LittleDog Robot

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to show you this. Cause this is awesome.

To the Faire

Ok, sometimes I can't resist a good musical reference. This weekend was the New York "World" Maker Faire (given the number of Maker Faires in the world right now, calling the New York Maker Faire the "World" Maker Faire has about as much of a global scope as the World Series) and I, being into these kinds of things, went for the weekend.

(The Beau and I at Maker Faire)

And overall had a great time. Due to sort of unfortunate planning, I didn't get to go to nearly the number of talks I wanted to just because with everything back to back as it was, getting space in the Auditorium was a nightmare if you didn't want to sit through a whole day's worth of 30 minute talks. I did to get see one of my personal idols, Massimo Banzi, a co-founder of Arduino, which was well worth it. Some talks I didn't get to see included one by the people behind Roominate, though I did get to see it in action, and it's just as cool in real life.

What was really cool was the 3D Printing Pavilion where a variety of companies and organizations tied to 3D printing showed off their wares. It was really exciting to see just because there is so much going on in that world right now. 

I also got to show off my first wearable electronics project, a scarf powered by Adafruit's Flora which is a really cool micro-controller that is sew-able, and can be incorporated in various different projects. (The scarf can be seen in the picture above, but the sunlight makes the LEDs a little hard to see) I have a post going into more detail about that coming up. 

There were also some really cool things in the Arduino tent, including the recently released Arduino Robot which while awesome, at a 300 dollar price tag, I'd rather just get a Roomba. And a recently released kickstarter for Moti, which is essentially a servo motor with a built in micro-controller. Although it's a little pricey, I'd be really curious to see where it goes. 

Other highlights included checking out the Junior Robocup table, meeting a very impressive high-schooler who designed a Leap Motion Plus (basically a Kinect) controlled virtual marionette. And a lot of sew-able electronics kits aimed a kids.

Overall I had a really great time and would highly recommend checking a Faire out when you have a chance.

Artistic Automata

Today I'm going to be writing about Blair Somerville. Somerville is a creator of automata. Before I continue I want to clarify at least how I personally define an automaton as opposed to something like a robot. Most people when they hear automata probably think of the one in Hugo or the Japanese Karakuri Ningyo (which are awesome and deserve a post of their own), and both of these are good examples of what people mean when discussing automata. The simplest definition of an automaton is that it's a mechanical device. This might sound like an awful lot like a robot to most people, but it's missing one key aspect, which is it isn't programmable. If you want a really cool automaton-like device Jaquet-Droz, who made some really cool automata. One of his creations is The Writer, which unlike other automata where you wind them up and they do something, this one has the ability to write custom text, making it programmable.

Now that that's out of the way, lets get into Somerville's automata. I found this short film about him, which doesn't go into too much detail about the automata themselves, but you get to see some really cool pieces. My personal favorite are the tentacles in the grass.



He has a gallery in a small town in New Zealand,  so the likelihood of getting a chance to see his creations in person are pretty slim but if you find yourself in that part of the world (or are from that part of the world) you should definitely check it out.

Print(Hello World);

And that is probably the closet I will come to actually talking about programming, so I hope you enjoyed what is literally one of the oldest jokes in the CS book. But, seriously I, like many before me couldn't resist the urge.

The reason I am not going to talk about programming is because although I possess the requisite skills, am not a programmer, though I am interested in tech (hence this blog). Although I was first introduced to programming through a slew of 100 level CS courses (and beyond), programming was never my cup of tea. It wasn't till I took a physical computing class where I discovered the likes of Arduino and the exciting world of microprocessors.

This pared with a Discreet Math class I was taking lead to me realize I really like physical computing and the more low level aspects of programming. As I mentioned being a fan of the Arduino I do have some interest in the Maker/Hacker community, although my real passion is in Robotics, which is why you will find a slew of dissected Furbys in my apartment.

So what are my credentials? Well being a twenty something who just graduated college means I don't have that much. But on top of being a whopping two courses short of a minor in CS, I was on my college's Robocup (robotic soccer) team, as well as a mentor for a local private schools' VEX robotics team. So if nothing else I have a lot of experience programming robots.

So what is this blogs deal, if not about programming? It's about technology and it taking unexpected turns, as well as just aspects of technology that I personally find interesting.

A good example of the sort of things I will be writing about is Chinese farmer and artist/engineer of sorts Wu Yulu. Wu Yulu builds these robots out of scrap parts, and they are really impressive. Above is one of his robots that I was lucky enough to see on display in London. Although he has other robots that can pull carts, light cigarettes, and climb up walls, I personally think it's one of the more impressive ones, because although it doesn't balance on it's own (see the wheels in back), one of the major takeaways from Robocup is that bipedal motion, even ignoring the balancing thing is hard, and it is nothing short of a miracle that we humans can do it so effectively.

Well if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my first post, and stay tuned for more.