The launch of the Arduino UNO R4 marks an enormous leap ahead for our neighborhood. For us, it’s additionally the possibility to rejoice the individuals who deliver our ecosystem to life with their shiny concepts, radiant enthusiasm, and shining perception.

That’s how the UNO R4 Stars weblog put up collection started: to spotlight makers who haven’t solely created superb tasks with Arduino, however who’re giving again to the neighborhood by sharing as they go and serving to others make something they want.

We invite you to find every profile, hoping you would possibly discover a North Star to navigate round an increasing galaxy or enterprise into fully new universes.

Born and based mostly in Barcelona, Spain, Monica Rikic is an award-winning artist who has chosen coding and inventive electronics as her expressive media. At present a PhD scholar at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s Community and Data Applied sciences program, she first encountered Arduino in school and rapidly realized the platform would open up infinite alternatives for interactive works succesful ready of perceiving inputs from the bodily context and producing completely different actions in response.

“Being a maker means not merely consuming expertise, however taking over an lively position within the dynamic the place, day by day, we’re involved with units and functions which have change into our gateways to narrate to the world round us, to different folks, and to ourselves as nicely,” she says.

Through the years, her philosophical and inventive method have translated into tasks reminiscent of Hipertèlia, of which she has lately arrange a 2023 iteration on the Sala Apolo membership in Barcelona because of a model new Arduino UNO R4 WiFi: 20 “balloons” with LEDs inside, interacting with guests because of a digital camera that tracks their place and communicates it to the system through Wi-Fi. The set up can be on-site till early November — if you’re in Barcelona, test it out!

Rikic has additionally already developed a brand new challenge leveraging the UNO R4 Minima variant: “It’s a bizarre machine that generates infinite classical music, in collaboration with Rodo. Guests on the Palau de la Musica can modify the output as they get nearer to the set up, converse and even sing to it.” 

What’s subsequent? She is engaged on Hipèrbole, a brand new conceptual challenge for her EMAP European Residency with Hexagram at Concordia College in Montreal, Canada, exploring the intersection between artwork and AI from an authentic standpoint — to not check machines’ inventive potentialities, however to experiment with the traits that synthetic cognitive programs should have to be thought-about sentient organisms. 

 We requested Rikic, “What’s your favourite a part of UNO R4?”

• The 24V tolerance: “Having the ability to hook up with a single energy supply, even when controlling a number of motors, makes my work quite a bit less complicated.”
• The built-in mechanism that detects and prevents runtime errors: avoiding quick circuits that might doubtlessly hurt the board and damage an entire challenge is nice, particularly to maintain college students motivated.
• The Qwiic I2C connector: as a result of it means that you can join completely different sensors and actuators with out soldering.
• The LED matrix: having a type of direct output helps you instantly see what you’ll be able to create with electronics.

To seek out out extra about Rikic’s inventive analysis and hold a watch out for the brand new installations she is organising world wide, bookmark her web site or observe her on Instagram.