TechnologyIQ

Daily challenges are a fun way of stretching your creativity. Years ago I worked on the National Novel Writing Month challenge and I’ve done a drawing a day for a month before. This time I joined the makevember challenge after I read about it on the Make Magazine Blog and made 29 automata in a month.  In short, the makevember manifesto proposed: Every day in November make a thing – if you can’t do it every day then do what you can, but the idea is to push yourself to work daily and with less procrastination. Do not attempt to put your ducks in a row first. Read One Month of Small Machines via wolfCat workshop An interesting link found among my daily reading

While we admit that free honey sounds pretty good, beekeeping is not some set-it-and-forget-it hobby where you can just put bees in a box and come back in a month to collect the goods. With the world’s bee population in decline, it’s more important than ever to monitor the health of hives. One way to do that is to count the bees as they leave and reenter the hive. You can use the data to determine how many workers are working, or to compare activity between multiple hives. If you notice the bees are gone for longer and longer periods, it’s probably because their nearby nectar sources are dwindling and they have to travel farther to find flowers. This open-source bee counter built by [hydronics2] is designed to fit the opening of a standard hive. The bees can only buzz themselves back in by flying through one of 24 little IR break-beam gates. Our favorite thing about this build is the way [hydronics2] created the individual gates by sandwiching two boards together with headers as s

Triggering events based on the presence of people in a room has been the dream of many geeks and DIY automators for a while. Having your house to turn the lights on or off when you enter or exit your living room is an interesting application, for instance. Most of the solutions out there to solve these kinds of problems, like the Philips Hue sensors, detect motion, not the actual presence  of people — which means that the lights will switch off once you lay down on your couch like a sloth. The ability to turn off music and/or the TV when you exit the room and head to your bedroom, without the hassle of switching all the buttons off, is also an interesting corollary. Detecting the presence of people in your room while you’re not at home is another interesting application. Read Detecting People With a Raspberry Pi, a Thermal Camera and Machine Learning via IoT For All An interesting link found among my daily reading

A quick starter's guide of everything you need to know about your new apple watch, all the hidden features and tips, and tricks to enhance your apple watch experience. Watch 25+1 (Actually) Useful Apple Watch Tips - IN UNDER 200 SECONDS Beginner Guide via HotShotTek on YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

  Join us on Wednesday, April 29 at noon Pacific for the Citizen Science Hack Chat with Ben Krasnow! For most of human history, there was no such thing as a professional scientist. Those who dabbled in “natural philosophy” were mainly men — and occasionally women — of privilege and means, given to spend their time looking into the workings of the world. Most went where their interest lay, exploring this facet of geology or that aspect of astronomy, often combining disciplines or switching to new ones as they felt like it. They had the freedom to explore the universe without the pressure to “publish or perish,” and yet they still often managed to pull back the curtain of ignorance and superstition that veiled the world for eons, at least somewhat. In their footsteps follow today’s citizen scientists, a relatively small cohort compared to the great numbers of professional scientists that universities churn out year after year. But where these credentialed practitioners are often hy

Halloween is a time of fun for everyone young and old; scary movies, people dressing up for parties and work, kids eagerly waiting to Trick or Treat. But Halloween is also a time to create new inventions based on some of the most popular developer boards on the market — Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Read 5 DIY Halloween projects using Arduino and Raspberry Pi via electronics360 An interesting link found among my daily reading

    Why My Teenage Code Was Terrible: Sorting Algorithms and Big O Notation via Tom Scott on YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

Historical Technology Books - 50 in a series - Nevada COBOL Programmers Reference Manual   COBOL has been in the news a lot these last 2 months as we realize how much legacy code there is still out there running mission-critical systems like unemployment systems and more.  — Douglas         Download this entire publication from Archive.org in a variety of formats  

Trying to create some flocking behaviour, and getting a little distracted by spirals along the way... Watch Coding Adventure: Boids via Sebastian Lague on YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

Read Audible to provide free audiobooks for children & teens during COVID-19 pandemic | ZDNet via ZDNet An interesting link found among my daily reading

Watch 10 SURPRISING things you didn’t know you could do with your Amazon Echo Device via YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

I’ll be the first to tell anyone that I don’t use virtual assistants all the time. I don’t rely on the Google Assistant or Alexa to do simple tasks I can routinely do for myself and it isn’t because I don’t like them or think they don’t work: I simply don’t want to get in the habit of utilizing digital assistants until they get quite a bit more conversational. For things like turning on a smart light, locking a door, or checking the weather, I don’t mind using an assistant. However, because I’m not bent towards leaning on it regularly, I probably don’t get as much out of the Google Assistant as I could. That may change after today. I’m not kidding. My regular, daily use of the Google Assistant is likely to skyrocket with this new feature that was just rolled out: the ability to read any web page aloud. Whether or not this sounds awesome to you in this moment, just go with me for a second as we unpack what is going on here and why it will likely be incredibly useful for many. Read

  Control & communicate with Circuit Playground Bluefruit from your iPhone or iPad! Bluefruit Playground is our new app for iOS & iPadOS. It allows you to interact with a Circuit Playground Bluefruit board in a variety of different ways, including: Control LED color & animation View continuous light sensor readings View state of built-in buttons & switch Turn a CPB into a musical instrument View orientation based on accelerometer data View temperature readings Read NEW APP: Bluefruit Playground for iOS via Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! An interesting link found among my daily reading

We love the idea of [Amos]’s Tangible Programming project. It reminds us of those great old Radioshack electronics labs where the circuitry concepts took on a physical aspect that made them way easier to digest than abstractions in an engineering textbook. MIT Scratch teaches many programming concepts in an easy to understand visual way. However, fundamentally people are tactile creatures and being able to literally feel and see the code laid out in front could be groundbreaking for many young learners. Especially those with brains that favor physical touch and interaction such as ADHD or Asperger’s minds. The boards are color-coded and communicate via an I2C bus. Each board’s logic and communication is handled by an ATTiny or ATMega. The current processing is visible through LEDs or even an OLED display. Numbers are input either through thumbwheel switches or jumpers. Read Tangible Programming Brings Code into The Real World via hack a day An interesting link found among my d

Gears are fairly straightforward way to couple rotational motion, and the physics topics required to understand them are encountered in an entry level physics classroom, not a university degree. But to really dig down to the root of how gears transfer motion may be somewhat more complex than it seems. [Bartosz Ciechanowski] put together an astonishingly good interactive teaching tool on gears, covering the fundamentals of motion up through multi-stage gear trains. Read Gear up Your Gear Knowledge with Gears via hack a day An interesting link found among my daily reading

It was within minutes of sitting down on the couch with Toby that I realized we were onto something here. He was immediately enamored, enough so that he finally found the incentive to get over his frustrations with game controllers. That there were bugs to net and fish to catch meant he was in, and he became determined enough to get to grips with two analogue sticks. In fact, such was his determination that he began voluntarily reading the words on the screen to be able to do so. He wanted to craft a fishing rod, so “f-i-sh-ing r-od” he would read. Voluntarily reading! With no threats or bribes! What magics was this?! Read Animal Crossing Is Helping Me Homeschool My Five-Year-Old via Kotaku An interesting link found among my daily reading

    Home School: Coding Challenge #155: Kaleidoscope Snowflake Design via Coding Train on YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

Paper circuits are SO much fun!  They can be fun, crafty, and a great way to look at STEM concepts that still feels approachable for students.  Paper circuits allow for a quick win for students – you can help them get a working circuit made within a 30-50 minute class period.  Students can build on their successes and create more complicated circuits later, making this a low-threshold/high-ceiling activity. And, paper circuits are budget friendly – all you need is some copper tape, LEDs and some paper. Read How to Teach A Paper Circuit Workshop via Renovated Learning An interesting link found among my daily reading

  The first thing Jeremy Cook thought when he saw a video of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest walking across the beach was how incredible the machine looked. His second thought was that there was no way he’d ever be able to build something like that himself. It’s a feeling that most of us have had at one time or another, especially when starting down a path we’ve never been on before. But those doubts didn’t keep him from researching how the Strandbeest worked, or stop him from taking the first tentative steps towards building his own version. It certainly didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen over a month or even a year, either. Read Jeremy Cook is Living His Strandbeest Dream via hack a day An interesting link found among my daily reading

  This is the first video in a series about simulating and solving a Rubik's Cube in Processing (Java). Home School: Coding Challenge #142.1: Rubik's Cube Part 1 via Coding Train on YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

I would guess that this man has affected the life of every techie on the planet. Thankfully his work will live on. — Douglas   Programmers everywhere are familiar with Conway’s Game of Life: whether they’ve written a version themselves or simply seen the mesmerizing action resulting from the cellular automata, it’s a household name in all homes where code is spoken. On Saturday April 11th, 2020 its inventor and namesake, John Horton Conway passed away from COVID-19 at the age of 82. Born in Liverpool, Conway received his PhD in mathematics in 1964 from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He accepted a position at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge which he held until joining the faculty of Princeton University in 1987. A brilliant mathematician, he received numerous awards and was well known for his work in combinatorial game theory, group theory, and theoretical physics. Read John Horton Conway, Creator of Conway’s Game of Life, Has Died via hack a day An interesting link f

  If you like to tinker with electronics and fancy honing your coding skills, you might want to consider trying your hand at some of these great Raspberry Pi projects. Here we've included seven projects that range from beginner to more experienced Raspberry Pi users.  Trust us when we say the following list is far from exhaustive and is in no particular order. Read 7+ Raspberry Pi Projects That Will Test Your Skills via Interesting Engineering An interesting link found among my daily reading

  In this 2016 GDC talk, Epic Games' Jim Brown examines the psychological and biological underpinnings of how people make choices, and pulls examples from shipped games to show how and when developers use these "rules" to impact players. Read Video: Understanding the illusion of choice in game design via Gamasutra An interesting link found among my daily reading

While the Arduino has a very vocal fan club, there are always a few people less than thrilled with the ubiquitous ecosystem. While fans may just dismiss it as sour grapes, there are a few legitimate complaints you can fairly level at the stock setup. To address at least some of those concerns, Arduino is rolling out the Arduino Pro IDE and while it doesn’t completely address every shortcoming, it is worth a look and may grow to quiet down some of the other criticisms, given time. Read The Arduino IDE Finally Grows Up via Hackaday An interesting link found among my daily reading

Roland´s Zenbeats music production app is currently free! Roland is temporarily offering free downloads of this music creation app (typically costs $15) to iOS and Android users. Whatever your experience level or creative role, Roland Zenbeats is designed to keep you in an effortless artistic flow, letting you work on any device or platform. To get the free content, users should download the free Zenbeats app. From there, they can upgrade to Zenbeats Unlock. Read ROLAND ZENBEATS APP via Bless This Stuff An interesting link found among my daily reading

With people forced out of their offices and schools to avoid spreading coronavirus, there are more video calls going on than ever. However, a significant chunk of the action has gone to Zoom, and not Skype, Microsoft's product that has been at the center of online voice and video chats since well before smartphones were commonplace. That's mostly because Zoom has made sharing meetings and the necessary software so easy -- perhaps too easy, with some security and privacy compromises -- but Skype is finally ready to fight back with "Meet Now." Read Skype rolls out 'Meet Now' calls that don't need a a sign-up or installation via Engadget An interesting link found among my daily reading

Adjusting to a new schedule during quarantine is tough. You're now at home, except for trips to the grocery store and other essential errands, you're missing friends and family who you usually see weekly, and your days seem to run together. To help you better adjust, Amazon has released new features for its Echo speaker to help you maintain a balance. For example, Amazon has created two new routines specifically for staying at home that can help you schedule the day. I'm looking forward to using this one because I personally lose track of time when working from home and forget that I need to stand up and stretch.  Read Alexa has new tools for coronavirus quarantine. Here's how to use them via CNET An interesting link found among my daily reading

  Bill uses a bucket of propylene glycol to show how a fiber optic cable works and how engineers send signal across oceans.  Read Fiber optic cables: How Do they work? via Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! An interesting link found among my daily reading