Thought exercise of the day

Mini-subs and solenoid kites.
The Wif and I were waking around Greenlake this weekend when we spotted what we assumed was a school of fish. I’m assuming Koi. Now assumptions are one thing, but it’d be a lot more fun knowing, and ideally knowing for sure. Ie, an autonomous underwater vehicle. Now, as with all my dreams of splendour, I want it: small, cheap, and low impact.

-to continue-

Motivations

Totally don’t have any today. But that’s, okay. My brain feels like it’s in a jello bowl. By the way, my phone didn’t know the word jello.
Did time off requests to give me time to do placement tests and stuff. That and also, after I burnt 100+ hours of vacation for this retarded level, I’m sure as he’ll going to use it before lose it time this year.
Couple more hours.

Doing

Applied to North Seattle College
Filled out Fasfa
Need to:
Placement tests, looks like this has to be a weekday
Probably I should talk to an advisor, totes not my thing, but it is a success thing
Maybe I could do both on the same day?
Register for class(es). Ideally take a starter this summer. A 5 credit credit loss at first sounds good,, but I might try to nudge that up too half-time.

Yotta Life

So the Wif and I were flipping through videos last night and she wanted to watch some Tosh.0. This was the CeWebrity profile of the Yotta (sp?) couple. It actually made me think. Maybe I just need to do it. Decide what the ideal me is. Decide the first step to the ideal me. Do it. Do it right now.

Bottle of wine with a rubber cork

Problem solved. Of course, now I’m thinking of other problems like the pesky…
A grolsch bottle?
Right. Pesky problems, like water flow potential. New idea.
Bottle upside down.
On a gasket, at the end of a trough.
Kicker tips bottle pouring water down the trough.

Shit

I just realized the problem with the auto garden. Sealed glass bottle going on a spout with a solenoid valve. Where does the air enter enter into the system?
Right. I’ll probably want to look at the reservoir system. Maybe do a tank with an agitator? Once/if I get back on the hydroponic kick, it won’t be as big of a deal but for now I need to account for algae and other filth. Now I could use two valves, one high to accept air, one low to release water…
I’ll look at my plug. Hell, I might just need to add an air line that sits next to the water line. Maybe find a rubber stopper and still two holes..?

Spooling pt 2

A more elegant solution?
As the DC motor encounters resistance, read as tension, it should be drawing more current. This is me spit balling… V=IR. (I think). I could put a 10k our so resistor in parallel with the motor. As the resistance down the motor increased, the voltage drop on the resistor should increase. I think.

Spooling

Right. Roll fed small thermal printer. Output is desired to be tightly rolled.
I think it’s a fairly straight forward challenge. Slit a dowel. Maybe PVC pipe. Whatever. Have that turned by a motor. Little DC motor should be fine.
How to make it know to turn..?
Easiest way would be (wire?) switches that would trigger whenever the output buckled. Not very exact, and fragile due to the potential to knock the switch out of position.
-more later-

Projects

FPGA should be here on Thursday, sounds like it’s project time. Really though, it sounds like I need to get back on the cleaning train. Maybe I should convince the Wif to go to Swanson’s (nursery) this weekend so we can start her an island herb garden for the kitchen.
Right, soil moisture sensor. Email sending. Thing. Also, I do have those solenoid valves… I could get around to building the reservoir based self watering setup.
I’d need to look at reducing contaminates. So, low enough volume that it never has time to go full stagnate. Sealed to keep out the crawlers. I could use a 22 bottle, it’s not like I don’t have a lot of those. Then it’s just a matter of building fittings. I could add LEDs a at the base to prettify it. Just made up the word prettify and added it to my dictionary. Ask if this is based in me not being a slacker.
First, moisture sensor.

FPGA

The Hack-A-Day store had one on sale at 24% off, and we just got tax returns. I’ll have an FPGA soon. Beyond the obvious of learning to program it, I already have a project idea. I think it’ll work. I’m kinda excited about the possibilities.