@fish-in-a-puddle

Today I made a very simple little project - a robot that waves at people. It only took about thirty minutes to assemble and write the code! It’s a demo for the club fair next month, but I’m working on writing a guide for beginners so they can make one themselves and a lesson for the club, so I still have some work to do. It’s not much of a project but I figured I might as well log some hours on here while I work on it :)

Devlog 5 - Fixed a few formatting issues, added a custom paw print cursor and made a share button that copies the (currently nonexistent) URL to the visitor’s keyboard. I’m very happy with how this site is turning out, so this is probably the last devlog for the actual coding. Next I need to do some shipping prep - writing a README and making a demo page - but that’s probably only about half an hour of work, tops.

Devlog 4 - Finished writing the JS for the image generating and added a “New Image” button so you don’t have to reload the page to see another picture. The project is getting close to done, but there’s one more thing I want to add - a paw print custom cursor. Last time I tried to add that on another project it didn’t work, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to figure it out.

Devlog 3 - Ok, so all that time writing out the CSS classes may have been pointless…. After trying a lot of different stuff, I found that the only way I could get the image to show was by turning the original div into an img element and changing the src to match different files in Javascript. Oh well, live and learn and all that. I’m back in buisness with the old copy paste for now, though, as I use a switch() function to check the variable that stores the random number and the case/break parts are all very similar (save the src, caption and, you know, the number it checks for). I’m feeling fairly confident that this will work out, though. After I finish this part, I’ll add a button to change the picture and caption so you don’t have to reload the page every time.

Devlog 2 - Hooray, I finished making the CSS classes. It was very boring as I had to copy paste basically the same thing fifty times and check and change the dimensions of the image each time but it’s finally done. Now that all the images exist for the website to choose from, I have to venture into Javascript to make the images change. Time to look up a random number generator tutorial and distort it beyond recognition

Devlog 1 - Today I started a project I’ve been thinking about for a while - a website to show the viewer pictures of my dog. When it’s done, it will show an image of my dog picked randomly with a corresponding caption. So far I have resized 56 photos to fit the page (which took about an hour) and created 14 of the 56 classes in CSS. Each class includes the image and dimensions to the image doesn’t get stretched. The idea is that the script will pick a random number and using a switch/case function will set the class of the image div as well as the appropriate caption depending on the number. I have basically no experience coding in Javascript except for the couple of hours I spent working on it for the WebOS challenge, so this project will be a good way to get some practice.

Personal Website is done!! I finished adding some GIFs, a “cool stuff” section and fixed a few final issues with the formatting. I’m very happy with how this project has turned out, and I hope that others find it interesting or at least okay to scroll through. I learned a lot about how a website is built and how insanely difficult it is to get anything to go where you want it to, but it got a lot easier over time. Once I finish writing the README (not much to say, just open the link) it’ll be ready to ship.

After taking a break from this project to focus on finishing my hackpad, I embedded a Spotify playlist next to the “About Me” section. I also decided to add a “Book reviews” section instead of recommendations or inspiration. For some unknown reason, the book reviews refuse to be formatted like my projects, so I changed it so each individual review takes up the width of the page. The website is getting close to done. I just need to decide what to do with the header, expand the “About Me” section and finish reformatting the book reviews.

Today I uploaded the files for the PCB, case and firmware to Github. I organized them into folders and wrote a README detailing the design process and final product. This project has been a lot of fun, and I’m very happy to say that it’s ready to submit! Hopefully it’ll be reviewed soon and I can start building the real thing :)

I spent several hours researching and slowly building the firmware over the past week, and it’s done! It took a really long time to figure out how to make the OLED display different images depending on your WPM, but it should work. Since I don’t have the physical macropad yet, I don’t know, but there are no blatant errors. Now I’m going to upload everything to GitHub and write the README so I can submit it for funding.

Today I finally got back to work on the 3d model and made a tester to print and make sure everything fits. Tomorrow I’ll actually print it (my 3D printer isn’t big enough for the whole thing to fit on the plate, so I’ll cut the model in half and put it together post printing). I only got a couple hours of sleep last night so this devlog is brought to you by boygenius which I listened to so I wouldn’t fall asleep. thank you boygenius save me boygenius PLEASE BOYGENIUS PLEASE SAVE ME

Today I finished the designing the PCB, complete with silkscreen designs! It took a while to find the right resistor footprint and to size the designs properly but it turned out very well, I think. I’m going to start working on the case design this afternoon after I print out the design to make sure it’s the right size.

So far, I’ve made the schematic and routed the pcb. It looks pretty good, but I’m a little concerned about the size of the resistor footprints. They seem a bit too small, but they’re the ones the tutorial said to use. I think I’ll try to find a slightly bigger footprint instead. The pcb is nearly done except for the mounting holes and the silkscreen design. I’ve never made a pcb before, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!

We decided to focus on another component of R2 tonight- ultrasonic navigation, but got sidetracked by the motor failing :(. After working on my lunar rover, I had a good idea of how to work with the ultrasonic sensor, but I don’t know if it worked because the motor started randomly failing to move the axis. Annoying. We did some looking and found some other DC motors that should work for the robot, so we’ll order them in the next day or two. In the meantime, we’ll work on the servo for the head and the LED lights. Plus, my sister got some time on her account! She now has a project for this guy too. It’s the exact same name, but on @Winter314 ’s account.

I played around with some different ideas, themes and layouts. It took me a while to decide on one, but eventually the look of the site started to come together. I decided to cut out the media recommendations for now, since I want to website to be focused on projects. I’m thinking about replacing that section with an “Inspiration”section with links to projects I think are cool. I also removed the non-electronic projects. There wasn’t really anything I could show for them. So far I have four projects: three have pictures, two have links and they are all formatted the way I wanted. I also have a small “About me” section written. It doesn’t have a picture of the logo I’m working on yet, though. I am also thinking of embedding a Spotify playlist on the site. The next step for this project is to improve the header (not exactly sure how yet - pictures? One big image as the header?) and to change the color of the hyperlinks so they don’t get lost with the background color.

So, I’m a couple days late but I’m about to ship! Finished adding images and videos, added instructions for using a Bluetooth app (the custom one did not work out because mit app inventor is not super good at finding Bluetooth devices) and updated my bill of materials.

Wrote the README and organized some of my files. Still need to take and upload images/demo video and test the control app but otherwise it is done. If all goes well, I will ship the project tomorrow!