Electronic Things part 1
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Frick, this is cute.
It's a BlinkM, from here. For reference, that coin cell battery is about the size of a quarter.
The almost unnecessarily adorable breadboards are from Sparkfun.
It's not quite bright enough to illuminate the Fluff Thing. I may need a Fluff Thing 2.0 in a lighter color.
Man, no wonder I never get anything done...back to the point. I've ordered a bunch of interesting electronic bits and pieces to teach myself how it all works and work on my research project. I'm planning on documenting the learning process for mine and others' reference and/or amusement.
The setup is already incredibly well-documented and took me about 10 minutes to get working. High level overview: It's a "smart LED" that can light up in programmed sequences of colors and make it so you don't have to use up all your controller's resources on pretty LEDs. You upload the provided "communicator code" to an Arduino development board, then plug the BlinkM directly into the Arduino and connect it to your computer. This will then allow the BlinkM sequencer program to upload little color sequences to the BlinkM. It can then replay them by itself (like the pictures above). You can also use the BlinkM libraries to include color commands in Arduino sketches.
My favorite thing I brought back from a conference last year was this little plastic "ice cube" that lit up in sequences of colors. It was beautiful and rather soothing, it just fit in my hand and glowed softly. This is even better, you can make the sequences yourself. It would be a fun intro to electronics project. I'd love to incorporate it into a piece of jewelery.
It's also going to be a good prototyping tool for remotely-connected devices. My first goal once I get the network-connection bits and pieces is to be able to change the color from a web page, and then from another electronic object.
Sorry about the weird spacing, this template is pretty but kind of annoying that way. I may change it soon.
EDIT: Changed.
It's a BlinkM, from here. For reference, that coin cell battery is about the size of a quarter.The almost unnecessarily adorable breadboards are from Sparkfun.
It's not quite bright enough to illuminate the Fluff Thing. I may need a Fluff Thing 2.0 in a lighter color.
Man, no wonder I never get anything done...back to the point. I've ordered a bunch of interesting electronic bits and pieces to teach myself how it all works and work on my research project. I'm planning on documenting the learning process for mine and others' reference and/or amusement.The setup is already incredibly well-documented and took me about 10 minutes to get working. High level overview: It's a "smart LED" that can light up in programmed sequences of colors and make it so you don't have to use up all your controller's resources on pretty LEDs. You upload the provided "communicator code" to an Arduino development board, then plug the BlinkM directly into the Arduino and connect it to your computer. This will then allow the BlinkM sequencer program to upload little color sequences to the BlinkM. It can then replay them by itself (like the pictures above). You can also use the BlinkM libraries to include color commands in Arduino sketches.
My favorite thing I brought back from a conference last year was this little plastic "ice cube" that lit up in sequences of colors. It was beautiful and rather soothing, it just fit in my hand and glowed softly. This is even better, you can make the sequences yourself. It would be a fun intro to electronics project. I'd love to incorporate it into a piece of jewelery.
It's also going to be a good prototyping tool for remotely-connected devices. My first goal once I get the network-connection bits and pieces is to be able to change the color from a web page, and then from another electronic object.
Sorry about the weird spacing, this template is pretty but kind of annoying that way. I may change it soon.
EDIT: Changed.
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