Thursday, January 21, 2010

Meet Craig / Microcontrollers


Craig is a Nondenominational Secular Winter Holiday gift. Craig is my best approximation of a bluebird. He's got a jingle-bell-thingy inside so he seems like a cat toy, but I promise he won't survive more than five minutes of an encounter with a cat.

In other news:
I won a free $100 worth of stuff at Sparkfun's Free Day a few weeks ago. Here's a list of the loot:
  • 7-Segment Red 6.5" Display x4
  • Simon - Surface Mount Soldering Kit x1
  • Breadboard Clear Self-Adhesive x1
  • Needle Nose Pliers x1
  • Diagonal Cutters x1
  • Illuminated LED Eye Loupe x1
Unfortunately the Simon's Game kit came with a blank Atmega 328 and no cables or connectors. So I scrounged around, looked at pinouts, and hooked it up to an ET-AVR ISP programmer device that I borrowed. Still no dice though, so I went ahead and ordered LadyAda's USBTinyISP kit. Hopefully that works...otherwise I might have to chalk this failure up to my crappy soldering skills and pay a visit to the toaster reflow station.

To celebrate my first Adafruit purchase I decided to do some research/internet stalking of Limor "LadyAda" Fried. After all, almost every electronics DIY project I undertake points back at her website. I'll leave you with this, which I think is very cool: http://www.citizenengineer.com.

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