Tinkering with any kind of code is interesting because it gets you past the front doors of the user experience and a step closer to the science and engineering that lies beneath the skin of our various devices. Access means you can change things, tweak this, drop that, add something new, and see what happens.
I've been resurrecting my Arduino experiments from January (when Dylan and I took a Saturday course on it) as I learn more about C++ and how to make a computer talk to a micro-controller and then how to make a micro-controller engage with the environment around us. I'm new to this particular platform but inventing, DIY tweaking and looking under the hood are life-long pursuits so the ideas are percolating as the technical elements become more clear. What I really like about the Arduino platform is the idea that it is an open source piece of hardware - a critical link between open source software and the world of atoms. There is deep potential in large-scale open source hardware/software combinations even beyond what we're seeing already.
Installing the drivers and getting an old recycled desktop machine on my bench to communicate with the Arduino Uno was a bit tricky. I don't have it connected online so flash drives have been the transfer medium. Then there were some problems with getting the COM port to work properly. All is now solved and I can make the LED blink, run micro switches, and get the computer and Arduino to send text messages back and forth - all vital signs of an emerging digital ecology that I hope will spark some interesting projects.
This Quadcopter is high on the hit list of things to build next - I like to move from crawl to run and just skip the walk stage. I grew up designing, building and flying radio controlled airplanes so this is a very intriguing project to latch on to. Now, could it be built using an old CD player, a blender, and a broken MacBook...
Installing the drivers and getting an old recycled desktop machine on my bench to communicate with the Arduino Uno was a bit tricky. I don't have it connected online so flash drives have been the transfer medium. Then there were some problems with getting the COM port to work properly. All is now solved and I can make the LED blink, run micro switches, and get the computer and Arduino to send text messages back and forth - all vital signs of an emerging digital ecology that I hope will spark some interesting projects.
This Quadcopter is high on the hit list of things to build next - I like to move from crawl to run and just skip the walk stage. I grew up designing, building and flying radio controlled airplanes so this is a very intriguing project to latch on to. Now, could it be built using an old CD player, a blender, and a broken MacBook...
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