Category Archives: OldBlog

DorkbotLex #2 – Results

Posted on 2009-04-18 by pappp

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I did make it out to this month’s DorkbotLex, the few decent pictures I took are up in a set on flickr. I especially liked the Circuit Bent Toys presentation, it did an excellent job of making circuit modification accessible for those without any engineering background, although I always feel like there should be a little bit of effort to teach the underlying mechanisms when doing that sort of thing.
Some of the equipment for Senom’s DNA extraction demo were lost in transit, so that presentation has been postponed until the next event.

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DorkbotLex #2

Posted on 2009-04-15 by pappp

A reminder in case anyone else missed the announcement when it went out, the next DorkbotLex is this coming Saturday (2009-04-18), again at CPR.
According to the announce email, the topics this time are:
– Circuit bent toys – by artist + UK School of Fine Arts new media professor Dima Strakovsky
– Phonograffiti – by Lexington based sound/visual artist Jason Corder aka OfftheSky
– Hacked electronics – by Lexington based sound artist Grynden
– Garage science – a mini workshop for everyone that [Senom Yalcin] will lead: DNA extraction using simple materials
It sounds like another good showing, I hope to have time to be there, and encourage everyone interested to come out.

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Summer Reading?

Posted on 2009-04-14 by pappp

I’ve been considering projects, some from the (poorly maintained) public list and some that never made it there to play with this summer while I’m not taking classes (I will be working on research, just not taking classes). It occurred to me recently that this will be longest continuous time I wasn’t enrolled in a class since the summer after my sophomore year of high school (which is weird), and that makes it an excellent time for projects that require some sort of repeating time commitment.
One idea that appeals strongly is trying to run an internet-based reading group (as not to exclude people scattered elsewhere/require everyone be there at the same time) for some thematic subset of the vast backlog of “Things I need to read to feel like a cultured human being.” (I’ve talked about this phenomena with a couple friends, I suspect most interesting people have such a list, if just in their head. My favorite postsecret card was about this. ) I did a little bit of intensive reading a while ago, when I read several design/usability books in rapid succession, and I think it would be fun to do with a group.
A logical implementation to me is as a mailing list, probably using GoogleGroups (set to private?) AND a chat system of some sort (IRC channel or gTalk or AIM room), so that there was both persistent and immediate (log the chats to the list for both at once?) communication options. Using a community blog/wiki/bbs sort of thing would also be a good option, but that would require a little more infrastructure.
One possible topic that seems like fun given the collection of weirdos I know would be to read (honest) classical erotica, things like Justine, Venus in Furs, and The Story of O. I’d like suggestions for other possible topics, I want something that isn’t what I do most of the time (ie. NOT an Engineering/Math sort of thing), but there are definitely choices a wider group of people are (willing to publicly admit they are) interested in.

Any interest? List ideas? Etc.

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Debauchery

Posted on 2009-04-11 by pappp

It’s amazing how a night of debauchery every now and then can improve one’s feelings about the world (once the hangover wears off). Pictures and specifics intentionally excluded.

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Work Gloves

Posted on 2009-04-07 by pappp

How did I ever get anything done without them?
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At the recommendation of a friend I got some machinist-style work gloves (these) for working on my CNC Mill project (which is coming along rather nicely); I don’t know how I ever accomplished anything without them. They allow you to use your hands with incredible abandon — accidentally clipped your finger with a file? no problem. Tapped yourself with a spinning dremel bit? no problem. Grabbed a razor-sharp freshly cut metal edge? no problem. They also allow you to maintain grip irregardless of what may be on your hands, both from the cutting oils and slippery bits perspective and from the tiny sharp metal fragments perspective. There are even nice little pads on the tips of the fingers to make the important areas grippier.
Then there’s my favorite feature; the knuckle guards. This style of glove is typified by rubber splines over the backs of the knuckles, which absorb and spread out any impacts, so when your hand slips while tightening something, there is no cursing and bleeding. The splines do however make one feel compelled to punch at things, just because you know you can.

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Diploma

Posted on 2009-04-05 by pappp

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My diploma finally showed up in the mail about a week ago, and I feel compelled to put a picture of it online to brag, especially for the contingency that I need to link it to prove my credentials in matters electronic (yes, even college degrees can be reduced to “I’m going to use it to be a jerk on the Internet”). I was curious how they were going to fit 3 degrees; apparently UK isn’t especially well prepared to handle people earning more than two simultaneous degrees, and there is even some sort of opposition to people trying the EE/CompE/CS trifecta, but the engineering staff are seeing to it that we get our diplomas. I’m pleased that the major with which I most associate is the big one, but I’m a little disappointed they didn’t fit the math minor on, my transcript says I did get it.

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SmartPixels

Posted on 2009-04-03 by pappp

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One of those things I’ve been playing with intermittently just came to fruition: SmartPixels. Cheerful little LED+Microcontroller widgets which light up in interesting ways. All the code is written in a modular way so it is easy for me (or anyone else) to add sensors to the two remaining pins, or modify the behavior in other ways. Full source is available at the page above.

The biggest holdup in completing this little project was not actually the result of a difficult problem, but me forgetting, AGAIN, that when writing code for AVRs, any variable accessed inside an interrupt service routine MUST be marked volatile , or it will be treated as invariant by the compiler.

If I can figure out a convienent way to post video I will, even the simple color fade behavior I currently have loaded is mesmerizing.

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CNC Beginnings

Posted on 2009-04-01 by pappp

The beginnings of my CNC project, in the form of parts for the XY table, and associated tool pile:
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The motion capability will be 9” in the X dimension and 6” in the Y direction, the Z axis is on hold until after the semester is over, there just isn’t time to design it in now.
Drives:
Each axis will be driven by a 130 oz-in NEMA23 Stepper (Lin Engineering 5618S-58-01)
The lead screw to run the axis is a 3/8” coarse threaded rod, cut to length
The travel nuts are 1.125” coupling nuts (long, to help with backlash without spending money)
One remaining problem is couplers for attaching the lead screw to the drive shaft, there are lots of options, but they all seem to cost at least $10/axis. I suspect unless something better appears I’ll end up with lovejoy couplings.

From aluminum square tubing (1” OD, .062” walls):
8”x8” (outside) square frame for Y axis
6”x12” (outside) rectangle for X axis
The framing will be assembled with bolts, tabs cut from 90deg angle stock, and a bit of epoxy to make it easier.

The next big fuss is figuring out the driver circuits. The motors are rated for 2A at any practical voltage, and only show about 2.6Ohms/coil of resistance, so its going to require proper current-controlled drivers, which may be expensive.

The thing I’m liking most about this project is that I’m learning a huge amount of practical, hands-on knowledge about metalworking and mechanical devices in a hurry, in a low-investment environment so I can experiment and really get a feel for things. I’m not sure if I’ll ever do much more metalwork, but its a good skill to have.

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AVRs are Amazing

Posted on 2009-03-28 by pappp

To add to all the other reasons I love AVRs (cheap, featureful, good development tools, beautiful assembly language), they are now also to be considered almost impossibly resilient: I just made a mistake and reverse biased an ATTiny13 micro (swapped Power and Ground wires), causing it to heat up until it was too hot to touch… I just popped it back in the programmer after it cooled down, and it is completely fine. Win, atmel, win.

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Bored Should be Obsolete

Posted on 2009-03-26 by pappp

The collexion meeting tonight had a discussion basically on the idea that no one should be ever be bored anymore, because there are so many cool things one could be doing. My current list of things I want/need to spend time on, ignoring the mundane:
* Working on my SmartLEDs project [If I remember, I’ll edit to a link to the pending project page once I put it up]; the basics are almost done (software PWM for color mixing, etc.), next I want other people playing with it too and try different sensors and behaviors and diffusers and such.
* Getting started with the LARs stuff my masters project is based around; I think I want my first major contribution to be a behavioral-level software simulator for a full implementation of the proposed architecture. If I’m feeling really bold it might be parallelizable to run on the big machines (or their smaller, older siblings). I suspect before that I will be working on cleaning up my predecessors’ mess, and helping to get their SC paper out the door.
* Continuing to start up my desktop CNC mill project; I want to try to build one for <$200, and I get to write off the time and money guilt as school activity, as the XY table component will serve as the class project in EE572/Digital controls for myself and two other students. I’m getting a good feel for parts and designs, going for something not dissimilar to this.
* Arranging my CGS500 final project, I’m fairly sure I’ll be doing it on UI/UX, and supporting analysis of current and notable historical examples of computer interfaces with articles (using The Humane Interface as a jumping off point for the analysis). I think it would be REALLY fun to do it as a heavily multimedia presentation, with virtual machines running different systems and applications to demonstrate interspersed with the slides, but I’m afraid it would detract from the depth and be difficult to do gracefully.
The consensus was that bored people are boring; there’s really no excuse for not being able to come up with things you want to do, especially with the power of the internets focused through places like make and hackaday to use for inspiration.
I had to type this post TWICE because flatpress failed me when I accidentally hit shift+back and navigated back without saving. Flatpress is really not an ideal engine, the “Post to the date when the draft is created, not when the post is posted” misfeature drives me nuts, but I still can’t fault it for being easy to deploy in space I don’t have to pay for.

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