KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid
erco
Posts: 20,259
Funny how simplicity grabs people. We have a monthly "show & tell" at work, anything of tech or general interest. I show my robots there all the time. People always like them but automatically assume that robots & programming are too complicated for them to try.
Today, I made a point of simplifying my demo to test the waters. A fellow employee brought in a used traffic signal he got from a surplus store (so he says) and he wanted to have it cycle through the lights to hang in his garage. I grabbed a BS1 Project board and one of my $5 relay boards from China, and got the thing running in about an hour this morning (hooking safely up to 120VAC took most of the time). Nothing but a simple loop with high, low & pause commands. People were amazed, especially since I had my netbook hooked up running the PBasic editor and they could see the program and type in different numbers and change the light timing instantly. Long story short, several people (artists & mechanical builders) are all fired up to buy the $30 BS2 WAM kit and learn over Christmas break. We may see a few new faces (OK, avatars) in the forum.
When in doubt, Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Today, I made a point of simplifying my demo to test the waters. A fellow employee brought in a used traffic signal he got from a surplus store (so he says) and he wanted to have it cycle through the lights to hang in his garage. I grabbed a BS1 Project board and one of my $5 relay boards from China, and got the thing running in about an hour this morning (hooking safely up to 120VAC took most of the time). Nothing but a simple loop with high, low & pause commands. People were amazed, especially since I had my netbook hooked up running the PBasic editor and they could see the program and type in different numbers and change the light timing instantly. Long story short, several people (artists & mechanical builders) are all fired up to buy the $30 BS2 WAM kit and learn over Christmas break. We may see a few new faces (OK, avatars) in the forum.
When in doubt, Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Comments
We often forget that its not necessary to bury someone in 3 feet of snow to increase their appreciation of a single glistening snowflake!
It would be nice to hear how your colleagues made out after the holdays.
Cheers,
I encounter that attitude, too. It's especially bothersome when trying to convince educators it's worthwhile to let kids tinker with this stuff. The presumption seems to be that, in order to use micros, you've got to slog your way through 4 years of college-level electronics education, know all about transistors, etc. Or, at the other extreme, people presume this stuff is completely off-the-shelf, like a toy that can't be easily modified and thus not a teaching tool. The mere fact I am somewhat capable of working with this stuff should serve as testimony to its accessibility to low-brow or grade-school level students, but for some reason it doesn't work that way.
I actually started with an electronics summer class at Lowell High School in San Francisco at 12. I have to take the bus for about 45 minutes each way, but they had a really new electronics lab. It was worth it.
I still think 9 years old is too young.
It depends. I've seen plenty of 10 year olds handle low-level Lego Mindstorms programming with no problem at all. And I've seen some 7 year olds handle it, too. Also, I've seen some 9 year olds deal with Boe-bots on a basic level. I don't think it's something they could pick up on their own without close assistance, but that age group can be total "it-getters" insofar as the logic goes. Promise them they can strap a missile-launcher to it or build a light saber with it, and they'll get motivated.
What I came up with was a book describing how to make simple computing devices out of relays and telephone dials (the old twisty mechanical type)
I don't think she was impressed and sadly there was no one around to pick up on that interest and help along.
Wish I could find that book again now...
Maybe this?
http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Brains-Machines-That-Think/dp/B0095M4PO6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1354743221&sr=8-4&keywords=Giant+brains%3B+or%2C+Machines+that+think
No, that's not it. My book was blue and definitely had switches and a telephone dial on the cover. Not so much the "Giant Brains" hype just practical stuff.
Just curious.
I did it strictly for purposes of demoing a BASIC Stamp to show the ease of hardware, the simplicity of the software and how a fairly simple, relevant project can be done quickly with off the shelf components by most anyone. Mission accomplished IMO, based on the response I got today.
BTW, that particular BS1 project board has been used & reused for numerous projects over the past few years. We've certainly gotten our money's worth out of it: the price was just $14.95 when I bought ~20 of them. I should have hoarded more before Ken doubled the price. Since the whole serial WAM/BS2 kit is $30 now, I wonder how much longer the $30 BS1 will be around.
localroger, are you seeing this?
Strangely enough I was recently day dreaming about how to make just a flip.flop from relays. I have a few big old 24V relays with octal bases. Turns out it can be done with only two relays as in the attached paper.
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G2011
I've done similar things and it's because time is worth money. The BS1 is assembled and they're all the same. To use the 555 and counter you would have to get the chips and the passives for the 555 circuit, which would be different from the components for previous and next project and which you might not have on hand like that small pile of BS1's some of us keep around, assemble them on a breadboard, hope you wired it right, arrange for power (the BS1 has its own regulator), and then you couldn't twiddle the timing as easily. If you were using LED's instead of relays you could have this working on the BS1 carrier in a few minutes. As it was most of Erco's time was spent on the 110V wiring instead of debugging discrete logic.
Also, the BS1 he used isn't $30; the BS2's are being ordered by the coworkers who suddenly want to get conversant with what's possible.
About a year or so ago, I decided to fabricate a seat heater timer for my wifes car.
She received the seat heater as a xmas gift, but soon discovered that in her 1998 car, the cigarette lighter socket stays active when you
turn the car off.
To resolve the service call cost, I wanted to build a 10 minute timer using 555 timer and support components.
It turned out that 10 minutes and a relay consumes quite a bit of real estate with the 555 timer and support components.
I used a BS1 with relay to control the whole situation in a pretty small package.
The timer is plugged into the cigarete lighter socket and operates for 10 minutes whenever you push the start button.
If you want to stop, you push the stop button, but if you/she forgets, the timer times out and turns off the seat heater.
This turned out to be as simple as I could make it.
The sound alone is worth the price of admission.
@Heater - Glad you liked it too!
RS flip flop:
Is that like a push on push off type of circuit?
I made one of those years ago in an industrial application.
It took 4 dpdt relays.
That one was clacking away for about 5 years or so before the machine went away.
The relay computer is good old food for thought!
Years ago as an exercise in technical school I made a flip flop out of two 1 meter long pneumatic actuators and a few spool valves. That thing made some impressive sounds when operated at max speed:)