Paper Bits

Here is how to write assembly instructions for a neural prosthesis (in the form of cat ears).

First, look through all the pictures you took while you made the first prototype. This will take forever. You figured taking lots of process photos would make things easier, so now you get to wade through several months worth of images.

Once you sort through all these images, realize that they are completely unsuitable for build instructions. That’s because when you built the damn prototype the first time, you ended up changing the design and going back to modify existing hardware, so that there’s no consistent story of building the thing from beginning to end.

Swear a lot. This will not make you feel better, but it’s expected.

Now you have to build an entirely new set of ears in order to write instructions. You will think this will be easy, especially since you have already started working on another headset. This is wrong, but enjoy your delusions while they last.

Write up an outline of the steps required to build the headset. This will be an amusing reminder of how poorly your memory works.

As an added incentive, promise your girlfriend that you will make this set of ears for her in time for an event a few weeks away.

Print out a new set of parts for the ears. For extra fun, have your Makerbot’s heated build platform malfunction, making it impossible to finish any prints. Waste a week trying to troubleshoot your Makerbot, while it laughs silently at you.

Give up.

Realize you can’t give up.

Scrounge existing parts from your semi-final pieces. Breathe a sigh of relief. Set up a tripod and makeshift photo booth, and begin assembly, photographing along with your build steps as you go.

Discover that your goddamn design can only be built by four-armed monkey people from the planet Maxi-Megalon. Consider changing the design. Remember that your Makerbot still isn’t working.

Swear a lot.

Change the build instructions to show how you can use vises and third-hand tools to hold things in place. Wonder why anyone in their right mind would even follow these instructions. Keep going anyhow. Finish the first stage of assembly to the point where the ears need to be programmed, and their movement adjusted.

This is when you will face the fact that your existing code makes it ridiculously hard to adjust the position and movement of the ears, and that you’re going to need to completely re-think the software portion of the design.

Assure your girlfriend that the ears will be done on time.

Re-write the tuning code. Get the ears moving properly. Get cocky and re-factor the movement code for the final set of ears. Feel smug.

Wake up in the middle of the night and realize that you still haven’t solved the problem of making the ears run on a rechargeable battery.

Write some code to stress-test the ear power circuit. Connect both sets of ears to different power supplies and run them for four hours. Breathe a sigh of relief when the LiPo battery works (for now). Stay up half the night. Get brain-fried.

Post a picture of the semi-complete second set of ears to your blog with an un-funny set of pseudo-instructions for writing the instructions.

Do not give up.

MindWave USB Dongle on Flickr.

I got a bit annoyed with NeuroSky Inc.’s instructions for connecting their MindWave headset to an arduino. They obviously mean well, but the instructions are a bit vague and poorly illustrated.

So I made my own illustration of the fiddly part. It uses Flickr photo notes, so if you care, click through and check there.

I hope this ends up being helpful to someone.

A Slow Display… E-Paper + Arduino

Luckily for us, SparkFun started selling [an] E-Paper display and breakout board, finally bringing this great technology to a place where we can slap it on the back of our Arduinos.

They’ve got a tutorial with an example library and code.

A shorthand for designing UI flows — 37signals

Flows are made out of individual interactions. A screen offers some possibilities and the user chooses one. Then something happens, and the screen changes. It’s an ongoing conversation. Each moment in a flow is like a coin with two sides. The screen is showing something on one side, and the user is reacting on the other side. My flow diagrams illustrate this two-sided nature with a bar. Above the bar is what the user sees. Below the bar is what they do. An arrow connects the user’s action to a new screen with yet another action.

Stumbled across this when it was posted originally, but never had a chance to try it.

I’ll have to give it a shot this week.

RFID Transplantation «  bunnie’s blog

Embed an RFID tag from a payment card in your phone.

Noted for future reference: how to use a Parallax RFID reader and Arduino to control a servo motor:

This is an RFID authentication system. It allows a person to place an RFID tag within proximity of the reader device (usually 5-6 inches with this reader) and it will look up the tag in an SQLite database to check if it should grant access. If authorization is granted, the hardware device will turn a servo motor into a second position. The primary application of this being the unlocking of a door. […] This project is very easily modified to do any sort of task.