Project Demo

One step closer…

ioio garage time
the olde clamp test

This thing screams with wall wart power. Watch…

Now comes the hard part…choosing a decent battery and mounting the circuit board savely on the chasis. I have found a few good candidates, but they are a little bulky for my application. Still looking…

The UI should be fairly straight forward. Just need a few more garage sessions, and I’ll be good to go.

The cordless Dremel was a super purchase FWIW. One of the best tools I’ve used.

Woot BOC Unboxing

It showed up…

woot b o c
finally

I got excited and made an un-boxing vid. Apparently, I get twitchy when I am excited. Probably why I interview like shit. Anyhow…

So, my three dollar (eight with shipping) bag of crap yielded:

* Passive laptop cooling pad
* Refurbished DSL router
* Strawberry that unfolds into a bag?
* Remote controlled Batman helicopter
* Three dog brushes

Not bad at all; I’m chalking this up as a win.

Woot Bag-O-Crap FTW!

I’ve been trying to snag a Bag O’ Crap from Woot since 2007. At long last, victory is mine.

woot bag o crap
winning

I verified that my card has been billed…it appears legit. I might have to post a nerdy un-boxing vid. Pretty excited here.

For the record, I have used trackers in the past to no avail…this one was done with pure dumb-luck. No bots, for the win.

IOIO Android Breakout Board

~~~~ WARNING: AWESOME ~~~~

My new thing has officially arrived. Both in the literal sense and philosophically. I love my Arduino, and I love my Android…now I can have the best of both.

Introducing, the IOIO breakout board…

ioio breakout board
+1 sleek

I snagged this guy from SparkFun. You know how the Android is full of stuff? Accelerometers, touch screen, GPS receiver, WiFi…etc? Instead of having to start from scratch for each of my Arduino projects to introduce components, this board will allow me to use the Android/Java as the backbone of my code, instead of using Processing/C++. And that, my friends, is +++.

Take a look at this awful-picture-quality-having video:

Sorry about that…I had to use Katie’s old BlackBerry to record the demo. It leaves much to be desired.

Anyhow, so far I have just managed to get Eclipse configured, and have uncovered several gotchas. The biggest obstacle was getting the permissions worked out and linking the libraries properly. When in doubt, chmod -R 777 * and let it rip. We’ll see what comes of this…could be cool once I dust off my Java skills.

Of note: pretty sure I am the first person to get this working on a Droid 2, and likely the first to set this up on Linux. It just shipped yesterday, so the sky is the limit on this…I am very excited. Big props to Ytai and SparkFun.

NASA Finds New Life?

T minus 2.75 hours until NASA hits the stage to talk about a newly discovered life-form.

nanu nanu
nanu nanu

Stay tuned…this is a good day.

Droid 2 Must Have Games

Games kick ass, am I right? Am I right? (****Spoiler…YES!*****)

Since I haven’t blathered about how awesome Android stuff is in a while, I figured I would ramble about games for a while. So far, I have found four games that are pretty much “must-have.” I hate that term, but it gets me search engine traffic. And traffic is a must-have. (Sorry.) You can find these must-havers on Android Market, but you probably knew that. Let’s begin.

In order of most-must-have, to still-must-have-but-not-as-much-as-most-must-have…

Angry Birds — Q. Why so angry, birds? A. Those egg-stealing pigs, that’s why.

mofo
I like that one ^

Robo Defense — Tower defense, FTW. I got really, really sucked into this one, keeping it in the two spot. All acheivements, check.
joke fail
D - Fence...get it (shakes head)

Fruit Ninja — Chopping the shit out of fruit…this game is as fun as it sounds
nacho ninja
Fruit Ninja looks more like Nacho Ninja

Doodle Jump — Pretty sure this (like Angry Birds) made some waves on iStuff. You jump a doodle…it is amusing as hell.
stupid flanders
Stupid Flanders

I’m still waiting for the non-advertisment-laden version of Angry Birds to drop. Right now, the free app is all that is out there on the Android Market. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I spent less than 3 bucks for the other three apps. Robo Defense has a pretty solid trial version, FWIW.

Well, in any regards, get Angry Birds. Meetings at work become little workday vay-kays. Little bird flinging vay-kays.

If you come across anything that I should check out, hit me with a comment. Or, Tweet that crap over to @swantron. Plug.

Droid 2 Must Have Games

Games kick ass, am I right? Am I right? (****Spoiler…YES!*****)

Since I haven’t blathered about how awesome Android stuff is in a while, I figured I would ramble about games for a while. So far, I have found four games that are pretty much “must-have.” I hate that term, but it gets me search engine traffic. And traffic is a must-have. (Sorry.) You can find these must-havers on Android Market, but you probably knew that. Let’s begin.

In order of most-must-have, to still-must-have-but-not-as-much-as-most-must-have…

Angry Birds — Q. Why so angry, birds? A. Those egg-stealing pigs, that’s why.

mofo
I like that one ^

Robo Defense — Tower defense, FTW. I got really, really sucked into this one, keeping it in the two spot. All acheivements, check.
joke fail
D - Fence...get it (shakes head)

Fruit Ninja — Chopping the shit out of fruit…this game is as fun as it sounds
nacho ninja
Fruit Ninja looks more like Nacho Ninja

Doodle Jump — Pretty sure this (like Angry Birds) made some waves on iStuff. You jump a doodle…it is amusing as hell.
stupid flanders
Stupid Flanders

I’m still waiting for the non-advertisment-laden version of Angry Birds to drop. Right now, the free app is all that is out there on the Android Market. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I spent less than 3 bucks for the other three apps. Robo Defense has a pretty solid trial version, FWIW.

Well, in any regards, get Angry Birds. Meetings at work become little workday vay-kays. Little bird flinging vay-kays.

If you come across anything that I should check out, hit me with a comment. Or, Tweet that crap over to @swantron. Plug.

Are Pajama Jeans Awesome?

Remember Pajama Jeans? I posted about them a while back, stating that society had hit a new low, due to the sheer level of WTF of which Pajama Jeans reek. Even sexy robot lady can’t make these look less than WTF.

pj jean
creepy robot lady is still sexy, creepy

Well, I can’t tell you if people are still making these things. I too can’t tell you if people are still buying or wearing Pajama Jeans.

I can say, with 100% certainty, that people are searching the webs for these retarded things…and en masse. Check the snapshot from Google Webmaster Tools:

no way
whaaaaaa????

Un. Fricking. Believable.

Well, I do get a kick out of the fact the Pajama Jeans would-be shoppers ended up here. I have a feeling they would appreciate the last post about the junk food in my desk drawer at work.