Feb 24

Book Review: Python For Kids

Hey All,

I met No Starch Press at PyCon 2012 where they were showing off chapters of their then upcoming book, Python For Kids by Jason R. Briggs.  I was talking to them and expressed interest in getting a copy for the students in my department at the University.  At the end of December the book started shipping and No Starch was kind enough to contact me and send me a copy.

I have to say that I think the book is great.  It has 18 chapters and is around 300 pages, with the book split up into 3 parts.  The first part is an introduction to Python 3, the syntax, as well as standard programming conventions like loops and variables and functions.  It also goes into modules, turtle graphics (like the LOGO language of old), objects, classes, and the tkinter GUI library.

The second part gets to the fun activities you can do with Python like programming games!  All the chapters in this part of the book are about using tkinter and Python to make a pong / arkanoid like game and it walks you through every step of the process.

The third part of the books builds upon the previous game, and teaches the reader how to make a simple platforming game, complete with sprites, animations, and events.

I REALLY liked this book.  I tried to read a chapter a day, and I kept having to stop myself because I would say just one more chapter tonight… (I like to pace myself).  I feel the author really captures what a kid would like to learn about and presents it in a manner that will keep them entertained, motivated, and interested.

I do have two very minor nitpicks about the book that stayed with me while I was reading it.  The first one was the lack of explaining types.  The author dives right into strings, and ints, and floats, but doesn’t explain what the difference is between them, or why you would use one over the other.  I think a simple introduction and type chart  would have made the first part a much easier read for a beginner.  The second nitpick* is that the last part of the book ramps up the difficulty.  You do get a finished game out of it, so the challenge isn’t for nothing, but I still found it to be a bit jarring after breezing through my reading of the earlier chapters.

Barring those two very minor issues, I think this is a fabulous book.  For a programming book, it is on the inexpensive side, at around $20, and packs a good amount of material for the price.  I recommend it.

-Shea

*A good friend of mine told me that I’m not looking at this one through kid glasses.  They would probably have no issue with the difficulty ramp up, and would in fact welcome the challenge.

 

Feb 22

Friday Post: Baked Raspberry Pi

Full Disclosure: Seeed Studio sent me the Wireless Charging Module for free because I entered their reviewer contest.

Hey All,

So I said I had some cool hardware to show off today, and here it is: Seeed Studio’s Wireless Charging Module

photo (1)

This kit uses inductive charging to transfer power “wirelessly” from one coil to the other.  You put in 12v 1A on the transmitter end, and on the other end you get 5v 0.6A.

I initially had some trouble getting it setup.  I was trying connectors in every different position, every combination I could think of.  It took me a day to realize my power supply was set to 9v rather than 12v.  Once I upped the voltage, I could hold the coils an inch away from each other and still keep a charge.  I also tried putting things in between the coils to see how much interference it could take.  It had no problems with a coupon book, business cards, a small plastic mint case, though it did have issues being between a remote.

Now, me being me, I had to try this with the Raspberry Pi, and I knew I had to do something special.  My coworker Mike has been fiddling with bare metal assembly on the Pi, and has ported NyanCat to the system.  His github repo with the source assembly code and pre built binary is available here.

By connecting the receiver coil to the 5v and GND GPIO pins, I was able to wirelessly power the Pi.

I hope you enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

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PiMAME 0.6 should be out this weekend 😀

Feb 21

3Doodler and Raspberry Pi On-Off Switch

Hey All,

You all know I’m a huge Kickstarter fan.  This week has proved to be an awesome time for projects (and a sad day for my wallet).  Two projects caught my eye, the first one is the 3Doodler.

The 3Doodler is a hot-glue-gun like device that uses a plastic extruder to create 3D shapes in air.  The plastic extruder is one that you would normally see in a 3D printer like the Makerbot, but has been adapted to be handheld.  Because the plastic cools rapidly, it can create sturdy shapes that can be drawn anywhere.

It already surpassed the million dollar mark, so I have high hopes for this project.  I backed it at the $75 October level, so I hope to get mine then and be able to do a review of it.  If you are into 3D Printing and artwork, you may want to consider backing this project!

Another Kickstarter I backed this week is a project for the Raspberry Pi.  It’s an on/off switch that talks to the Pi via GPIO and activates a safe software shutdown before cutting power.

I’ve talked to the creator, he’s a member of the Raspberry Pi forums, and is quite excited about this project.  It’s $22 for this batch of boards.  If you are looking for a power switch for your Pi, this may be it.

I have a cool piece of hardware to show tomorrow.  Looking forward to sharing it with you all!

-Shea

Feb 16

Quick List of Raspberry Pi Disk Images

Hey all,

A fellow Redditor ,  jfOIhe7Fl, has made a cool website which keeps track of pre-made Raspberry Pi Disk Images.

The site is available here: http://raspberrypidiskimages.com/ and the Reddit thread is here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/18n9w4/quick_list_of_raspberry_pi_disk_images/

There are some good ones in there, including PiMAME 😉

Hope you all enjoy it!

-Shea

Feb 15

Friday Post: Pebble

Hey All,

I want to start this by saying I LOVE Kickstarter.  I have funded many projects, most have succeeded  some have been delayed, some are still in the will it succeed or will it fail phase.  I really like the Kickstarter model.  It’s not a store.  It’s a risk vs reward for the backers, and a way to make the creators dreams come true.  I plan on putting the DeskCade on Kickstarter very soon(tm).

Today I am going to talk about the Pebble Smartwatch.  I backed this many months ago, and it’s an ambitious project.  It was the first Kickstarter project to reach 10 million dollars.  I received my Pebble last Sunday, and I would like to write some initial thoughts on it.

TL;DR Cliffs Notes:  It’s got potential, with a firmware update it will be awesome, but it’s just not there yet.

My out of the box experience with the Pebble sucked.  I was using an iPhone 4S with iOS 5 because they said it was supported.  Well it isn’t 100% supported on iOS 5.  The app gets stuck trying to talk to the Pebble, and the firmware update that’s available hangs.  iOS 5 will send a notification when you get a call, but no notifications on texts or e-mail.

The next day I updated to iOS 6, and lo and behold, everything worked.  For about 2 hours.  When I sit down at my work desk, I usually take off my watch to code.  When I stepped away for a bit, nothing worked anymore.  I had to re sync the Bluetooth connection, turn off notifications and then re-enable them for it to work again.  And then I walked away again and it happened again.  It’s a frustrating issue that I know will be fixed in a firmware release.  It has too for this product to be successful.  I has to just work..

One other software gripe:  Please put a battery indicator and a charging indicator somewhere on the screen.

Onto the good:

The build quality is amazing!  Even though it’s only plastic, it feels solid and tough.  The screen is very easy to read.  The battery life so far has been great.  The charger has a very Apple Magsafe connector feel to it.  You place the charger on the side of the pebble and the magnets pull it into position.  As a watch, it’s great.

Conclusion:

This is going to be a great product.  I have no doubt.  Once they get the kinks out of it on the software side, I’m never going to take it off.  I’ve seen it work.  It has the potential to be a paradigm shift in wearable computers with it’s SDK.  I have high hopes for the creators.  I want to be able to back more of their ideas.

——————————-

On a side note, PiMAME 0.6 is in the works.  I’m hoping to release it next week.  Te latest edition of Raspbian came out last week.  I tried moving over to that, but it’s still slower than the older release of Raspbian I’m using.  It also seems to require a bigger SD card as it’s just hitting the 2GB limit.

I’m going to continue using the older Raspbian, I’m putting in a start-up menu so you can access frequently accessed items, and I’m working on making the image smaller so there aren’t as many issues with temperamental SD cards.

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Shea

Feb 08

Friday Post: Warm Bodies and Instamorph

Hey All,

Happy Friday!  I am going to spend most of tomorrow in bed.  I’m beat.  Grad School is great, but exhausting.  Working full time, school, and hobbies (plus my upcoming wedding) is insane.  And yet, I LOVE every second of it.

Warm Bodies

Tonight I had a well deserved date night with the fiancee.  We went and saw the movie Warm Bodies.  It’s a Zom-Rom-Com, like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.  I highly recommend it.

Instamorph

I forget where I saw this product initially, but once I started reading up on it, I had to have it.  Instamorph is mold-able  reusable, quick setting plastic.  The product comes as plastic pellets which you pour into just below boiling water.  When the plastic becomes clear, you can take it out and mold it into any shape you want.  As it cools, it hardens and turns white.

instamorphcat

Kristene made that in about 5 minutes.  I’m going to use it to make standoffs for my Raspberry Pi within the DeskCade.

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

 

 

Feb 07

PiMAME, AdvanceMAME, and AdvanceMENU Tankstick Configuration

edit: Added dual stick configuration to advmame.rc

Hey all,

Here is a working config for the XGaming X-Arcade Tankstick!  The base of this comes from the very helpful site: http://www.raspberry.cat/20130203/pimame-i-x-arcade/

The first step is to edit /etc/rc.local and include this line before “exit 0”: Continue reading

Feb 01

Friday Post: Nano Quadcopter

Hey All,

Not much to write about this week.  Halfway through the Python for Kids book, will be writing a full review once I get through it all.  My graduate course is ramping up, but I’m still loving it.  Working out the kinks on the Tankstick, like the fact that when I tried to play SF2 with my fiancee, the second player buttons wouldn’t register in game…whoops!  Now onto the meat of the post!

If you have never been to Seeedstudio.com, you really should take a look.  They are an open hardware manufacturer   If you have an idea, and can make a prototype, they can probably mass produce it for you. They are currently selling preorders for a Nano Quadcopter.

At work, we have a couple of the $20 RC Helicopters that we play around with whenever we need to take a break.  We always wanted to get a quadcopter for the office, but most of the time, they are very expensive, too big, and not a full kit.  The size being the biggest factor.  This new quadcopter comes with everything you need, is open source, inexpensive, and best of all, fits in your hand!

One has already been ordered by my coworkers, and should arrive in April.  I’m excited to play with this thing (and hopefully not break a wing on my first attempt!)

Have a great weekend!

-Shea