Friday fun: Real Tracking and Shooting Portal Turret

After watching this I find myself in a quandary. Do I go and play Portal for a few hours, or do I get cracking on my Arduino project(s).



I think I'll get cracking with the Arduino.

Thanks to kss5095  for post this on Youtube.  Best of luck on your project!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino PIR Alarm

Here is another great project courtesy of makemagazine featuring John Park, host of Make: Television, showing how to build a PIR (passive infrared) based motion alarm using an Arduino.



More information on the Arduino PIR Alarm can be found here: http://makeprojects.com/Project/PIR-Sensor-Arduino-Alarm/72/1

You can buy the PIR here: http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mkpx6.htm

As John points out, because of their cold body temperatures this PIR alarm is ineffective against zombies, but may be useful against other beasties!

Have a great zombie free weekend ~ Jim
PS: I forgot to follow up the last post regarding the Sony SL-HF-2000 Beta VCR that is still in the box. I'll try to follow up later this weekend.

Friday fun: We Code Hard.mp4

As I have said before I am not a big fan of rap, but video is worth posting:



Thanks to my friend and fellow CoConut Rogelio for sharing this on FB and G+, and thanks to abdulshahbazkhan for originally uploading this to YouTube.

For those of you who read this blog you may have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately. Sorry, but work and other issues have a higher priority. I do plan to post more frequently in the future and hopefully I will have time to work on my Arduino project and post about it as well as my studies in networking (I am working towards some sort of certification).

Have a great weekend ~ Jim
PS: Anyone out there in need of a Sony SL-HF-2000 Beta VCR that is still in the box? I will be posting about that later in the weekend.

Friday fun: Gameduino

Earlier this week I saw a post (somewhere) about the "Gameduino"; a gaming shield for the Arduino that has video and audio outputs. After some searching I came across this article from PC World that featured the video below:



The Gameduino is produced by James Bowman, and you can find out more about it at: http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino-Based Laser Controlled Wireless Automatic Cat Food Dispenser

It has been some time since I posted about the Arduino, and I thought this video would be a great one to post given my fondness for cats:



Thanks to andresleon72 for posting the video. You can find out more about this project and others at: http://andres-leon.blogspot.com/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Relay Driver

RuthJ180 produced this video of her using the the Arduino relay driver to control a doorbell:



On the page where this video was posted RuthJ180 referenced these two sites:

• An article from Maurice's Hobby Robotics "Using Relays with Arduino – Turning on the Lights": http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=9
• And here is the schematic she used: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Learning/relays.pdf

I was going to throw in some lame "keep it ringing" comment, but decided not to because I am not in a ding-dong kind of mood tonight.

Any ways, I hope you all have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Park

If you are a fan of the Arduino then you enjoy this mildly humorous introduction to the Arduino's layout courtesy of engineerzerochannel:



Unfortunately due to "life" (or lack there of) I haven't been able to take of tour of my Arduino lately, but recently I searched around for other Arduino fans in my home town of Seattle and came up with the following sites:

• Metrix Create:Space: http://metrixcreatespace.com/
• Arduino Blog - Teaching Arduino in Seattle: http://arduino.cc/blog/2011/04/07/teaching-arduino-in-seattle/
• Arduino Meetups - Seattle: http://arduino.meetup.com/cities/us/wa/seattle/
• SeattleArduino: http://arduino.seattleandrew.com/

Hopefully when I get some free time I can jump back in to working on my Arduino and start moving forward with my weather station project. Who knows, maybe meet some of the other Arduino fans here in Seattle. Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment if you are an Arduino fan in the Seattle area (or even if you are not in the Seattle area).

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Collin's Lab - USB Hacking with Arduino

Are you interested in using your Arduino as a USB host? Well then check out Collin Cunningham's video from makemagazine for some inspiration:



Here are the links related to the video:

• Collin’s Lab: USB Hacking with Arduino: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/11/usbhacking.html
• Circuits@Home: http://www.circuitsathome.com/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Herding Cats @ IKEA

Given the way this last week has gone I feel it's time for another cat herding video, and this video from IKEAcats fits the bill:



IKEA - The furniture for DIY'ers - You build it, you take the blame :)

I've got a really good start on my day off, so I am going to spend some serious time on the Arduino and quite possibly setting up a Free BSD boxen for an unrelated project.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino EMF detector

Here is another fun Arduino project from makemagazine. This time the project is a EMF detector:



Here is the URL for the original EMF detector project: http://www.aaronalai.com/emf-detector

More information including the Arduino sketch can be found here: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/05/making-the-arduino-emf-detector.html

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Rumble Robots

Do you have an old toy robot lying around that you feel like dropping an Arduino in and then let loose around the house? Well then this video from makemagazine is for you:



Here is the URL to DinoFab (http://www.dinofab.com/), and in case you haven't memorized it by now here is the URL for the Arduino homepage (http://www.arduino.cc/)

You may also be interested in this post on Slashdot about the Arduino, and why it has become such a big hit with hobbyists. The post itself was inspired by this Makemagazine blog post:

Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay.

The Makemagazine post makes an excellent point as to why the Arduino is becoming so successful.

That's it for now, and as always feel free to comment or drop me a line if you are interested in the Arduino.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 potentiometers and servos

So how's my Arduino project going? It's not :( I've been buried at work and I am still dragged down by this cold that I have been fighting for over three weeks now. Yeah, I know.... excuses, excuses. Hopefully this video from makemagazine will get me moving:



Here is the URL for the Arduino homepage: http://www.arduino.cc/ Feel free to comment or drop me a line if you are interested in the Arduino, and especially if you are have or are working on an Arduino based weather station.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: The I Have a Cold Song

I have been fighting a cold for over a week now, and I am just trashed from dealing with it. As I a matter of fact I am so trashed I was going to skip posting anything for this week's Friday Fun and then I came across the video below. Thanks bigedude33:



Hopefully I can get over this cold soon and get moving on my Arduino project. If anyone else out there is working on an Arduino based weather station please fee free to drop me a line. I would love to hear from you.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Seattle, snow, and sliding. Well, maybe not so fun.

** Caution: This weeks Friday Fun video may not be work safe due to some profanity at the end, so use your own judgment. **

Everyone knows that Seattle has a perpetual rainy season (wink, wink, say no more, nudge, nudge), but Seattle has another dubious distinction. That other distinction is for having some of the worst traffic for when it snows. To be honest our topography has a lot to do with it as well as the fickleness of our weather. Below is a video from November 22, 2010 that was taken by fsayre of a car crashing on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill:



Hopefully no one was hurt in that accident, but it does show how much the weather can impact our lives and this is one of the reasons I am becoming more interested in meteorology. This interest is why I am choosing a weather station as a project for my Arduino.

Seattle also has some very interesting personalities in the field of meteorology and to me the most interesting of them is Cliff Mass who's blog I routinely read. One recent post on Cliff's blog really caught my attention. In the last paragraph of "WeatherFest, Money, and the Aftermath" Cliff writes on the topic of "nowcasting" (describing what is happening now and during the next few hours), and how he is working with the city of Seattle to develop a series of nowcasting applications to help provide up to the minute weather information. The concept of nowcasting is really intriguing to me, and I am going to be watching Cliff's blog to see how the project moves forward. If you are interested in the concept of nowcasting then check out Cliffs blog.

Well that's it for this Friday's Fun post. By the way, I am sorry I missed posting last week, but I had several emergencies to deal with.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Polar bears destroying a BBC nature show's spy cameras

GIZMODO recently posted this article on how some remote controlled spy cameras faired against some very curious polar bears. Below is the video from the article:



Here is the original BBC article on the polar bears vs. the cameras. I doubt any of my robotics projects, or Arduino weather station will encounter any polar bears, but the video does make me consider what my projects might face out in the real world.

Happy New Year everyone ~ Jim

Friday fun: Ladybug plays with sprinkles!

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted the video below of a ladybug playing with candy sprinkles, and it reminded me of the "Minuscule hyperactiv ladybug" video that I posted on this blog a while back:



As for Arduino news I received my copy of the "Practical Arduino" book today, and also I found a page on the Practical Arduino site for building your own Weather Station Receiver. Now if I only had as much energy as the ladybugs in the two videos I would be making a lot more progress on moving forward with my own Arduino based weather station.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Weather Station / Power Meter Receivers

Even before I purchased my Arduino I had decided to use it for a weather station project that I had been thinking of for some time. This video from PracticalArduino is definitely inspiration for me, and I hope it is for you too:



Here are the links for PracticalArduino web site, YouTube channel, and the book: PracticalArduino.

I know I am getting way ahead of myself here, but I am thinking it would be really cool if a bunch of Arduino enthusiasts got together to link their Arduino based weather stations together through some sort of service that offered virtual servers such as http://www.gogrid.com/ to analyze the data that all their stations gathered. To what end? Well maybe the data could be used with Google Earth or Google Maps to display the data for an amateur meteorological project. Students, DIY'ers, and geeks in general could contribute to the project regardless of their skill level or specialty.

Like I said I am getting ahead of myself, but it is food for thought. Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 Accelerometers

It was back in 1982 that I started working in the field of electronics. My first job in this field involved the testing of accelerometers for use in both military applications such as missiles, and for commercial applications such as oil exploration. I find it very interesting that as I am just starting to work with the Arduino that I come across this video from makemagazine on how to add an accelerometer to your Arduino project.



The accelerometer used in this project is the Memsic 2125 (.pdf) from Parallax, and it costs around $30.00 US which is pretty reasonable. As is discussed in the video accelerometers can be used in a wide range of projects, and given the cost I think some where down the road I will be picking up at least one.

By the way, here is the Arduino tutorial for the Memsic 2124 accelerometer: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AccelerometerMemsic2125

Well, that is it for now. Have fun, and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 - The Button

My Arduino microcontroller board arrived late this week, so I didn't get a much of a chance to play with it. This next Arduino 101 video from makemagazine adds a proto-board and a button. It's a long video, so hang in there:



You can find out even more information this Arduino project at: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/howto_tuesday_arduino_101_the_button.html

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 - The LED

Well my curiosity got the better of me and I finally decided to order an Arduino microcontroller board. It should arrive some time next week. If you are not familiar with the Arduino the take a look at this introduction video from makemagazine:



You can find out even more information about the Arduino at: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/howto_tuesday_arduino_101_blink_an_led.html

While looking for Arduino videos I came across another introductory video, "Intro to the Arduino", but it was just a little too goofy even for a Friday Fun post though you may want to check it out.

I guess I am going to have to brush up on my C programming, and that's a good thing. I will also be checking out the Processing language too. I'll try to post more as I make progress with the board, and hopefully I'll post more than once a week.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend ~ Jim