Last month I lost what could have been a beautiful night laying out a PCB while at a secluded cottage because Google Drive didn’t sync a couple of my board files. I switched to Microsoft Skydrive for my cloud-based storage since Windows Mesh worked so well for me over the years before it was discontinued. [...]
Last month I attended the EntConnect Conference to give it some coverage from Element14. I like entrepreneurship/engineering, and they had a bunch of fun events like Skiing at Vail which really drew me in. I wasn’t sure what to expect, with an attendee list of ~30 people how much of a conference could it be? When [...]
I, like most EE’s love LEDs. They are such a great solution to lighting since they get away from the idea that something must be inefficiently burned (filament on incandescent), or nasty chemicals used (Mercury in CFLs) in order to generate lighting. And although no reasonably-priced lighting solution can come close to the human appeal [...]
Young Circuit Designs has long been a supporter of RePlay For Kids, a Cleveland, OH based charity that modifies mainstream toys for children with disabilities. Since many electronic toys utilize activation switches that require a level of dexterity that not all children have, Replay modifies the toy to add a more accessible switch in parallel. This [...]
I LOVE sensors. Which is probably why I got into analog electronics. The idea of taking something that is in the real world and making it interact with a computer is amazing. As computing continues to become more powerful and ubiquitous, the possibilities for sensors gets more and more fun. With that in mind, I signed [...]
I recently got my hands on a Raspberry Pi with the goal of writing an article on how suitable the platform is for an education program like BlueStamp Engineering. However once I got rolling, I simply had to make something of my own. I’m not very experienced with Linux, Apache, or Python so I thought [...]
For those who know me, beer isn’t just about the drinking. It’s also about the brewing. I’ve casually brewed beer for years, only getting serious with my own setup a year ago. However brewing in front of a stove can be annoying especially when trying to brew 2 different batches at once. To make the experience [...]
I love watching how the growth of spaces like my own Denhac develops as people begin casually making things. Recently Denhac held a surplus sale and I think it really pumped up interest and made the space all around better. There were a few things that I noticed made it a success, so I wrote [...]
I was recently thinking about how little time exists between a design being ‘completed’ and when it needs to be revised. Obsolete parts, bugs, manufacturing equipment changes, manufacturing locations and volumes will all drive changes to a design. Sometimes is makes a mockery of revision control systems. My most recent Element14 article highlights the work [...]
Whenever I have even a little extra time while traveling, I try my best to make it out to hackerspaces, surplus stores, or events that has people creating exciting things. My last trip to Houston is no different, so I wrote about the great making community out there… …Happy with my EPO outing, I couldn’t [...]