Blog
Build logs, project notes, and write-ups from the workshop.
- ClusterBot Build — Soldering Headers onto the Pololu Motor Driver Soldering pin headers onto the Pololu dual DC motor driver board for the ClusterBot Arduino robot. Covers why the headers matter, alignment technique, and how the board bridges Arduino logic to motor power.
- ClusterBot Build — Soldering Wires to the Tamiya Twin Motor Gearbox Soldering hookup wires to the motors of the Tamiya 70097 Twin Motor Gearbox for the ClusterBot Arduino robot. Covers motor terminal access, wire gauge choice, polarity conventions, and the gotcha that reverses your robot.
- Arduino Random LED Flasher — Teaching Your Arduino to Be Unpredictable A quick intro to Arduino random number generation via a simple multi-LED flasher. Covers random(), randomSeed(), and why seeding from analog noise matters for true unpredictability.
- Pulling the MSP430 Off the Launchpad: A Standalone Hello World on a Breadboard The TI MSP430 Launchpad ships with two chips and a DIP package you can actually remove. Here is how to take the chip off the board, run it from two AA batteries, and get blinking LEDs on a bare breadboard for about 50 cents in parts.
- First Arduino Project: Modifying Hello World to Blink 3 LEDs The classic Arduino Hello World blinks one LED. What happens when a first-timer decides to add two more? A quick tour through variables, wiring, and a bug that teaches more than the working version ever would.
- Windows 7 Speech Recognition: A Complete Walkthrough of the Built-In Tutorial Walking through the Windows 7 built-in speech recognition training wizard from start to finish — what it covers, how the accuracy holds up, and where voice input was actually useful in 2010.