Last month we went to the zoo with the kids. We played fair games and won a few cheap stuffed animals. They were so crappy we decided we would try to make something fun out of it. Around the same time, at my son’s summer camp, the instructor was telling them scary stories. That...
Astronomy Picture Of the Day on your Android
I spent the last week or so learning Android programming. I find it important, in the learning of a new programming tool, to write something with clear specifications. This forces you to work on the best solution instead of using easy to code work-arounds. The specifications are: The application should allow the user to read the...
2012 Venus Transit
We had a perfect weather all day long and 15 minutes before the transit started, dark clouds rolled in and ruined the show! I got these two shots before the sun completely disappeared behind the clouds … I also uploaded some pictures of my camera and binoculars with the solar filters. I built the binoculars...
2012 Venus Transit
A quick reminder … Don’t miss the last Venus Transit until 2117! It starts today (june 5th) at 22:09UTC. Venus will be visible against the solar disk for about 6 hours. The transit ends at 04:49UTC. More of my pictures of the 2004 Venus transit on my astrophoto website at astrophoto.ca....
Quiz Buzzer System
Last Christmas I built a Quiz Buzzer System for my mother. She is a big fan of television quizzes and love to organize some with her friends and family. The particularity of this project is that you can choose your team buzzer sound from a list of more than 30 digital sounds. The system...
First custom PCB
This is my first working printed circuit board. I used the toner transfer method to draw the traces on the copper board. The purpose of this circuit board is to drive a stepper motor. This is a proof of concept for the final board version that will complete my equatorial mount project. The equatorial mount...
Keypad & LCD Display
While I was still trying to figure out what to do these 10 keypads, I received an LCD Display I ordered on eBay. It’s friday, I have no better idea than plug them both on an Arduino and code something. I started from the circuit of the Keypad article and moved the wires connected...
Cheap Keypad and Arduino
I just received a package of 10 flexible keypads I bought on eBay for 15.88$, shipping included. Having a keypad in your project opens so many possibilities, at 1.59$ each I think it’s a deal! I found a keypad library for Arduino on the Arduino Playground. I made some minor modifications to the sample...
Tweetbot … the code
You can now find the code of the twitter robot on my github at: https://github.com/pchretien/tweetbot Feel free to fork … copying is not stealing! :)...
Playing With The Beaglebone
I just received my Beaglebone and started experimenting with it. The Beaglebone is a low cost, single board Linux computer with tons of IOs to interface with the physical world. My objective is to make a Python Robot using the Beaglebone as the brain and my Makerbot to build the frame. I found an...