December 12, 2020

Raspberry Pi and Gamepad Programming Part 1: Reading the Device

Last week I wrote up how to prepare the UCTRONICS robot I’ve been playing with for hacking.. This week, I’m taking a break to update an old tutorial from five years ago: how to use a gamepad to control a Raspberry Pi. This post has been around a few years, and I just found out that a bunch of images broke, so it’s time to update with a new Pi and easier-to-follow instructions.

December 7, 2020

Hacking the UCTRONICS Robot Car: Prepping for Hacks

Last week I assembled a Raspberry Pi-based car kit. I bought the kit from Amazon. (Affiliate link.) The car has a live video camera, a sonic collision sensor, and a line-following sensor. You’ll need a Raspberry Pi to go with it. I recommend a 3 B+. The car works with an Android or iOS app, and the apps are functional enough, but where’s the fun in simply relying on them?

December 2, 2020

Hacking a UCTRONICS Robot Car Kit

I picked up a Raspberry Pi based robot last week and started to hack around with it. I am going to write a series of posts documenting putting it together, getting it running, and then replacing the factory code with something a little more hack friendly. There’s a lot of photos here, so please be patient with the page speed. Also, when it comes to photography, I guess you’d say I’m a great programmer.

September 18, 2020

Juxtaposition

Around 850,000 people filed new unemployment claims in the U.S. last week. Apple announced new pricing that will save users money on their music, TV, and video game service. People are still recovering from Hurricane Sally on the Gulf, while others are undoubtedly still recovering from Marco, a storm largely forgotten because it “only” caused damages of about $10 million. That’s a tiny number. Unless of course, your home is included in it and you still don’t have a job because of the pandemic.

September 16, 2020

False Memory

I wrote about cooler temperatures on Monday. Here we are on Wednesday and it feels like Fall. In what still passes for normal to my mind, the weather would stay like this for a couple of weeks, then the temperature would spike up for a week or less in October, and then fall back to autumnal levels. But that doesn’t seem to be how it works in our new climate regime.

September 15, 2020

Down Week

It’s a down week. I have to stay close to home and a computer since I need to be reachable in the event something goes wrong at work. (Or is it “with” work instead of “at”, since there’s no real sense of “at” in these pandemic days?) Being on call makes it a down week since I can’t head out on the bike for my early morning rides. My sore knee is happy with this, although part of me is scheming about trying out running, since that would keep me close enough to home.

September 14, 2020

Can Cooler Temperatures Prevail?

Up early today, which seems to be a habit I’ve successfully rebuilt. Back before the pandemic I was getting up early every day, but early into the stay-at-home, I lost it since I didn’t need to get up early to get things done before the commute. Now it’s back because I made my own reasons instead of relying on traffic and late buses to make it necessary. The light breeze coming from the open window is a cool 67 degrees.

July 8, 2020

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Going forward I’ll be posting daily post on days that are mildly interesting for one reason or another, such as a bike ride. There as much for me as for you, and I won’t be blasting these out to subscribers. Today I got up a little early and took a ride over to Piermont, NY, one of mt favorite cycling destinations when I only have an hour or so to ride.

July 7, 2020

Progress Report

Back in the pre-COVID days, I blogged about getting into shape and holding my self accountable on this blog. While I have fallen down on posting about it, I have stuck with the program. Feb 15 vs. Jul 5 The photo on the left is February 15th and the right is July 5th. There’s a 32-pound difference. (My wife took one photo, while the other was done using the self-timer on my phone.