43If you have an idea, you just go and you make it.
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3:43 - 3:45This is the equivalent of sketching on paper
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3:45 - 3:47done with electronics.
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3:47 - 3:49So one of the features that I
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3:49 - 3:51think is important about our work
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3:51 - 3:54is that our hardware, on top of
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3:54 - 3:56being made with love in Italy —
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3:56 - 3:58as you can see from the
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3:58 - 4:00back of the circuit — (Laughter)
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4:00 - 4:02is that it's open,
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4:02 - 4:03so we publish all the design
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4:03 - 4:05files for the circuit online,
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4:05 - 4:07so you can download it and
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4:07 - 4:09you can actually use it to
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4:09 - 4:12make something, or to modify, to learn.
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4:12 - 4:13You know, when I was learning about programming,
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4:13 - 4:15I learned by looking at other people's code,
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4:15 - 4:18or looking at other people's circuits in magazines.
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4:18 - 4:20And this is a good way to learn,
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4:20 - 4:23by looking at other people's work.
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4:23 - 4:25So the different elements of the project are all open,
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4:25 - 4:27so the hardware is released
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4:27 - 4:29with a Creative Commons license.
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4:29 - 4:31So, you know, I like this idea that hardware becomes
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4:31 - 4:33like a piece of culture that you share
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4:33 - 4:35and you build upon, like it was
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4:35 - 4:39a song or a poem with Creative Commons.
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4:39 - 4:42Or, the software is GPL, so it's open-source as well.
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4:42 - 4:45The documentation and the hands-on teaching
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4:45 - 4:49methodology is also open-source and released as the Creative Commons.
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4:49 - 4:51Just the name is protected so
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4:51 - 4:53that we can make sure that we can tell people
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4:53 - 4:56what is Arduino and what isn't.
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4:56 - 4:58Now, Arduino itself is made of
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4:58 - 5:00a lot of different open-source components
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5:00 - 5:03that maybe individually are hard to use for
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5:03 - 5:05a 12-year-old kid, so Arduino
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5:05 - 5:07wraps everything together into
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5:07 - 5:09a mashup of open-source technologies
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5:09 - 5:11where we try to give them the
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5:11 - 5:13best user experience to get something done quickly.
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5:13 - 5:16So you have situations like this,
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5:16 - 5:18where some people in Chile
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5:18 - 5:20decided to make their own boards instead of buying them,
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5:20 - 5:22to organize a workshop and
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5:22 - 5:26to save money. Or there are
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5:26 - 5:27companies that make their own
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5:27 - 5:29variations of Arduino that fit
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5:29 - 5:31in a certain market, and there's
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5:31 - 5:34probably, maybe like a 150 of them
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5:34 - 5:35or something at the moment.
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5:35 - 5:37This one is made by a company
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5:37 - 5:39called Adafruit, which is run by
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5:39 - 5:42this woman called Limor Fried,
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5:42 - 5:43also known as Ladyada, who is
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5:43 - 5:46one of the heroes of the open-source hardware movement
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5:46 - 5:47and the maker movement.
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5:47 - 5:50So, this idea that you have a new, sort of
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5:50 - 5:53turbo-charged DIY community
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5:53 - 5:55that believes in open-source,
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5:55 - 5:57in collaboration, collaborates
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5:57 - 6:00online, collaborates in different spaces.
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6:00 - 6:03There is this magazine called Make that sort of gathered
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6:03 - 6:04all these people and sort of put them together
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6:04 - 6:07as a community, and you see
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6:07 - 6:09a very technical project explained in a
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6:09 - 6:12very simple language, beautifully typeset.
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6:12 - 6:13Or you have websites,
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6:13 - 6:15like this one, like Instructables,
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6:15 - 6:17where people actually teach each other about anything.
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6:17 - 6:19So this one is about Arduino projects,
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6:19 - 6:23the page you see on the screen, but effectively here you can
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6:23 - 6:25learn how to make a cake and everything else.
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6:25 - 6:28So let's look at some projects.
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6:28 - 6:30So this one is a quadcopter.
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6:30 - 6:31It's a small model helicopter.
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6:31 - 6:34In a way, it's a toy, no?
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6:34 - 6:36And so this one was military technology
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6:36 - 6:38a few years ago, and now it's
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6:38 - 6:40open-source, easy to use, you can buy it online.
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6:40 - 6:44DIY Drones is the community; they do this thing called ArduCopter.
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6:44 - 6:47But then somebody actually launched this start-up called
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6:47 - 6:50Matternet, where they figured out that you could
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6:50 - 6:52use this to actually transport
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6:52 - 6:54things from one village to another in Africa,
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6:54 - 6:56and the fact that this was easy to find,
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6:56 - 6:59open-source, easy to hack, enabled them
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6:59 - 7:01to prototype their company really quickly.
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7:01 - 7:03Or, other projects. Matt Richardson: I'm getting a little sick
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7:03 - 7:07of hearing about the same people on TV over and over and over
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7:07 - 7:10again, so I decided to do something about it.
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7:10 - 7:11This Arduino project,
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7:11 - 7:15which I call the Enough Already, will mute the TV anytime
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7:15 - 7:17any of these over-exposed
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7:17 - 7:18personalities is mentioned. (Laughter)
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7:18 - 7:23I'll show you how I made it. (Applause)
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7:23 - 7:24MB: Check this out.
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7:24 - 7:26MR: Our producers caught up with Kim Kardashian earlier
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7:26 - 7:29today to find out what she was planning on wearing to her —
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7:29 - 7:31MB: Eh? (Laughter)
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7:31 - 7:33MR: It should do a pretty good
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7:33 - 7:34job of protecting our ears from having to hear about the details
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7:34 - 7:36of Kim Kardashian's wedding.
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7:36 - 7:41MB: Okay. So, you know, again, what is interesting here
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7:41 - 7:44is that Matt found this module
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7:44 - 7:46that lets Arduino process
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7:46 - 7:48TV signals, he found some code
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7:48 - 7:51written by somebody else that generates infrared signals for the TV,
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7:51 - 7:53put it together and then created this great project.
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7:53 - 7:55It's also used, Arduino's used,
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7:55 - 7:58in serious places like, you know, the Large Hadron Collider.
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7:58 - 8:01There's some Arduino balls collecting data and sort of
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8:01 - 8:02measuring some parameters.
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8:02 - 8:05Or it's used for —
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8:05 - 8:15(Music)
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8:15 - 8:18So this is a musical interface
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8:18 - 8:20built by a student from Italy,
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8:20 - 8:22and he's now turning this into
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8:22 - 8:24a product. Because it was a
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8:24 - 8:26student project becoming a product.
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8:26 - 8:28Or it can be used to make an assistive device.
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8:28 - 8:30This is a glove that understands
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8:30 - 8:32the sign language and transforms
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8:32 - 8:34the gestures you make into sounds
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8:34 - 8:38and writes the words that you're signing on a display
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8:38 - 8:39And again, this is made of all different parts you can find
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8:39 - 8:42on all the websites that sell Arduino-compatible parts,
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8:42 - 8:44and you assemble it into a project.
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8:44 - 8:47Or this is a project from the ITP part of NYU,
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8:47 - 8:49where they met with this boy
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8:49 - 8:52who has a severe disability, cannot play with the PS3,
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8:52 - 8:54so they built this device that
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8:54 - 8:57allows the kid to play baseball
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8:57 - 8:59although he has limited
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8:59 - 9:01movement capability.
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9:01 - 9:03Or you can find it in arts projects.
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9:03 - 9:05So this is the txtBomber.
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9:05 - 9:07So you put a message into this device
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9:07 - 9:10and then you roll it on the wall, and it basically
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9:10 - 9:12has all these solenoids
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9:12 - 9:14pressing the buttons on spray cans,
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9:14 - 9:15so you just pull it over a wall
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9:15 - 9:17and it just writes on the wall
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9:17 - 9:19all the political messages.
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9:19 - 9:22So, yeah. (Applause)
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9:22 - 9:24Then we have this plant here.
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9:24 - 9:26This is called Botanicalls,
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9:26 - 9:29because there's an Arduino ball with a Wi-Fi module
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9:29 - 9:32in the plant, and it's measuring
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9:32 - 9:33the well-being of the plant,
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9:33 - 9:35and it's creating a Twitter account
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9:35 - 9:39where you can actually interact with the plant. (Laughter)
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9:39 - 9:41So, you know, this plant
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9:41 - 9:43will start to say, "This is really hot," or
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9:43 - 9:47there's a lot of, you know, "I need water right now." (Laughter)
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9:47 - 9:51So it just gives a personality to your plant.
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9:51 - 9:53Or this is something that twitters when the
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9:53 - 9:55baby inside the belly of a
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9:55 - 9:58pregnant woman kicks. (Laughter)
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9:58 - 9:59Or this is a 14-year-old kid in
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9:59 - 10:02Chile who made a system that
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10:02 - 10:04detects earthquakes and publishes on Twitter.
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10:04 - 10:06He has 280,000 followers.
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10:06 - 10:09He's 14 and he anticipated
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10:09 - 10:12a governmental project by one year. (Applause)
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10:12 - 10:16Or again, another project where,
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10:16 - 10:18by analyzing the Twitter feed
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10:18 - 10:20of a family, you can basically
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10:20 - 10:22point where they are, like in the "Harry Potter" movie.
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10:22 - 10:25So you can find out everything about this project on the website.
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10:25 - 10:30Or somebody made a chair that twitters when somebody farts. (Laughter)
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10:30 - 10:33It's interesting how, in 2009,
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10:33 - 10:35Gizmodo basically defined,
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10:35 - 10:38said that this project actually gives a meaning to Twitter,
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10:38 - 10:41so it was — a lot changed in between. (Laughter)
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10:41 - 10:43So very serious project.
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10:43 - 10:45When the Fukushima disaster happened,
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10:45 - 10:48a bunch of people in Japan, they realized that the information
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10:48 - 10:51that the government was giving wasn't really open
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10:51 - 10:52and really reliable, so they built
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10:52 - 10:55this Geiger counter, plus Arduino, plus network
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10:55 - 10:57interface. They made 100
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10:57 - 11:01of them and gave them to people around Japan, and essentially
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11:01 - 11:03the data that they gathered gets published on this website
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11:03 - 11:05called Cosm, another website
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11:05 - 11:09they built, so you can actually get reliable real-time
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11:09 - 11:10information from the field,
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11:10 - 11:14and you can get unbiased information.
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11:14 - 11:16Or this machine here, it's from
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11:16 - 11:18the DIY bio movement,
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11:18 - 11:21and it's one of the steps that you need in order to process DNA,
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11:21 - 11:24and again, it's completely open-source from the ground up.
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11:24 - 11:27Or you have students in developing countries making
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11:28 - 11:30replicas of scientific instruments that cost
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11:30 - 11:32a lot of money to make.
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11:32 - 11:35Actually they just build them themselves for a lot less
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11:35 - 11:36using Arduino and a few parts.
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11:36 - 11:38This is a pH probe.
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11:38 - 11:42Or you get kids, like these kids, they're from Spain.
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11:42 - 11:44They learned how to program and to make robots when they
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11:44 - 11:47were probably, like, 11, and then they started to use Arduino
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11:47 - 11:49to make these robots that play football. They became
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11:49 - 11:52world champions by making an Arduino-based robot.
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11:52 - 11:54And so when we had to make
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11:54 - 11:57our own educational robot, we just went to them and said,
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11:57 - 11:59you know, "You design it, because you know exactly
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11:59 - 12:03what is needed to make a great robot that excites kids."
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12:03 - 12:04Not me. I'm an old guy.
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12:04 - 12:07What am I supposed to excite, huh? (Laughter)
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12:07 - 12:11But as I — in terms of educational assets. (Laughter)
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12:11 - 12:13There's also companies like Google
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12:13 - 12:15that are using the technology
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12:15 - 12:18to create interfaces between
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12:18 - 12:21mobile phones, tablets and the real world.
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12:21 - 12:22So the Accessory Development Kit
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12:22 - 12:24from Google is open-source
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12:24 - 12:25and based on Arduino, as opposed
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12:25 - 12:27to the one from Apple which is
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12:27 - 12:30closed-source, NDA, sign your
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12:30 - 12:32life to Apple. Here you are.
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12:32 - 12:35There's a giant maze, and Joey's sitting there, and the
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12:35 - 12:39maze is moving when you tilt the tablet.
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12:39 - 12:42Also, I come from Italy, and the design is important
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12:42 - 12:44in Italy, and yet very conservative.
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12:44 - 12:46So we worked with a design
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12:46 - 12:48studio called Habits, in Milan,
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12:48 - 12:50to make this mirror, which is completely open-source.
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12:50 - 12:54This doubles also as an iPod speaker.
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12:54 - 12:57So the idea is that the hardware, the software,
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12:57 - 12:59the design of the object, the fabrication,
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12:59 - 13:01everything about this project is open-source
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13:01 - 13:03and you can make it yourself.
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13:03 - 13:05So we want other designers to pick this up and learn how
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13:05 - 13:08to make great devices, to learn
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13:08 - 13:10how to make interactive products
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13:10 - 13:13by starting from something real.
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13:13 - 13:15But when you have this idea,
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13:15 - 13:17you know, what happens to all these ideas?
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13:17 - 13:19There's, like, thousands of ideas that I —
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13:19 - 13:21You know, it would take seven hours for me to do
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13:21 - 13:23all the presentations.
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13:23 - 13:26I will not take all the seven hours. Thank you.
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13:26 - 13:28But let's start from this example:
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13:28 - 13:30So, the group of people
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13:30 - 13:32that started this company called Pebble, they prototyped
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13:32 - 13:36a watch that communicates via Bluetooth with your phone,
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13:36 - 13:37and you can display information
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13:37 - 13:40on it. And they prototyped with
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13:40 - 13:42an old LCD screen from a Nokia
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13:42 - 13:44mobile phone and an Arduino.
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13:44 - 13:46And then, when they had a final
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13:46 - 13:48project, they actually went to Kickstarter
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13:48 - 13:51and they were asking for 100,000 dollars to make
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13:51 - 13:53a few of them to sell.
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13:53 - 13:55They got 10 million dollars.
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13:55 - 13:56They got a completely
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13:56 - 13:59fully funded start-up, and they don't have to,
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13:59 - 14:01you know, get VCs involved or anything,
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14:01 - 14:04just excite the people with their great project.
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14:04 - 14:06The last project I want to show you is this:
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14:06 - 14:10It's called ArduSat. It's currently on Kickstarter,
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14:10 - 14:12so if you want to contribute, please do it.
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14:12 - 14:15It's a satellite that goes into space, which is probably
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14:15 - 14:17the least open-source thing you can imagine,
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14:17 - 14:19and it contains an Arduino
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14:19 - 14:22connected to a bunch of sensors. So if you know how to use Arduino,
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14:22 - 14:24you can actually upload your experiments
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14:24 - 14:27into this satellite and run them.
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14:27 - 14:29So imagine, if you as a high school can have the satellite
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14:29 - 14:32for a week and do satellite
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14:32 - 14:34space experiments like that.
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14:34 - 14:37So, as I said, there's
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14:37 - 14:39lots of examples, and I'm going to stop here. And I just
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14:39 - 14:41want to thank the Arduino community
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14:41 - 14:43for being the best, and just
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14:43 - 14:45every day making lots of projects.
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14:45 - 14:48Thank you. (Applause)
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14:48 - 14:51(Applause)
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14:51 - 14:53And thanks to the community.
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14:53 - 14:55Chris Anderson: Massimo,
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14:55 - 14:58you told me earlier today that you had no idea, of course,
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14:58 - 14:59that it would take off like this.
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14:59 - 15:00MB: No.
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15:00 - 15:02CA: I mean, how must you feel when you read this stuff and you
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15:02 - 15:04see what you've unlocked?
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15:04 - 15:07MB: Well, it's the work of a lot of people, so we as a community
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15:07 - 15:09are enabling people to make
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15:09 - 15:11great stuff, and I just feel overwhelmed.
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15:11 - 15:14It's just, it's difficult to describe this.
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15:14 - 15:16Every morning, I wake up and I look at all the stuff that
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15:16 - 15:18Google Alerts sends me, and it's
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15:18 - 15:19just amazing. It's just
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15:19 - 15:22going into every field that you can imagine.
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15:22 - 15:24CA: Thank you so much. (Applause)
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15:24 - 15:27(Applause)
- Title:
- How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination
- Speaker:
- Massimo Banzi
- Description:
-
Massimo Banzi helped invent the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that's inspired thousands of people around the world to make the coolest things they can imagine -- from toys to satellite gear. Because, as he says, "You don't need anyone's permission to make something great."
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:46
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Nikolay Kiryanov edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Nikolay Kiryanov edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Nikolay Kiryanov edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Morton Bast approved English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination |