Author: Richard

Why care about MIT App Inventor?

The other day I made a post about using App Inventor to create a simple UI for the Particle Photon. I have also been working on a project that involves an internet connected Weather Cloud. To make it easy for the owner to control this cloud, I have put together and Android app.

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This works much faster that using something like IFTTT and requires no additional libraries like Blynk.

This brings up an interesting observation when it comes to IOT. If you want to interact with your devices, there are not a lot of good ways to go about it.
You can throw some Ajax onto your web server. If you have a web server that is.
Connect your devices API to another companies API and send your data on an epic journey when you are often in the same room as the device you are sending data to.
Make your own API and take pride that you have joined a legacy of frustrated developers world wide. Then scrap it all to use IFTTT just so much easier.
You could add a few new libraries to your firmware so that it can talk to a custom UI app like Blynk. This is actually not a bad option except that I should not have to add a new library to exploit the basic HTTP interaction protocol that comes standard with the Particle API.
Going back to the web server thing, you can just use a simple HTML page and form data for interaction. This just leaves your device credentials open for the world to see.

This is the problem with IOT right now. There are lots of ways to interact with devices, but no really good way to just go from user to device for the average person. App Inventor gives us a quick fix by letting us create an app that just uses HTTP GET and POST requests while keeping the credentials private. However, we need something better. An app that uses basic the preexisting protocol with an intuitive UI.

This is what I am working on at the moment with Vince at SoDo MakerSpace. An app like Blynk with no additional libraries, IFTTT without the additional API hooks, and Ajax without all of the coding.

I feel like this will help to open the door to the dream of IOT for the masses.

Kombucha Harvesting Time!

IMAG0674_BURST002Recently a fellow maker, Jon, gave us a Scoby so we could make our own Kambucha… 2 weeks later and it is ripe for drinking. I got a bottle full in the fridge for tomorrow and the rest will be bottled for secondary fermentation.

IMAG0673_BURST002_COVEROur first attempt found us brewing up a bunch of caffeine free green tea. This was not so good for Scoby growth, but it did spawn a second mother. So now we are going to try and get a second pot going as well.

IMAG0676_BURST002As far as the secondary fermentation goes, we have added some ginger and I put on some frozen Rasberries and Blue Berries. We will see how it goes.

 

Such a nice day

This is the first day when it has been nice weather and I don’t have loads of work to do. So I thought it would be nice to take a trip to get some plants for the garden.

Along the way I stopped to take some photos of some blown out windows from the coffee house that exploded a few weeks ago.

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2 Days After the Explosion.
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Today

imageWhile all of the shops still have plywood in the windows…

most have gotten artists to paint them with colorful murals. Here are a few from around the neighborhood.

Later I got a bag full of plants.

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Then I got the garden all set up.

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Lettuce is on the Left, herbs, root veggies, then spinach and other cook-able greens.

Low Carb enchiladas… kinda

Emily and I are trying out low carb. While I do miss potatoes and crackers, it has forced me to be a little creative with my cooking.

A friend gave us a recipe for this crackpot pulled pork soup that used enchilada sauce. Well I am done eating just meat soup so I decided to try making enchiladas.

I won’t really get into the filling part of this since you could use whatever. Slow cooked and seasoned chicken, beef, pork, fish, or even Tofu would work. Once your meat has cooked, you will want to boil a head of cabbage. Be sure to boil the entire thing because we want the leafs intact. This will likely take one hour in a large pot of water.

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With a spoon, try and separate the leafs in the pot to help cook the innermost leaves. I used purple cabbage just because it looks nice, but any type would do.

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Drain out the water when the leafs are nice and tender, then rinse them off in cold water so they are easy to handle. These leafs will be used as your enchilada wrappers.

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Scoop about 2 large spoon fulls of filling into one of the cabbage leafs. Be sure to leave more room on once side to wrap the filling up with.

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Place your wrapped enchilada into a baking dish. Place these into the dish with the overlapped part of the cabbage leaf facing down.

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Once you have a few of these packed into the dish, it’s time to add some cheese. Emily loves the cheese. We used Jack cheese for this one, but cheddar or whatever will work.

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Now it’s into the oven with you. Bake for one hour at 400° should do it.

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You will want to check on things just before the hour is up. You want to see bubbly cheese with a bit of browning on top.

Let that cool for at least 5 minutes, then add sour cream and chow down. The cabbage leafs should be tender enough to cut with a fork.

We made a larger dish for weekday lunches.

What do you think of the Ghostbusters Trailer Disaster?

I totally agree with this and got a bit of flack from people for not liking the idea of it since the first poster photo. Let’s face it, Hollywood is predictable and even if it were an all man cast it would be the same rehashed jokes mixed with some modern pop culture references and CGI. While I am not entirely against remakes, I am against a studio taking a ground breaking movie and redoing it “the right way”.

You can not compare movies like Star Wars, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Aliens, and Evil Dead with the modern day remakes. They created a new thing that changed the game. They may not look as slick as the movies we make today, but they are a perfect blend of storytelling and creative effects. It’s like saying; “Jim Henson was good, but we have way better puppets now”. Yes, we have some amazing people making amazing puppets, but I bet you that every last one of them will tribute their success to Jim Henson.

If Hollywood wants to do more remakes, try doing them with franchises that did not do well because they were ahead of the times.

The Last Star fighter… why is this not a thing yet!!!
The Black Cauldron live action movie… From the books, not Disney.

Anyway, that is all I have to say about it.

Some times I feel like…

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A wizard or soothsayer when I decide to go out on an adventure.

Last night a few of us went to the art walk to see the public opening of a sculpture that I helped with by adding motion and lighting to. This was at the Method gallery and it was rather busy all night.

As we viewed some of the other artists, we visited the studio of Suzanne Tidwell. She is responsible for some of that Yarn Bombing that goes on in the city from time to time. In her collection there were some of these brightly colored poles that she was selling. They were from a large commission to make a field of Cat tails in the wetlands around a university. Now one of them is in our garden.

However, since I purchased this piece near the beginning of our art walk, I had to carry it triumphantly for the rest of the night. Me, with my LED scarf and a yarn covered staff… Wizard.

Www.Suzannetidwell.com

How to add Sound Effects to a Costume

From time to time I am asked about adding sound to a prop or costume. Thankfully, Adafruit has made this supper easy for all of us with a line of Audio FX boards that can be triggered without writing a single line of code.

Here are a few kits that I have picked out for anyone looking to add such a device to their outfit or prop.  Continue reading How to add Sound Effects to a Costume