The folks over at SparkFun Electronics have a post up detailing a recent creation from their e-textiles sage Dia. A LilyPad Arduino-powered Dungeons and Dragons dice gauntlet. The gauntlet allows you to select the type of roll you want to …
Continue ReadingA couple years ago I heard people start talking about something called an Arduino. This was before I started writing for GeekDad and my life was pretty busy with work and family so I relegated the term to a part …
Continue ReadingThis time of the year has a poignant place in the hearts of all of those who work in or love the space program. It is an unfortunate cluster of dates that represent the anniversary of the three events that …
Continue ReadingToday, the eminent physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking is 70 years old. Dr. Hawking has numerous scientific achievements, making him a household name and a modern icon of the term “genius.” From Dr. Hawking’s website: Stephen Hawking has worked on the …
Continue ReadingNew app-plus-accessory combo fulfills the tablet’s promise as a control surface for almost any electronic tool you can think of.
Continue ReadingThe National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite launched last month in a brilliant pre-dawn display from the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket. I first mentioned NPP just before Hurricane …
Continue ReadingBelieve it or not, there is a great deal of NASA technology in your everyday life! This includes movie and entertainment technology. Now, in the 21st century, the business of Christmas and Santa Claus has gone hi-tech. The upcoming Sony …
Continue ReadingEarly on Friday morning the night sky was brightened around Vandenberg Air Force Base by the launch of a Delta II rocket carrying the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project, or NPP, satellite into space. This marks …
Continue ReadingRecently, a group of physicists have been working to measure the neutrinos generated from a particle accelerator at CERN. This group discovered neutrinos arriving faster than would have been expected and they appear to be traveling faster than the speed …
Continue ReadingNASA today unveiled the new rocket system that will continue the manned space program for the next few decades.
Continue ReadingNASA launched the GRAIL mission to the moon Saturday. The GRAIL mission is going to map the gravitational field of the moon in unprecedented detail and provide new insight into the moon’s internal structure.
Continue ReadingThe Apollo missions to the Moon. Few things stand out in modern human history that are as momentous. Now, thanks to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO for short, we have new views of three of the Apollo landing sites …
Continue ReadingNo, I am not suggesting that you work on having that intervention with your kids for their Mario Kart habit. I fully support Mario Kart! I am referring to an upcoming convention where you can feel good about bringing the …
Continue ReadingThere is a literal fleet of satellites circling the Earth observing atmospheric conditions, and keeping an eye on the superstorms that threaten our cities.
Continue ReadingOne of the things I am learning as I rise in the ranks of engineering is that you gain more responsibility for the products being developed while simultaneously being increasingly physically separated from the hands-on work. I used to do …
Continue ReadingThere is nothing that gets the parents of very young children more excited than the prospect of a piece of technology that will help with those very exhausting first couple years. This excitement doubles if you are a geek parent. …
Continue ReadingOn Saturday, controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena received an indication they had been waiting for from the Dawn spacecraft. Dawn had successfully entered orbit around the astroid Vesta marking the first time a spacecraft had entered orbit around an …
Continue Reading If you don’t already, you really should checkout NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website daily. Today’s image has left me particularly awestruck at its beauty. It is an image from the Tycho Crater on the Moon taken with …
Continue ReadingOn Tuesday, the Sun threw off a large amount of material directed towards Earth in an event known as a Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME. When I state a large amount of material here, I mean large. According to a …
Continue ReadingIn the United States, on the 4th of July, we celebrate the declaration of our independence as a sovereign nation with great pride by proudly displaying our countries’ flag and celebrating with fireworks displays across the country. In 1977, just …
Continue ReadingHello all and welcome to another edition of the GeekDad Space Report! We had two launches listed for last week. The Dnepr rocket with it’s dual satellite payload launched successfully as did the launch of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three …
Continue ReadingHello all and welcome to this week’s edition of the GeekDad Space Report. There was a single launch on the schedule for last week, the launch of the STSAT-2B satellite on the Naro-1 rocket. Unfortunately, this launch was not successful …
Continue ReadingWelcome to the GeekDad Space Report for the week of June 7, 2010! We had a busy week of launches last week and all of them, with the exception of the Cartosat-2B successfully made it to orbit. The Cartosat-2B launch …
Continue ReadingWelcome to the GeekDad Space Report for the week of May 31st, 2010 (publishing the day after Memorial Day). If you are in the United States, I hope you enjoyed Memorial Day and if you aren’t in the United States, …
Continue ReadingWelcome to the GeekDad Space Report for the week of May 24, 2010! We had a busy launch schedule last week with four launches on the schedule but only two of those made it off the pad. The launch of …
Continue ReadingHello everyone and welcome to another addition of the GeekDad Space Report! Last week the big news was the planned launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis rocketed off the pad on schedule and successfully docked with the International Space …
Continue ReadingHello all and welcome to this week’s edition of the GeekDad Space Report. There were no launches scheduled for the past week to report on so let’s dig right in. Launches (Sources: Spaceflight Now World Launch Schedule, Wallops Flight Facility …
Continue ReadingWelcome all to the latest edition of the GeekDad Space Report. Seems amazing that we have made it to May already! The year is flying by so quick! I reported on one launch scheduled for last week, the launch of …
Continue ReadingHello all and welcome to this week’s GeekDad Space Report! Hot off the presses last week was the delay in the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery by a day. The Shuttle did indeed land the next day at the …
Continue ReadingHello and welcome to this week’s GeekDad Space Report. The picture to go with this week’s post is an incredible image captured by the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull whose cloud of ash has caused travel …
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