I BOUGHT AN OTHER ARDUINO

So I need another project like a hole in the head. But when "The Most Complete Arduino Starter Kit" appears on Amazon prime at more than 50% off, Hey it would be rude not to. I looked at all the accessories and found myself clicking the buy with one click button and less than 24 hrs later it arrived.

Tech Christmas Day... The box was full of all sorts of colored bits.

This is the 3rd Arduino I've bought over a number of years. The first was a simple learn-to program an Arduino kit and came with some basic electronic components.

An Arduino is a solid-state microcomputer with onboard input and output pins exposed. It's basically a circuit board with a controller about the size of a playing card. It's blue, not that it matters. It's like a mini PLC or Programmable Logic Controller. It can sense the outside world with connected sensors and be programmed to do something that can affect that world. So you could connect a light sensor and measure when it gets dark. When it does it can switch on a light. It can be so much cleverer than that though. It can measure how dark it is and can be programmed to adjust how bright the light is.

That was about as far as my projects got with the first one. Although I did make a bubble machine for the boys. It used a servo to dip a bubble eye in a bowl of fairy liquid, raise it up rotate it and a fan would turn on and blow bubbles. It would then lower back into the liquid and repeat. It wrecked the servo eventually as the fairy liquid dripped into its gears of the servo. It was fun when it lasted and the boys enjoyed it.

The second one I bought a few years later was an Arduino Yun (posh model with Wifi) it was bought with a plan to solve my leaving the garage door opener problem. I can't see the door from the house so would forget and go to bed and wake in the morning to the realization that the door had been open all night.

The door is electric so the plan is to add a couple of limit switches and feed them to the Arduino. It would be programmed to tell me past a certain time that the door was still open. It would tell me via wifi and I would be able to press a button and it would close. This project will still happen someday. I've probably had the Yun for 3 years now.

And on to the third Arduino. It's an R3. I have no idea what's this means. I guess it's probably revision 3 but I still have to read the manual. Out of the box, it looked the same, it plugged into my Mac with a USB cable that provided power and the ability to download programs. I skimmed through the 3 pages of windows installation to get to the Mac installation. Which was 1. download the zip. File 2. extract and run the programming package.

So what came in the box besides the Arduino? Lots of things.

Sensors: light, temperature, moisture
Outputs: LEDs, led segment display, LCD display, motor, servo
Inputs: keypad, infrared remote and sensor board, and an RFID sensor and keyfob.
Along with resistors and LEDs, there are lots of potential.

The manual comes with 100 or so tutorials on things to make.

Why did I buy another Arduino? Here comes the excuse... I would like Jamie (age 9) to get involved and what better way to get some son Dad time with Tech than to build things together.

We have done the first couple of projects and so far so good. Jamie has learned a resistor can change the brightness of an LED... The bigger the resistor the less bright the LED gets.

I'm looking forward to getting into the more complicated projects and hopefully, as I/we will learn more about the Arduino programming language Also hopefully the Yun will be pulled from my desk drawer and be put into action for its original purpose of telling me when I have left the garage door open. Who knows I might get Jamie to build this project.

NOT ANOTHER EXCEL SPREADSHEET TO TRACK BUGS? TRELLO TO THE RESCUE!

So this week I have been involved in some software testing. And the usual route of an Excel spreadsheet had been employed to manage faults, bugs, or changes. I hate managing software faults with a spreadsheet. It normally ends in a mess, with multiple versions, poorly formatted, emailed here there, and everywhere.

To avoid this and not having access to a real software bug-tracking tool like fogbugz I quickly set up something in Trello.

Trello is brilliant and I have many boards for various jobs on the go at one time. It is a simple free-to-use tool for managing simple tasks and workflows.

 

I set up 6 lists flowing from left to right. New bugs can be added by the team or by the customer. They can be entered directly as a new card or via email by links provided. The email to the board facility is brilliant and it will create a new card automatically.

I hear you say but how can I refer to a card or bug when discussing it with the team. Do I need to refer to the bug name every time? Nope. In Google Chrome, there is an extension that adds unique card numbers automatically. So in discussions, you can refer to bug #27. The extension also has the benefit of adding a number of cards to a list. So at a glance, you can see how many bugs are raised or how many are ready for a test.

The bug tracker board can be accessed by anyone who has access to the team. When connected to the team they can then take control of individual bugs and they can be assigned a bug. So at a glance, you can see John is working on bug #27, and Tom is testing #32. When John has completed the fix for bug #27 he can move the bug to the ready for test list and assign the bug to Tom. When Tom tests the bug and it passes the test Tom can move it to Done. If it is not fixed he can move it back to in progress and assign it back to John and add a comment as to why it did not pass the test.

Colors can be added to each bug indicating the criticality of the fault. So at a glance, you quickly see the red for critical and can concentrate on these first.

Bugs can include attachments, so you can take a screenshot of a fault and quickly add it to the bug to help with the resolution. You can add multiple items to a bug, so if there are a number of similar faults these can be grouped into one bug and make use of the checklist facility. Tick them off as they are resolved.

So there you go. Trello as a bug tracker. It's not perfect, but I set up ours in under 10 minutes, you can have your whole team collaborating together working through problems or changes. It's much better than yet another Excel spreadsheet and you can see at a glance visually the status of the bugs.

I HAVE THE MAKERS ITCH...

So I have an affliction with making stuff. I always have some project or other on the go. I get a whacky desire to make something and mull it over for weeks, months, or years before having to start.

If I don’t start I just keep thinking about it and thinking about it! I am either planning, making, fixing, or repurposing something. I have many projects on the go at one time.

I have to say I enjoy the whole process. I see something and think I can make one of those. I don't have much of a desire to buy it but given the chance to build or make it. How can I build that? and then I'm off…

The perfect project is something that takes a long time and has many stages to it. It can evolve and be shaped. I love to spend time subconsciously sketching out in my mind how I can make parts, how I can adapt parts, and how I can engineer something. It's those moments when I am waiting or daydreaming I will be engineering something in my head.

Building the boy's Jeep was a perfect example of this. It had lots of parts, it required research, it needed different types of skills and I had to adapt and repurpose things. The front steering mechanism was a problem I spent ages thinking about. I needed a way of having a 3 axis mount that could swivel in all three directions. I'd sketch out diagrams, play with bits of metal, Lie in bed awake thinking how to solve the problem. Inspiration and a final solution came while in the local hardware store. Large eye bolts normally used for gates bolted together in an X-Y-Z orientation were a quick reasonably cheap and strong solution. Relief, I can stop thinking about that problem.

Both my boys sleep in custom beds I have made. Jamie wanted a high sleeper in the shape of a Campervan, and Thomas wanted a Pirate Ship. Both required research, planning, and design. The Campervan was drawn out using a digital projector that beamed the outline of a Campervan onto a giant sheet of MDF that I then traced around with a black Sharpie.

It has working lights a real sliding door, and a surfboard as a ladder to get to the top bunk.

Thomas's Pirate Ship bed is a similar construction and has an anchor, a ship's wheel, and a bell (last orders at the bar type bell from eBay). The anchor and ship's wheel were cut out on my mini X-carve CNC machine.

I am a bit of a petrol head and one of the big projects I wanted to do was build my own car (I mentioned this in previous posts). My first attempt was to dismantle my mum's Mini Clubman estate when it was parked up after terminally failing its MOT. I didn’t get very far. I was only 12 and had a limited budget and tools. Years later I set about researching and choosing something new I could build, I had the maker's itch that needed to be scratched. It was a long project that took 4 years to build and get on the road. I took my time and enjoyed all the detailed parts of the build. Again I loved all the little projects and spent lots of time daydreaming solutions along the way.

This year is no exception. I started collecting materials to make a “Mega Den" for the boys... A sheltered hangout In the garden that we can escape to, we can draw, play games, and pretend we are on holiday all while still in the garden at home. It needed to be bigger than the fort (another scrap wood project I made a few years ago).

I found some windows free from Gumtree, and some old doors also from Gumtree, and they sat under a tarpaulin for over a year as I planned out in my head how I could use them. A chance discussion with a farmer saw me collecting 12 scaffold boards and I had enough to get started.

I have spent a few happy weeks and evenings sawing, hammering, and drilling to get to the stage of something resembling a "summerhouse" no MegaDen in the back of the garden. Roofing materials arrive next week and it will be fully watertight and ready for action.

Electrics arrived this week (thanks to Amazon Prime) and a length of armored cable that I have squirreled away in the garage for over 10 years will see power running up under the grass for lights and sockets.

A couple of weeks should see it finished and that will be another project completed, and I can stop thinking about it.

There is more in the pipeline…

I have to build another Jeep. I have all the parts. The boys are bigger now and starting to outgrow the first one. I want to make something all metal and try to use the full 900W capacity of the motor's power in this one. (The Jeep currently is only using a third of that)
I need to build a double computer desk for the boys. They will have a workstation and storage each for homework and school projects

I have an Arduino Yun bought with the sole purpose of warning when the garage door has been left open and it's dark. I can’t see the door from the house unless I go outside. It has an electric opener and the plan is for it to email me to tell me it is open and from my phone, I'll be able to close it. It will involve some wiring and some code but I have planned out in my head what it needs to do. I am tempted to also connect the Arduino to a Speaker and have it play the Thunderbirds theme via WAV file when the door is opened. But that might annoy my neighbors

So yeah, I have the maker's itch and the only way to stop it is to keep on making.

I think of projects as good therapy, and if you remember that 80's kid's TV program "Why Don't You"...

P.S... top marks if anyone knows the next line?