Rob Miles University Lecturer and Microsoft MVP. And tall.
September 5, 2018 8:40 pm
Getting started From one fun event to another. Now it’s time for a bit of hacking. The Humber Care Tech Challenge started bright and early today. I’ve been involved with some of the organisation of the event. It’s one thing to sit in a meeting making plans and trying to think all the things that could go wrong so you can fix them in advance. It’s another thing to walk into Bridlington Spa Hall and… Read more →
September 3, 2018 10:35 am
We were up bright and early and on the road home by 8:00. The whole event was fantastic from start to finish. They say the next one will be in 2020. I’ll be there. There is also talk of “electromagnetic pulse” events being organised in the gap between the “fields” events. It would be great to set up one of these in the Hull area. Anyway, time to head for home and then to get the Air Quality sensor… Read more →
September 2, 2018 9:29 pm
Achievement Unlocked: Shower Ninja Level now at Master. Take a large waterproof bag for clean clothes and dry towel on the way in and dirty clothes and damp towel on the way out. Leave boots outside the shower cubicle, facing outwards so I can just step into them on the way out. I'm really getting the hang of this camping lark. Of course, it’s not rained at any point…..Having settled into somethin… Read more →
September 1, 2018 9:24 pm
Good morning... Shower Ninja Level Zero: Stand fully clothed in a shower booth and press the water button "just to see if it works". Then wonder why all the clothes you're wearing are now soaking wet. And have nothing to put wet clothes into. Oh well; the good news is that the shower was clean and the water was nice and warm. After breakfast it was time for some more sessions, starting with "Attac… Read more →
August 31, 2018 10:06 pm
I’ve not done any camping for over thirty years. After my previous experiences with horizontal rain, sleeping bags frozen solid and forgetting the tin opener, I reckoned it would take something rather special to get me under canvas again. Home for the next three days... Turns out that EMF is something special. Electromagnetic Fields is a techie festival in a field. And it is awesome. There are tec… Read more →
August 27, 2018 7:51 pm
When I finish writing a book I allow myself by buy a new computer. It's quite a thing for me. Last year, when I finished "Begin to Code with Python" I got myself an Apple iPad Pro. I was hoping to be able to use it to do proper work on the go. It has an OK keyboard and versions of most of the applications that I use. However, I found it impossible to use productively, over and above responding to… Read more →
August 22, 2018 6:01 pm
Yesterday I had a bit of a cold. Today I seem to have got all of it. So I feel rubbish; what better time to do something silly. I've decided to make a letter light for number one grandchild. See if you can use your skill and judgement to work out her name from the above picture. I found a really nice design on Thingiverse for letter boxes, but I would have had to stick them all together and make a… Read more →
August 20, 2018 2:28 pm
If you think that all I've done over the last week is work on my Air Quality sensor you'd be wrong. But I have been quite busy with it. I've now got a proper menu system with messages and numeric input. Plus a box. The box has been particularly fun to design, especially as the Heltec micro controller, in common with lots of similar devices, doesn't seem to provide any way that it can be fitted int… Read more →
August 17, 2018 7:40 pm
The Air Quality Sensor is coming along nicely. It's sprouted a keyboard and a Real Time Clock. And a menu system. And half a box. Such fun. You can find all the bits on GitHub here, I'm posting the code as I create it, so it's not really usable at the moment, but it is fun. Read more →
August 13, 2018 7:02 pm
I've been having proper fun today. I started with one of my tiny Heltec embedded controllers and an urge to connect it to an air quality sensor and a temperature/air pressure/humidity sensor. It wasn't easy, but it was possible. Biggest problem was that the temperature sensor uses an i2c connection to the Heltec device, and so does the lovely little OLED panel that you can see above showing number… Read more →