This week I connected a relay to act as a switch between two LED lights on the Arduino. The Code for this, uses the very basic "Blink" sketch found in the default library (Flies > Examples > Basic > Blink). That said the wiring is complicated enough for me to bring up at tomorrow nights Arduino meeting. The cool thing with the relay is that it makes a actual clicking sound as it switches back and forth. There's a transister being used and I need to understand its function better in this schematic as well as the flow of electricity.
Also this week I gave myself some time to actually allow myself to get out and have some fun fishing. This has been more difficult than it sounds as I find myself making excuses with work and other events to actually do some of these activities. Before you know it, a season or opportunity has ended and you find yourself wishing you should of - could of - would of.
To be clear, I'm my own worst enemy of this. Work or other events are not forcing me out of these things. It's me, I need to learn how to stop and smell the roses more often. Life moves pretty fast... If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it [Ferris Bueler's Day Off]. So I'm really happy to report I had a great time finally getting out for two days to do so.
Here's a picture of my cousin pulling in the big haul of 'lil stockies from Casadaga Creek...
On that same note, I finally got out and went turkey hunting after 5 long years of missing the season! I only got one morning in with no luck, but I am extremely grateful for doing this none the less. With a little luck, I'll be out again in 2 more weeks.
This week I connected a Photo Resistor to the Arduino. After following the kit and controlling an LED to fade on and off, I decided to connect it to a Servo. Using the Knob example in the Arduino Library, the photo resister just worked. Very Cool. Seeing how the mapping was set differently for the LED vs the SERVO was good to see. It makes sense to.
Also this week we had a drive at work to donate or old computer hardware. I've been wanting to give a bunch of computers to those who can find use for it, but instead I kept piling more computers up in the house. Ugh!
Well, with this oportunity to have it right at work, I dove into different places I stacked old computers and moitors up and brought it all on in. I was able to find and give 6 desktops, 1 17inch monitor, and a 2 printers for the cause. Happy to help out knowing they will be put to use again, and glad to see some room back in storage. WOOT!
So this week was fairly uneventful due to a time sync of fixing a family member's computer. Ugh I hate doing these. I only do it now for friends and family, but I don't think anyone who doesn't do this realizes just how much time goes into this.
I could have done an Arduino thing this week as well, but the weekend and spring cleaning got the better of me when I wasn't working on this laptop. Also there was an emergency dog sitting tonight as our neighbor was rushed to the hospital, and that kinda of diverted my time here where I am finding myself type this up as fast as I can. Just hoping everything is alright with neighbor.
So yes the laptop, basically I have been putting this task off for a few weeks now. Family/friend Larry had his laptop's hard drive go down. I went to install a new drive and realized the potential hell of going through finding and installing drivers for it was going to be a real pain. I started the install and found the Ethernet even after the drivers not working ... great I saw this project getting worse.
I then remembered I happen to have a much better laptop I was no longer using anymore. It was just lying around collecting dust. Another friend claimed dibs on it 2 months ago and never called back, and after leaving many messages, I figured it was time to pass it on to someone who was going to really appreciate it. The nice thing was, that all the OS was installed, but it needed driver and OS updates. It also needed a major cleaning as Larry was not going to need half the stuff I had on it.
So I started initial clean on Monday. The week went and I picked up the work again on Friday night, most of the day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Let's just say there were issues and the Microsoft updates took forever as well as updating the antivirus and cleaning out my files.
Happy to say in the end - this XPS laptop beast is running very smooth and has everything Larry needs to enjoy his new system.
Other than that - got more cleaning done around the house, and hopefully next weekend I'll get a chance to work on the backyard and maybe even the boat.
This week I connected a Potentiometer to the Arduino. After following the kit and controlling an LED to fade on and off, I decided to connect it to a Servo. I had some basic info to hook it up sine I already connected a Servo in a previous project. Once I had it working, I then used the button project from last week to activate and deactivate the potentiometer and servo from working.
This worked as I hoped it would. I already had the buttons still connected on the breadboard from last week so all I had to do was add its code to this weeks code and add an on/off state again to handle whether the servo and knob should respond or not.
It was also cool to see many elements working together as well.
Also this week I've been really wanting to make it to the Albright Knox Gallery to see the works of Joan Miro, which was ending this Sunday. I was able to make it the last day with friends and really enjoyed it. there wasn't as much as I had hoped, but was happy to fit this in with my busy schedule.
Doh! sorry here's the code for the Arduino if anyone is interested...
// Controlling a servo position using a potentiometer (variable resistor) // by Michal Rinott // modfied by naiJenn /* servo vars*/
#include
Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo
int potpin = A0; // analog pin used to connect the potentiometer int knobval; // variable to read the value from the analog pin
/*set button info*/ const int buttonPin1 = 2; // the number of the ON pushbutton pin const int buttonPin2 = 3; // the number of the OFF pushbutton pin const int ledPin = 9; // the number of the LED pin boolean onOff = false; // button state
void setup() { myservo.attach(11); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // initialize the LED pin as an output: // initialize the pushbutton pin as an input: pinMode(buttonPin1, INPUT); pinMode(buttonPin2, INPUT); }
void loop() { knobval = analogRead(potpin); // reads the value of the potentiometer (value between 0 and 1023) knobval = map(knobval, 0, 1023, 0, 179); // scale it to use it with the servo (value between 0 and 180)
if (digitalRead(buttonPin1) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); onOff = true; } else if (digitalRead(buttonPin2) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); onOff = false; } if (onOff) { myservo.write(knobval); // sets the servo position according to the scaled value delay(15); } }
Hey this week had lots of fun playing around with push buttons on the Arduino. The original program was written differently and needed to be corrected as the LED was on from the start and pushing the button turned it off.
After fixing this I continued with the kit's notes and updated it to use two buttons - one to turn it on and one to turn it off. Then there was an addition to make the LED fade on and off, which was cool.
Then I wanted to change it to get more acquainted with both the programming and the elements involved. After playing around with the kit's final updates, I realized that you had to hold either button down for the LED to fade through it entire range on or off. So for starters, I changed the program to no longer hold the button down to fade through its entirety. One click and the LED faded through the whole range on or off. Clicking throughout the fade was controlled so that no button click was allowed until the fade was done.
Then I realized I could keep clicking the same button over and over again and it would repeat the the fade routine. So I modified it again to have an onOff state where it detected whether it was already on or off and that clicking the same button again would have no effect on the LED.
Here's the code with different stages commented out:
/* Button This example code is in the public domain. */
// constants won't change. They're used here to // set pin numbers: const int buttonPin1 = 3; // the number of the pushbutton pin const int buttonPin2 = 2; // the number of the pushbutton pin const int ledPin = 9; // the number of the LED pin int value = 0; boolean onOff = false; // button state boolean fadeIt = false; // button state
void setup() { // initialize the LED pin as an output: pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // initialize the pushbutton pin as an input: pinMode(buttonPin1, INPUT); pinMode(buttonPin2, INPUT); }
void loop(){ // fixed original example - naiJenn - used ARDX code to fix original /* if (digitalRead(buttonPin2) == HIGH) { // button unpresed state = HIGH digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); } else if (digitalRead(buttonPin2) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); } */ // Use one button to turn on and one to turn off - ARDX /* if (digitalRead(buttonPin1) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); } else if (digitalRead(buttonPin2) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); } */
//Now fade on/off while button pressed - ARDX /* if (digitalRead(buttonPin1) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW value--; } else if (digitalRead(buttonPin2) == LOW) { // button presed state = LOW value++; } value = constrain(value, 0 , 255); analogWrite(ledPin, value); delay(10); } */
// naiJenn update -Fade on/off with only clicking button once - light will fade on/off through entire range // also don't interrupt - once button is clicked - buttons won't respond till the LED is done fading through range // also cant repeat the same button repetitively - it now holds an onOff state so once LED is on only the Off button will work and visa versa if (!fadeIt) { if ((digitalRead(buttonPin1) == LOW) && (onOff == true)) { // button presed state = LOW fadeIt = true; for (int i = 255; i >= 0; i--) { analogWrite(ledPin, i); delay(10); } analogWrite(ledPin, 0); onOff = false; fadeIt = false; } else if ((digitalRead(buttonPin2) == LOW) && (onOff == false)) { // button presed state = LOW fadeIt = true; for (int i = 0; i <= 255; i++) { analogWrite(ledPin, i); delay(10); } analogWrite(ledPin, 255); onOff = true; fadeIt = false; } } }
Well that's it - and Happy Bunny Day! I also built an entire rail system that controlled 4 different directions in minecraft - took some time but was a lot of fun, and I think I made it pretty efficient too.
This week I have made Circuit 6 of the ARDX experiments for the Arduino. This experiment played with a Piezo Element which produces tones which you can then control to make notes. By setting durations and pauses you can make melodies.
The sample that the experiment plays is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - and that worked fine as the setup was very easy. So I toyed with the tempo and the notes and changed it up to play "Row Your Boat", which helped me to understand how the original sketch worked. This was fun.
Ended up going to Toronto to watch the Sabres play against the Leafs. Sat just above Wayne Gretzky's Dad (cool) and Mike Myers was there. With family coming in, getting over being sick and now dealing with a food allergy (ugh), I've all to do this and clean up around the house. But, actually getting the house clean before family showed up was a big goal this week and mission completed in time. Woo hoo! Sometimes it's the little things.
So in summary got one more Arduino experiment out of the way, and got the house cleaned up in time. Not bad again considering the ailments and time constraints.
This week I have made Circuit 5 of the ARDX experiments for the Arduino. This re-introduced the use of LEDs but this time using a shift register (or serial to parallel converter). The shift register allowed control of 8 LEDs with only using 3 pins on the Arduino instead of 8. This is more along the lines of what I wanted to play with, so I'm very excited to modify the program and see what this can do.
Also this week I managed to finish the Minecraft water transport system. Last week I only completed one direction and now both ways are operational.
If I haven't been busy this week, then I've been extremely sick, so I'm keeping my notes brief. Thanks!
So this week, I connected a servo motor to the Arduino and played around with it to see how it responds to the delay and had some fun. It was a simple one to put together, but its one I've been looking forward to. I'd like to see what other servo motors are out there. the one i have doesn't respond to the 5 volt battery to well - it only works when plugged into the usb port. None the less, It's cool :)
Also this week I found myself researching different water transport to use inside of Minecraft. I've been wanting a neat system to really take advantage of getting from one area to another by boat inside the game. My goal for this was to make a prototype, and then find the right place to start building it. I got pretty engrossed in the process and made it all the way to making one direction fully dug out and working successfully. Most of the other side is done - just general digging and prepping. It was quite awesome to see it work the way I had hoped to.
I found one example in particular that seemed to work really well. So I built a prototype near the river I was at, and got it working nicely, but I definitely needed to relocate this otherwise it would not reach my destination and it would clutter the winding river turning the scenery into more of an eyesore.
I strategically placed it where it would connect a great distance from one primary lake to the ocean while maintaining the water height at sea level and making a straight line from point a to point b. This was a big project and was happy to get the prototype working and find the right location for it. I honestly thought I'd end this week with at least digging a hole through the ground that a avatar could walk through (2 blocks high), but found myself on a mission and dug roughly 75% of the entire project. One half/direction is completely finished and will transport you from the ocean to the lake in roughly a minute or two (I didn't time it yet).
Thanks for reading and watching the vids and WOOT!! 10 weeks alright!
Knowing this was going to be a busy week for me, I was glad to just get an arduino experiment in for this weeks project. I originally planned to continue on writing a second version to control a series of fading LED lights, but I really needed to work on something different. I also read ahead and discovered there's more LED fun to come so yay - I'll revisit LEDs then.
In summary I was just glad to get to this and build it right the first time. There was a bunch of other little things handled this week, but this is very Project Mustang speciffic for me.
This blog was also an experiment with using a blog app on the iPad. Kind curious to see how this works out.
Hey so lots of stuff going on and trying to fit in a simple project this week. I could say that I have actually did a few more goals I was going and have achieved, but the main focus this week for me was to experiment with the PWM pins on the Arduino Uno board and fade a series of lights on at the same time and set it for a number of iterations.
The goal for this experiment was to see if I could improve the existing fader code I had in place for 6 LEDs that are connected to PWM pins. I wanted to (and have made) make the LEDs fade in and out smoothly, and then pause for 1000 milliseconds. Once successful add a formula that can include how many times you want this to repeat itself.
I was able to achieve this successfully, but other little programatic issue arose and I plan to work on a release 1.1 to upgrade this one more time before moving on to other experiments.
I also was able to get to a few other smaller goals:
Installed ta SSD 2.5" SATA drive into a aluminum enclosure
More details later - I just wanted to post the on the blog but the work was done on time and a success.
theoscarchallenge.com
Check out the spreadsheet view and the 'View 2012 Results'
I created a different admin form to enter winning nominees on the fly and I go between that and the website to check that all is working.
Other pieces of code I added was
improvements to CSS
fixed side manu dramatically
elimnated need to manually edit index pages from voting/pre-award phase to award phase to post award phase (in the past this was put off due to other work)
forget password page was improved and the emailit sends was cleaned
headers were cleaned
jquery toggle added for menu
added new re-categorization code for spreadsheet view
I've been running behind on updating the blog, but have actually completed week 6 and week 7 projects on time. Here's the details for week 06...
So continuing on the Family's Oscar website, I created the detail entry page finished and working last week, but there is another part of combining the data into groups. This form was originally created last year, but it needed some fixes and a better naming structure. Once I had that working smoothly, I combined both pages together to make it a complete data entry tool page. The "Add Groups" form was on the left, and the "Add Group Details" was added to the right side of the page. This way as one added groups and found data missing you didnt need to go anywhere else; you just add it through the details form right there. After adding additional data the page would reload and re-populate the content on the "Add Groups" select menus showing your newly added info. The response of family adding the data was well received, and no errors or bad data was created upon release. Working without any issues from the getgo is a big win cause now I don't have to fix any data and this form is ready for future additions.
I also helped my friend Pete install a storm door on his front entrance. Those things are always a pain as nothing ever comes assembled. Of course there were issues with the existing door Jam, but nothing a circular & reciprocating saw can't handle. Other than the door Jam issues, we successfully installed the storm door without having to re-fix anything. We measured twice and installed once so YAY! That was a great achievement as well. No more heat loss or cold drafts.
And as a third place mention - I created three new floors in my underwater dome in Minecraft with the one floor being a 32x32x8 room complete with pillars. The other two were 32x32x2. All lit well and I revamped the stairway access. Woot! Thought I would have found more iron ore deposits, but still happy to finally get those levels cleared out. I'm shot so I'll post details tomorrow night on my blog.
This week was all about getting some new things in place on the admin side for my family's oscar voting website. The video pretty much explains everything, but in summary things are moving right along.
So I moved onto Arduino tutorial part 2 where you work with multiple LEDs. The goal was to get to through the whole tutorial and then mess around and see what can be done with it. So once I completed the circuit, and finished the first program, I then followed on instructions on how to improve it. Then after that I modified it myself and had some fun.
Very interesting to discover that there are only 6 digital pins that allow for analog dimming. The six pins are identifiable with a ~ symbol next to it. For whatever reason they are all not grouped together. Instead its pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11.
The final result was showing 4 different light patterns (technically 5 if you count the blinking separator) each separated by a series of blinking lights. You can check out the videos once they are posted here. Next week I plan to finish more than one tutorial, but I needed to get a leg up on a family project where we all vote on the oscars, and I run a small site for it.
This family oscar voting project always gets improved every year, but only a little bit at a time. So this year I have an advantage and am including it into mustang so I can get some things done that are long overdue. The code is old, and parts were hard-coded due to time constraints. The worst part is its documentation which I also plan to improve, but also I hope to make it much more automatic so that much time no longer needs to be invested into every year.
So this week I read through the existing database and initial pages. I also built new pages to handle the data entry for this years nominees and prepped the tables in the database. The first goal was to handle adding what I call a nominee group. I have this working properly but plan on extending its functionality with new ways of adding the data and checking against it.
So this week I worked on two small projects which were pretty much Hello Worlds for both. I built my own remote control with this cool device for the iPhone / iPad called LS Remote which is an app that comes with an IR device you can plug into your iPhone/iPad and have all your remotes controled from one source! I also purchased an Arduino starter kit ( arduino.cc ) this week, which is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Basically it lets you make really cool interactive objects or environments with ease ( Like the 8x8x8 LED Cube ). My friend introduced me to it and I was totally intrigued so I went and ordered one.
The LS Remote was cool but has been sitting on the sidelines for sometime because it simply takes time to get everything setup and into the app. I was home this weekend for many reasons and found myself with time so I figured this would be an awesome mustang project so out came the iPad and the IR piece. After a few hours of playing around with the interface, I was able to design a nice simple remote that had all the buttons the family normally uses. The biggest nuisance is having to many remotes with too many channel and volume buttons and most not knowing which remote controls what. We have a receiver which adds to the input and volume control madness. With the design in place - it was time to program the buttons and OMG! That was so easy! It was awesome! Just point the remote at the iPad and click the button you want and it took the information instantly! No code look-ups at all! Still, a little adjusting here and there, but an hour later I had a complete remote control that works awesome! Only disappointment was it wouldn't take the Apple TV frequencies, but then again its on an iPad/iPhone so controlling that is a simple app switch, but I'm still going to look into that on their forums.
Next, the Arduino Hello World. So out of the box I needed to assemble some pieces together and wrap my head around the basics of electronics and breadboards. After downloading the software and running 3 basic tests (USB / 9-volt power up and a real basic hello world ), I was up and running. Once everything was confirmed to be working, I proceeded with wiring up the breadboard based on the instructions for my first experiment, which was making an LED blink on and off from the breadboard (My "Hello World").
The result: Everything worked awesome and I was able to control the LED! I also found what would technically be a mistake in the instructions as it said to run a 5 volt line from the Arduino to the breadboard, but from what I could see it wasn't connecting to anything to complete a circuit. Everything else made a complete circuit just not this wire. So I spent a lot of time squinting at he diagram and looking for the same project with more detail online, and in the end I just hooked it all up the way the instructions said I should.
When it worked, I took a chance and removed the suspicious power line and found that I was right! It wasn't being used in anyway. I think they made you put it there for practice and procedure, but with no detailed explanations in the instruction I was a bit frustrated. That said, I was extremely happy I was able to identify the situation as well.
In summary, I'm very happy with the results of these two project and look forward to seeing how the family works uses the remote. With the Arduino, I think I passed my major "Get your feet wet" phase and can see future experiments moving much faster. Overall I think I spent 3-5 hours on the remote ( most of the time was spent on laying out something not so complicated and getting to know how to work inside the interface. The Arduino project probably took about 2.5 to 3 hours.
Well I was a bit behind the gun this week and I was pretty much bed-ridden due to situations out of my control. So not being able to move around and being in a lot of pain for most of the weekend really threw me off. The week wasn't much better either as there was simply a lot of things that came up this week.
I have upcoming web work for family to finish, but I just wasn't in the frame of mind to work on it so I rummaged through some of my bins that needed a look through. I stumbled across a series of photos from Costa Rica I had in a show a long time ago. I remember that when I did the show, I ran out of time back then to finish matting them all. I found the pictures and the mattes in pretty good condition, but some of the photos were just starting to show ware around some edges. If they were all matted the way they were supposed to be, this wouldn't be happening - so finally a project found!
I had tons of mattes of different colors and patterns and most were already cut. I think in all I only had to cut 10 for special sized ones. Thank God because aligned the photos in the mattes can eat up a lot of time. I also found plastic sleeves in another bin, which will really help protect them in the future.
I remember the show itself really being a blast, and going through all these photos really took me down memory lane. I was able to finish off all remaining photos with only 2 mattes to spare and I had enough sleeves for every finished matte. I'm very happy I save these photos in time and glad I was able to distract myself this weekend and not think about the pain I was in.
Well it's done! For the record there was plenty of time put in on this project. From designing and messing around on the computer, to discovering what the art of staining can and cannot do for me (more time spent here than I can care to mention), to finally doing what it takes to get the job done.
As stated throughout this first project, the board I used to work on wasn't the best made cribbage board ever made. The worst thing about the it was that the holes drilled were completely off in areas in relationship to the lines drawn. Working with what I had, it made it easier to not worry so much and try more than a few ideas to see what does or doesn't work.
In the end I definitely have better ideas for painting other wood crafts I have in the future. I also plan to build my own cribbage board some other time this year, and apply some of my new ideas.
For now, I like the end results for what it is. The board itself is just drying right now from a polyurethane coat. Other than that, I can't wait to use it! The image on the left is the unpainted board, and the image on the right is the finished product.
Well so far so interesting. Definately learning some things and I discovered how messy staining can get. With purchasing a plain board with the lines drawn and the holes already drilled, I am starting to see where I would do things differently with staining.
For starters, I would start with a board with no holes punched at all. this way i can first control where those holes go as apparently some moronic machine or machinist can't drill in-between the lines. More importantly, when staining, the holes create build up of the stain causing unwanted saturation of color around the hole area. So staining before the holes are drilled would give a more even finish to everything.
The other real pain with staining it the specific areas I am trying to color in. Stain itself is very fluid and like to seep in and spread beyond the desired areas. I discovered fast that using Q-tips really help but it was a lot of work watching and maintaining the areas with little results in the end on the stain. I have an idea i plan to try tonight based on making spaghetti sauce of all things. That's right, I'm gonna add a little corn starch or flour to the mix to thicken it and hopefully control it.
That's all for now, and the picture now shows the original on the left and it's progress on the right. Not a mockup this time but the real thing.
So I wanted to keep things simple enough for the first week so I decided to finally paint this cribbage board I got recently. I purposely bought it unpainted so that I can stylize it any way I want.
Most have extremely stark and/or overly loud colors. I wanted something a little bit simpler and natural looking. I get it that the colors help know what line is yours and all that, but seriously this isn't rocket science.
This project might not sound like a lot, but even the time involved designing it add up, as well as now knowing what direction I'm heading in I can see that time is one thing I'll actually need. After editing a photo of the board, it looks like I plan to paint the board by mostly adding layers of stain to it.
The board itself is not the most fanciest one in the world either. The outlines and the holes on the board are all off and that's OK with me. It seems more rustic that way and the stain idea also works well in making it seem less obvious.
That all said here's a picture with the actual cribbage board on the left and the final goal/concept is shown on the right. It doesn't have to be exactly like that but that's the general idea.
Project Mustang is a challenge for the year where you need to make a thing a week for 51 weeks. Sounds pretty cool to me seeing as I like to keep busy but would like and have fun doing it.
Basically you project each week can be literally anything you want as long as its done in a week. Bigger projects are allowed at this point, but only up to no more than a month long. For starters, I'm going to keep it simple and paint my unpainted cribbage board I've been wanting to get to for some time now. It shouldn't take too long, but it will help me gauge putting time aside for future projects.
