Who Doesn't Love Something that Levitates?!

There are plans in the works to build a levitating (adorable) lochness monster. Hopefully it will pan out in the not too distant future!

It will be a complicated thing. <3



There are a lot of things that I must do first, however. Don't hold your breath, just yet! ;-)

Working on Writing a Program

Alright-- I am going to TRY to do a GOOD blog entry sometime later today (it's 12:20 Am...). Presently, however, I am doing ACTUAL work! Lol. For NOW you can check THIS out to get an idea about the kind of program I am writing!



 See:  http://blog.shop.23b.org/2013/11/wheres-waldo-datasheet.html



Note, however, that the focus of this entry was on the 3D printer project (which I, personally, did NOT participate in) but, it DOES explain the project to some degree. This is a communal project, however. Each of the members of the shop works on different things and/or together.



Also, we are featured in Hack-a-Day: http://hackaday.com/2013/11/03/the-trials-of-printing-mil-spec-connectors/

EAGLE CAD

Alright, so at the last minute I had to change my circuit a bit. Fortunately, I have come to know EAGLE pretty intimately, now! Which, after all, was my primary objective. Some screen shots:

Some of the changes include doubling the size of the circuit (first schematic shown. So, second picture). Other things include changing the type of battery being used, adding a drill hole so the circuit can fit on a key chain, adding my "signature" QUARKy to it, and a bit more)

Also, I did a bit of filming over at 23B. I described how we are going to be updating some of our security systems and talked about various types of locks and how they work. MAYBE I'll post THAT, too!

Sorry I haven't posted much for the past two weeks! I have been learning EAGLE CAD, as I mentioned previously. I have designed the circuit myself and have drafted it independently as well. Also, I attended yet another conference (BSIDES; this time, in Orange County!).


The only interesting thing I can think to say is to describe how the circuit works. This particular set of circuits is perfectly elementary. I have a set of resistors in parallel and series, and the same with capacitors. I have used different values; doing a pattern of 3, 2, then 1 (three of one type, followed by 2 of another, then 1 of a final type). This board is called the SMT Trainer Board. It is not just meant to teach others how to do surface mount soldering, however. The idea is that a student can experimentally determine how resistors and capacitors behave in series and parallel and LATER determine how they behave when in the same circuit. This is not just why I chose to 3-2-1 pattern but, why I am going to write an Open Source Wiki instructions, as well-- to walk them through it!

Lastly, to finally "land the point" there will be a simple blink circuit (described previously) attached to the trainer board as well!

Shortly, I will have personally participated in the full product production cycle!

I also intend on loading pictures, soon-ish. We'll see! :)

Connector Testing and More

Geetings!

This week was quite productive!

Firstly, I had hand built a number of connectors.

Secondly, I soldered those connectors onto a shield so that I could connect that shield to an Arduino to test whether or not the connectors are properly wired (not that I didn't also use the beloved multimeter, in the test phase of the program I will mention shortly).

Next, I wrote the code to actually test the connector, complete with a Serial.available() command so that the testing could be streamlined so that any number of connectors could be tested in a row. How does the code work?
                     Basically, I would set one of the outputs high while the 
                     others were low. Which ever input read HIGH, therefore,
                    was the one that was being activated by that particular
                     input. If the correct input was NOT responding, an error 
                    message would print to the screen and say which pin was 
                    being activated. When successful, I would still mention the 
                     pin number. I did this for each pin.


Presently, I am still working on learning EAGLE CAD and L TSpice!

Till next week, and thanks for stopping by! :D














Side note: Arduino code is based heavily off of C but, with some differences including:  some libraries and header files are not shared between the two, the Arduino includes two functions which must be used, the print function is disimilar, and more.

FYI: I will be posting pictures but, only when I no longer get an error on my computer when I try to download the files from it!

A picture of the army men who, mysteriously, change locations while I'm away. Presently, they seem to have stumbled into a worm hole and time traveled. Alternatively, they are in an alternate universe where dinosaurs still exist!!!!!!! :O 

Sorry, readers! I don't have much at all to post! I went to the B Sides conference and didn't do anything of note (that is pertinent to this blog) besides that!

Till next week!

:D

Programming Project: Text Analysis

Hello readers :)

Anyone who knows anything about me knows I read addictively. Aside from the countless articles I read daily, I also read a large number of books (sometimes a few at a time, depending on what type of book). All the books I read are non-fiction, by-the-way (I REALLY don't like reading fiction-- sci-fi excluded).

Presently, one of the books I am reading is called The Secret Life of Pronouns. Now, because I have a project page, because I love programming (particularly in C), because I am hyperanalytical and because positively LOVE deducing and/or inferring things people are saying by how they speak, I decided to use this text as a launching point for a program that I will make to analyze medium/large text fragments.

I might add that when only going over in my own mind as to how EXACTLY I would write the program based SOLELY upon the aforementioned book, there REALLY isn't enough to go on! For instance, much is written on the over/under use of the words like: I/me/my v. we/our's. However, no specific fraction is mentioned. This specific instance ALONE makes it clear that I have a lot of googling/research ahead of me to perfectly clarify this point! If I fail to clarify this, I will simply output ratios of each "cluster." So that, if I should EVER come across this in a future I can add a simple if/then/else loop which goes off of those ratios.

My plan of attack is to go about this in passes:

 First, I will do simple things like pronoun use (I say that now-- referring to my using the word "simple"!  : /  ). 
            Pronoun use can relay information about whether or not you are depressed, 
            emotionally distant, authoritative, and your gender.

Then, I am thinking I will have to create emotive clusters (which incorporate synonyms, for instance).
           I WILL say on this that using words like sad, frustrated, etc. does NOT 
           have to mean that you are an unhappy person.

Perhaps, my third pass will incorporate proper participle of speech.
         This can predict gender, age, and education.


I consider this to be a project which takes an infinite amount of time. For, one can ALWAYS refine such a program. However, I would expect my proposed schedule to run something like this:

Stage 1: one month (I have to do some-one line research to do, for one thing).
Stage 2: two months (I can go to thesuarus.com to look up synonyms but, programming all of them will take time. There are non-synonymous words which belong in these clusters, also).
Stage 3: one month (I have to do some-one line research to do, for one thing).

There are --POSSIBLY-- insurmountable problems. For instance, how does one code for the program to acknowledge sarcasm.

I do plan on offering to give people updates of the program if they ask for it (after I state that it is available, of course).

Wish me luck! I might need it... : /     :D
_______________________________


So, I had thought of deleting this entry. For, it has been shelved till further notice. Why, though? Did I give up?! Pssshh! I would NEVER!

What happened is that, upon going back over the book which inspired me, I realized that nothing concrete was given: All findings were written too "generally" and I had no base line to go off of. Sounds about righ,t considering the author is a psychologist. So, till THEN, my friends, this project will be nothing more than a fantasy ;-) Unless, someone would like to send me some information?!
 ;-)