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Touring the Green Bank Telescope
Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to visit and tour the Green Bank Telescope facility of the NRAO in Green Bank, West Virginia. The facility and the science carried out therein are amazing,...
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Toddler Snorricam – First Video
Ever since I saw this IndyMogul how-to about a year ago, I knew I wanted to build a Snorricam. For the uninitiated, a Snorricam is a camera rig that mounts to the body of the actor, keeping said actor...
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Toddler Snorricam – Chest Mount First Run
Yesterday at my son’s urging we flipped the ‘robot’ backpack around and got some front facing video with the Snorricam. It’s pretty great, amazingly he ignores the camera and goes about his business!...
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Fresh Popcorn in a Faraday Cage
RFI is a serious concern (especially for radio telescopes), but so is a tasty snack. Here is one way they balance these needs at the GBT. This microwave is in the main control room, which itself is...
View ArticleLearning Rails the Easy Way
About a year ago I decided I should broaden my software horizons and learn something completely different from my normal fare of FPGAs and hardware. As such, I started learning Ruby on Rails. Long...
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Roomba Costumes with Synchronized LED Rings
A quick post on our 2012 Halloween costumes – after many late nights, we had an awesome time walking around the neighborhood tonight. Check below for a video of some sweet synchronized LED action....
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Synchronized LED Ring Construction Details
As promised, here is a rundown of how the synchronized LED rings from our Halloween costumes came together. When we initially designed these Roomba costumes, we knew they would look great in daylight...
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Measuring AA Battery Life for LED Pixel Halloween Costume
As I mentioned in the LED Ring construction post, I wanted to make sure 4 AA batteries would power my 25 RGB LEDs through a good 3+ hours of trick-or-treating. The Adafruit doc provides a good battery...
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Fun with a Waterjet at TechShop
I’ve been eager to join TechShop since they launched many years ago in the Bay Area. This fall we Austin makers finally got our chance! It’s a great space and is connected to a Lowes hardware store,...
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LabVIEW Interface For Arduino on Leonardo
I’ve seen a lot of neat projects using the LabVIEW interface for Arduino (LIFA). It’s a quick way to communicate with an Arduino, build a nice GUI for prototyping or testing sensors, and integrate it...
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