brainwagon

Okay, our Replicator 2 went back online this week, and I decided to give printing my Arduino bumper another try. Since the last time, I have revised the program and code a couple of times. I was concerned that the various bits of solder protruding from the bottom of the board would need extra relief [...]

Earlier this week, I tried to print out the first version of my Arduino bumper. Sadly, our Replicator 2 had a malfunction mid print, and it’s still offline (a problem with the temp sensor) but that doesn’t mean I’ve been entirely stationary. I mentioned on twitter that I was having trouble using the minkowski operator [...]

Last week, I got a chance to experiment with a Replicator 2, and printed some brackets for my robot project. I designed them using OpenSCAD, which is kind of a scripting language for solid shapes. It can export in STL format, which I then used MakerWare to drive the Replicator 2. The picture at the [...]

A few days ago, I heard that Jayson Tautic (@tautic), manufacturer and purveyor of a interesting electronic prototyping goodies, had put up an interesting offering: a small PIR (passive infra red) motion detector. I’m always up for a new sensor to play with, so I ordered a pair for fun, and they arrived on Friday. [...]

The other day, I was walking around in Fry’s Electronics, and noticed that they had HP HD-2200 webcams on sale for a mere $6. I thought to myself: hey, even if the camera is crappy (and it is) that is simply too cheap to pass up, and grabbed one. Last night, I decided to try [...]

I’m having lots of fun with my Raspberry Pi, and I’ve decided to launch one of my crazy spare-time projects: inspired by this article detailing the construction of RUDEBOT, a kind of mobile tablet robot, I decided to build a robot of my own. But, anything worth doing is worth changing and adapting, so I [...]

The other day, I was at Harbor Freight, and picked up an inexpensive set of digital calipers. While goofing around, I decided to try to reproduce an object using OpenSCAD. I had just received a pair of motors from Pololu. They look like this: I sat in the editor, and set to work measuring. I [...]

It seems like I might have access to a 3D printer, so I thought it might be fun to see what I could design. I thought using OpenSCAD, a scripting based 3D modelling software that can generate models in STL, a fairly simple but flexible format that can be printed by lots of printers. I [...]

I wanted to know. I read up on the Mayan calendar. It was easy to code up in Python: Today is 12.19.19.17.13. In 7 days, the right most place will roll over, and the date will be 13.0.0.0.0, starting a new b’ak’tun. Or the world will end. Enjoy!

Last year, I spent a little bit of time to create a set of blinking Christmas lights that I could mount in a hat. It was powered by an ATtiny13 and mounted in an Altoids tin. While setting up my Christmas tree last weekend, I found them, and they still work. In case you missed [...]

Without further ado… if you want code to implement this: You can download this this zip file. Do with it what you will.

I was struck by the lunatic programming muse again today. While reading my twitter feed, I encountered a description of SmoothLife, a generalization of Conway’s classic Game of Life. Instead of being implemented on a grid of discrete binary values, SmoothLife is implemented over a continuous, real valued field. What’s kind of neat is that [...]

Earlier today, I tweeted: Okay, all major parts assembled.Now I just need the innards from Hobby King… twitter.com/brainwagon/sta… — Mark VandeWettering (@brainwagon) September 17, 2012 But I figured you guys might like some additional details. As I mentioned before, I decided to build a clone of the Axon, a nice light FPV platform designed by [...]

Mark H. over at Eastbay RC and I finally got together to test out my first attempt at scratch building a radio controlled aircraft: an F-22 inspired “foamie”, which an aircraft constructed entirely from EPP foam, hot glue, a couple of short carbon fiber rods to stiffen, and hot glue. Did I mention the hot [...]

I received my second email inquiry yesterday (yes, two whole emails) asking me why I hadn’t been posting to brainwagon lately. It’s gratifying that both of my readers would each send me a note asking if things were all right, so I thought rather than addressing you each separately, I could double my efficiency by [...]