Just a few of the things I’ve made …
Raspberry Pi
- The Quite Rubbish Clock — a human-unreadable clock on a cheap Nokia LCD powered by a Raspberry Pi. Featured on the Raspberry Pi Foundation blog: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-quite-rubbish-clock/
- Controlling an Arduino from Raspberry Pi using Processing — one of the very first investigations of using the Processing language on Raspberry Pi. Reads sensor data from an Arduino using the Firmata protocol/firmware.
- Raspberry Pi, Python & Arduino — an early physical computing tutorial for Raspberry Pi. Published as the cover article in The MagPi magazine, issue 7.
- Extensive Thermal Printer setup tutorial for Raspberry Pi.
Arduino
National Drinks — anthems played on drink containers, driven by Arduino:
- … we stand in line for thee — O Canada on a Tim Hortons cup — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewbZVwMr_I
- Flower of Scotland — the anthem of Scotland on an Irn Bru can — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoBIp5D7MiU
- … that our fries were still there — a Five Guys cup hits the high notes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFOFnEswwVs
Micropython
Project blogging
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- on this blog, including DECTalk-based [tÉ’k bÉ’ks] TTS and many others
- for Elmwood Electronics, including: Clap on ðŸ‘ðŸ‘, Clap off ðŸ‘ðŸ‘, Audio Triggers: the very basics and Maker Festival Projects: Flying Toaster LED Panel
- for Chicago Electronic Distributors, including “perhaps the greatest 🦃 event in Thanksgiving Day history …â€
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Collaborations
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- For Brent Marshall, developing a countdown clock with millisecond accuracy and no network access for a major sports event.
- With Bryan Mayland and others, decoding home energy meter transmissions on Arduino for real-time power statistics: Log your electricity consumption with Powermon433
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Laser cut
Mostly at Protolab near Danforth & Dawes, or on Elmwood Electronics‘ GlowForge:
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- The “Coo~Coo†Raspberry Pi Zero Case — minimal Raspberry Pi Zero enclosure.
- The Stick of Joy — a very heavy-duty arcade joystick for retro-computing.
- Soldering stand — no more burnt fingers when tinning or joining wires.
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3D Printing
My Thingiverse profile: scruss
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- Back foot for Reach 3D Printer — fixes instability in this open source 3D printer. Fits into T-slot frame, written in OpenSCAD.
- Experiments using clear PLA as ice-like light diffusers
- A Delicious Virtual Biscuit
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Display Typography
Full catalogue is on FontLibrary, but highlights include:
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- FifteenTwenty — mono-spaced font family derived from character stroke coordinates from the Commodore 1520 plotter ROM. Featured on the MetaFilter podcast.
- ThreeFourTwoTwo — font based on the short-lived Litronix DL-3422 22 segment LED alphanumeric display.
- mnicmp — 5×7 dot matrix font based on a DECwriter II printing terminal output. Features many dot shapes, and lead to the LoveMatrix font made especially for Valentine’s Day.
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Retro-computing Installation
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- All the Colours We Have (for Paul Carter) — as a memorial for an artist friend, a piece written in Z80 assembly language using his words on his old home computer.
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Artwork
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- Patterns from Bourgoin — mini colouring zine featuring geometric patterns developed in Inkscape [PDF].
- Pattern Gallery — 2D and 3D patterns; some digital (in Inkscape or algorithmically), some in gouache/ink.
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GIS
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- Decoding WW2 campaign diary map references — visualizing campaigns on modern mapping systems.
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Work in Progress
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- Edge-lit numeric display — working prototype single digit driver circuit, and an initial construction of the display itself. These are an alternative to Nixie tubes, but are low voltage and easier to customize.
- Restoring a 1969 Sharp Compet desk calculator — because nixies and core memory
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Past Projects
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- the automatic podcast — A daily podcast, roughly 30 minutes long, produced completely automatically from a random selection of tracks from my music collection. All announcements were generated by the Flite TTS. Running from 2008–2013 and decommissioned when the server changed, no archives exist from this exploration of aural randomness.