Water Dog FAIL

There is going to be a bit of a problem shortly, if things continue apace.  My dog hates getting her feet wet. Yes, my sweet lovable puppy, who by all accounts from the boarding place, “Jumped right into the pool and swam around with the other dogs and wasn’t the tiniest bit afraid,” who is going to be a great big enormous superintelligent dog, hates to get her poor *WEBBED* tootsies wet.

You know those lizards in Africa that dance around, lifting alternating feet to keep them from scorching on the searing rocks of the Saharan desert?  She does that.  And she stands on my feet, so HER feet don’t have to be on the wet horrible ground.  BUT!  First I have to coax and cajole and outright physically drag her butt outside so she can poop, because she’s been wandering around the house all puckerbutt for half an hour and sitting all pretty over by the door like she *wants* to go out, but when I put the leash on her she’s all, “Oh, sorry.  I forgot it was wets out.  I don’t like the wets on my toesies.  I’ll just poo on the floor.”

The part where this is going to be an issue is where we live in Florida.  For those of you who are not familiar, in the sub-tropical hell that is Central Florida from spring until fall it rains almost every day in the afternoon.  It’s like clockwork.  Raining?  Probably 3:30.  That’s when the dog goes out to poop.  Except now?  Now she’s going to require me to CARRY HER OUTSIDE AND SUCTION THE POOP FROM HER BOTTOM WHILE SHE LOUNGES IN THE COMFORT OF HER STEVEDORE’S LOVING ARMS.

Well, let me tell you something, pooch.  That’s not going to happen, because I am NOT building you a robotic sedan-chair carrying poop-suctioning dog maintenance robot.

Make: Robot Build Final Report

Well, final makes it sound so… FINAL.  My robot ended up taking a lot more work than I predicted it would.  That, combined with a number of technical issues that arose at the last minute, has resulted in me missing the final build deadline of Monday night (tonight at midnight).  Basically, nothing turned out the way I initially expected it to, from the motors (one runs faster than the other!), to the H-bridge circuit I soldered (didn’t work with the 3V supply I had for the motors and had to power it form the Arduino), to the sensors (they return the same value no matter what they’re facing, even each other).  The other problem I had is that every CD I thermoformed spontaneously cracked under some mysterious and unknown stress.  It always happened when I wasn’t handling them – they would just turn up cracked after a few days.

So, even though I won’t be able to finish it in time to enter the Make: Robot contest, I’m still going to finish it because this build really has been a good learning experience, and dammit, I want to have a working robot!

Make: Robot Build Contest – Final layout

I got some work done on my robot for the Make: Coasterbot contest, namely finalizing a design and thermo-shaping the CD for the body.  I say “thermo-shaping” trying to be fancy, but mostly it was a controlled melting of the CD while it was clamped to a straight edge.  This one isn’t *quite* square since I eyeballed the marks I used, so I may have to measure a little more carefully and make another one.

It’s beginning to look more and more like an old German tank from World War 2, so I think I’m going to call it PanzerBot, just for giggles.  I was originally going for a little more of a classic tank profile, but having only one sprocket per tread solves one of the design problems I was having, namely how to mount the rear sprocket securely, in proper alignment, and allow it to spin freely while still maintaining tension on the tread and not breaking free of the body.  Problem solved!

The batteries, four AA cells – actually two pairs, one pair for the motors and one pair, via a MintyBoost, for the Arduino – will go on the underside of the chassis thereby providing a low center of gravity.  Above the gearbox and motors I’ll put the Arduino MCU on standoffs, with a small sheet of copper between the board and the motors to attempt to minimize any EMF the motors might throw off.  Forward of the batteries, still on the underside of the chassis, will be the sensor suite.  I’m still working on the best setup for this.  Behind the batteries I’ll secure the MintyBoost, and above it, on the top side of the chassis I’ll put another small board with a power switch and a dual H-bridge circuit to drive the motors.  The sensors and the H-bridge are the two main concerns at this point.  I may, now that I think of it, just cave in and put a dual H-bridge chip in breadboard and save myself some soldering…

Anyway, that’s my progress so far.  I should have everything assembled some time this week so I can put up some pictures of how it will actually look.  The final dimensions are going to be around 5.5 inches wide, 5 inches long, and about 4 inches tall.  Hope you’re all enjoying it!  I know I am!

Make: Robot Build Contest, entry #2

Here is a quick picture of one of my thoughts as far as layout for my robot.  I’m really not happy with where the MCU is sitting in relation to the motors, but that my just be a necessary evil.  I’m going to try putting some shielding in to minimize EMF interference.  I’m also still not one hundred percent sure if I’m putting the gearbox underneath the CD body and everything else on top, or if everything will go on top.  I think mounting considerations for the drive wheels of the treads will be the deciding factor there.  Probably going to need two power sources, since the MCU takes 9V and the motors take 3V.  That’s normal, though.  May see if I can run the Arduino on 5V from an Adafruit MintyBoost over USB, which would make the power issue a little easier to manage.  I’m having ideas, oh yes.

I’ve got one of the motors out here trying to figure out what their ideal voltage is.  I think they’re around 3V, as I’ve managed to get above 2V just spinning the shaft manually.  You can connect a multimeter to the motor contacts, see, and basically run it backwards as a generator instead of a motor.  That gives you a range of voltage values to experiment with, at least.

I’m also still undecided on how best to manage the motors.  I may throw an H-bridge circuit, or dual H-bridge chip in there for good measure, but really, with 3V motors?

Make: Robot Build Contest – Entry #1

I wasn’t originally going to take part in the Robot Build Contest at Make: Magazine’s blog, but over the weekend I found a Tamiya gearbox at the local RC hobby store and my creativity was sparked!  So now I have the gearbox with two little motors, a set of LEGO Mindstorms tank treads I ordered which came today, and an Arduino that I already had.  And of course, I have CDs to use for the body of the robot – a requirement of the contest.

I’ll be updating my progress here.  I imagine I may have got myself into a bit of a design bind, what with gather my parts first and then designing the thing second, but I think I’ll be okay.  Expect proud pictures of, if nothing else, a small pile of parts and some half-coneceived drawings.

Best get to work, too!  I’m behind everyone else!

My wife loves me, kinda.

So, I’m having a math-related panic attack here as I try to study for a mid-term I have in Calculus II tomorrow, and my wife is being very understanding and trying to help and take care of me and so forth.  I took a Klonopin, and she walked the dog and ordered dinner.  When the sushi got here, I went to put the dog away in order to avoid a sushitastrophe.  When I got back, she says, “I got spoons,” and I think, “Oh, she’s taking such good care of me.”  I sit down and see a bottle of beer on the table in front of me, and I say, “Aw, you got me a beer.”  “No, Mr. Klonopin, I got ME a beer.”

Such a loving spouse.

Cooking geeks, behold!

So, this weekend I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a home-baked loaf of bread. We got some flour and yeast and, already having the other two ingredients on hand – water and salt – forged ahead with my plan.  Many thanks to my friend Dave who, as a professional cook, had some sage advice about making bread.  He gave me a really simple recipe to try, and I did so.  The bread, while EXTREMELY crusty (too much steam in the initial stage), was also extremely tasty.  I had sort of forgotten how much I really like super-fresh homemade bread.  Also, I really liked making it.

I saved half of the dough from this batch in the fridge to bake later, which I did last night, and which also turned out remarkably tasty.  I still have some of that bread left tonight, so, instead of making a freash batch of dough tonight, I am in stead trying my hand at (Dun dun DUUUNNN!!!) a preferment.  This is where you mix up some flour, water, and a little yeast ahead of time and let it fizzle and bubble and soak together.  The intention is to give your bread a more complex flavor and a somewhat longer shelf life, though I’m not sure how this latter is achieved.

Instrumental in my learning even this much were the lessons over at The Fresh Loaf, which I intend to read more of and experiment with unashamedly in the kitchen

So, tomorrow I will mix up another batch of dough and bake some more bread.  This time, my intention is to use about 1/3 whole wheat flour, and to add a little molasses to enhance the flavor of the whole wheat.  I put the whole wheat flour in the preferment, thinking that if any flavors were going to be enhanced it should be that of the flour with more flavor.  Make sense?  I’m totally excited!

In other cooking and homesy news, since it is going to be super cold tonight (well, cold for Florida) I brought my outside plants indoors, including the earthbox.  The last time it froze, while we were in Mexico in January, almost all of my tomato plants died and the larger of my basil plants was mortally wounded and died just this past week.  Having a box full of dirt in a house full of cats presents an unexpected challenge.  There is now dirt all over the floor and a severely chastised cat under the table in the living room.  I’ve moved my fragile basil plants to a higher place where I hope they’ll be less attractive to inquisitive cat feet.  Compounding matters somewhat I can’t seem to locate our broom and so the dirt remains on the floor.

The rest of the night is for studying math and watching the wife play Dante’s Inferno.  And maybe checking on my preferment somewhat obsessively.

Make cable art out of cable tangles

Okay, so this is a brilliant idea that I can’t believe nobody had thought of yet.

Cable Art

Nixie Tubes!

Okay, I think everyone who has ever seen them will agree that nixie tubes are really cool looking.  Up until now they have been difficult to work with – when you can find them – due to their high voltage power needs.  The lovely folks at ArduiNIX.com have solved that problem for anyone interested in making something with nixies.  Their new product, the ArduiNIX Arduino shield, makes using up to eight nixie tubes as easy as programming an Arduino microcontroller.

ArduiNIX Arduino shield

The shield fits over the stock Arduino, takes signals from the microcontroller, and drives the nixie tubes with its own on-board high-voltage power supply.  I can’t wait to figure out a way to use this in some kind of project!  Maybe a repeater for a multimeter display or just an all-purpose numerical display that takes input from a computer – temperature, caller ID… endless possibilities!

Accomplished cat!

So, today started out pretty normal for a Sunday, in which the wife and I got up and ran to a drive-thru at the last minute to grab breakfast and then drove around town a little just sort of enjoying the day and planning things out and digesting.  We went to Home Depot and Target for a couple things – actually we went to Target twice since we forgot something – and then headed home.

At this point, the wife’s mood took a sudden and unexpected downturn and she became Grouchy.  We sat around the house for a little while wondering if it would pass and trying to decide if we would actually get anything done today until a friend called and asked if I was busy.  So, M stayed home and I went and hung out with my friend.  He has just moved into a new house and the previous tenant had left some things around that he thought I might want.  One is a little metal toolbox, which, yeah, whatever, and the other is a very small, almost desktop-sized bandsaw.  It’s usually used for cutting glass for stained glass work, and has a diamond band on it now, but I can totally use it to cut circuit board, metal, wood, plastic…  Look out, world!  This guy’s got a bandsaw!

So anyway, I came home and the wife and I sat around some more until we both realized we weren’t interested in cooking and went out for Thai food.  After dinner we drove around some more and found some good trash.  Another HP Pavilion CPU for me, as though I need another trash computer, and something I think we will find a good home for in our mega-eclectic living room: an old Mini-Bar mini fridge.  That took us circling the block *several* times before we even figured out what it was, and then another turn about the block to decide if we wanted it.  Fortunately by the time we were starting to get funny looks from the neighbors we had decided that it must be ours, and it is now sitting in my truck awaiting its place of honor.

Anyway, we came home, farted around on the internet some, then realized that we needed to brine a turkey that the wife is cooking for her work Thanksgiving thing.  We did that, and then I fixed our Ikea loveseat, the frame of which had started to come un-stapled.  See, the framing pieces of this couch are basically held together with wire brads, and the excessive sitting we have been doing on it had pulled the main cross piece away from its brads and had the whole couch looking very lopsided.  So, some wood screws and some metal angle brackets and it’s back, almost as good as new.  Next time we buy one of these I am going to go ahead and start out by putting the brackets on before the couch actually breaks, but hindsight is 20/20 and all.

Finally (I know, right?) I planted a basil sprig that I had been soaking in the hopes of drawing some roots out.  A couple days ago I swear I looked at it and there was nothing, but today I checked it out and there were a bunch of tendrils 4-5 inches long.  Planting that got me wanting to do a bunch of other stuff, so I tended to my tomato plants – which are about ready to be planted in their own container, and my peppers – which are about ready to get their temporary transplant, and the cucumber seeds I had been starting with damp paper towels.  These last had not actually started, so they went into some actual dirt and to hell with hydroponics and whatnot.  If history stays to course they’ll sprout in a few weeks, just as I’m starting to despair of them sprouting at all.  Note to self: time to make some more self-watering containers.  Like, two or three more.

All in all, I think it has been a very successful day, even if we didn’t get the bedroom cleaned up like we had goddamn meant to.  Neither of us wanted to do that anyway, really.