First Wiimote whiteboard experiment
[youtube]ZLQMWR2Hbo8[/youtube]
My first Wiimote whiteboard experiment, running on my laptop.
Entries Tagged as 'DIY'
The Nerdiest Nerd in Nerdtown
I borrowed my friend Tom’s Wii on Friday and got my cheapo diy Wiimote powered whiteboard working just now. Whoohoo! I hit one small snag when I realized that I built my IR light pen using a normally-closed button instead of a normally-open one (which makes the light always on except when you hit the button, instead of the other way around). Oops. A trip to Radio Snack will solve that one though so no worries. I hooked my laptop up to the big TV and got things to mostly work, which is awesome.
I need to remake the light pen and then I’ll post a video of it working. I may or may not post my first video of the rig working, it’s of me writing I AM COOL on the screen of my laptop, hence the title of this post. :)
[tags]electronics,wiimote,whiteboard[/tags]
My new time-sucking hobby
I’ve wanted to start doing electronics work for some time but never got around to buying a soldering iron and related tools, finding a good project, etc. It’s not like I don’t have anything else taking up my free time though. But this year Kim gave me a really cool book on some electronics projects and told me to buy the tools and parts needed so I’m finally going to start with my new hobby. Whoohoo for me! Coincidentally, a guy at work passed around an awesome video of an electronic whiteboard you can make with a Nintendo Wii remote and an easy-to-make IR-led light pen. During this 4-day weekend I’m going to make up a couple of the light pens and a few of us at work are going to make one of these whiteboards. Another co-worker pointed out a project called Crayon Physics where you draw shapes and make them interact (it’s cooler than I’m making it sound) and once we get our whiteboard going, we’re going to either use it to play with this Crayon Physics or write our own version specifically to use with the whiteboard. Working with a bunch of like-minded geeks is highly recommended. :) I’ll be posting about my projects and about our whiteboard geekery in the coming months. I’m hoping to get an Instructable or two up and some videos as well.
[tags]electronics, wii, wiimote, whiteboard[/tags]
Cool workspaces
Ever since I first heard of the author Po Bronson’s shared Writer’s Grotto office space I’ve thought it would be extremely cool to set up a shared workspace. There’s a new thing coming up called Coworking that’s focussed on geeks that I would love to get into. The idea is that you get a space and outfit it with desks, chairs, couches, wifi internet access, a fridge, etc., and get people to work there instead of in coffee shops. You either pay for a day’s use of a desk or longer-term. The ideal place would have the same kind of cool vibe as a coffee shop without the random crowds and noise. Cheaper than paying for a regular office, plus with other people around doing stuff for inspiration, ideas, etc.
My dream is doing programming for myself, hence the creation of Mattorama Heavy Industries, and if I get the chance to make money doing that, I’m seriously considering setting something like this up. My only fear is having to deal so much with running the space that I don’t get to work on my own things but that’s probably the business equivalent of premature optimization, worrying about things that won’t end actually being a problem. I don’t think it would take much money to get started either, which is a bonus.
For more info, check out this NYTimes article on a space focussed on writers, and this blog post about ideal working environments. If you’re in Albuquerque and have think this is a good idea, please comment on this post. I’d love to hear there’s a ton of interest in this type of environment here in town.
[tags]coworking,Albuquerque,working[/tags]
Worldwide Information Sharing
Build an open source, universal nut sheller (for peanuts)
This is the type of thing that would have been mostly impossible not too long ago. These guys are building a cheap, durable machine to help people in developing countries shell peanuts and make money. Before we were able to share information and help each other out across the world, these types of programs took enormous amounts of time and/or money to get working. But now, these guys can do an interview with Redhat Magazine and get the word out to potentially millions of interested people in no time. And this is a real project too, not just some company coming in and getting a photo op that will never be practical or amount to anything.
I’ve been very interested in the micro-lending programs where you can loan somebody say a few hundred dollars to buy what they need to get a small business going. As soon as Kim and I get some more of our bad debt paid off, I’m planning on helping out with micro-loans and real-world projects like this one. There’s no reason we can’t use the net to help out people around the world in a small way and end up making a big difference. You don’t need a huge World Bank style operation to help, a bunch of people making small contributions can really do some good. I’ll be posting more about this as time goes on.
MORE: The Full Belly Project, PopSci award given for the machine
[tags]redhat,money,peanuts,open+source,full+belly+project[/tags]
Make Your Own Everything!
Desktop fabricator may kick-start home revolution
Man, I can’t even describe how cool this is. It’s home CNC machine for fabricating objects out of different types of materials. Say you need a special wrench for a one-off nut in your car? Just create or download the plans and print one out for yourself out of a block of plastic. Or use plans for a model of a baseball player, put your kid’s face on it and throw some more plastic in the machine.
The real treat is near the end of the article where they talk about the guy who made a fab that could make its own parts. Self-reproducing fabricators in the home! For $2000! It makes me giddy just thinking about it.
Your kids may never buy physical toys or other simple (and in the future, not-so-simple) objects. They’ll download the plans and print them out.
[tags]future,diy,fab,diamond+age,science[/tags]
DIY
MAKE: Blog: DIY Smoker
This Trashcan Smoker I made last weekend was featured on the MAKE magazine blog. The author of the article in ReadyMade magazine where I got the idea also found it. Awesome!
-
Flickr Photos
More Photos
Now Reading
Planned books:
None
Current books:
-
Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series) by Mike Cohn
Recent books:
- The Gum Thief: A Novel by Douglas Coupland
- Underworld: A Novel by Don DeLillo
- The Painter of Battles: A Novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte
- Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
- Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
-