Will I look back at the end of my days and say, “I should have spent more time playing with my kids.” Or will I say, “I should have spent more time playing with electronics.”

I [...]]]> Here is the dilemma:

I love my kids.  I enjoy tinkering with electronics.  I have one life to live.

Will I look back at the end of my days and say, “I should have spent more time playing with my kids.” Or will I say, “I should have spent more time playing with electronics.”

I don’t plan on saying either and here’s why  -

I will teach my kids to tinker with electronics.

This way, I get to play with my kids and electronics – it’s win, win.

And here’s how I plan to do it.

Exploit my Children’s Natural Curiosity for Blinking Lights

Last year I had the pleasure of attending the Open Source Hardware Summit in New York City.  Among the schwag in the registration bag was a small plastic package full of 15 or so LEDs and a flat lithium battery – all complements of Sparkfun, one of the conference sponsors.

As soon as I got back to the hotel, Ellie and I broke them out, scattered them over the floor and were lighting up the colorful LEDs.  After about an hour of on off play, she was starting to grasp that the long leg and the short leg had to be a certain way for the light to shine.

We stayed for Maker Faire (I had a booth with my Phone Bot), and by the end of the weekend she could say “Emitt’en Light Diode” pretty well.  [“Ellie, It’s Light Emitting Diode” – “Emitt’en Light Diode Daddy”.  I was pleased.  My wife could tell I was happy.

This led to LEDs being part of her “toys” she would ask to play with.   So we scatter LEDs over the table and get some lithium batteries out.  I will get a potentiometer with some alligator clips and she makes the lights dim and brighten.

Then I started pulling out the breadboard and put some buttons on there. It’s a toddler dream to push buttons and watch LEDs blink on and off with a touch.  I give her a pile of wire connectors and she builds her own “circuits” in the breadboard.  I get my fix playing with POTs and making a mutlivibrator to blink LEDs all the while watching my daughter play.  Could life get better than this?

Monkey See Monkey Do

My kids watch me do everything.  They love to mimic me. If they see me working with electronics, they won’t be able to resist the draw.

So I keep my basement lab open to my children – even if it is a danger to their lives – just kidding!*  No, when I have my little one in the lab (mind you the eldest is 3 yrs old), I make sure that I am working with her.

Taking things apart in front of her; unscrewing, unfastening, banging electronics with hammers.  Look kiddo, we can take things apart if we want to – screws, glue and plastic shan’t stop us.**

Sometimes I go down to the lab with my daughter pretending I will get a project worked on.  I give her a bag of erasable makers and let her draw on my white board while I “work” on some stuff.   So she is not working with me, but she is playing around the lab and it will be more familiar to her then if I kept her locked out.

Really though, this is a myth – I can’t get any “work” done when my little one is in the lab – I end up drawing smiley faces and tracing fingers and picking things up off the shelf that get pulled down.

But its not about the work at this point, its about spending time with my kid, and slowly saturating her brain with the coolness of electronics.  Which leads me to my next tactic.

Brain Washing

If I am going to have my kid flip through endless pictures of apples, oranges and grey bunny rabbits, I might as well make resistors, capacitors and multi-meters part of her growing lexicon.  For this reason, I recently made a children’s iBook for my little people.  It is straight pictures and words – the kind of book an infant gnaws on – except its digital so I have to wipe drool off the iPad for my infant and protect it from fracture by the toddler.

If I am going to have the kids play with electronics, my hope is the book reinforces the words they learn.  If my kid can recognize some parts on a circuit board and know the names of a few common tools, than I have succeeded. And they will be further ahead than most adults I know.

I get to read to my kids while teaching them electronics – all is well.

* Child Services – “Don’t you think electronics parts are too small for children to play with or that she might get shocked in your lab”

Me – “Yes and Yes, that is why I supervise my kid.”

** Naysayers – “You will regret showing her to take things apart when she disassembles your T.V.”

Me – “I don’t own a television. It would be the neighbors.”

DIY Drones is a company that has open sourced the designs for a universal autopilot – ArduPilot – as the name implies, it incorporates portions of an Arduino microcontroller.

This is cool, because a large community has formed [...]]]> If you had your own drone, what would you do with it?

DIY Drones is a company that has open sourced the designs for a universal autopilot – ArduPilot – as the name implies, it incorporates portions of an Arduino microcontroller.

This is cool, because a large community has formed around the technology and are doing some really impressive things – and sharing it.

Whats great about DIY drones is that now you can build your own UAV for a very reasonable price.

Whats even better about DIY Drones is that when you crash it, their is a community of people to help you figure out how to put it together again.

Checkout the podcast and learn about quadcopters, autopilots and more.

Mach30 proposes this bold idea. To design, test and build some of the most complex machines on the planet – machines that will be trusted to safely [...]]]> Want to go to outer space? Think a group of enthusiasts could get there…with Open Source Hardware?

Mach30 proposes this bold idea. To design, test and build some of the most complex machines on the planet – machines that will be trusted to safely transfer humans into an extremely volatile environment. A difficult task even for well funded organizations such as NASA.

This difficulty touches a criticism of Open Source Hardware – how complex of a physical system can a locationally separated, resource lean, group of intelligent people create? Is there a point at which the complexity of a machine becomes so great that contributions from many won’t mesh together to create a coherent and efficient end product?

The organizers of Mach30 are well aware of these criticisms. In response they are standing up a knowledge infrastructure, a so called “Open Design Engine” or ODE for short. A web based tool for project management, documentation and collaboration that they are using to design the future of human space flight.

Listen to the show to learn what Mach30 is working towards and how you might benefit from their freshly out of the box ODE.

Check out the Open Design Engine.

Check out Openeering.

Contact the Mach30 team directly:

Mach30 President:  J Simmons –  jrs at mach30.org

Mach30 Vice Presient: Greg Moran –  gmm at mach30.org

And Finally: My apologies to not getting this interview out sooner, Mach30 had a Kickstarter campaign running – which was funded – congrats to them. Anyway, you will hear reference to it, but as I mentioned, it has passed.

Code, motion and electronics if you jam like Richie of glitchpop.

Listen to the show to learn about using open hardware and software solutions to making music that is creative and interactive.

Check out Richie’s freshly renovated site at glitchpop.  (It has some [...]]]> What is in a tune?

Code, motion and electronics if you jam like Richie of glitchpop.

Listen to the show to learn about using open hardware and software solutions to making music that is creative and interactive.

Check out Richie’s freshly renovated site at glitchpop.  (It has some fun Processing code to play with in addition to the music and videos).

Check out more on Pure Data (Pd).

Contributed to any bold Open Hardware projects lately?

Designed anything that will help generations to come?

How about a Civilization Starter Kit – want to work on that? Then join Open Source Ecology and work on the Global Village Construction Set – 50 machines that can build just about anything you (or [...]]]>

Contributed to any bold Open Hardware projects lately?

Designed anything that will help generations to come?

How about a Civilization Starter Kit – want to work on that? Then join Open Source Ecology and work on the Global Village Construction Set – 50 machines that can build just about anything you (or a village) will need.

This interview with Nikolay of the OSE dives into the big picture of the project and helps you wrap your head around the concept.  Have a listen!

P.S. Check out this TED Talk  – it rocks.

And what really goes on inside the mobile phone industry, anyway?

Listen to Sean from OpenMoko describe the journey of Neo FreeRunner, as open hardware of a phone you will find on the market.

The Neo [...]]]> If you wanted to do some Open stuff in the cellular market, where would you start?

And what really goes on inside the mobile phone industry, anyway?

Listen to Sean from OpenMoko describe the journey of Neo FreeRunner, as open hardware of a phone you will find on the market.

The Neo FreeRunner has a great community of folks, if you want to learn about the possibilities in cellular, you should check them out.

You can make it faster, but it may not go as long.

You can make it greener, but it may increase production time.

A stove that is ultra-affordable, DIY-able with local material and fuel efficient may not be the best stove avialable, but it is a good stove – and [...]]]> It is about the trade off.

You can make it faster, but it may not go as long.

You can make it greener, but it may increase production time.

A stove that is ultra-affordable, DIY-able with local material and fuel efficient may not be the best stove avialable, but it is a good stove – and the best to fit the need of those in under served markets.

Listen to this interview with Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy of the Geoecology Energy Organisation (GEO) to learn about the design and the challenges of the Good Stove project and why the issue of Open is so important.

Design your own Good Stove here.

P.S.  You may also want to check out this presentation by the Dr. about social innovations – it makes you think bigger about the implications of Open Hardware/Knowledge – and laugh quite a bit too.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have other people benefiting from your effort and creativity?

But that whole manufacture process sounds a bit intimidating…

Look no further than Seeed Studio, an open hardware savvy manufacturer located in Shenzhen, China, to shine some [...]]]> Have you ever imagined your design being built on a larger scale?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have other people benefiting from your effort and creativity?

But that whole manufacture process sounds a bit intimidating…

Look no further than Seeed Studio, an open hardware savvy manufacturer located in Shenzhen, China, to shine some light on the process.  They handle much of the leg work to get your design up and running. Their fulfillment house not only manufactures your board, but will sell it for you on their website.

Check out this great interview with Tully to learn what the process looks like, some interesting insights into Chinese manufacturing and the hacker landscape in China.

P.S. This recording is from the USA to China – the audio is better than you might expect!

What better way to learn how computer numerical control machines work then to build your own?

This open hardware CNC project is all about education – the design and ease of build seeks to make CNC accessible to artists, designers and makers [...]]]>

Self Portrait

Do you learn more sitting in a classroom or getting your hands dirty?

What better way to learn how computer numerical control machines work then to build your own?

This open hardware CNC project is all about education – the design and ease of build seeks to make CNC accessible to artists, designers and makers of all types – which likely includes you.

And you can’t beat the price.

Chris and Taylor of DIYLILCNC have put together a fantastic partial kit for anyone to get started.  They also have a kick starter campaign underway to develop the next version. With a growing community of adopters from around the world, this may be the CNC machine you were going to build.

Check out the interview to learn about the project, some great information on CNC, and why having lots of open hardware CNC designs is a good thing.

P.S. The LIL in DIYLILCNC is for little.

Need to figure out a chip…fast?

Bus Pirate may be just what you have been looking for.

Designed by Dangerous Prototypes, the Bus Pirate is a universal bus interface that can slash the learning curve when you are figuring out a chip.

Every month Dangerous Prototypes releases a new open source [...]]]>

Need to figure out a chip…fast?

Bus Pirate may be just what you have been looking for.

Designed by Dangerous Prototypes, the Bus Pirate is a universal bus interface that can slash the learning curve when you are figuring out a chip.

Every month Dangerous Prototypes releases a new open source hardware project.

They have a great line up of useful tools and a fantastic business model.  Listen to the show and learn about both.

P.S. It’s easy to start your own dangerous prototype – especially with  free PCBs!

What would you do differently if  manufacturing…anything…was  at your fingertips?

It is one thing to build your own parts, but what happens when your parts can build themselves?

Inspired by the 3D printer RepRap, the CubeSpawn concept takes recursive manufacturing a step further.

Using readily available and affordable materials and [...]]]>

What would you do differently if  manufacturing…anything…was  at your fingertips?

It is one thing to build your own parts, but what happens when your parts can build themselves?

Inspired by the 3D printer RepRap, the CubeSpawn concept takes recursive manufacturing a step further.

Using readily available and affordable materials and the cubical form factor as its base, it seeks to integrate existing open hardware machining tools to allow you (with a bit of elbow grease and desire) to manufacture nearly anything.

P.S.  CubeSpawn is entered in the NASA Tech briefs contest -help push them to the win – vote for it here!

Well not quite, but I still want a laser cutter!

What could you do if you had a laser cutter in your workshop right now.  What would it be lazing for you this very moment?

Well dream no [...]]]> I have always wanted a laser cutter, ever since I was little kid it was my dream…

Well not quite, but I still want a laser cutter!

What could you do if you had a laser cutter in your workshop right now.  What would it be lazing for you this very moment?

Well dream no  longer, there is nothing  holding you back but a little green (very modest for the results) and a little time (far shorter than you might imagine).

We have Nortd Labs to thank for this sweet dream of a build – Lasersaur.  And yes, it comes complete with a beta manual (the best kind)!

What could you do if you had, say, 10 senses?  

Why limit yourself?

Citizen Sensor is an open hardware project that uses Arduino, Android and multiple sensors to monitor anything from air quality to noise pollution.  Data [...]]]> Are five senses really enough?

What could you do if you had, say, 10 senses?  

Why limit yourself?

Citizen Sensor is an open hardware project that uses Arduino, Android and multiple sensors to monitor anything from air quality to noise pollution.  Data is collected via sensors hooked up to an Arduino and uploaded through a mobile Android app to the cloud.

Citizen Sensor has limitless potential for applications far from its intended use – listen to the show and you may realize half way through that your next project needs a couple more senses.

P.S. Did I mention that this project was born from a masters thesis and now is part of the New York Hall of Science summer camp curriculum?

Have you ever been in awe of design?

Have you ever thought, I can build that?

Jeremy at 4Volt has been there and back with his version of the Jansen Walker.  In this interview, Jeremy shares the experience of researching, designing and constructing one of [...]]]>

Have you ever been in awe of design?

Have you ever thought, I can build that?

Jeremy at 4Volt has been there and back with his version of the Jansen Walker.  In this interview, Jeremy shares the experience of researching, designing and constructing one of the most fascinating walking designs around.

If you ever wanted to take on a project that would sharpen your laser cutting skills, or teach you a thing or two about CAD, then the Jansen Walker might be for you.

P.S. Did I mention his project made it into a museum exhibit?

If you plan on converting your green energy into electrical power, then you do.  A charge controller is a necessary interface between your harvester (solar panel, wind turbine, etc.) and your battery or inverter.  It makes the two play nice, as Chris Troutner of Free Charge Controller puts it.

What [...]]]> Charge Controller…who needs a stinking charge controller?

If you plan on converting your green energy into electrical power, then you do.  A charge controller is a necessary interface between your harvester (solar panel, wind turbine, etc.) and your battery or inverter.  It makes the two play nice, as Chris Troutner of Free Charge Controller puts it.

What is even nicer, is that now an open hardware version is in the works – and not some stand-bye – we are talking cadillac.

Listen and learn all about the project below and check out the free charge controller website to build your own.

Its flux capacitor-esk look makes it that much cooler.

This is an interview with Jeff Rowberg, designer of Keyglove.  Keyglove is a portable Arduino-powered glove that uses touch combinations (for keys) and an accelerometer (for the mouse) to generate keyboard and mouse control codes using only one hand. Once learned, the glove can easily be used without looking, making it perfect [...]]]>

This is an interview with Jeff Rowberg, designer of Keyglove.  Keyglove is a portable Arduino-powered glove that uses touch combinations (for keys) and an accelerometer (for the mouse) to generate keyboard and mouse control codes using only one hand. Once learned, the glove can easily be used without looking, making it perfect for embedded/wearable environments. The glove is thin and light, built to allow other activities (such as writing) without being in the way. The current design also incorporates Bluetooth wireless connectivity, a rechargeable lithium polymer battery, simple vibration feedback, audio feedback, and a tri-color status indicator LED.  Check out the How to Build page for instructions on getting your own Keyglove started.

Jeff gives a great interview, with some interesting insights into the process of building open.

Also make sure to check out the Keyglove Kick Starter page.

Listen to this interview and get some insight into the development of this very cool [...]]]> Where do you turn when you need to verify the existence of those nano particles you are confident you built?  Well, a great place to turn is Chemhacker.com, where you can get started on building your own scanning tunneling electron microscope.

Listen to this interview and get some insight into the development of this very cool build.