via learn.parallax.com

Training for the Parallax Board of Education Shield for Arduino

I'm really liking the ability to embed processingjs right into a page.

via blogs.smithsonianmag.com

3D printing is here is is already changing how we think about manufacturing. The custom, one-up, goods industry is ready to explode!

via adafruit.com

I still like the idea of STEM including Art (STEAM). I have a degree in computer science and have worked in large aerospace companies for 25 years and every day I wished that more people understand the fundamentals of art and how it impacts humans. We could be so much farther along if we just included this basic instinct!

via adafruit.com

We are going to use this for the Boy Scout Robotics Merit Badge!

via techsavvyed.net

[STEM is one of those edu-acronyms that gets tossed out at large conferences, as models for new innovative schools, and a “catch all” for science and math stuff lately, yet it still seems to mystify many teachers. An informal poll of teachers in my district revealed that while a good portion of them knew that it stood for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, many of them weren’t sure what it meant beyond students taking a more project based approach to science and math. Other teachers I’ve talked with around the state have a similar understanding, but a growing number of them have begun to understand that ]{style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px;"}STEM is really about flipping the traditional classroom structure[, from teacher-centered learning to more inquiry, problem solving, and exploratory learning.]{style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px;"}

Good way to see it.

via fffff.at

What a great idea.

via parallax.com

Now we are talking. This looks great!

Here is a fun one I re-created from the good ole days.

Here is a short program that demonstrates using Processing.js. It is all built into modern browsers, no plug-ins required.

Check out this website I found at oldcomputermuseum.com

This takes me back. What a collection. I've owned hundreds of computers over the years. I wonder if I could think of them all.

By: http://studio.sketchpad.cc/

Adafruit has their new GPS module out. Looks great, good features and good price.

I just purchased a new wireless IP camera from Amazon and it works great. I didn't use any of the software that came with the camera and I did it all with my Macbook or I could have done it all with my iPhone or iPad.

IP Cameras

I've been looking at cameras for a long time. Mainly, so I can see who is at the front door. It would be nice if I could be notified every time someone came to the door or even just dropped a package off. I looked at wired cameras but they all involve me getting into the attic, not something I like to do anymore. Based on the very helpful reviews on Amazon I took the plunge and bought a Wireless IP Camera Pan/Tilt. It was very inexpensive at \$58.03 and free shipping with Amazon Prime.

So what did I get? Well... a little confused at first. Come to find out there are numerous cameras all sold under different names, like: HooToo, Apexis, FosCam, EasyN, Wansview, and LofTek. From what I can tell these are all basically made by the same company and work the same way. The camera I ordered was Wansview, the camera that I received was HooToo. The pictures look identical.

[caption id="attachment_174" align="alignleft" width="300"] HooToo Internet Camera[/caption]

This is a pretty neat piece of equipment. No it is not Apple quality, and no it is not especially easy to set up and configure. However, they have gone out of their way to make it doable and they do NOT require a Windows-based PC.

Of course it comes with a camera. Not a great one, but fine for the price. It also comes with Pan/Tilt built-in. It works very well. The infrared LEDs work and come on automatically when it starts getting dark. They will light up your 25' hallway just fine in pitch black conditions. A built-in mic is nice so you can hear what is going on, a CAT-5 cable for a physical connection to your network, a Wifi connection and a power adapter. Yes, you have to plug it into power wherever you are going to put it.

It has a built-in web server that provides all the features of the camera to your Mac or iPad. You really just connect to it with Safari and you are good to go. Very nice.

The IP in IP Camera means that it communicates over TCP/IP not through USB or FireWire. This camera does not connect directly to your Mac, it connects to your network and then is available to any other device on your network, wither Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, etc.

Network Environment

I have a pretty standard all Apple network environment. I have a 13" MacBook Air running Lion, an Airport Extreme base station with wired and wireless devices connected to it, and an iPhone and iPad connected wirelessly. All standard equipment.

The IP camera works in this environment just fine, it is just another device on the network. It can connect through a CAT-5 cable physically or wirelessly through Wifi. Either way works exactly the same as far as the user is concerned.

The hardest part is understanding what it means to connect to the local network, and not just to the Mac.

Routers

A router helps route IP traffic around your home, but more importantly through your cable/dsl modem to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and on to the internet.

The Airport Extreme is very easy to set up and manage. It pretty much defaults to just what you want out of the box. I won't go into all the details because it is probably already working for you if you are reading this page.

DHCP

This is the technology that is built into your router that lets you have one IP address from your ISP but have lots of different devices in your home that have their own unique local IP address. This is a bit confusing, but it works. Anytime you add a new device to your local network (either wired or wireless) it is automatically assigned a unique local IP address by the router, usually in the range of 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.255. These are known to the industry as non-routing IP addresses. This means they do not get routed outside of your, um, router. They are only visible to other devices on your local network. This is a good thing, it helps protect them from outside intruders. What they can't see they can't attack very easily.

The point of all this is that you have one external IP address assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your Airport Extreme router then uses DHCP to assign unique local IP address to all the devices connected in your house. When you connect your camera it is assigned a unique IP address.

By the way your external IP address is probably (unless you pay extra) assigned to your house by using DHCP and it may change at anytime. Read later about DDNS to get around this so you can access your camera from your iPhone/iPad or other device when you are not at home.

Setup Software

The first thing I wanted to do was to get the camera connected to my home wireless network. There are a couple of ways to do this. However, I found it very easy to just turn it on... hmmm... really I connected it to the CAT-5 wired network first, found its IP address using one of the following apps then accessed its built-in web server using Safari on my Mac, by entering the IP address in the Url field (Ex. 192.168.0.182).  I worked through the setup webpage and found the wireless network, added the security password (known as Share key on their built-in server) for my wireless network then connected it to the wireless network by unplugging the CAT-5 network cable. Whew, not really hard but there are a lot of steps.

IP Scanner (Free) in the Mac App store, and IP Scanner Home in the Mac App store. One of these apps, is very useful for finding your camera the first time it is connected to your wired or wireless network. They show the assigned IP address and hardware address (sometimes called the MAC address) of every device on your network. I tried the free version at first but it was limited to only showing the first 5 devices it found. The new camera did not show up, so I purchased the app and it displayed all the devices on my network. Very helpful indeed!

IP Network Scanner Lite in the iOS App store. If you are going for the no Mac option and prefer to use your iPhone or iPad then this app is by the same company. I tried the free version and it worked very well. However, it is limited to only showing the first 5  devices on your network. If you have more than that then you will have to purchase the full version. At \$9.99 it is more than the Mac version.

This type of software may be more convenient now that Apple has removed the device list from version 6.x of their Aiport Utility software. Well, it does show the connected wireless devices, but only the first 6. You might get lucky, or have less than this connected. I was surprised how many devices are on wireless these days.

So there you are. You have now connected a new wireless IP Pan/Tilt camera to your wireless network and never installed any of the software that came with it. You either did it on your Mac or your iPhone/iPad. So far you have only used one extra app to find the IP address and then used the standard Safari browser to access the cameras built-in web server.

But there is more. You don't want to have to lookup the IP address of the camera every time you want to use it. Your wireless Airport Extreme (router) may assign it a new IP address at any time. You really want to set it to a known location so that you can find it from anywhere.

DHCP Reservations

There are two basic ways to make sure a device always has the same IP address. You can do everything manually or you can use the Airport Utility to make a DHCP reservation.

The new Airport software makes this really easy. Just edit your base station, click on the Network tab and then click the plus sign under the DHCP Reservations section.

Give it a good description like "IP Camera" or "IP Camera Front Door", select Reserve address by "MAC Address" (this is the hardware address assigned to all devices). Type in the MAC address of your camera or use copy/paste from on the apps above.  Then type in the permanent IPv4 address that you want. Make sure no other device on your network is assigned this same address. When you click Save you will now always know the local address of your IP camera. Well, ok click Update to make the changes to your router.

Mine is 192.168.0.82 and I can type this into any browser and access the built-in webpage on the camera. It will never change. Very cool!

Port Mapping

See what I did there. I said "local address". That means any device connected to your local network can see your camera at the reserved IP address. But, what if you leave your local network and want access? Your router can help you here too. It is called Port Mapping, it allows an external device to navigate through your router to the specific device you want.

What is a port? If you think of the IP address your house is assigned by your ISP as your street address, then the port is like which door to use. Everything has standard ports, web sites, email, Skype, Minecraft, they all have different ports be default. As long as you don't interfere with another port on your network then you can use anything you want. Well it has to be above port number 1024, but that is a long story.

I chose port 25000 for my front door camera. It is unused on my network and it is a nice easy number to remember. The new Apple Airport Utility makes this very easy to set up. Start the utility again on your Mac or iPhone/iPad. Select your Airport base station and then select Network. Check the check-box to Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol. Next click the plus sign to add a new Port Mapping.

Give it a good description like "IP Camera", or "Front Door Camera". Enter 25000 for the Public TCP port, enter your reserved IP address for your camera Ex. 192.168.0.182, then enter 80 as the Private TCP Ports. This is the default port for the webpage on your IP camera. Click Save. Click update to make changes to the router.

* My Airport Utility seems to have a bug, it would not let me click save until I entered a Public UDP port as well. I put in 25000 and it worked.

There you have it. You can now type in your ISP assigned external IP address and append  :25000 and you will see the webpage from your camera.

So you are asking how you find your external IP address assigned by your ISP? Airport Utility to the rescue. Just click the world map icon at the top labeled Internet and a pop-up bubble shows the router address. Something like: 71.81.163.5. You would type in 71.81.163.5:25000 into your browser to access your camera.

Remember you just made a hole in your network security to allow anyone from the outside to see your camera. This means they now have at least a little access to your home network. Be careful what port mappings you create, every new one provides more access, and more chance for security problems.

Wow, you have now reserved a specific IP address for your camera and mapped a port through your router so that you can access it from anywhere in the world by just typing that address and port into a browser window. Powerful!

So, what happens when you get a new IP address assigned by your ISP? That's right you have to start Airport utility all the time to see your external IP router address. Not very convenient if you are not at home and want to connect to your network. See the next section on setting up a DDNS to give you a permanent address that you can always find, anywhere in the world, at anytime.

DDNS

Remember above when I said your ISP probably issues your house a dynamic IP address and that it could change at any time. Yep, that's right. Any time. It probably changes every few months.

I will have to continue this in the next article in this series. Stay tuned, more to come.

Viewing Software

IP Cam Viewer Pro in the iOS App store.

EvoCam for the Mac.

Safari Browser

Check out this website I found at darpa.mil

I've always said that mobile robots will not be fully useful until they understand and can utilize momentum. We are finally on our way.

via adafruit.com

Handy.

via tuaw.com

Can't wait.

via adafruit.com

I'm not colored blind, but I really like this app!

Give it five minutes Jason F. Mar 01

46 comments Latest by Gavin

A few years ago I used to be a hothead. Whenever anyone said anything, I’d think of a way to disagree. I’d push back hard if something didn’t fit my world-view.

It’s like I had to be first with an opinion – as if being first meant something. But what it really meant was that I wasn’t thinking hard enough about the problem. The faster you react, the less you think. Not always, but often.

It’s easy to talk about knee jerk reactions as if they are things that only other people have. You have them too. If your neighbor isn’t immune, neither are you.

This came to a head back in 2007. I was speaking at the Business Innovation Factory conference in Providence, RI. So was Richard Saul Wurman. After my talk Richard came up to introduce himself and compliment my talk. That was very generous of him. He certainly didn’t have to do that.

And what did I do? I pushed back at him about the talk he gave. While he was making his points on stage, I was taking an inventory of the things I didn’t agree with. And when presented with an opportunity to speak with him, I quickly pushed back at some of his ideas. I must have seemed like such an asshole.

His response changed my life. It was a simple thing. He said “Man, give it five minutes.” I asked him what he meant by that? He said, it’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to push back, it’s great to have strong opinions and beliefs, but give my ideas some time to set in before you’re sure you want to argue against them. “Five minutes” represented “think”, not react. He was totally right. I came into the discussion looking to prove something, not learn something.

This was a big moment for me.

Richard has spent his career thinking about these problems. He’s given it 30 years. And I gave it just a few minutes. Now, certainly he can be wrong and I could be right, but it’s better to think deeply about something first before being so certain you’re right.

There’s also a difference between asking questions and pushing back. Pushing back means you already think you know. Asking questions means you want to know. Ask more questions.

Learning to think first rather than react quick is a life long pursuit. It’s tough. I still get hot sometimes when I shouldn’t. But I’m really enjoying all the benefits of getting better.

If you aren’t sure why this is important, think about this quote from Jonathan Ive regarding Steve Jobs’ reverence for ideas:

And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished.

That’s deep. Ideas are fragile. They often start powerless. They’re barely there, so easy to ignore or skip or miss.

There are two things in this world that take no skill: 1. Spending other people’s money and 2. Dismissing an idea.

Dismissing an idea is so easy because it doesn’t involve any work. You can scoff at it. You can ignore it. You can puff some smoke at it. That’s easy. The hard thing to do is protect it, think about it, let it marinate, explore it, riff on it, and try it. The right idea could start out life as the wrong idea.

So next time you hear something, or someone, talk about an idea, pitch an idea, or suggest an idea, give it five minutes. Think about it a little bit before pushing back, before saying it’s too hard or it’s too much work. Those things may be true, but there may be another truth in there too: It may be worth it.

via 37signals.com

I've seen this too many times. It has been very sad.

-- ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished.

via itunes.apple.com

Very cool. I've been looking for a good way to teach programming on the iPad. Adding this to my to-do list.

via legospace.com

This is cool. A classroom from the ISS showing how different simple machines work on Earth and in the microgravity of space.

via diyode.com

This looks very interesting. I've been thinking of a way to get kids interested even faster. I will have to get one and try it out.

via adafruit.com

Nice. This is the iron I use now. The difference the cord makes is astounding. It keeps the heat up and is light weight. Highly recommended.

Dear Mr. Kalil,

I cannot tell you how overjoyed I am that our Nation’s leaders have finally opened an intrigued eye to the blossoming Maker movement.  Your speech following the Maker Faire in New York was encouraging, exciting, and promising. It put a well deserved spotlight on the achievements of garage tinkerers and hackers around the country (and let’s be honest, the world).  That our leaders are paying attention to these atypical, underground activities and interested in turning them into mainstream, common American values is incredibly motivating to me as a maker.

There is, however, one facet of this movement that was overlooked in your speech, and as far as I can tell, is unfortunately overlooked everywhere STEM is championed.  It is an undeniable aspect of humanity as valuable to Captain Picard as it was to Albert Einstein.  It has been a driving force, technologically and economically, in the multi-billion dollar video game industry (and thus, the personal computer and home entertainment industries).  It is introduced to Americans before Kindergarten, but somewhere along the path to high school, it is hopelessly abandoned as impractical and unproductive. But, it is also how we stop fragmenting ourselves into STEMs; it is how we come together to pick up STEAM for the renaissance (and yes, the ice cream was its idea).

Of course I am talking about art.

While art is a broad word that is dangerously all-encompasing (there is indeed an art to routing a circuit board, and a quite different art to designing a state machine), the art I am talking about here is fine art — that which Wikipedia defines as “developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application.” Fine art is no longer just painting on a canvas, drawing musical notes on a stave, or spinning clay into a pot.  Fine art, in addition to everything it used to be, is electrical, dynamic, and algorithmic now, and to borrow from Oscar Wilde, as “quite useless” as it ever was. Take as an example, Syyn Labs‘ recent contribution to GLOW.

I wasn’t at the Maker Faire in New York, but I have been to two in San Mateo, and many of the projects I saw there not practically useful, but were quite inspiring. Many of the useful projects I did see had one thing in common with the beloved MakerBots and DIYDrones: They were based on an Arduino, the open-source microcontroller and programming environment designed by artists for everyone.

Yes, the Arduino does fall under the blanket category of Technology, but it would be naive to think that its developers were trained only as technologists and engineers.  Their training in art, sociology, and community is doubtlessly and inextricably linked to the platform’s success across its diverse applications. Their desire to create something useful for artists is what drove them to simplify the user interface and lower the barrier to entry.

As I mentioned above, art also has a crucial role in the video game industry.  Visual arts in video games are the reason why many of my friends own HDTVs.  They are also the reason that companies like nVidia and ATi have had a thriving market in which to sell graphics cards and innovate parallel processing.  By and large, people want the latest GeForce and Radeon cards for artistic reasons: they want their games to look good. It wasn’t until very recently that using these massively parallel architectures for anything else was even reasonable.

I could go on about other examples of influences of fine arts on technology, like “Daisy” and the Altair 8800, but your time is valuable, and so is mine, so I’ll cut to the point.  This letter is to ask you to take a step back, have a look at the immense discrepancy between grant opportunities from the NSF and those from the NEA, and think about what we can do to pick up STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. Educating and encouraging our children to embrace artistic expression is just as important as teaching them calculus and the periodic table.  Let’s encourage our engineers to design new Most Useless Machines.  Let’s inspire our mathematicians to devise new mind-boggling N-dimensional fractal animations.  Let’s teach our artists to write programs and draw schematics so that they might create an electronic Mona Lisa.  And let’s show our children how fun and intertwined all of these fields are, so that they may form communities that flourish as they grow older and spread the joy to their children, and so on.

The train is headed in the right direction, we just need to invite everyone aboard.

Sincerely,

Kevin Nelson
Computer Engineer, Electronic Musician, Crasher

via soundcyst.com

He's right. Art is the reason we want to live. STEM is how to make it work. In other words Art is the goal, STEM is the process.

via symphonyofscience.com

Wow, these are great videos. I'm not sure how I've not heard of them before.