Andy's Blog

Overview

I've always wanted to build a weather station. I have an interest in weather science but, for me a weather station is all of the stuff I like about electronics - real world use of remote sensing that can be used for practical stuff. From home automation to gardening to knowing what's in the air, local weather and environmental sensing can be used to make subtle cumulative changes that add up to better health and lower bills.

Overview

I am working on an upgrade of my Robotic Arm Project that has managed to survive two years worth of kid interactions over the course of many different events. To say I am surprised at its longevity is an understatement.

I'm not much of a gamer. When I was a kid, I had a space invaders handheld game, a Coleco Telstar Colortron, and a Tandy Color Computer 2. Although the COCO2 had program cartridges, most of the games I played on it were typed in from a game code book my parents gave me with the computer. That may sound like I must have been motivated to play the games (to spend all that time typing them in) but in reality, I was more interested in seeing how they worked than I was in playing them. 

After several months on the to-do list, I finally cleaned up the Robotic Arm Project code a bit to improve my robotic arm's functionality and performance.

A few months ago a fellow member of MTRAS posted on our Facebook page a link to a robotic arm project. The article poster / builder used a design that was previously posted as open source to Thingiverse.com. I took a look and thought that it would make a fun project that would be simple enough to follow but also challenging enough to be rewarding. So I decided to give it a shot.

Jay Napier is Mr. IncredibleIt is so easy to take everything for granted. Let's take for example, turning on the TV. Next to none of us give this simple task a second thought. I have had days when I came home from work so distracted that, after a few minutes of scurrying around the house, wondered if it was actually me that turned on the TV.

When you enter a room, do you make much of a mental exercise out of turning on the light? I don't. It is like breathing, I just do it. What about turning on a fan or changing the thermostat if you're too hot or cold. All of this is pretty simple stuff and most of us don't give it a second thought - that is, until you can't do it anymore.