Category Archives: things that don’t work

The Pin Dance

Posted on March 6, 2022 by paulwallich

Don’t get me wrong, I love Circuit Python. Sure, I could get stuff done in the ugly stepchild language that is Arduino, but the niggling details, the mediocre IDE, none of it was my friend. And truth to tell, it’s … Continue reading →

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Posted on February 6, 2020 by paulwallich
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Failing to fail

Posted on February 6, 2020 by paulwallich

I’ve been working on and off with Blinkinlabs’ BlinkyTape and pixels, which means also with their nice little app PatternPaint, which lets you create little light shows to download to their LED strands without all the annoying number-fiddling that is … Continue reading →

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The short happy life of a Popup Makerspace

Posted on February 20, 2019 by paulwallich

We’re out of empty offices at Local 64, so it’s time to pack up the laser cutter, the 3D printer and all the other toys. if you build it, it turns out most people are too busy to come. Six … Continue reading →

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Arduino on Windows: not ready for prime time

Posted on July 10, 2017 by paulwallich

I’ve been teaching a little middle-school mobile robot workshop at the 12-year-old’s school, and it’s been a mess. The kids did pretty well assembling the bots and wiring them up, but clearly I needed to spend much more than the … Continue reading →

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A really stupid feature set

Posted on November 14, 2016 by paulwallich

In the process of getting solar panels, we talked ourselves into a heat pump with a couple of split heating/cooling units (gotta find something for all those nice renewable kilowatts to do). But it turns out that Mitsubishi designers are … Continue reading →

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The autopilot conundrum

Posted on May 11, 2016 by paulwallich

This morning I stopped by a local school where some of the kids had crowdfunded a 3D printer (a printrbot Play) to see if I could help them get it working. I seem to have become the town expert, which … Continue reading →

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There’s a reason some things are surplus

Posted on May 3, 2016 by paulwallich

The 11-year-old has been bugging me for a few years now that he wants to build a crystal radio set, and sourcing the parts individually is something of a pain. So when I saw a kit for cheap at a … Continue reading →

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The gift that never ends

Posted on March 22, 2016 by paulwallich

This winter I had the idea of donating my old Cupcake CNC to the local library. Get it out of the basement, I thought. Put it where other people can use it. Find a home for all that extra 3mm … Continue reading →

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Progress is Bad

Posted on February 1, 2016 by paulwallich

I’ve been working for a while on a wearable accelerometer/datalogger project, and I came up with a nice breadboard prototype using a spare Seeduino Stalker plus a bunch of other parts. But that’s kinda big to actually wear. Next up: … Continue reading →

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