27 Nov 2009
MIT Friday After Thanksgiving
.
Pictures from the 2009 MIT Friday After Thanksgiving are
here
The MIT Friday After Thanksgiving:
Whether it's the reaction induced between one creative contraption
and another equally crafty contrivance, or the joyful reactions
sparked on the faces of the spectators, the MIT Museum's Friday After
Thanksgiving (F.A.T.) Chain Reaction is a one-of-a-kind,
got-to-be-seen-to-be-believed engineering feat.
4 Oct 2009
MIT Great Glass Pumpkin Patch
.
Pictures from out visit to the MIT Great Glass Pumpkin Patch are
here
The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch came to MIT in 2001 after a residency in
the Glass Lab by 14 members of the Bay Area Glass Institute
(BAGI). The Bay Area Glass Institute (a non-profit corporation located
in San Jose, CA), was founded in 1995 by San Jose State graduate Bobby
Bowes and MIT alumnus Mike Binnard.
Every week or so, beginning, intermediate, and advanced students work
together for a few hours in teams of six or seven to produce pumpkins
for the sale. Production for the October event continues steadily
throughout the year in order to achieve our goal of 1000-1200
pumpkins.
25 Apr 2009
Introduction to Microcontrollers
.
Introduction to Microcontrollers
I presented "Introduction to Microcontrollers" at
BCB4. The handout is available
here. The next version of the
handout will have a timer/interrupt example. I am thinking about code
to implement a simple real time clock (number of seconds since an
epoch).
30 Jan 2009
Draw + Audio = Drawdio
My remix of
Drawdio was done
using the open source gEDA/PCB tool. Information about my parts
library and EDA automation tools is available
here.
This design is not proven, tested or done. All non-catastrophic
infelicities are mistakes. Catastrophic infelicities are just plain
fun.
You can't create open hardware with closed EDA tools
5 June 2008
Physical Computing Tools at Ignite Boston
I demonstrated some physical computing tools at
Ignite Boston last
week. Brian Jepson, from O'Reilly, did an interview and video which is
available
here.
The website for these products is called
wiblocks.com.
1 March 2008
March comes in like a Golden Retriever
Rather than a half-hour of shoveling we chose two hours of snowman and
igloo building. With a little help from our friends at
Deli-cat we were
able to quickly build blocks to assemble the igloo. Our glorious picture spread is
here.
4 December 2007
Some THINGS-THAT-WERE-TREES at Starbucks
An XXL snowman bank and a small snowman clock, from the
Snowy Creations product line, are on
display at the Starbucks in Burlington, MA. The pictures are located
here.
11 March 2007
Works in Progress
I added a projects showcase called
works-in-progress.
I also added a resource section called
getting-it-done for
design information.
5 May 2006
Footprint Design Reference
Added a draft document that defines footprint design guidelines and
footprint usage information. More information
here.
14 August 2005
Photo Pages
I have added some simple photo pages to the site. The page layouts
and image processing options are defined in a couple of Postgres
tables and a Perl script generates the HTML.
8 July 2005
Land Pattern (Footprint) Naming Convention
I have created a draft document that defines a land pattern naming
convention based on IPC-7351. The document is located
here.
29 May 2005
Automated Copying of Schematics and PCB Layouts
I added two scripts, pcb-matrix and sch-matrix, that replicate PCB and
schematic structures by copying an input file to an output file
multiple times incrementing the
(x,y) position of each
copy. The scripts and documentation are located
here.
27 April 2005
CSS Design for Luciani.org
Inspired by the design examples at
CSS Zen Garden
I created a CSS style sheet for
Luciani.org. The Zen Garden design I like the most is
Backyard by
Ray Henry. The color
scheme is clean, the borders separate without being obtrusive and the design is easy to
navigate. I also liked designs
97,
133 and
157 (sans bugs). To peruse all
of the designs click
here.
