Google Releases First Developer Resources For Project Ara, Its Modular Smartphone

Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group has released a Module Developers Kit (MDK) for Project Ara, its forthcoming modular smartphone, providing reference implementations for various design features.

The ATAP describes Ara as follows:

The Ara platform consists of an on-device packet-switched data network based on the MIPI UniPro protocol stack, a flexible power bus, and an elegant industrial design that mechanically unites the modules with an endoskeleton.

The MDK goes on to note that the success of the modular smartphone concept is dependent on the development of a rich ecosystem of modular blocks that users can pick and choose from:

Ara’s success is predicated on a rich, vibrant, and diverse ecosystem of modules from a myriad of developers. Users would be able to select modules from an online marketplace using a confgurator that facilitates user choice and curates the confguration process to ensure that the selection of modules provides the expected system-level functionality.

The MDK also details how Google is considering a discrete set of configurations for parcelling off different sized endos — aka the metal endoskeletons into which the various modular blocks are ultimately slotted.

While the front of these endos supports relatively few options for user configuration (as seen below), owing to the real-estate requirements of the screen, the rear of the different-sized devices allows for multiple modules to be combined in multiple ways.

But Google is evidently still determining which of the possible rear endo design configurations it will make available. “While Google may or may not make every possible endo variant available, developers should be mindful that modules should support every variant,” the MDK notes.

The 81-page MDK discusses the “pebble-like form expressed by the Ara module design language”, and goes into specific detail of how modules should be designed — requiring they have a rectilinear footprint, a 1.5mm corner curvature, and that their base must be a single piece of machined 6061 aluminum to ensure a snug fit.

The document also touches on modules that might extend beyond the “standard envelope” in order to support specific additional functionality, such as a thermal imager module with a protruding lens, or the Pulse Oximeter Module, pictured below, for measuring blood oxygen saturation:

Regarding the electro-permanent magnets (EPM) which will be used to keep rear Ara modules in place, the document notes that the EPM has “two selectable states: the attach state and release state, corresponding to high and low levels of magnetic force”, with electrical power required only to switch between the states, not sustained to maintain either one.

Front modules, which don’t have so much endo to lean on, will use EPM and a ball-spring plunger assembly to ensure they remain in place.

On the apps front, the MDK notes that “in general” Android apps for Ara are not significantly different so “consequently, Ara devices are anticipated to be compatible with most standard apps”.

But it does add that “developers are encouraged to pay attention to application stability and graceful behavior in light of dynamically varying availability of hardware resources (as with hot-plug, for instance)”.

The Project Ara MDK can be downloaded via this link.

TinkerBots Want To Make Modular Robotics Child’s Play

TinkerBots is a modular robotics building set with the aim of encouraging children to learn about electronics through play. The Berlin-based makers behind the project are seeking to raise $100,000 over the next 46 days via the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform to get their kits to market.

This is just the latest education-focused project trying to leverage something fun to teach something complex. Another recent example is Robotiky, which pairs a controllable robot with a drag and drop interface in order to help kids learn how to code.

TinkerBots is much more focused on hardware, though. Its kits comprise a variety of modular blocks that allow for many different robots to be put together.

It’s similar to the MOSS modular robotics kit which the maker of Cubelets Kickstarted last November (going on to raise more than $360,000 via the platform), but TinkerBots are aiming for a slightly younger user-base than MOSS, with an even more simplified approach to building bots.

It says its kits enable children as young as five-years-old to build functioning robots.

1. TinkerBots_Snake_Robot

2. tinkerbots_here_is_how_it_works_l

3. TinkerBots pieces

4. tinkerbots_smartphone_app_2

5. tinkerbots_sensor_racer

6. tinkerbots_racer

7. tinkerbots_grabber

8. tinkerbots_ant

9. TinkerBots_Pieces_Solar_Propeller

Each TinkerBot robot requires a power block if it’s to be able to animate (the red cube is the power block). This includes a battery, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, an Arduino-compatible microcontroller, plus other sensors such as a gyro/accelerometer.

The rest of the robot is put together using various kinetic modules, which support different types of movements (such as twisting, pivoting and rolling), and wireless or passive connector blocks. Connecting up the pieces is designed to be ‘child’s play’, with blocks snapping together like Lego and no wiring or programming required to get them to animate.

(That said, there is a USB port for programming purposes, should the user wish to do a bit more hacking, and TinkerBot’s use of an Arduino-compatible microcontroller platform allows for creations to be programmed using C — giving the kits a broader appeal beyond the main target of young kids.)

Various sensors can also be incorporated into TinkerBot creations, such as light detection and distance measurement. The blocks are also compatible with basic Lego and Technic Lego, using an adaptor block, so they can be extended with additional detail and abilities using Lego bricks.

TinkerBot’s basic idea is to be a lot freer, in terms of what the user can build, than the kit-based approach of animated Lego, such as Technic Lego and Lego Mindstorms. It’s also designed to be accessible to younger kids, thanks to its modular, plug and play approach.

To get TinkerBots moving, the kit includes a block with an integrated record mode which allows the user to record a particular motion or movement — by manually animating the robot — and then have the bot repeat it when they hit play.

More advanced program and play functionality is incorporated into the system via a companion app that allows for more granular remote control over the bots you build.

TinkerBot’s makers aren’t making any specific shipping timeframe commitments for the different crowdfunding pledges being offered, but they say they are hoping to be able to ship kits to backers in time for the 2014 holiday season.

The cost of the kits varies, depending on how many pieces you opt for, with an entry level Basic Wheeler set (which can be used to build a Bluetooth-controlled car) costing $159, rising to $499 for a Sensoric Mega kit (to allow for making machines that can recognise an obstacle and manoeuvre around it).

Early Indiegogo backers can also bag the Advanced Builder kit (which can be used to make multiple creations, from machines to animals) for $269, instead of the standard $299 price.

Project Ara: Google and Phonebloks explain modular phones in video

Loie Favre 2014-04-04T10:00:01Z4 hours ago

Loie Favre

Loie Favre is a Canadian-German, food-loving, live-music-craving globe-trotter. Coming from a humble background in the Canadian Prairies centred around nature and the Arts, she studied Translation and Languages in Edmonton. She left his home on the Pacific Coast of Canada, to seek her fortune in Berlin. She is now an Editor and Manager for AndroidPIT.com and is enjoying discovering about everything and anything under the sun about Android.

Project Ara has been increasingly gaining the limelight as Google presents more and more details about the modular smartphone revolution. A video preview of the team behind Ara and an update about Phonebloks appeared on YouTube to let us know where they are in their modular smartphone journey.

© Slash Gear

Lots has happened since we first heard of Project Ara. First Motorola announced that they were working closely with Phonebloks on this do-it-yourself smartphone concept. Then, Google went ahead and sold Motorola to Lenovo, but decided to keep the team that was responsible for Project Ara. Now, the company behind Project Ara, Phonebloks, has published a video to help us get to know the bright minds behind the endeavour and take a look behind the scenes.

Aside from the fancy-looking and colorful Google office and some jokes thrown around here and there, the video explains how a Phoneblok modular smartphone works, explains the tests being performed on the various phone modules as well as the different skeletons to hold the entire smartphone together. Another interesting part of the video is when a designer explains their choice to keep the various pieces of hardware found on a smartphone visible, instead of hidden behind a chassis, which they feel isn’t necessarily essential.

Link to video

It’s evident that the Project Ara team holds a great importance in not following conventions but in creating something new and unique.  A Project Ara Developer Conference is rapidly approaching (April 15-16, 2014), so we will hopefully know more about the project then.

What do you think of the modular smartphone concept, being able to pick and choose the various parts of your smartphone, instead of having a OEM dictate the hardware found in your phone? Too much freedom or the way of the future?

Source: PhoneBloks (YouTube)

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Google Shows A Glimpse Of How Its Modular Phone Moonshot Is Progressing

Google has released a video (embedded below) showing a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes at Project Ara, one of the hardware shunkworks projects coming out of its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP). The ATAP group is also working on a 3D mapping handset which Google showed off in February, called Project Tango.

Project Ara is the codename for the modular phone concept that Motorola was working on, and which Google retained when it sold the rest of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo.

As Google’s moonshots go, Project Ara is relatively tame — compared to Project Loon‘s connectivity balloons, say. Or the biggie, Calico: Google’s attempt to hack death.

But deconstructing the complexity of a smartphone and refashioning it as a bunch of swappable components which can be slotted together in various custom combinations by the user is clearly no cake walk.

Nor is getting people to grok the concept of speccing out their own phone in hardware terms. (Although, really, when you think about it, the modular hardware concept is much like the modular software that users are now very comfortable with — aka apps.)

Designing an interface to explain the modular smartphone concept to users is something the video touches on, with an Ara configurator app shown to be in the works. ”We’re really trying to make this interface as simple as possible, and as spacially intuitive as we can,” says Eric Gunther, co-founder of SoSo Ltd, an interactive design studio that’s working with Google’s ATAP on the design of this app.

The connecting force Google is going to use to bind all the phone blocks in each modular device is magnetism. Or “electro-permanent magnetism”, as the video puts it — which presumably means the magnetism is switched on when you want the device to stay together, and off when you want to swap out components.

Making sure those connections are robust enough for everyday use is going to be a key requirement of the Ara project. Things fall apart, sure; but smartphone owners aren’t going to want their phone to do so in their jacket pocket.

The video also includes a view of the metal exoskeleton where prototype modules are being tested by the ATAP team:

Plus, there’s a glimpse of how different size configurations of the modular device might look in terms of end-user design —  with phablet, standard and small handsets being specced out – albeit, in render form at this nascent stage:

The most interesting thing about the video — which very much has the feel of a crowdfunding pitch video you might find on Kickstarter or Indiegogo — is that Google is clearly continuing to put marketing muscle behind Project Ara to try to get outsiders excited about the prospect of a modular device.

It’s running a two-day developer conference for the device this month, which likely explains the release timing of this video.

The conference is the first in a series planned for this year, with the first event focusing on the alpha release of the Ara Module Developers’ Kit (MDK) — to get developers building Ara modules. More events are planned, so expect more details about Ara to keep dropping, piece by piece.

Source: Engadget