Moose-mousse - Electronic Moose

Teaching programming

One of the things I want to do is teach. My plan is, now that I (F'''ucking FINALLY!) finished my engineering degree, is to work a few years in the robotics industry, and then spend half my worktime there, and half teaching kids programming and code. Because,

A:

I feel that in the same way that you need to know physics, reading, internet literacy, history and a bunch of other skills to navigate the modern world, you also need programming. Not that everyone should become a software engineer. But everyone should be able to set up a few scripts to automate things on their PC, and know enough about how code works to know how the software that runs the world works. In the same way that you know enough about physics to know how satellites giving you internet works. Could you build that? No, of course not. Nor should you. But you know things can go in orbit. That things can communicate wirelessly over long distances and so on. You know enough about mechanics to use a screwdriver to take simple things apart and clean them, and know that you do NOT know enough to fix the electronics in your dishwasher.

You know it is not magic. Yet... programming is often thought of as that. And it really should not be. I swear to you. It is easy. Not to develop code to run a car, but to have it automatically edit text in a file according to rules you made? You betcha. B:

While learning to program as a job takes years, learning enough to understand the basics, and being able and unafraid to set up a script or throw together a python program to automatically sort files on your work computer really does not take a lot of time or effort. And I will guarantee, most students will benefit a lot from it. C:

Programming is much more a craft, like mechanic or carpenter. But more appealing for kids who are not confident in working with their hands. There is also good reasons for why it used to be thought of as a thing people who did not get along with others did. It is, in essence, defining and solving puzzles. To solve problems, that you also have to define yourself. Many a child have found that programming was a thing they could do, and be good at. A thing that helped them be confident. Maker spaces and learning programs with robotics or game development is filled with youngsters eager to learn. Who have finally find a thing they can be good at! But these programs a rare. And often schools and teachers mismanage how to run them. Not out of malice (There are few professions that is filled with more kindhearted people that deserves our endless appreciation than teachers), but because there are endless well paid and prestigious career opportunities for software developers. And so most schools will not have anyone who can even advice them when they set up these things. There is so much good to do. And I want to do some of it!

The Universal Serial Bus is often not universal...

So there is this problem you often run into when doing development. You come up with a solution. You research the solution, and find only tiny amounts of people talking about it, and/or they seem to say many different things and disagree. Most of the time, that is for 2 reasons 1: it is a very novel solution, so no one have tried it much, and everyone who have, has made very custom versions of it. 2: There are variables that makes it impossible to do it in one single way. I needed a rechargeable battery system to power my robot. These can get... VERY complicated, and pre-made solutions can quickly be expensive and you might end up with batteries catching fire, or destroying the batteries so they can never be used again. You need protections on them, but which kind depends on a bunch of things. I know electronics, but I am mainly a software guy, and I know when I do not know enough about electronics to do it myself. This being such a case. So, I came up with the idea to use powerbanks. One for each steppermotor, and one for the microcontroller(so the noise fromt he motors could not cause issues).If I use ones that can output enough amperage, they should just work and they are cheap. They are meant to be used by normal costumers, so have all the protection needed, and are quite idiot-proof(Which is a very handy thing when you are an idiot, like me) so should be easy to use. But I could not find much info about doing this... and I did not realize I was looking at reason 2. Basically, BECAUSE powerbanks are idiotproof, they do not want to discharge themselves unless there is a real device at the end of the USB cable. So if they cannot detect one, they turn off after about a second. How do they determine if there is a real device? Depends on the power bank.... No really, there is NO standard way to do it, as far as I can tell. And it does not depend on the power bank MODEL. I have 2 identical power banks, bought at the same time, and they do NOT behave the same. Which means that when I connected the powerbanks to supply my system, they (SOMETIMES) did not supply anything. Some check how much current is being drawn, which can be faked with a resistor wasting some power. 500mA was being quoted a lot, but that is more of a "That is probably enough to get it going". Others check for impedance(Basically, also resistance, but from frequency dependent sources). Those can be "faked" by having a coil or a device that acts like one to the faking resistor. I wanted a tiny 5 volt fan to cool the stepper motor drivers anyway, so I had one power bank also power that. That ensured that it actually stayed on (But if I used the other, (identical!) power bank it just turned off anyway). The other one could be connected up directly. If I used the powerbanks lower amperage socket. If I used the high amperage one, it just turned off. So now it works... I have 2 powerbanks for the motors, each with painters tape marking which powerbank and socket to use for what. Took me a week longer than I had hoped to figure all this out and do all the experiments. Sometimes, things that should be simple are just headaches.

Are... are we sure driller knows he is hired to mine? I am starting to suspect that he just thinks he is in some sort of wonderful heaven where he is provided with copious amounts of flamethrower fuel, C4 and living targets to use them on (Some with beards, some without)

Source: https://sneekkio.artstation.com/projects/L2Dvv5