When I was in college, many years ago, my media library existed on a wooden rack that held my DVDs, VHS tapes, and CDs. I would select the media I wanted to listen to or watch and put it …
Continue ReadingHappy Birthday wishes to one of the pre-eminent scientists of our time!
Continue ReadingThe time has come for parents, students, and teachers to get ready for the start of a new school year. In addition to the normal notebooks, pens, pencils, and other standards, today’s students need to have storage for all of …
Continue ReadingWe at GeekDad are sorry to report on the passing of legendary Astronaut Neil Armstrong at the age of 82. While he was best known for being the first human to set foot on the Moon during Apollo 11, his …
Continue ReadingIt may seem like summer just began but the time for school approaches once again. The great team over at Adafruit is ready to help you prepare! For the month of August, the Adafruit blog will feature a daily post …
Continue ReadingThis weekend will mark an event that promises to be momentous in the history of planetary exploration. The Mars Science Lab (MSL) Rover, christened Curiosity, is quickly approaching the Red Planet after an eight month journey from Launch Complex 41 …
Continue ReadingWhile I have a great fondness for developing and prototyping my electroncis projects on the Arduino platform, and I always will love the Arduino and Atmel microcontrollers, there is new favorite in my toolkit now as well. The TinkerForge system.
Continue ReadingA few months back, I was walking around the USA Science & Engineering Festival here in the DC area and saw a number of people looking closely at microscopes at a Celestron display. Being a space and astronomy buff, I …
Continue ReadingIf you’ve been following technology news lately you know that the new rage for making laptops thinner, lighter, and more power efficient is replacing the spinning disk drive with a Solid State Drive, or SSD. SSD units have no moving …
Continue ReadingThe Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced a summer programming contest for young Makers, programmers, and other curious geeklings 18 and under. The rules are simple, develop software on the Raspberry Pi that impresses the judges. There is more information available …
Continue ReadingThe upcoming announcement of the results of the search for the Higgs Boson are promising to be ground breaking from a scientific point-of-view. There is a lot of information that may be confusing to some and will be misinterpreted by …
Continue ReadingI have been traveling a great deal lately and I am one of those that travels with a veritable toolkit of things that I consider basics for being on the road. A travel power strip with USB outlets, extra chargers …
Continue ReadingThe name Nemo automatically brings to mind visions of the deep for many people. From the infamous anti-hero captain in Jules Vernes’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the lovable lost clown fish in Pixar’s Finding Nemo, the name has …
Continue ReadingI’m a tinkerer, a Maker, and a parent. This means I am always taking something apart and, often, trying to put it back together. As the mechanical packaging and layout of consumer electronics is shrinking while also becoming more complex, …
Continue ReadingSo you’re building that new electronics project with your geeklings and are having trouble getting two parts to communicate. Maybe you’re building a robot with multiple microcontrollers and you want to analyze the serial protocol between the controllers. Or maybe …
Continue ReadingThis weekend is a major first for me. I’m not talking about my first trip to San Francisco, which has been awesome. I am talking about my first Maker Faire and I couldn’t be more excited. It is palpable and …
Continue ReadingWhen I get started on a new project or endeavor, I become a voracious consumer of information. I start reading everything I can get my hands on that will introduce me to that subject and give me a good foothold. …
Continue ReadingThere is a revolution upon us in the Maker community. Use of computer controlled construction methods, such as CNC machines, laser cutters, and 3D printers is on the rise and the cost to build these machines from scratch or from …
Continue ReadingOne of the most important tenets I live by is that education never stops. A quick way for something to catch my attention is to have an area marked with words such as “tutorial,” “learn,” “guide,” and all those other …
Continue ReadingI was always intimidated by soldering but I don’t have the best manual dexterity in the world. Let’s just say being a neurosurgeon was never really an option for me. With some practice though, I have found it to be …
Continue ReadingDo you look at different aspects of space exploration and think that you would love to contribute some of your know-how to the effort? Want to work with your geeklings on a cool project? There is something happening this weekend …
Continue ReadingIt won’t be long now that I will be packing my bags and heading to the Bay Area Maker Faire 2012 in San Mateo. I was thinking about bringing along an Arduino and some parts that could be fiddled with …
Continue ReadingOne thing I see a lot in my professional life is the use of extruded beams used for prototyping. There are a number of great products out there but many of them are very expensive or the extruded bars are …
Continue ReadingI may have finally found the ultimate iOS accessory. It works with your iPad, your iPhone, and even your iPod touch and is certified for orbital operations. I am talking about the iSpaced from Oscium and I am very impressed …
Continue ReadingSo how good are you really at backing up your files? No, really, how good? Are you feeling fairly confident when I ask that question or are you feeling a little anxious that you may be one catastrophic drive failure …
Continue ReadingIn a stunning display this morning, NASA successfully launched all 5 of the rockets for the ATREX experiment. I provided some information about the ATREX mission last week. ATREX stands for Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment and consisted of 5 sounding …
Continue ReadingNASA is attempting to launch five rockets in five minutes from the Wallops Flight Facility this month. So far, conditions have not been favorable but the window of opportunity is open until April 3rd. The five rockets will launch into …
Continue ReadingAn article that ran yesterday on GeekDad by Jim MacQuarrie made it very clear that, from the standpoint of professional archery, Hawkeye couldn’t hit the broadside of Tony Stark’s mansion. With my limited exposure to archery I can’t argue against what …
Continue ReadingIn the last installment of The GeekDad Arduino Guide, I introduced you to the Arduino hardware and why it is so cool. Now, let’s start actually using an Arduino. How do you get started? Well, first you have to buy …
Continue ReadingI love to read through project suggestions and examples for the Arduino and other platforms. It keeps my mind constantly running with ideas for projects. I was recently provided a copy of Environmental Monitoring with Arduino to review and it …
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