“sensor box” update
For the past few weeks I’ve had sensors in my studio (2nd floor) and kitchen (first floor) and data collection has been interesting. Some things I’ve learned looking at the data I’ve collected. I’ll post some images to illustrate these in the future, but just wanted to share my notes with other people. The best […]
The “sensor box” project
Digging through sensors I already have, I discovered that my Sparkfun Qwiic Ideation Kit came with an Environmental Combo sensor that can detect temperature, humidity, CO (carbon monoxide), and VOC (volatile organic compounds). The list of VOCs is long but NO2 is in the list. What’s Qwiic? It is a standard from Sparkfun for I2C […]
Context: Gas stoves pollute residential kitchens
Let’s start by saying the thing nobody who loves cooking wants to hear: Gas stoves are bad for the environment and for humans in the kitchen and we should stop using them. Yes, I know they are magic tools for controlling fire. For decades I’ve passed on renting an apartment or a house simply because […]
Interaction Design in the Environment
Starting a new category because I’m starting a new project and it needs a home. For several years I’ve been teaching “Making Things Interactive” at CMU’s IDeATe program with all assignments turned in on the class blog. It’s basically “Arduino 102” where we take what people learned in an intro to physical computing class and […]
Making Things Interactive, the 2020 Quarantine Variant
It’s that time! As I did in previous classes, I’m posting all my notes and students are posting all their assignments to the class blog.
Joe Johnston owes someone a cookie…
…or maybe just a tip of the hat. EDIT:Â Johnston did give Mead credit! Syd Mead, 1960s art for US Steel promotional brochure.
New project in the development pipe
Preview of a new tool stand I’m developing. Still in the design iteration cycle, but I’m ready to start cutting more prototypes for testing.
Moog 60HP Eurorack update
One of the first lessons I learned in consumer electronics is that version 1.0 is the “can we?” release. Version 2.0 is effectively a do-over of 1.0, where we fix all the obvious problems we didn’t fix and the new obvious problems we didn’t predict. Design school has their own version that boils down to […]
Work-in-progress: multiple 60HP (Moog) eurorack
A few years ago when buying Moogfest tickets, I noticed that in addition to the “VIP” ticket option there was another choice, “Engineering/VIP”. Not only do you get VIP status, you get to do something nerdy and take home hardware so *of course* I go for that upgrade. The project turned out to be assembling […]
IKEA’s Accessibility Project
IKEA Israel is supporting ThisAbles, a resource for making IKEA products more usable and helping filter products by qualities. Under the “Tables” section is a list of IKEA tables that are accessible for people in wheelchairs.