If you need a reason to be an Element 14 member, let me suggest their Road Test program. Companies partner with Element14 to get people to try out their gear. A couple of years ago I got a new microcontroller board. This week I received a new test instrument. Here’s my hands-on Picoscope 2204 review.
The scope is bus powered. With the BNCs and type-B USB connector, it is slightly larger than an external USB hard drive. There is not much weight to the device. It does not feel cheap, just lighter than I expected.
Getting the scope up and running is a breeze. Pico Tech included a CD (or DVD?) to install the software, but I could not find my drive to check it out. Software downloads from Pico Tech’s website work great. It looks like you can even download the software and use it in “Demo mode” if you are curious how it works.
Arduino tends to call daughter cards shields, while the Raspberry Pi community calls them hats. The Pi Cap is a hat. It plugs into the GPIO header of a Raspberry Pi and provides 13 capacitive touch pads. There is a traditional push button, an LED, and a prototyping area. While the Pi Cap does consume all of the GPIO pins, several are broken out near the GPIO header.
Previously, I reviewed the smartphone DMM, Mooshimeter. It is a great meter. One feature I didn’t spend much time on in my review was the ability to graph. Some see it as an “oscilloscope alternative.” The past couple of weeks, I’ve been using Aeroscope. It is a Bluetooth-based oscilloscope about the size of an older active probe. The Aeroscope runs $199 direct from Aeroscope Labs. The question I address in this Aeroscope review: is it better to buy this, a USB-based, or standalone scope for about the same money. How does it measure up?
My Aeroscope review looks at the specifications, the App that runs it and breaks down the key features. Let’s probe deeper.
For fifteen years I used my Radio Shack 22-168A digital multimeter as my go-to meter. A couple of years ago I bought a Fluke 115. Not because the RS meter lacked a measurement, but because I wanted a backlit screen. Here’s the crazy thing though in 20 years of multimeter development, there hasn’t been much innovation. Well outside of maybe auto-ranging.
All three meters I have, plus the Virtual Bench I reviewed about a year ago all continue to have the same limitation: they can only perform one measurement at a time. That’s one feature that makes my latest meter, the Mooshimeter, unique. It can measure both voltage and current at the same time. Oh, and it doesn’t have a screen.
When it comes to Kickstarters, I have been relatively lucky. Most of the projects I back have shipped, even if years after I forgot. However, few Kickstarters are something I use on a regular basis. The Arduboy has been a pleasant surprise. This Kickstarter-backed project packages the ease of programming an Arduino into a game playing friendly form factor. Here’s my first Arduboy review, impressions and hands-on experience.
In addition to hands-on learning workshops, there was a display of Arduino/Genuino projects by students. In the afternoon, three Arduino co-founders gave a short talk. David Mellis spoke on Machine Learning. Tom Igoe did his first talk on Technology and Humanities. Lastly, Massimo Banzi talked about IoT.
Arduino Day, Mellis, Igoe, Banzi
Massimo’s IoT discussion related to the earlier announcement that day of Arduino Create. This new platform has a web-based IDE, Arduino Project Hub, and Arduino IoT.
Reading a blog post like this one is something we all do multiple times a day. As early as 20 years ago, such a concept was still entirely unknown to the rest of the world. Walter Isaacson’s “The Innovators…” book is a history telling of the players involved from the early days of Ada Lovelace all the way through to Google’s search success.
Here are some of my favorite highlights from the book.
As 2015 wrapped up, I finally got around to flipping through the Hackaday Omnibus Vol #2. Before getting into what I think about this issue, I want to address an interesting point.
In our increasingly digital lives, the value of high-quality prints continues to rise. Hackaday Omnibus helps to maintain and set the standards for published works.
You might be thinking, “what’s the point of buying a paper version of their website?” That’s what I hope to address in this review: is Hackaday Omnibus worth buying?
What is the Hackaday Omnibus?
If you aren’t familiar with the word “omnibus”, it is a compilation of previously published works. (It’s also Latin “for all”, according to Wikipedia.)
The Omnibus is 8.5in x 11in x 0.33in (216mm x 279mm x 8.5mm) in size. The 128 pages contain 31 articles featuring 21 authors, from hackaday.com’s 2015 posts. Oh, and there are no ads.
The Martian by Andy Weir is an engineer’s dream story. The story opens with Mark Watney being stranded on Mars after an accident occurs. The book is a collection of his daily logs on the Martian surface, chronicling the measures he takes to stay alive.
Rarely do I read a fiction book so well thought out, I start solving the problems along with the characters. Midway through I was excited because I would see Mark’s solution as one of the possible answers in my head. I also found myself invested in what happens to Mark. He is a likeable guy and, at least for me, easily relatable.
One cliché I didn’t care for was the “evil” mission control characters. NASA has struck me as an organization that is pretty level-headed, with most of its decision makers have some engineering background. A few times it seems mission control has lost their mind–like you see in poorly written movies.
That flaw is pretty minor, though, especially compared to the quality of the overall writing.
If you are someone who has a passion for space exploration, interest in going to Mars, and an engineer: The Martian by Andy Weir is a must-read.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to join The Engineering Commons podcast to talk about capacitors on episode 93. I had been a listener of the podcast because I heard about it in this book. A Whole New Engineer looks at the changes are needed in engineering education. My personal interest was to see if there were elements I could apply to the AddOhms Electronics Tutorials I create. Like all aspects of our lives, evoluation is occuring and educaiton is no different. On top of that, traditional education techniques rarely prepare students for live after school.
The traditional weed-out lecture courses and stand-alone research projects are a thing of the past.
The stories about Olin College of Engineering were eye opening. Thinking back to my time at Purdue, I wished I could have been at the foundation of a new curriculum (though, I’m glad I had the one I did.) My eye opener with the Olin example is how it is analogous to the “real world.” Traditional engineering education silos instructor from the student, in much the same way large corporations silo work functions. The idea of breaking down those silos between Instructor (manager) and Student (employee) to achieve an overall goal is very progressive and based on the research provided, rewarding.
Whether you are involved in engineering education or, like me, just have passion for sharing it–I highly recommend this excellent book. Whether if you’re writing tutorials, creating a classroom, putting together a workshop, or even helping out with STEM, there are key tidbits you will pull from this book.
