Arduino And littleBits

So yesterdays post was about littleBits and the new cloudBits that seems to make it pretty easy for littleBits to play with the Internet of Things. Writing that post made me curious about the combination of Arduino and littleBits.

Arduino-At-Heart module for littleBits

A TechCrunch article from May 2014 covered the Arduino-At-Heart module for littleBits and the Arduino Starter Bundle. TechCrunch explains the collaboration between these two tech ecosystems this way:

"The world of littleBits...can now play friendly with Arduino. If you’re not familiar with littleBits, it might help to think of it as a DIY Electronics kit mashed up with LEGO. Each “bit” is an individual electronic component, like a speaker, or a light sensor, or a blinky LED. Snap them together, and you can do all sorts of cool stuff — no programming required...That “no programming required” point has always been one of littleBits’ biggest strengths; it meant that anyone could start putting stuff together, pretty much by accident. Alas, up until now, “no programming required” also meant “no programming allowed”...The littleBits idea is great — but once a particularly enthusiastic user hit the limits of what their kit could do, the next step (learning to

use a standalone Arduino board, which meant also learning proper circuitry, soldering, etc.) was suddenly a pretty big one...This morning, littleBits is introducing an Arduino module into the mix. It’ll snap right into place — no soldering required — just like the other littleBits modules, with one big difference: it’s programmable. You get the programmability of an Arduino, without having to learn the myriad other prerequisite skills. You jack into it via the onboard microUSB port, upload your programming via the standard Arduino IDE, and all of your littleBits modules fall in line."

The Engadget May 2014 coverage of the littleBits Arduino module rollout talks about some of the advantages of this module:

"...it also opens the door to interaction with your computer. Since the Arduino module has USB support built-in, you can create Etch-A-Sketches, Pong games and other programs that have LittleBits and your PC working in harmony. Rothman adds that many existing Arduino projects should work with only a few slight tweaks to pin assignments."

Arduino Starter Bundle for littleBits

This Instructables shows what was previously involved with adding Arduino capabilities to the littleBits synth kit before the Arduino-littleBits modules became available.

To learn more about the littleBits Arduino module, check out the webpage for that module. If you want to know more about the littleBits Arduino starter kit, heres a link to that webpage.

At the next meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, Ill ask how many people there have worked with littleBits. If no one has, it would be an interesting exercise to get a few littleBits modules and see what all the options are for combining them with traditional microcontroller projects. If you have littleBits modules and are coming to the August 7 MCU meeting, please bring them to the meeting. Thanks!

**********

Continue

about pests

I love my grandparents...I really do but I HATE going to their house.  They have a nice one story four bedroom suburban house with two good sized yards full of mature trees (some which produce fruit.)  The inside is completely remodeled to be energy efficient and their grass is absolutely beautiful.  Their front yard has a new stone retainer with beautiful roses in it.  Yes...it is beautiful indeed.

They complain about this place constantly but that is besides the point.  Their yard STINKS!  Believe it or not, the terrible stench isnt from yard fertilizer either.  It is from multiple bug traps.  The one that smells the most is a wasp trap that hangs on some branches.

I stumbled upon a page (not using StumbleUpon for once) and found this interesting page that told me how pests were the best pest control.  Oh how I wish I bookmarked that page.  I have always been a firm believer in not using chemicals because of their unwanted consequences but man...now knowing that they can cause other pests to flourish?  Why didnt I think about that?


Example...fleas suck especially if we have pets.  How many of us thought about using flea predators to control them?  Ants, ground beetles, and spiders are the top enemy for fleas.  Of course...we often spray for spiders and ants.  And a lot of things we dont mind having around eat spiders and ants (birds, mantis...all those cool things.)


As far as my grandparents go...what controls wasps?  First I must say that we do have native hummingbirds but their numbers are few.  I have a good feeling that they arent responsible for most of the food produced in their garden.  I also must say that these traps are set because both grandparents have an allergy to wasp/bee stings.  A few other truths...they dont draw birds to their yard because they eat their plums and spray for those wonderful things called spiders.

Birds and Spiders are huge wasp predators.

I imagine it doesnt help that the city sprays for mosquitoes every year and it is believed that this spray has limited the population of insect eating birds.

Many people (not earth friendly people) will try to eliminate them all.  Remember...some bugs will flourish (like roaches) if this method takes place.

This doesnt mean I like these guys in my house though.  No...my kitchen window and front door always contain some sort of mint.  Ants hate mint for whatever reason (oh but I LOVE that smell.)  Dont like mint?  There are other ways to repel ants.  As for spiders, I have a thing for citrus based cleaners which spiders hate.  For the record, most insects hate citrus. Citronella is hated by...almost everything I hate (mosquitoes, spiders, flies, fleas....)

So just think about that before you go for chemicals.  Are you really getting rid of the problem or are you just causing more?

Continue

My OWN ethical group

I met a guy on Myspace many years ago that was a diehard PETA member and vegan. What made us great friends is that we had some of the same ideals (calling vegetarians that ate fish or poultry hypocrites and so on.) I supported his cause till he started saying really really stupid things. He told me that hed never eat eggs because of the potential it had to be a life. Depending on what ethical animal group you are in, you will either hear that or the truth.

Chicken eggs are similar to a human period.

That is what my mom told me. Of course I saw nothing wrong with this at all. So what? It is just a waste product then. The more into nature I got, the more I realized that these eggs (unless specified as fertilized) lost their potential as soon as they exited the body...like a period. Nothing can make them more than what they are now. You cannot fertilize a chicken egg out of the body just like you cannot fertilize a human egg outside of the body.

Then this guy started posting about how everything from leather to wool was cruel. At this time, I had heard about a lady that used old hair from her dogs coat to make her own coat. This was theoretically a fur coat...just with waste material. I decided to ask him if this kind of fur coat was bad. He said yes because it encourages the death of animals simply for pelts and the same goes for faux fur.

...

Then I decided to ask a question that would determine if I thought he was truly crazy or not...I asked him how he felt about people eating placenta. This of course has no potential to be a life ever but is meat and a waste product (of course after the delivery of life.) He said meat is still meat and he is against eating ALL meat because it causes pain or is a potential life. I had broken his logic clearly. A placenta comes about because someone is going through with life (the life is still coming into existence) and it is a part that was never alive or dead...but just falls out (AKA waste.) He tried to convince me that nobody ate that part anyway. Yes indeed they do and it is very common in certain parts of the world. A good answer would have simply been "because it looks/is nasty" or "because I just dont like meat."

When I was looking for info to better the environment to help protect animals, PETA wasnt there (although they have some vegan recipes to help me with better health in general.) I turned to Care2 which is very similar but it is mostly petitions, not an actual group which one can really be affiliated with. Id like to start my own group...Care2s little sister but PETA and HSUSs cousin (btw HSUS and PETA do the same thing...just HSUS has a teeny more shelter help...with a lot of stress on teeny.) I want to form a group where protests arent harsh but we learn to respect one another...vegan or omnivore. There are some things that I have only learned by taking nutrition classes...that otherwise proved difficult to find such as the fact that organic grass fed beef has a better omega 3 to omega 6 ratio making it extremely better for you.

I want to form a group were vegans arent bombarded with abuse pictures and told how nasty meat is. They are vegan...they know this. However I want a site with truths (PETA supports vegetarianism for all animals including cats. Felines by nature are designated carnivores and a vegetarian diet easily leads to death. Dogs are, in short, carnivores but can be vegetarian if given a crap ton of supplements but if youre going to do that, might as well just feed em rice with these supplements. A healthy lifestyle can be achieved with no pills or extra powders. Im not against being vegan or vegetarian but for the love of God dont force it on anyone else including your furkin!)

The world sucks when youre an omnivore. Most of your info is limited. With my group, Id like to protest against meat sources, not meat (Tyson chicken, for example.)

By the way...how can we Coexist as a world if we cant even coexist as a nation? Just saying....

But...Im just a dreamer I guess. Maybe someday.

Continue