Nearly 11 years on Facebook. I took me a day to realize Facebook was selling my ass back to myself. “Friends” that exist only there, will any of them ever write me? Better off lonely.
Working with a group at Cal U, I assumed the position of PR and Hardware Chair. Becaue I’m old. Learning how to hack devices, knock-offs of quality dev boards with unknown vuls. It’s exciting, but exactly the kind of thing I was worried about with ad-hoc networks: Parts cert and test. I used a toy to command an IoT hub, turned it into an UART device that just did bit banging commands to remotely fire up motor shields and sensors in other networks. Best blunder of February 2018. I smashed my Batcycle and a Tumbler popped out, freaky! I turned it into a PLC. I used Windows IoT, Zerinth, Git, PuTTY, Arduino, Micropython, Adafruit and some apps on phone.
I reported it, sent screen grab to professor, posted at Adafruit, and then destroyed the network. Uninstalled IDE, rebuilt it with a more stable system, but the bugs are coming out. Bugs are good. Bugs and logic are friends
I have a board for designing an interactive game. It’s two networks, with a subroutine of a game vs a motor assembly with a range of sensors and sensor assembly running on each one. One sleeps while the other works. They talk and listen. They are Things.
I can’t believe it took this long to get things working properly. Once I get this machine operating ( Summer’s end ), I can load a node into a drone and use it to fly BVLOS. Tests are critical for setting up buffers and transfers. Chinese knock off stuff is sometimes frustrating, but also fun to play with if you don’t mind crashing your entire system.
I wish I could get my hands on three laptops and do unatural things to game environments. My major concern is that some of this equipment might be used by others, temotely. And then I figured it probably already is. I am learning to shut up about my work. It is frustrating and fun.
I will have my own fun ISP by September. My own IoT WLAN. My Stuff, my Things.
Here is a sloppy diagram of an UART-USART bridge network that plays a game and dispenses a prize. Motor aray not shown.
The oranges are functions. Motors not present. Not describing the game. I created cards for modalities and loaded gear for modules into bags along with wires.
I am working on motors and soldering LED equipment, but every night, I am learning to flash memory to little field devices, making my own internet. I am internet now!
Weird and old! Yay!
Fifty State Banana 