For the longest time, that big ol board seemed like a bit of an overkill. Digging around the internet, you can find folks building Arduino based projects that are WAY over engineered.  Including anything on hack a day with an arduino tag. Why pay 35 bucks for a board when a  $2 microprocessor will do the trick.

I started to play with Microprocessors with the Picaxe.  Its a neat little  chip.

Its basically a PIC, with a bootstrap OS of sorts. This firmware allows you to use a MUCH simpler programmer.

Just a few resistors and diodes…and a serial port.  (Alas, I no longer have a laptop with a serial port)

Its very simple to program, but the ease of use has the trade off of less speed.  Also, the chip programmer requires a serial port, which I no longer have. Just any usb to serial converter will not do the trick.  (Seems that usb to serial converters do no pulse that juicy high voltage spike needed to erase the PIC).

They do sell a $30 cable for this, but considering that  I have about $10 of picaxe chips, its not worth the hardware.  I’m done with Picaxe.

The next thing I played with was just the straight up PIC chip.   These are great, but, since I was going for speed, I used assembly. The speed is very nice, but its a pain in the butt.  It would take forever to figure out whats what, and lets face it, every chip is a little different so its hard to find examples in the exact PIC dialect you are using.
Im done using Assembly. I can always go back if I need the fine control.

In September, I broke down and got a C compiler for the PIC. It saved a LOT of time with projects. There are still issues with getting started, but as with anything technical, most of that is setup.  Once your up and running…works great.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself.  I didnt feel guilty about trading off CPU for design speed with the C compiler.  Then I went to the Tanner Electronics Robots show.

There were so many projects that just bypassed the whole hardware design phase by using an arduino that I had to get one.  On top of that, the processing language is very similar to Java.  So why not.  Yes, its overkill, but considering the time saved in building all the interfaces out, its worth it. It works like a charm.

So….what to build!

My girlfriend has a pretty extensive background with robotics after working at Hanson Robotics. It was a pretty small company so her work was not just finance, but a little of everything…including working with skins. So ultimatly, we would like to build on that and come up with some projects together.

In the meantime, I have a lot to learn about robots.

Ill be starting with plenty of small projects to learn just the mechanics and common sense things that you have to simply learn by doing. For example, with the arduino, its easy to hook up a servo to a PWM channel and tell it to go to a position.  But the time it takes to get there is like an eternity to a microprocessor. My first experiment with servos seemed glitchy and stuttered.  It took a few tries to realize…ah….delays are needed.

Robot stuff will be here.

With the sound command you can put out a sound at a pitch to any of the output pins. Its just a square wave. Unforturnatly its not very asynchronous so when  you kick off a 100ms note you lose control of everything else.  Lets face it…a 1 second note is an ETERNITY to a micro processor.  However, the way the PICAXE works is that you are trading having to deal with interrupts for a simple command.  From what I can tell, there is no way around this  (except for using an external source to trigger an interrupt..but thats another test).

ya, the Picaxe is not the best sound source. Well it is kinda, but you just gotta be creative.  This particular exercise did not explore much beyond creating simple sounds and reading from the ADC.

The program is as follows:

symbol rndW=w5
symbol rndB=b10
symbol tempo =1   'tempo controller
symbol note = 4   'starting note controller
symbol PIEZO0=0   'piezo speaker

symbol tmpNote=b3
symbol tmpSpeed=b4

init:

start:

' ### read note and speed
readadc tempo,tmpSpeed
readadc note,tmpNote

' adjust values a bit to a reasonable value
let tmpSpeed = tmpSpeed / 5 MIN 1
let tmpNote = tmpNote / 4 MIN 4

' ## play first note
sound PIEZO0,(tmpNote, tmpSpeed)

pause tmpSpeed

'  ### play second note
tmpNote = tmpNote + 10  '  note + 10
sound PIEZO0,(tmpNote, tmpSpeed)

pause tmpSpeed

'  ### play third note
tmpNote = tmpNote + 10
sound PIEZO0,(tmpNote, tmpSpeed)

pause tmpSpeed

goto start

Nothing too special. Two pots control the speed and the starting note.

The sound command puts out a sound for a specified amount of time. Values from 0 to 127 (or so) are notes and from 128 to 255 are a pitched noise. This program picks values that are within the sound range so I divide the number by 4 to give me a range from 1 to 63 or so.

Basically it reads the tempo and pitch and uses those values to kick off a three note arpeggio.

The synchronous nature of the chip can be felt by selecting a slow rate and cranking it to a fast one. You have to wait for the whole slow sequence to finish before the fast one kicks off.

so anyway….this works.  Not well…but it works.

Picaxe Arpeggiator

Here is how I do it.

First I usually let it get to the point where a lot of the bedding is gone. At this point you generate more bedding and divide the it so that the fresh bedding on one side and and the casings are on the other.

The idea is that over the next few days, the worms will move from the old stuff to the new bedding and food.  I find that shredded Observers work well.  My worms may have no hips, but are hipsters all the same.

After a few days, I herd the worms.  In this picture, I have the pile of casings on a piece of cardboard.  Its on top of a bucket that has a little crumpled newspaper in it to absorb any additional moisture.

Worms hate light.  So what you do is scrape a little off the pile and into the bucket.  The worms will retreat.  Now go do some yardwork for a few minutes.
Come back…and repeat.

Some worms are slow and get lost. Return those to the farm as well as worm eggs which look like seeds.

The pile will get smaller and smaller until you have just a pile of worms!

Get along lil doogies!

So, the last time I was in New Orleans was roughly the same time as this year in 2008.  February, just before Mardi Gras.  The weather was stellar and the crowds pretty tame in both cases. Luckily,  we timed it perfect this year for the parade.

The Krewe De Vieux parade is apparently the local favorite. Or at least most of the locals seem to like it.  The themes are extremely political focusing on local figures and issues. This time around were many BP related floats as would be expected as well as extremely unflattering effigies of local figures completely foreign to me.  I saw “most” because we talked to a few folks that mentioned how adult this parade is.  One lady (the greeter for the Catholic Church in the 9th ward) felt that it was no place for a senior citizen. They apparently have been known to cross a few lines.

The style is a bit more traditional as well with its mule driven carts, French Quarter route and tons of bands.  The streets in the quarter are pretty small so its a very up in your face experience.  Pretty much like a Mardi Gras lite.  Dont get me wrong, we saw some epic drunks staggering about…but within 10 minutes of the parade finish, we were sitting at a table having gumbo just a block away.

After the parade (and gumbo) we went to One Eyed Jacks for the official after party.  We still had drinks in hand when we got to the door which points out one of the obvious differences between Dallas and New Orleans.

Dallas Doorman: “No outside drinks allowed…in fact, what are you doing with an open container on the street. I should call the cops myself.”

New Orleans Doorman: “Dump your drink??? I’d hate to see you waste a perfectly good beverage….come right in!”

The afterparty was excellent.  We were originally under the impression that there was to be a burlesque show.  In fact, when a GIANT yellow feather clamshell was brought through the front door…it seemed obvious.  Turns out it was a headpiece for War Chief Juan Pardo. They were there with 101 Runners playing some kinda funk/Mardi Gras music that had an infectious groove you could bug out to.

Finally, we patted our back for taking a taxi down to the quarter.

We stayed at the St Vincents guesthouse in the Garden District.  Its not exactly 5 star accommodations by any stretch.  The building used to be a halfway house for unwed teens and dates WAY back so the rooms are pretty small.  The building however is very unique and the staff is amazing.  They have hostel rooms as well and it appears that much of the work is done by the local homeless.  The prices are very cheap and I assure you that every penny is going to the hyper-local economy.  Free parking too!!!

A large focus of this trip was FOOD!  Dang!  We left on Friday night so we could take our time on Saturday getting down there.  The beef jerky at Robertsons in Willis Point was a good start, but paled in comparison to the jerky at Krotz Springs.  Louisiana is a hunters paradise and just about anything with an even number of legs could be found found in jerked, sausage or bouidin form at Kartchners.  On the way back I picked up about 30 bucks worth of boudin, alligator sausage and tasso.  The damage was not that bad as they had sold out of the jerky.  (note…they do deliver…its not specified on the website, but they do).

Check out the  ponce.  Yes…thats a pig stomach filled with pig goodness.

It would be a long feat to detail all of the meals we had, so here is an overview.

Gumbo and Louisana sampler at the Old Coffeepot was excellent. A little salty, but still amazing. Super friendly staff.

Forget Cafe Du Monde. Its like Disneyland. Get your beignet fix at Cafe Beignet.

Daisy Dukes sounds like it would be a hooters rip off. Its not. Its awesome. Cops eat there. Check out this alligator Po boy.  Oh and the nice touches on the red beans and rice.

We had some sort of Alligator Sausage Hash and Gumbo at Marigny Brasserie on Frenchmen Street.

An excellent lump crab cake (and gumbo) at the Grand Isle by Harrahs.

To top off the food experience, we visited the Southern Food Museum.  This is a must. All the history behind the food of the area. Learn why chicory was added to coffee. Gumbo File or Okra (why did they need either at all!!).  Absinthe.  You get a discount if you tell them your there for a convention.  (Make one up).

Since this was close to Harrah’s, I figured I could take advantage of their parking lot.  Normally, this costs $30 a day!!! It is free, however, with 30 minutes of casino play on your members card. I left $40 in the hole. I guess Ill show them next time.

Finished the trip with breakfast at the Trolley Stop Cafe and coffee with King Cake at Community Coffee

One of the creepiest attractions was the St Roch Cemetery. This is certainly an unusual cemetery with quite a history.   Pics are here. So, all the literature will tell you that the cemeteries are a bit sketchy…and they are.  This is not in the best part of town….but I doubt that your gonna get shived over anything so bring a cheap camera and you should be fine.  This particular cemetery is extra weird as it as an actual shrine for the folk that have been healed.  It has many braces, false legs and just creepy medical devices from folks that have been healed or wish to be. I took a lot of pics.

Check out the “thanks” on the bricks and the statue of St Lucia holding a plate of eyeballs.

Lightning round of cool stuff:

Saw my first Banksy

Finally saw Frenchmen Street

Had a false start with that huge winter snap.  That killed just about everything except the broccoli and overwintering chard.  I have maybe one arugula that survived.  Turns out arugula is hardy to about our zone.  (or at least some strains of it)

This year I added another raised bed (2′ x 4′) and found a lot of very big pots for cheap and/or free.

Looking for cheap big nursery pots.  There is a recycling bin behind  Northhaven gardens.  Drop off your recyclables or pick up some used ones.  I found that you can get cheap pots at the hydroponics stores as well in the 5 to 7 gallon range.

So, on Valentine’s day weekend, I planted most of the seeds I could.  There were still a few sections of dirt that were frozen, but those parts dont really see any sun until about April anyway.

This year I’m trying spinach.

Bordeaux Spinach

Baby Leaf  Spinach

In addition, Im trying the following carrot varieties:  (thin mercilessly!!!)

Oxheart

Red Core

Sweet treat

Nutri Red

Tonda de Parigi (this worked well before)

Radish:

Easter Egg

Sparkler

French Breakfast

Radish Rose

Cherry Belle

Chard: Transplants from Lowes.  $1.60 for 4.  Good deal

Broccoli: Pacman from Lowes  1.60 for 4.

Lettuce:

Red sails, Arugula and mescule mix

Beets:

Detroit Red

So thats where we are at at this point.  I tried to start some seeds indoors (chard, broccoli and chives) but they are miserable.  (The Chives are ok I suppose).   dunno what to think about the indoor seed thing.  As was was yanking up plants, I could tell several of them were started indoors. Still, its hard to do without a south facing window. I have two florescents and 2 led spots, and it still is not enough.

I am going to try the following though.

Purple Tomatillo: I have done these every year from seed.  The fruits are too small, but its a nice plant that makes me happy.

Snow White: Awesome cherry tomato, if I can get them to grow.

Its an echo chip thats pretty dirt cheap. You can get them at Futurlec for under two bucks. In fact, here is a place in eurozone that has them for 50 cents (plus…ahem…shipping).  There have been plenty of work done on the chip, and for lo-fi applications…its pretty ideal.

The low down summary is this: its really low noise for small delays.  Anything more that 400ms and it starts to sound pretty noisy. Workable…but noisy. Here is a kit that uses two chips for a total of 800ms delay.  Very reasonable in my opinion.

Being that there has been so much work done on the chip, I opted to try a fairly bastardized version of an echo circuit first.

Doing a little digging on the internet, I first found this schematic for a “sewer pipes ringverb“.  Low part count and pretty decent sound.  Pretty neat.  It was inspired from another circuit called the Noise Ensemble. Seemed like a good place to start. I ultimately built this circuit.

It delivered.  Delay and noise. If you take a look at the circuit, note the LED feeding into pin 6.  Pin 6 is the VCO. The LED is driven from the LPF on the input. IT kinda is like a peak detector. A hard chord will get past the forward voltage (my best opinion at least) and push some juice into the VCO.  The clock changes and you get a pitch shift.  Kinda neat.

not super clean though.