One year ago today: April 25, 2013, Savannah on $935.29.
Five years ago today: April 25, 2009, the Dania Hotel's Last Stand.
You can put me on the list of people who declare that nothing happened today. Not a thing went on. This plainly means trivia is the high point of the day. Um, if any of you have heard this trivia on TV, keep in mind I do not own a TV. So here is some you don’t find on Google. Did you know that while 15% carbon monoxide in the blood can be fatal, New York cabbies regularly test 19% and only get slight headaches. And we thought it was just a bad attitude. Did you know Napoleon was actually taller than the average Frenchman of his day?
While you must be a US citizen to join the police force, but there is a policy in place that you are rejected if you are “too intelligent”. If that makes sense to anyone, I'll be you also support amnesty laws, right? Two men tried to sell New Zealand on eBay, who closed down the auction when the bidding had reached $3,000. Nokia cells phones sold in Asia have no number “4”. It is considered bad luck—but only on keypads, not touchscreens.
A man was arrested in California in the early 1990s for dressing in as the Grim Reaper and standing outside old folk’s homes. But my favorite is how the liner “Queen Mary” got her name. Cunard was about to name it the “Queen Victoria” when the current King (Geo. V) toured the shipyard. When informed it was to be named after “the greatest queen who ever lived”, he replied he’d ask his wife if that was okay with her. And then there is the highly-overrated “Gulliver’s Travels”, which in 1726 mentions the two moons of Mars and their correct orbits. The moons were discovered in 1877.
Scientists have discovered a vine that can change leaf shape to imitate the host tree it grows around. No other plant has ever been found with this ability. Please, no jokes about how did they find it. According to Asimov, the phrase most associated with a scientific breakthrough is not “Eureka”, but “That’s funny”.
In preparation for tomorrow, I played through all the tunes on the list that I do not like. This is much different that refusing to play them, Glen, and then making up stories why not. I also took an hour and repaired my flip-flip circuit to make a frustrating discover. The problem was a fried transistor, a difficult call for me, but then when the circuit worked, it was the wrong circuit. I didn’t know at the time, but there were two types I could have built. Just my luck, I chose the one that can’t be used for what I ultimately want to build. Be happy as I learned precisely how a memory circuit works. And doesn’t work.
I’d thought of going out, maybe a little Karaoke, which should give you some idea of how exciting this town is. But I got into planning my own robotic vehicle. When I finally looked up it was 10:00 at night. I’m still taking inventory to see if I have sufficient parts to make a plain wheeled vehicle about 20cm long. I prefer to call these “carts”. Those who buy them ready-made do themselves a bad turn. Sooner or later, you will have to construct your own. I’m okay if you use axles, motors and wheels from old toys, but not if you use the toy itself. I visualize a “tail-dragger” configuration with all steering and speed by tire control using the microcontroller.
This is not so easy, certainly not as easy as using the custom kit from the meeting. I found an H-bridge I made a few years ago which seems in working condition. These things produce heat, lots of it. They are a small circuit four to a package so you can control four wheels forward and reverse. I’ll stick with two. I long ago noticed that all the on-line motor control codes for the Arduino have a major shortcoming, which I will cleverly sidestep to see if anyone else catches on down the line. From experience, ahem, I know that both the voltage controller and H-bridge generate considerable heat. Enough to damage plastic components. I’ll figure it out.
My study habits have been ironed out for thirty years. I pore five to fifteen minutes, then take a break to absorb things. I normally keep a book handy on some different subject. It’s how I learn best. Today I watched a series of science documentaries instead, all physics. It has been so long I can only follow it to maybe a second year level. I do believe I’m becoming enthused about the Arduino all over again. Nothing like an intellectual challenge.
ADDENDUM
I contacted my small group [of confederates] about the robotics meeting last evening. I’ll go over what was considered after I gave them my report, but the following should be viewed as nothing more than neutral commentary. First, to succeed, this new meet-up group needs funding. There were no tools and equipment, other than off-the-shelf components and the ubiquitous laptops. You can’t build a robot with that. The group has not yet evolved to the stage of realizing robotics is not about building a kit, in fact, they will probably waste money on a kit before the lesson is learned.
There were sufficient people present to handily outfit a basic workshop with 3D printers (plural) and some rudimentary fabrication apparatus. The cost must be spread and membership a condition of usage. Convince that bloated university it is in their best interests to donate us a big locked room. If the turnout in May is much the same persons, it is time to organize along these lines.
We were software-heavy, but that does not translate into leadership. Remember the term for more than two programmers working on the same code? It’s family blog so I won’t repeat it. There is an immediate need to separate the members who are into animation away from the core of the robotics group unless said persons can be confined to working—and discussing--only defined and relevant material. Animation types are like the guitar players of the computer orchestra. Given a free hand, they will contort everything to their own too-often-selfish purposes. (Don't assume selfish is wrong, business is business.)
The photo displays components being connected to a microcontroller board. That’s the object standing on end to the left. This arrangement, called a “shield” is a third-party attempt to make the Arduino easier to use by providing a friendly interface. But only if you use the cosmically overpriced Molex connectors. Yes, those are my glasses and booklet, the only writing material present.
My conclusions are twofold. The meet-up has to get funding or wither, but I’m not specifically saying that the money has to derive from donations or even robotics. My own club has already done the thinking: if we could bring any type of product to market, we could sell it for the necessary seed capital.
The other item is the organization has to move rapidly toward fabrication and self-reliance. A few present mentioned they’d discovered robotics isn’t one neat category. That confirms they at least tried and got as far as we did. And like us, they’ll require etching people, gear people, 3D people, and a helmsman. Don’t look at me, I am only a secretary-treasurer, which brings us to money.
There were no starving students at the meeting. Many had spanking new laptops and some had Arduinos. But everything else was scarce and I’ve already documented that the Arduino is too expensive to share in a group or embed in a project. As it stands everybody is responsible to look after their own gear and it shows. Thus, we need a source of ATMega chips and circuit boards. I failed to find any custom Arduino boards, so I will seek to adapt a ready-made board from the Shack. And I advise this club to do the same. If you are not sure what I mean by this, I’ll say it once more.
It is possible to remove a programmed chip (the ATMega) from the Arduino socket and place it on a far cheaper circuit board wired to power and run the chip at around a sixth or eighth of the cost of a full-fledged Arduino. That’s cheap enough to hand them out without everybody taking inventory at the end of each session. I’m tempted to peel a ATMega out of one of my working Arduinos just to see if I can do it. And of course, gain in the process a material lead on the rest of the troop. Why would I do that? To ensure if something flies, I have my pick of the resources. It’s called evolution, though many might mistake it for competition.
"We understand human mental processes only slightly better
than a fish understands swimming"
- John McCarthy
