Topic awaiting preservation: Monthly Pride for 11-2014 (November)

Day or two late, but it is all good.

A few years ago I decided to get into macrame and all things string, yarn, and rope. As I got into it, I discovered that I couldn't always find the kind of string or rope that I wanted for a given project. So, I looked into making my own. Turns out that I am really good at braiding. Kumihimo and marudai. My barstool marudai has been one of my best friends these past few. If you have a project that requires rope, I am the guy to talk to. I will tell you what to buy, or I will make it myself.

What is my pride this past month?

I have made what I consider to be my perfect rope. It is kermantle, meaning core with a covering like paracord. I braided the core, which and can hold at least 200 lbs (e.g. my fat ass); and the covering is anything I want that is nice and soft. I've been playing with kernmantle on-n-off for a bit and I have finally nailed my perfect blend. The core is strong, has tooth for less slippage with the covering, and is pliable like a mofo. The diameter is approx 8mm for thicker outside yarns and around 6mm for thinner yarns. I really love the 8mm variety because it is very photogenic. So, the rope that fills me with pride is strong on the inside, soft and whatever else I want on the outside, has very little slippage between the two, and is photogenic. I can't ask for more, and it makes my giggly thinking about it.

I am very proud of my braidings. I could talk your ear off for hours on end about these things.

Now, on to Arthurio with a little thread mixing.

Arthurio has managed something that I can only dream of. I can do electro-mechanical and I can do software and algorithms. However, I have a very difficult time marring the two. Arthurio has managed it in spades. Absolute kudos to you, dude! And totally solo to boot. Major kudos! Any place at all in such a situation is a win in my eyes.

What have you accomplished in this past month that you take pride in?

Thanks

Maybe a bit off topic but I'll give away some free pointers to anyone who's interested in a fun project, has done a bit of programming and has a general idea of what volts and amps are.
You really don't need much more than that if you want to make something that rolls around a bit and entertains your guests or perhaps automates a physical task that you find too tedious to do yourself. Remote controlled or completely autonomous it's up to you.

First it's not as intimidating or arcane as it used to be. Also it's cheap now at least compared to what the parts used to cost some years ago.
You can get everything from ebay if you don't mind waiting a bit for the stuff to arrive from china.

I really suck at soldering so this is from the perspective of someone who doesn't mind a prototype quality product as long as it works.

You need a controller board. This is the core of your machine that everything else connects to. You plug it into your computer's usb port and load a program onto it. Quite straight forward.
Arduino is your first choice. Huge community, lots of features, comes with a little IDE program for organizing your libraries, writing code, compiling and loading them into the arduino.
A blinking led seems to be the "Hello World!" of the microcontroller world. With arduino all you need to do is copy paste and a few clicks to get the hang of what's going on.
There are lots of variants. Generally the bigger it is the more features it has but the larger ones may not fit into a little box if you're making something tiny.
There are libraries for everything from controlling servo motors to sensors, little screens etc.
Also not very picky about it's power source. Takes 5v, a 9v battery or a 10-pack of AA rechargables like I used with no real difference.

There are other more advanced (in some sense) boards like raspberry pi which runs a whole linux os but these are more fiddly and picky about everything.

Then you'll need actuators: dc motors, stepper motors, servo motors, anything that creates motion.
Unless you're working with really tiny actuators you want to keep an eye on the volts and amps here.
Also think about how strong your actuators need to be in order to achieve what they need to do.
You don't want to run a lot of amps through your controller board.
Anything a bit bigger and you'll need a driver (on a board and presoldered preferably) such as for servos you might need a servo driver and for dc motors a dc motor driver or an H-bridge.
H-bridges take a separate power source so you can keep your circuits nicely separate and don't need to worry about frying your controller.
These are basically tiny little things that act as mediators between your controller and actuator.

Then perhaps some sensors, indicators, buttons etc. All of these can be obtained presoldered to boards that are compatible with arduinos and other microcontrollers.
All you need to do it wire them up to the controller, find the relevant libraries, write a few lines of code and you're ready to go.
These don't generally need separate power sources and can be powered through your controller just fine.

A breadboard and some different jumper wires wouldn't hurt for quick prototyping and a solderless experience.

There are lots of kits, tutorials and other materials available to get you started.
For example:
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Ping
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Sweep
Just search ebay for "arduino kit" or "arduino mega kit"
"mega 2560" is one of the bigger arduino boards - has the most features and connectivity options.
There are lots of sub $100 kits available which are a great place to start when you just want to play a bit and don't yet know what you'll need exactly.
Don't worry about who the manufacturer of something is. Cheap chinese knockoffs will get the job done just fine. Buy anything from hobbyist stores or even arduino.cc and you'll quickly find that you need to at least quadruple your budget for no benefit at all.

So just get into it and make something you can show off and be proud of! It's rewarding and fun.

Busy busy busy.

I won't be getting too much into robotic. However, you have provided me with a solution to a problem that I have been having. Project I have been building in my head and I haven't, until now, found a control system. I've tried looking, but didn't use or have the proper keywords to find what I have been looking for. That much closer to building my dream machine. Big piece of the puzzle you've given me. Many thanks.

Rock on!