Invendiscovry

I've been quite busy, recently. As adulthood fast approaches, more and more responsibilities slowly creep into my life, making it more and more essential that I manage my time well. I think I've done OK, but I think I could do a lot better... But let me tell you what I've been busy with! The main thing is The ProtoBot Project. I've been designing an open source, arduino based mini robot. It's small, fun, and costs less than $12 for the materials used to make it. That's not all I've been working on, since I've been working with the 4-H robotics coach to host STEM camps where kids build these- Which means I'm also working on creating guides for those, improving those guides, and improving the robot to make it easier to build. On top of it all, we're presenting the project at the Western Regional Leadership Forum, a conference in San Diego, CA for 4-H Educators and volunteers. It's gonna be a ton of fun, but there's also a lot of prepa...

I’m a person who has a lot of ideas for projects. Something I see at a thrift store will inspire an idea for a project involving that thing- Sometimes it’s a tool I think I need, and all it needs is that one thing, and some of my time.  I’m also a person who already has a lot of projects. When a new one comes along, I have to shove it in among a dusty pile of projects to-do. If it’s really interesting, I start working on it, shoving whatever I was working on into the pile instead. I’m rarely ever not working on some project of sorts. I don’t stop having ideas for cool projects. Pretty soon, I’ve got a pile of projects in the attic of my brain, some of which are overflowing into the livingspace. It starts to get a little hard to focus on one thing. I’ve got no time to do any of them, because I’m too busy trying to get them all done at once. Project cutter is mentally - And physically. I’ve got stuff saved because I have a project in mind for later, and stuff that I don...

  I just finished a YouTube video that's been stewing in the back of my mind for quite a while. It's an Arduino Uno hooked up to a vintage  SAA1099  square wave generator chip, playing "Fireflies", by Owl City. When I first conceived the idea, I wanted to make a bunch of cuts in the video to different angles. However, with the equipment I had at that time, it would have been several days of work, at least. Recently, I bought/made a few tools that made the production of this video much easier than I'd thought it would be. I'm quite pleased with the results. My crazy "Studio" setup   What was the equipment? An vintage high quality thrift store tripod (5$), an homemade audio input adapter for my phone (Free), and the craziest lighting setup I've attempted (Also free), and I got some pretty nice video and flawless audio!   I'm looking forward to making more cool videos in the near future, and maybe eventually I'll even buy so...