Uploading Old Projects - Part 2

Project Ates

C# (.Net/Mono) Bitcoin CPU/GPU Alternative Mining Program

Part 2 of this series is for a "newer" old project called "Ates". I googled a four letter word to use as a project name starting with the letter "A" and this is what I got. It has nothing to do with Bitcoin or mining, but oh well.

This home project started around summer 2013 when Bitcoin was starting to get pretty popular. I actually heard about Bitcoin back in 2010 but at the time I thought to myself "this will never go anywhere". Oh how I was so wrong. When I started investigating more into Bitcoin and this whole thing about mining I got instantly hooked. It was such an interesting idea, users "mine" coins by computing a hash algorithm to give a certain output. 

Uploading Old Projects - Part 1

Project Frogo

My first attempt at a autonomous robot

A while ago (2010) I got very interested in robotics. I wanted to build a robot so I went out and bought a bunch of parts from Digikey and Pololu,

I based my design on the Atmel Xplain development kit for the brains and used motors and wheels from Pololu.

My original goal was a four wheeled robot with ultrasound sensors and bumpers so that it could navigate itself around a room. A lot like the iRobot Roomba vacuum machines. When I first started sketching out my idea my wife mentioned that it looks a lot like a frog, so she nicknamed it "Frogo". So it became my project name!

My original vision:

• Four wheeled, controlled by DC motors with encoders
• Double decker wood base
• Powered by 4 AA batteries
• Breadboard for some glue circuitry (i.e. power regulators, motor drivers, etc.)
• "Frog eyes" i.e. ultrasound sensors
• Brains by Atmel Xplain development kit
• 4.3" LCD screen for diagnostic purposes as well as to look cool

Tools of The Trade - Part 2

In this second part of the series about tools I will talk about HARDware related tools, i.e. schematics, PCB layout, etc. This took more time to select; therefore, I made a little review of the contenders. In the end my decision was partly quantitative and partly subjective. It's how I feel about a tool that matters, we will be spending a lot of time together.

Tools of The Trade - Part 1

Before I officially start my first project on this blog, I decided to set up an environment first. There were many projects before this blog but were never properly documented (except chicken scratch on Realtor note pads and mad scientist looking thingamabobs).

For my first post (and first part of this series) I will talk about the different tools I am using as well as the ones I am evaluating.