Woooo! It’s time for the live stream for the Galaxy Unpacked 2012!
Watch along here – http://www.thenextgalaxy.com/
Reply
Fruits of my labour
After the break…
I’ve been up to so much, tinkering, engineering, soldering, sanding, cutting, crafting, attaching, filming and zip/cable-tie’ing (amongst many other verbs)… We’ll put the multirotor QuadX to one side for now though whilst I make this important announcement…
My trusty Samsung Galaxy SII is always by my side. Suffice to say, she’s had a lot of adventures in the last year. Flying on an RC plane, attached to the front of my car, on my forehead(!), upon many different surfaces, in the car mount, filming forwards, filming backwards, ringing in 360 degrees and vibrating and reverbing many things. She entertains me and connects me, she records for me. We’re great friends 
The Galaxy SIII is out tomorrow though, a pen?! In any case, it’s exciting, My SII, you’re still going to be with me for now but whatever happens, we’ll always be friends!
My phone’s latest flying adventure!
Frozen droplets
Power
Image
The frame…
This is MK III of the frame (MK II collapsed in the shrinking). This version wasn’t without it’s problems but it turned out alright in the end .. I am thinking about some modifications / new designs.
My DIY low power light
The basic structure of my ‘mood light’, colour light, whatever light, is finished and now I just need to secure the electronics and decide what other features I might add. It’s made using a wooden frame that is then covered in a heat shrink film using in RC aeroplanes. The result is a glossy finish that is shrunk to fit and allows light to show through.
Some ideas of have for evolving the design:
- Various lighting modes (candle flicker, rainbow, random, etc)
- Microphone level / IR detection to change speed of the colour change
- BlueTooth compatibility so you can change the colour, etc remotely
- Time of day feature (changes colour and intensity depending on the time of the day
- Lucid dreaming mode – in the middle of the night, start pulsing the colours so I may realise the flashes in my sleep and start lucid dreaming..
- Something else (don’t know what yet!)
for now I’ll just upload find pictures…
Creative moments – what is in the making…
It’s February .. wow, these last few weeks, and also this year so far, has seemingly passed in the blink of an eye! I’ve been working on a few things lately, my laser projector type thing but also, a “mood light” (a light that changes colour).
Mark I – turned out OK, a few learning curves climbed and some accidental successes.
Mark II – not so good… started off so well too
Mark III – still in planning.
I have a final idea for the light and I will post some details soon.
Finally, a big thank you to all those who read these posts, and an extra big thanks to all those who’ve left some truly wonderful comments. I will try to reply to them all when I find some free moments.
Finally! Mr Transistor ignites laser
I say finally because after a lull of no posts in a week, I finally post something. However, more importantly I say “FINALLY” because after putting an old project away for months, a year, longer (?), I’ve finally managed to get a transistor to turn my last diode on and off, producing enough light to be seen across the room! A green laser too! This means I can draw on the wall with a laser…
Where it all began.. I ordered and received my Arduino open source electronics prototyping platform (Arduino Uno) a long time ago, maybe a year.. maybe less, anyway sometime ago, a while back, in a time unknown, I needed something to make.
I had plenty of ideas but they would involve some outlay of cash, I needed something else.. something from bits of rc planes.. Electric motors, speed controllers and servos. whilst tethered to my Arduino, I didn’t want moving ideas with spinning propellers, so I was left with servos… ooo, and a laser pointer.. Why not…
after a stroll along the Arduino learning curve, I’d managed to:
draw a box, a circle and a sine wave with a laser..
Use a mouse to control the laser dot on the wall..
Added buttons and LEDs for input and info
Made it draw a couple of stars and write my name..
built a PC app that allows someone to program a routine from a PC where dots are drawn
Now I can switch the laser on and off in the program, it makes for much better fit drawing. There Ste some bus to remove and tweaks to be here but it’s functional!
Lastly, thanks to all of those reading this blog. anyway, it’s way past my bed time, and I’m bit going to proof read this. It may not make sense!
More soon..
Composed on my phone. Eek mistakes?
Duct Bot v1.333
Up until now DuctBot has just moved however which way I programmed him with no sensory input to make decisions with. That’s now changed…
DuctBot lives!
Tao I Ching
I had an interesting time with I ching tonight. Quite a magical evening!
More soon, it’s Friday tomorrow!!!