Arduino with range finder and two servos

In the past month or so, I’ve been playing with an Arduino in my spare time.  For those not familiar with Arduinos, it is an inexpensive and  popular electronics prototyping platform.  You can hook up various electronic components (sensors, lights, motors, etc), and then write programs in a simple variant of “C” to control it.  I still have a ways to go in my understanding of electricity/electronics, but it has been a blast trying out new components and seeing how it works.  After almost two decades of writing software, it is nice to work on a platform that can interact with the physical world.  So far, I’ve used:

1. LEDs
2. Resistors
3. Potentiometers (variable resistors)
4. Ultrasonic distance sensors
5. Infrared motion detectors
6. Pressure sensors
7. Light sensors (photocells)
8. Servos

I’m taking a class in soldering at the Tech Shop on Friday evening, and hopefully this will allow me to make some more complex devices.

If you are curious about messing around with Arduinos, I recommend the following:

• TodBot’s Bionic Arduino class material

• Lady Ada’s Arduino tutorial

I just sent in my registration request for The Amaz!ng Meeting 7.  I’ll also be attending Dr. Steven Novella’s Science Based Medicine pre-conference the day before and catching Penn & Teller’s show on Saturday night.

• How bloodletting was an extremely popular medical practice all the way from the ancient Greeks up until the last 150 years or so (and has some specific uses now).  George Washington’s doctors drained about half of his blood in the two days before he died in a misguided attempt to help him.
• The first documented precursor to the clinical trial was to test various cures for scurvy (and the results ended up giving a huge naval advantage to England).  If you were a navy sailor in the 1700s you were much more likely to die from scurvy than fighting.
• Florence Nightingale‘s desire to make hospitals more hygienic saved thousands of lives and her excellent statistical background helped her prove the value to a skeptical medical community.

I had blogged awhile ago about a UC Berkley course informally titled “Physics for Future Presidents” that I had listened to on my iPod and found really enjoyable.  The professor has just released a book version meant for the casual reader (you don’t need to be a physics egghead at all).  I found my copy when I got home on Friday and am about 1/3 through it.  If you have any interest in learning about things that a “future president” should know about terrorism, energy, nukes, space, and global warming etc… to help make policy decisions, this book is a fantastic read, I’d highly recommend it.

Amazon Link

If you are someone I see on a regular basis and want to borrow my copy, just let me know.  I’ll be done with it by Tuesday at the latest.

On the bright side, it is just under 100 hours until Endeavor is supposed to launch and no major snags have occurred yet.

Friends – Here is a note from the director of the new TV pilot THE SKEPTOLOGISTS, starring Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, Steven Novella, Yau-Man Chan, Kirsten Sanford, and Mark Edward. We are shortly going to be out pitching it to the networks and are seeking as much email support as we can get.

Please consider posting this announcement, or any variation of it including the email address, to any blogs, podcasts, email lists or other resources you may have. Let’s get this show on the air!!!

Raise your voice! Let it be known that it’s time for a TV series that focuses on the real, the intelligent and important advances in science, critical thinking and skepticism. The Skeptologists will be pitched to major networks soon, and we want to give the programming executives a sense of what kind of support they can received if they invest in a TV series of this kind.

We have started an email campaign to have fans of the show write-in in support of this show idea and let us know why you would watch a show about critical thinking, science and skepticism! We will compile the emails and present to the executives along with our all-star cast, entertaining pilot program and solid production background to seal a great TV deal to give the Skeptics of the world a show they can stand behind, and be proud of!

Take a moment, and send a brief email to skeptologists@newrule.com. You email will be collected and will help support the show.