biphenyl.org

Over the past few weeks I've been working on some improvements and extensions to my Power Glove 20th Anniversary Edition. On the tech side of things, I replaced the ugly 9V battery I was using with a low-profile, rechargeable Lithium-Polymer battery. I've updated the steps in the Instructable with new pictures and instructions.

I also re-wrote my Java-Unity bridge using a UDP socket. This is a lot more elegant than the text file approach I had been using before. Now the Java program acts as a server, reading in serial data from Bluetooth and broadcasting each line as a UDP packet. The Unity input manager then reads the UDP packets and parses the actual sensor values. This should reduce disk writes, and is more reliable, so I don't have to reset the Java bridge as often. I've updated the code bundle with the new Java and Unity source code.

The other big news is that I'm going to be exhibiting at Maker Faire Bay Area! Maker Faire is one of my favorite gatherings -- a fantastic nexus of creative people making wonderful things. If you're in the Bay Area, you can come try the Power Glove out for yourself this weekend, May 30-31, at the San Mateo County Expo Center!

As a bonus for Maker Faire attendees, I've finished adding Power Glove support to our most popular Blurst game, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari! I recorded a demo video to show it off:

Since buying my bike, I find myself cycling pretty often and I usually bring my camera along to take pictures. Usually taking photos involves stopping and fumbling around in my backpack for the camera -- not an ideal situation. Naturally, the first thing I started thinking about after buying the bike was, "How can I mod this to make it uniquely mine?" While looking through Instructables for ideas, I found instructions for a bicycle camera mount. It dug it, and it had the benefit of being cheap, but was a little feature-anemic. Specifically, it couldn't tilt at all, so would result in unlevel pictures on my bike, and it wasn't easy to remove the camera -- you had to unscrew it from a bolt for unmounted shots. I immediately thought of tripods with quick release plates and decided on a simple remake using a tripod head. I made and attached it this weekend, with pretty excellent results! Now I can make photos while biking and easily transition to hand-held shots when I see something cool on the roadside!

I published an Instructable for anyone interested in making one, and have a photoset up on Flickr.

I've been looking to buy a bike for some time, essentially since Adam bought one a little over a year ago. I like the idea of human-powered transportation - it's wholly sustainable and it's good exercise, too. I found this bike on Craigslist over the weekend - it was only used for about a year by the previous owner, and has just been sitting in his garage since. It's in practically brand-new condition, and at $220 I got it for about half the cost of a new one. I dig it because it's a hybrid, so it's lightweight like a street bike, but has beefy enough tires and rims that I can ride it on unpaved areas like the many canal paths in Phoenix.

This last weekend was three days long, thanks to the observance of Veteran's Day on Monday. When Rebecca reminded me of this the Tuesday before, I decided we absolutely had to get out of Phoenix for the weekend and take a trip somewhere. After some speed planning we ended up with Becky, Rebecca, Brandon and I driving to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon for two hikes - The Dry Lake Hills in Flagstaff and along the South Rim Trail in the Grand Canyon. Some photo highlights, taken by me and Becky.

All involved had an excellent time - it was great to get out of the city and enjoy some of Arizona's beautiful scenery. (and local beers!)