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On the love of robotics…

So, let me tell you about today…

  • Still getting over the flu *cough!* *cough!*
  • Went to the doc, found out that by coughing hard I cracked a rib
  • I found source code for a project I thought I had lost (yay!)
  • … and found a melted chocolate bar on the floor of the car (ugh!)
  • Negotiated a contract for a couple hours on the phone
  • Went to Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City to have dinner with the Hackers

So, all in all a very productive kind of day considering I’m still getting over the flu, eh?

The best part of the day was being able to work on secret project X and realizing that it’s basically a robotics project.  No matter how exotic things get, it’s still down to Proportional Integral Derivative control, and the storing and playback of motor patterns.  That gave me a good reason to dance, at least mentally.

So, here’s hoping that I get over the last symptoms of this flu soon.  Temperature was 99.9 on the thermometer last I checked.  Not great, but at least it’s a low-level fever.  If it doesn’t break by tomorrow, I’ll consider another checkup w/ the doc.

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It’s here! It’s here!

From ordering to at my doorstep? One day. Amazing. I took a photo of the atmel AVR168 based Baby Orangutan B-168 on the keyboard of the lenovo S10 for a size comparison. It’s about the size of two dimes .. but can do 3A worth of motor control.

b168

pololu.com B-168
pololu.com B-168
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Flu. goo. and you.

Okay, so the body’s main defenses against flu are fever, mucus, and coughing.  Lots and lots of coughing.   I’ll be so glad when I finally get over this thing.

In the meantime, I sound like a cross between a freight train and a moose.

*cou–HHH–gh!*

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Sick: 1 – Me: 0

I’m a coughing, sneezing, gods-my-chest-hurts, miserable ball of goo right now.  Tissues on standby, and NyQuil at the ready.  However, working on electronics is what’s been keeping me running.

I can’t wait until my immune system catches up and kicks this cold’s ass.

The Flu

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Shiny shiny iphone app

Browsing on the iphone app store, I found a wordpress posting app. it’s pretty well written, and offers enough functionality to post to the blog.

now I don’t have to wait until I get home to wrote my daily entry! Woot!

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TechShop, TechShop, happy happy TechShop

Project secret with Ani continues, and I’m headed back to the techshop with two gallons of RDX silicone to make molds of the prototypes.  Also, a sheet of 1/2″ acrylic sheet … and some urethane casting resin … and a bag full of microcontroller parts.

I’ll post pictures of some of the fun bits, assuming I don’t ruin the camera in the process.

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little perfections…

I’m working with a friend (Ani) on a new project to control something with an arduino.  It involves motors, midi, hardware and software.  To make it easy to work with the Arduino LilyPad, I’ve mounted it on an acrylic base that I whipped up at the TechShop in about half an hour.   Sometimes things just come together so well, I can believe in little perfections.   Here’s the finished product:

Arduino Lilypad on Custom Stand