I wonder how much processor noise is being emitted by
the different types of cellphones?
It might be possible to build a cheap prop board that could sense
this noise and with the proper software running on the phone you
could easily control external devices with it.
You could flash the phones screen and xmit data that way but it's
a very uncool method, ditto using sound output. Just sending data
by placing the phone in close proximity to a prop board would be better.
Hey, that's a great add on product idea, on the SD + Demoboard.
Has that been done? Has to have been, but I'm saying it anyway. Make a tiny board that contains the adapter, and it just plugs into the breaboard on the Demoboard, for quick 'n dirty SD.
@Holly: Brilliant!! The phones make a lot of noise. Put one next to an AM radio, and you will easily hear the network pings the phone exchanges with it's cell, every few minutes. Wanted to say, Mrs Potatohead and I enjoy older musicals too. Fun productions!!
Re: cell phones. You know, ordinary people will entertain a lot of stuff to get their phone unlocked, or to put a cool ring tone on it without renting that tone, or make it work with their camera, or use it as a tether for a laptop. Weaving cells together with Propellers is probably something worth doing. Most under 25 people live on their phones. For them, it's connection central, as they update their understanding of the state of their peers many times per day. Most of that communication is literally, yes, no, maybe so kind of stuff that is all about organizing who meets where, or who likes who, or what, kinds of things. That is the draw that brings people to the phones and keeps them there.
The median age for "phone attraction" will only increase over time. That's worth some engineering to sort out, IMHO.
I can't speak at all to how to get the Propeller into electronic devices that the average Joe might pick up at Walmart.
But if you are looking at how to get the average Joe non-Electronic Engineer enthusiast interested in the Prop I can probably provide some insights. I'm a 30-something computer programmer and I just got into microcomputers recently and the Prop is the only chip I've used.
Barriers:
1. The cost of entry into microcontrollers is high for a hobbyist - by this I include the $ costs of equipment as well as the time and energy to learn/figure out both circuit design as well as software programming.
2. In today's world its tough to do something interesting building it yourself. I've wanted to get into microcontroller programming for a long time, but never found a project that was really interesting until just recently (my brother-in-law is building a pinball machine, I'm helping with the "guts"). Otherwise things I can buy are cheaper and do more than anything I can build.
Opportunities:
- Parents are sick of kids investing lots of $$'s and time into games that don't teach anything. When I was young my parents bought a Commodore and then an IBM PC instead of game systems - it was more $$'s and a lot of money for them, but I think they feel like their investment in my future was worthwhile. Even non-technical parents would likely see a microcontroller or robotics kit as a positive investment for a game-addicted kid.
- It was said earlier, but I think a prop board that could be used in place of the Lego Mindstorms logic brick would be a good opportunity. The only thing that pulls my nephews away from computer games are their legos.
- Along with computer games and legos, the teenagers I see who would be a good fit to get into programming/microcontrollers/robotics are also often interested in military/warfare. Commercials for recruitment are often pushing the military's use of technology and robotics today. Military themed projects could pull in more of these teens than just generic projects.
- While its tough to build a standalone something thats cool compared to stuff you can buy today, I think there is a lot of opportunity if people can use the prop to augment something cool they already bought. (look I can control my X from my iPhone)
I didn't realize there were two different threads asking the same question (and the this looks to be the original thread), so I am going to post my thoughts on this here too.
I have an easy answer with a time consuming solution.
If you want people to adopt good technology, you have to give them a compelling reason to do so. Theoretical or actual specifications are meaningless to average Joe. What these people want to see is what can the Propeller do? The good news is the Propeller can do a lot, and the Propeller 2 can do a lot more. Also there are a lot of great applications, projects, and hardware that shows the power and the appeal of the Propeller. From video games to robots, I think we have the projects to show off to the world.
Now what is lacking is a centralized location to show off these projects. Now pretty much everyone uses the forum to post about their projects, and as long as that post is getting activity, you will see that project. But even after a few months, even the most popular threads fall to the abyss of the message board. And even if the search function did work, you would still have to know the project existed before you could find it.
So here is my solution: We need a centralized location where we can place all these projects. We need a wiki-type environment where we can have projects broken into categories, and each project having its own page. On the page we can have source code, binary, hardware requirements, build instructions, photos and videos of the project in action.
This would have two major benefits. 1) When someone asks the question "What can the Propeller do?" you send them to the project wiki where they can SEE videos/pictures of projects in action. 2) If you are a normal Propeller use looking for a certain project that is not brand spanking new, you can go to the project wiki and quickly find it.
Now of course comes the hard part... creating the page. What is needed is bandwidth/hosting space and people to build the page. I think this should be open to people modifying the pages, like a lot of wiki pages, but require user accounts to prevent vandalism. That way if a project only supports one type of hardware setup, someone else can take the code, modify, and add to the page to support another propeller hardware setup. Or if one person doesn't have the ability to add video, someone else can shoot a video of the project in action and attach it.
The fun projects are here (and still coming), but we need a centralized place to show them off.
HollyMinkowski said...
I wonder how much processor noise is being emitted by
the different types of cellphones?
It might be possible to build a cheap prop board that could sense
this noise and with the proper software running on the phone you
could easily control external devices with it.
You could flash the phones screen and xmit data that way but it's
a very uncool method, ditto using sound output. Just sending data
by placing the phone in close proximity to a prop board would be better.
In the good old days people used to write programs utilising the RF emissions from processors to play more or less recognisable music on a nearby radio, so it should be feasible to generate tones that could be received with a suitable RF front-end and processed with the Propeller.
JT Cook:
Look at the XMOS XCore Exchange site to see a good way of publicising projects, combined with a forum and other stuff. They have one young chap working on it full-time.
Parallax could take a leaf out of their book, they must know about it.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Leon: That is pretty close to what I was thinking. I don't like how their projects page is setup as more of forum, but overall it is a similar vision to what I have.
As far as everything else (forums, Parallax's own web pages, customer support, etc), I think Parallax is doing a really good job on.
Jason is responsible for the main company web site, as well. Perhaps Parallax should make him an offer he can't refuse. They will need a new web site and forum if they are entering the professional market place.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
For the first time I really wanted a link to see what you guys where talking about... LOL..
That's a pretty slick setup, the only thing lacking was some video links in the Projects section to add some more immediate
draw to the projects themselves. I can't help but think this site is unique that the software couldn't be obtained for use
by other companies.. (ie: Parallax) Parallax has full-time graphic artists on staff. I'll be it would be one heck of an
upgrade from what you see there..
I saw this the other day... Yes, you've found exactly where I live.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Actually I think an ideal setup would be two Propellers for this.
It certainly would be a lot more interesting that three Amtel chips. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
* How will the 'microcontroller' find it's way to everyday JOE? Robots, and tiny job modules?
If more people share more of their projects with this new fantastic forum, through Google, more people will find out about the propeller. And if the code in the OBEX was formatted to a standard, and commenting improved in some of the Objects, Spin and Pasm will be less of a barrier for entery.
Perhaps the Propeller forum can create an object like the "Standard C++ library", but write it in Spin, C, PropBasic, and PASM , for the OBEX and make it a Sticky for this forum.
I've thought about it... and I have two answers: one at a time and in groups:)
My trip home highlighted the fact that this little economic slump is still around. 8:30 at night and there wasn't enough traffic on the road. So... there are plenty of people in need of opportunities. What is phenomenal to me is to consider how much of an opportunity the Propeller represents to so many people. But let's consider the average young Joe, who is open to not working at Walmart. I have tried this ... and it works. You simply say to him... "there are people, who knew very little more than you do, who got into the Propeller a couple of years ago and who are now earning five figure incomes and they didn't have to go to schoo,l and they love what they are doing... would you be interested in spending some quality time with the board that I will give you?" It works.
The only problem is... I don't know anyone earning a five figure salary that started out that way... but there must be someone.
Groups... there are lots of groups, to pick just one, let's think about the kids. The UPENE currently takes place right as the kids are going back to school... So, either the date should be moved up... so that everyone can bring their kids along... or moved further back in the year so that UPENE can be made an official school outing for some lucky school kids.
"I wonder how much processor noise is being emitted by
the different types of cellphones?"
The health risk of any particular device is going to be next to impossible to prove unless the device causes overt tissue heating. Even to get close to something useful, we would need bio-sensors, which are currently unavailable.
On the other hand, you have your finger on one of the most important environmental issues of our time. At some point, something is going to emerge from the electro-chemical smog that we live in and it is going to cause population wide problems... just figuring out that such a happening is in progress will be difficult enough. Since we are living in the most technologically advanced and most diverse society... we will suffer the consequences first.
It is not an accident of history that Russia placed transmission safety levels orders of magnitudes below ours or that the Chinese placed their safety levels orders of magnitudes below Russia's. After that, everyone waited and watched what would happen for about eighty years. I think there is a consensus that the value of communication outweighs the biological hazards.
But how can we be sure? The best current data should be available from rural China... but rural China is rapidly disappearing. The fact that in many ways, China has been ambivalent to Western style change might indicate that at some level, China's deep thinkers are not sure that Westernization has a long term survival benefit:)
I've been watching the Arduino indoctrination classes. A group here in PDX does them, and they cost $30.
Been thinking of attending one, because it would be fun, and just to see how they choose to get it done.
For the $30, you get:
Stuff
A place to build it up
The chance to see it work, ONCE, while you were there
Friends
some great info, project ideas, etc...
What they have done is build up a very inexpensive board. From there, the classes are all about boot strapping the user on that board, and doing a few basic things. People walk away with their environment setup, and some basic direction, where they can then continue to tinker, or if they fail, return for another session.
The PDX guys are making their own boards, called Dorkboards I think. (one of the reasons I'm considering attending is to see how they got all that done)
Maybe use some of Nick's kits as the basis for these is a good idea.
I saw a demonstration of just how we are getting out there yesterday..
Art Granzeier (Known on the forums at Granz IIRC) was someone who got started in the Propeller our one of our other expos. I watch him setup several older cast-off computers just outside the large divider and give several beginners a little quick class on how to get started with the Propeller. I suspect that a couple of these people had just received their free Propeller when they signed in. It didn't take expensive gear to get this done, just some simple materials and a patient person to introduce it.
To me, Art is one of the heros of UPENE. He took ownership of this in a years time and is spreading the joy of Propeller to others.
Comments
the different types of cellphones?
It might be possible to build a cheap prop board that could sense
this noise and with the proper software running on the phone you
could easily control external devices with it.
You could flash the phones screen and xmit data that way but it's
a very uncool method, ditto using sound output. Just sending data
by placing the phone in close proximity to a prop board would be better.
Has that been done? Has to have been, but I'm saying it anyway. Make a tiny board that contains the adapter, and it just plugs into the breaboard on the Demoboard, for quick 'n dirty SD.
@Holly: Brilliant!! The phones make a lot of noise. Put one next to an AM radio, and you will easily hear the network pings the phone exchanges with it's cell, every few minutes. Wanted to say, Mrs Potatohead and I enjoy older musicals too. Fun productions!!
Re: cell phones. You know, ordinary people will entertain a lot of stuff to get their phone unlocked, or to put a cool ring tone on it without renting that tone, or make it work with their camera, or use it as a tether for a laptop. Weaving cells together with Propellers is probably something worth doing. Most under 25 people live on their phones. For them, it's connection central, as they update their understanding of the state of their peers many times per day. Most of that communication is literally, yes, no, maybe so kind of stuff that is all about organizing who meets where, or who likes who, or what, kinds of things. That is the draw that brings people to the phones and keeps them there.
The median age for "phone attraction" will only increase over time. That's worth some engineering to sort out, IMHO.
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
8x8 color 80 Column NTSC Text Object
Wondering how to set tile colors in the graphics_demo.spin?
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
Post Edited (potatohead) : 7/17/2010 6:31:54 PM GMT
But if you are looking at how to get the average Joe non-Electronic Engineer enthusiast interested in the Prop I can probably provide some insights. I'm a 30-something computer programmer and I just got into microcomputers recently and the Prop is the only chip I've used.
Barriers:
1. The cost of entry into microcontrollers is high for a hobbyist - by this I include the $ costs of equipment as well as the time and energy to learn/figure out both circuit design as well as software programming.
2. In today's world its tough to do something interesting building it yourself. I've wanted to get into microcontroller programming for a long time, but never found a project that was really interesting until just recently (my brother-in-law is building a pinball machine, I'm helping with the "guts"). Otherwise things I can buy are cheaper and do more than anything I can build.
Opportunities:
- Parents are sick of kids investing lots of $$'s and time into games that don't teach anything. When I was young my parents bought a Commodore and then an IBM PC instead of game systems - it was more $$'s and a lot of money for them, but I think they feel like their investment in my future was worthwhile. Even non-technical parents would likely see a microcontroller or robotics kit as a positive investment for a game-addicted kid.
- It was said earlier, but I think a prop board that could be used in place of the Lego Mindstorms logic brick would be a good opportunity. The only thing that pulls my nephews away from computer games are their legos.
- Along with computer games and legos, the teenagers I see who would be a good fit to get into programming/microcontrollers/robotics are also often interested in military/warfare. Commercials for recruitment are often pushing the military's use of technology and robotics today. Military themed projects could pull in more of these teens than just generic projects.
- While its tough to build a standalone something thats cool compared to stuff you can buy today, I think there is a lot of opportunity if people can use the prop to augment something cool they already bought. (look I can control my X from my iPhone)
I have an easy answer with a time consuming solution.
If you want people to adopt good technology, you have to give them a compelling reason to do so. Theoretical or actual specifications are meaningless to average Joe. What these people want to see is what can the Propeller do? The good news is the Propeller can do a lot, and the Propeller 2 can do a lot more. Also there are a lot of great applications, projects, and hardware that shows the power and the appeal of the Propeller. From video games to robots, I think we have the projects to show off to the world.
Now what is lacking is a centralized location to show off these projects. Now pretty much everyone uses the forum to post about their projects, and as long as that post is getting activity, you will see that project. But even after a few months, even the most popular threads fall to the abyss of the message board. And even if the search function did work, you would still have to know the project existed before you could find it.
So here is my solution: We need a centralized location where we can place all these projects. We need a wiki-type environment where we can have projects broken into categories, and each project having its own page. On the page we can have source code, binary, hardware requirements, build instructions, photos and videos of the project in action.
This would have two major benefits. 1) When someone asks the question "What can the Propeller do?" you send them to the project wiki where they can SEE videos/pictures of projects in action. 2) If you are a normal Propeller use looking for a certain project that is not brand spanking new, you can go to the project wiki and quickly find it.
Now of course comes the hard part... creating the page. What is needed is bandwidth/hosting space and people to build the page. I think this should be open to people modifying the pages, like a lot of wiki pages, but require user accounts to prevent vandalism. That way if a project only supports one type of hardware setup, someone else can take the code, modify, and add to the page to support another propeller hardware setup. Or if one person doesn't have the ability to add video, someone else can shoot a video of the project in action and attach it.
The fun projects are here (and still coming), but we need a centralized place to show them off.
In the good old days people used to write programs utilising the RF emissions from processors to play more or less recognisable music on a nearby radio, so it should be feasible to generate tones that could be received with a suitable RF front-end and processed with the Propeller.
JT Cook:
Look at the XMOS XCore Exchange site to see a good way of publicising projects, combined with a forum and other stuff. They have one young chap working on it full-time.
Parallax could take a leaf out of their book, they must know about it.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/18/2010 4:01:56 PM GMT
As far as everything else (forums, Parallax's own web pages, customer support, etc), I think Parallax is doing a really good job on.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/18/2010 7:10:57 PM GMT
For the first time I really wanted a link to see what you guys where talking about... LOL..
That's a pretty slick setup, the only thing lacking was some video links in the Projects section to add some more immediate
draw to the projects themselves. I can't help but think this site is unique that the software couldn't be obtained for use
by other companies.. (ie: Parallax) Parallax has full-time graphic artists on staff. I'll be it would be one heck of an
upgrade from what you see there..
OBC
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Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
check out humaneinfo.com/pc.html, it uses 3 ATMEL chips, something similar could easily be done with a single Propeller.
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
Actually I think an ideal setup would be two Propellers for this.
It certainly would be a lot more interesting that three Amtel chips. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
OBC
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Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
If more people share more of their projects with this new fantastic forum, through Google, more people will find out about the propeller. And if the code in the OBEX was formatted to a standard, and commenting improved in some of the Objects, Spin and Pasm will be less of a barrier for entery.
Perhaps the Propeller forum can create an object like the "Standard C++ library", but write it in Spin, C, PropBasic, and PASM , for the OBEX and make it a Sticky for this forum.
Bill M.
I've thought about it... and I have two answers: one at a time and in groups:)
My trip home highlighted the fact that this little economic slump is still around. 8:30 at night and there wasn't enough traffic on the road. So... there are plenty of people in need of opportunities. What is phenomenal to me is to consider how much of an opportunity the Propeller represents to so many people. But let's consider the average young Joe, who is open to not working at Walmart. I have tried this ... and it works. You simply say to him... "there are people, who knew very little more than you do, who got into the Propeller a couple of years ago and who are now earning five figure incomes and they didn't have to go to schoo,l and they love what they are doing... would you be interested in spending some quality time with the board that I will give you?" It works.
The only problem is... I don't know anyone earning a five figure salary that started out that way... but there must be someone.
Groups... there are lots of groups, to pick just one, let's think about the kids. The UPENE currently takes place right as the kids are going back to school... So, either the date should be moved up... so that everyone can bring their kids along... or moved further back in the year so that UPENE can be made an official school outing for some lucky school kids.
Rich
"I wonder how much processor noise is being emitted by
the different types of cellphones?"
The health risk of any particular device is going to be next to impossible to prove unless the device causes overt tissue heating. Even to get close to something useful, we would need bio-sensors, which are currently unavailable.
On the other hand, you have your finger on one of the most important environmental issues of our time. At some point, something is going to emerge from the electro-chemical smog that we live in and it is going to cause population wide problems... just figuring out that such a happening is in progress will be difficult enough. Since we are living in the most technologically advanced and most diverse society... we will suffer the consequences first.
It is not an accident of history that Russia placed transmission safety levels orders of magnitudes below ours or that the Chinese placed their safety levels orders of magnitudes below Russia's. After that, everyone waited and watched what would happen for about eighty years. I think there is a consensus that the value of communication outweighs the biological hazards.
But how can we be sure? The best current data should be available from rural China... but rural China is rapidly disappearing. The fact that in many ways, China has been ambivalent to Western style change might indicate that at some level, China's deep thinkers are not sure that Westernization has a long term survival benefit:)
Rich
Been thinking of attending one, because it would be fun, and just to see how they choose to get it done.
For the $30, you get:
Stuff
A place to build it up
The chance to see it work, ONCE, while you were there
Friends
some great info, project ideas, etc...
What they have done is build up a very inexpensive board. From there, the classes are all about boot strapping the user on that board, and doing a few basic things. People walk away with their environment setup, and some basic direction, where they can then continue to tinker, or if they fail, return for another session.
The PDX guys are making their own boards, called Dorkboards I think. (one of the reasons I'm considering attending is to see how they got all that done)
Maybe use some of Nick's kits as the basis for these is a good idea.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=workshops
Art Granzeier (Known on the forums at Granz IIRC) was someone who got started in the Propeller our one of our other expos. I watch him setup several older cast-off computers just outside the large divider and give several beginners a little quick class on how to get started with the Propeller. I suspect that a couple of these people had just received their free Propeller when they signed in. It didn't take expensive gear to get this done, just some simple materials and a patient person to introduce it.
To me, Art is one of the heros of UPENE. He took ownership of this in a years time and is spreading the joy of Propeller to others.
Watching him, I have part of my answer...
OBC