Category: Engineering

Year of Maker

Countdown To Maker Faire 2014 — Get Prepared

James Floyd Kelly2

Just a few more days… and it’s Maker Faire Time! I know a lot of geek dads and moms make the trek each year to attend what is called The Greatest Show (And Tell) On Earth, and there’s are solid reasons for it. Two days of open-mouthed staring and double-takes. Two days of access to experts (self-taught and otherwise), makers, inventors, tinkerers, dreamers, builders, hackers, and hobbyists. Two days of sightseeing, hands-on activities, and pure surprises.

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The Knowledge

When the World Ends, You’ll Need The Knowledge

James Floyd Kelly

I’m not a sky-is-falling kind of guy. I don’t have a bunker behind my house and a decade’s worth of food stocked away for my family (although I do sometimes think about it). Every generation has had its concerns about the world ending, but I’m one of those optimists that hopes we’ll be able to solve our problems — water shortages, global warming, pandemics — and not be despised by our great-great-grandkids.

But who really knows? Asteroids are flying around our universe with sufficient mass and speed. New and scarier viruses seem to pop up every few years. So many countries seem to want their own nuclear bombs these days. Experts seem to think a major financial collapse lurks around the corner. Just how prepared are we if the world we know it stopped functioning normally for an extended period of time? How long would we last without the modern conveniences of electricity, medicine, clothing, food, and clean water?

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Problem - Solution

Turning Off The Conair CD108 Infiniti Curling Iron Via Email

James Floyd Kelly

My wife sometimes leaves things plugged in and turned on. Dangerous things. Like her curling iron. It’s not unheard-of for her to be a couple miles down the road, heading out to run some errands with the boys in the back seat all buckled in. “Did I leave the curling iron on?” she wonders. This problem called for a drastic solution. A solution that would justify four years of engineering school. A problem that so many of us geek spouses wait 20, 30, or even 40 years of marriage to encounter… and then take down with extreme prejudice.

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[Parallax ELEV-8] [Parrot AR.Drone 2.0]

A Tale of Two Drones: Parallax ELEV-8 & AR.Drone 2.0

Brian McLaughlin2

As we come out of a cold and bitter winter into spring, you may look towards the sky yourself and think of getting a UAV or drone of your own. There are lots of great smaller models of drone out there but in this article, I take a look at two of the heavier hitters, the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 and the Parallax ELEV-8. These are two very different commercial options, in a similar class, and both are outstanding for their different uses.

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Deluxe Kit

Perfect All-in-One Raspberry Pi Starter Kit (UK Only)

James Floyd Kelly15

I’ve been tinkering for some time with the Arduino family of micro controllers, but lately I’ve been wanting to start investigating the new Raspberry Pi credit card-sized computer. When the Pi first arrived, users simply purchased the small circuit board and provided their own add-ons like a keyboard, mouse, and display. But now, the Pi has arrived and is finally being bundled in kits that allow beginners to jump right in with a minimum of fuss. One of these is the U:Create Raspberry Pi Deluxe Starter Kit available in the UK for £99.99.

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Q&A with 101 Things I Learned Author Matt Frederick

Ethan Gilsdorf2

Matt Frederick’s 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School went on to become a bestseller. The book was such a success, Frederick decided to turn the 101 Things I Learned idea into a franchise, and it now has over 500,000 books in print. To date, he has coauthored, edited, and illustrated six additional books with Grand Central Publishing. The latest is 101 Things I Learned in Engineering School. We sit down with the author to ask him how he did it. And learn some stuff about engineers.

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What I Learned from Hour of Code (x12)

Melissa Ford2

Each day, when I returned to the school like the Pied Piper of Circuits to lead another round of workshops, more and more kids started gathering at the computer lab door. I think that’s a sign of how interested kids are to keep exploring STEM fields. I had a fifth grader who told me at the beginning of the workshop that she didn’t really like computers who informed me later that she’s now thinking about studying computer science. I think that’s an hour well spent. After all, there are going to be 1.2 million new jobs in STEM fields in 2018. Who is going to fill them if we don’t raise the next generation with that information?

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Atlanta Mini Maker Faire

The Atlanta Mini Maker Faire 2013 Wrap-Up

James Floyd Kelly4

The worst thing about the Atlanta Mini Maker Faire… is that it only happens once a year. The event was held at Georgia Tech on the Tech Green, a football field-sized area right in the heart of the campus. Booths were setup around the perimeter, with the big green grassy area open for kids to run and catch frisbees being flung from a robot and launch their handmade paper rockets. There were 3D printers galore, robots, artists, homeschooler groups, hackerspaces, inventors, hobbyists, and much more.

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The Geek Immigrant's Guide to Learning Coding (aka Learn Like a Kid)

Melissa Ford2

Being a Geek Immigrant mother to two Geek Native children, I set off to learn coding so I could turn around and help my kids learn coding. And I learned some valuable things along the way. Enough to construct this guide in case you are like me and coming to Geekhood in middle age. It will help you learn coding as an adult so that you can turn around and teach coding to kids. It’s for every teacher, every Coderdojo organizer, every parent, every person who wants-to-learn-coding-for-whatever-reason-but-knows-nothing-about-computers.

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ISS Crew Preparing for an Emergency Spacewalk

Erik Wecks3

For anyone interested in space and our space program, there is a little drama going on aboard the International Space Station. While the station’s astronauts are not in any danger, a coolant leak in one of the solar arrays has managers at NASA scrambling to reroute power to the other seven arrays and preparing for possible emergency spacewalk on Saturday. The leak is expected to force the shutdown of that solar array sometime this morning. The decision on doing a spacewalk will be made sometime late tonight. NASA TV has been covering these events on and off already, and if there is a spacewalk you will be able to watch it live. You can check in on their live stream here at GeekDad.

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