Monthly Archives: June 2015

Jun 26

Friday Post: Working Working Working

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Hey All,

I feel like I have a ton on my plate and nothing to show….yet.  Working on PiPlay, our new remote controller system, an arcade game for Orlando IX, and an arcade machine for Maker Faire Orlando.  It’s going to be a rough couple of months 🙂

This weekend is Community Effort Orlando, an annual fighting game tournament held near the attractions.  I’ve never been to CEO, but I’m really looking forward to it.  Street Fighter V is going to be playable, as well as Tekken 7.  I’m also going to be able to play a lot of arcade games 😀

Have a good weekend!

-Shea

Jun 19

Friday Post: Raspberry Pi Case and No Starch Press Humble Bundle!

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Happy Friday!

This was a long week.  I had three things to do at work.  2 of them took 20 minutes, the last one took 4 days to finish.  I’ve also apparently become addicted to Splatoon on the Wii U.

Official Raspberry Pi Case

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has come out with their official Raspberry Pi Case.  I haven’t gotten my hands on one yet but it looks really nice.

Humble Bundle

I’m a huge fan of No Starch Press, and I love Humble Bundle’s bundles.  I picked up the last No Starch Humble Bundle and it was great.  This time it’s no different.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

This bundle’s list of books:

  • Super Scratch Programming Adventure! by The LEAD Project ( A favorite )
  • The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 2 
  • The Manga Guide to Databases ( I had no idea No Starch published this, a great resource)
  • Wonderful Life with the Elements
  • The Art of LEGO Design
  • No Starch Summer Sampler 2015
  •  JavaScript for Kids (Was sent a review copy, very good, Python for Kids is another in the series)
  • The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder’s Guide
  •  Learn to Program with Scratch
  • Arduino Workshop
  • The Linux Command Line
  • The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Discovery Book
  • Teach Your Kids to Code
  • Automate the Boring Stuff with Python

PiPlay

Mark and I have been working on our remote controller concept that I posted a while ago on the blog.  I’m really impressed with how it’s turning out.  I couldn’t ask for a better team member.  I’m excited to share that in the upcoming weeks.

Jun 14

Late Friday Post: NMC 2015 Conference and Washington DC

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Hey All,

Sorry for not posting on Friday.  I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for the week presenting at the New Media Consortium 2015 Summer Conference.  I was demonstrating UCF’s LTI applications to other schools and representatives.  It was a great experience.  I also got to explore DC, which is an amazing place.  It’s our Capitol, and me having worked / interned for a state representative before, it was very cool to see the bigger version.  Also tons of fun were had at the Smithsonian, the Archives, the Library of Congress, National Zoo, etc. etc. etc. 😀

I’m exhausted, but refreshed.  Pumped to do some awesome things 😀

-Shea

Jun 06

Friday Post: Ubuntu Mate on Pi2

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Hey All,

I do not know how the Splatoon box art got into the title.  That’s crazy.  Anyways, I tested out Ubuntu Mate for the Raspberry Pi2, and it’s impressive.  Everything feels really responsive, Firefox on it is super smooth.  It looks like a good build.  The only problem is that it’s only for the Pi2.  A few years ago I switched all my installs from Ubuntu to vanilla Debian, and I’ve been enjoying that.  Ubuntu Unity didn’t sit well with me, but on Mate, it feels very much XFCE, so I like it.

The next version of PiPlay is coming along, going to be updating to the next version of Raspian, and some various little fixes.  Can’t wait!

Splatoon has been so much fun.  If you have a Wii U it is so worth it.

Have a good weekend all.

-Shea