This year’s cohort at the 2024 Teen Robotics Camp at NCC was the brightest yet!
In no time at all, they got their robots behaving exactly as they wanted – and some were able to make their robots do tricks!
Many came into the camp feeling that the whole experience may be beyond their grasp. But ALL left Friday knowing that coding and robotics was easier than they ever imagined.
Thanks for being such great students!
Here is video from one of the students successfully navigating a course with their robot…
Congratulations to Luca for winning the Elon Musk Award!!!
It was great to meet another 14 kids … and teach them to build and program their own robot.
This year’s class at Norwalk Community College were a friendly bunch and demonstrated some extensive coding talent, despite not having had a whole lot of experience using the Arduino board.
It wasn’t long before they were able make their robots perform some really cool stunts and navigate some difficult obstacle courses.
This is my 5th year teaching classes at NCC and, combined with the teaching I did at our makerspace, it looks like I’ve taught over 400 kids to build/program a robot. There is no one else in Fairfield County that is even close to that number.
Harvesting the bounty of my garden the Spring, Summer and Fall months is a great thrill. But harvesting in January is even more exciting!
Mesclun greens in January
The above photo was taken in my basement just today (1/12/2023) and it is proof that anyone can grow their own greens at this time of year, despite freezing temperatures outside.
The average temperature of my basement is ~56 degrees, which is just right for the Mesclun shown here, and many other greens.
I have them growing under “blurple” LED lighting, controlled by a timer.
These greens are growing in an organic soil mix, which is amended by dried chicken manure.
Shoot me a message at riplabs@protonmail.com if you would like help getting started growing your own greens indoors.
There was a time when I was logging a whole lot of highway miles. And, during my travels, I thought about the possibility of making a device where I could display custom messages to my fellow motorists.
After all, driving can be kind of lonely sometimes and a simple message like this could help make someone’s day.
I finally got the time to sink my teeth into this project and the results were surprisingly good!
As usual, I turned to my old Buddy – the Raspberry Pi – to power a 32×32 LED matrix. After importing a couple of Open Source libraries and writing some Python scripts, I was off to the races. I was really surprised at the kind of resolution it can achieve … and the vivid colors are perfect for this time of year!
My LED matrix mounted in the rear window of my car.
I can change the messages using a Python application I created on the Pi.
The possibilities to improve this are endless. I am now working on expanding this to display custom text that a driver types into the interface (when they are pulled over, of course), as well as accepting feeds from Facebook and Twitter.
I was racking my brain for gifts I could give to friends and family – and it suddenly occurred to me to harness the tools around me.
That’s when I got the idea to personalize some Cocoa Coir doormats for friends, using our 60-Watt Laser Cutter. Here are a couple of my creations over the weekend…
The whole process got a bit tricky at times. This Cocoa Coir stuff is great fire tinder and, every once in a while, a small part of the mat would start smouldering. I had to pause the machine and smother the small coal with my thumb.
For all of those who are interested, I used a speed of 300 and power setting of 47.5. After talking with a Laser Cutting guru, he said I could have gotten better results with a speed of 400 and a power of 100. I guess I will try that next time.
The crisp Fall air has not settled in yet here in CT – but the season is already starting to turn up North. So we decided to take the show on the road for a couple of weekends in September to take advantage of some cool Fall weather!
If you ever wondered how you can, personally, reduce the power and influence of companies like Facebook, Google, Apple and others, you really ought to consider switching your phone to GrapheneOS.
On Saturday, October 1st, I will be teaching a Crypto Onramp Class. In this, we’ll provide a history of this rapidly growing space and take a tour of some of the major coins – and show you how their platforms work. We’ll also talk about future price estimates and introduce you to the experts that have accurately predicted price movements over and over again. We’ll also show you how its possible to get an extra 12x interest rate on your savings – and why you should think about becoming a DeFi investor as soon as possible
The great news is that you don’t have to make the trip with us to attend. You can take these classes virtually (via Teams).
For anyone who hasn’t had the privilege of visiting this makerspace, they’re in for a treat. It’s got so many great “toys” for makers, it’s almost too much to choose from. They’ve got a full wood shop, a full metal shop, a bay where you can perform any kind of auto repair, a painting booth, a rapid prototyping shop (this is where our laser cutter now lives) …. They also offer a bunch of great classes!
We’re having a great time over at NCC this week making robots! I’m posting this for the benefit of the kids in the classes, to help make it easy for them to experiment with their robots at home.
Step 1
When you get home tonight, ask your parents for a computer you could use to work on your robot. (It can be a Mac, Windows or Unix computer.) Once you have a computer, download the Arduino software here. Click on your operating system and click Yes, whenever the install program asks a questions.
Step 2
Open the Arduino software … you ucan use the search box in Windows
Step 3
Once the application is open, click File|New from the main menu (upper left corher).
Step 3
The application provides you with some bare-bones code – but delete this by clicking CTRL-A and Delete.
Step 4
Copy code from the Rippowam Labs github site (see URL below) and paste into Arduino (https://github.com/RippowamLabs/BotScripts4L298N/blob/master/L298_robot_experiment_fwd_bckwd_lft_rt.ino)
Step 5
Plug your robot into a USB port on your computer
Step 6
Choose your port, by selecting Tools|Port from the mail menu. Do NOT use COM3!
Step 7
Choose Board, by selecting Tools|Board from the main menu. You must choose one that includes the words “Arduino” and “Uno” in it.
Step 8
To execute your script, click the right-ward facing arrow
Troubleshooting hints:
If you ever experience any errors in your code, copy the message from the errors window and paste into Google. (Remember, if you’re having trouble, there are thousands of others out there that have run into the same wall. Harness Google to help solve your problems!)
We had to skip the last couple of years, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, but we are back: Rippowam Labs will once again be hosting a Teen Tech camp!
This year’s classes will be held from 8 am to 5 pm during the last week of June (6/27 – 7/1) and the theme of this year’s camp is: Python Coding Bootcamp.
Python Rocks!
Students will get a fun and friendly – but extensive – introduction to the Python language. At the end of the week, they will have all the skills necessary to tackle any UNIX-based DIY project (robotics, Web, crypto).
The week will go as follows:
Monday: Basic syntax, data types, variables and exception handling
Tuesday: Event-driven programming and libraries/frameworks
Tuesday: Consume and create APIs
Wednesday: Functions, constructors and Object Oriented Programming techniques
Thursday: Database Integration and Web scraping
Friday: AI and Machine Learning
This is the perfect camp for Teens who have little or no experience in Python – but want to learn this language in a short period of time.
Python is one of the hottest languages in the tech world right now and your son/daughter will have all the tools necessary to continue learning on their own, once the camp is complete.
Let me be clear – this will be a “geeky” pursuit. But it will be more than just coding. As an added bonus, Stamford YMCA legend Francky Trofort will visit the camp and lead students through fun exercise activities for about an hour everyday. Francky has a long list of clients he trains in Stamford and Greenwich (including a couple of famous actors) and we are lucky to to secure his services!
The instructor for the class is certified by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and has had many years experience in leading Teen learning activities. At least one of his students went on to attend Yale University!
2022 is destined to be another year of big changes!
As part of this, Rippowam Labs has made the decision to consciously decouple itself from Big Tech and we’ve dumped our old Android phones in favor of GrapheneOS!
GrapheneOS is a flavor of the Android operating system that has NOT been co-opted by Google and/or Facebook (why can’t I delete that app anyway?). There’s no reason they have to know every little thing about our lives and we decided to make the change. (Besides, isn’t it horrifying to know that iPhone and Android are the operating systems of over 99% of the phones out there?)
We successfully flashed a phone with the latest version of GrapheneOS and loaded it with secure apps, which WILL NOT report back to Big Tech companies. We literally have ALL the same kind of apps we had on our old phones – and more. And we’ve got a guide to help you do the same on your phone.
As we potentially enter a Great Reset (led by creepy guys like the one pictured below), we should all take a second look at our data security and take steps against giving up our private information.
We named it after Ben Franklin because he was a Renaissance man – someone we want to emulate! His inventions and life accomplishments literally helped create a new world. We’re hoping this phone will create a whole new world for the people that buy them.
I’ve been talking to some of my friends lately and we’ve become so disappointed with the big Tech companies. The social media companies cancel anyone who expresses an opinion other than that of the mainstream media and companies like Google and Facebook have the ability to track your every step – even if you have location tracking turned off.
It’s been a crazy turn of events. At the turn of the century, we were enamored with Google. They offered an array of free software that made life so simple (e.g., Google maps/directions). The company’s motto of “Do No Evil” earned fans the world over. But things have clearly changed. They’ve constructed a web of applications that we’ve all been caught in. And, like flies caught in spider web, we’ll all eventually have the life sucked out of us.
That’s when we found GrapheneOS. It’s a privacy-focused operating system that uses the Android operating system – but a version that is walled off from Google and their applications. It’s so secure that Edward Snowden endorses it.
I have to admit, when researching GrapheneOS, I was a little concerned. There are a limited number of cell phones that work with the OS – and all of them are made by Google! Having said that, my further reading suggests that the Operating System controls the phone – and not the hardware. If anything would transfer data to Google, it would be the apps (more on this later). They chose to develop on the Pixel line of phones because they have advanced security features. I bought mine on eBay for $250.
The big trick in all of this is to install apps that will not interact with Google. I installed F-droid, a Google Play substitute that offers applications that were developed for Android – and not Google’s version of Android. This means that no data will be sent back to the Tech Titan – unless you install an application that does this.
I’ve just started to install applications and I’ll give you an update later. But I found a free and secure email service call Tutanota that is not connected to gmail at all.
