Your Advice - Making Gift for 13 Year Old
Keith Young
Posts: 569
in Propeller 1
So each year our family picks names from a hat and makes a gift for that person. This year I drew my 13 year old niece. The target price is $20.
I got one of these:
https://parallax.com/product/32810
for 8 bucks due to a manufacturing defect. I have an old Smile flat screen monitor I took apart that I could potentially make in to a programmable 10lb .01GHz .001GB RAM tablet for her.
I've taught her a little programming. The goal is to make something that will help her learn.
Do you guys have any suggestions for making that, or something else? I do have old PS2 Mouse and Keyboard etc.
What about some simple bundle of parts and I help her solder etc?
Everyone always gets the girls girly Smile and I'm the only person that gets them scientific stuff like this.
Thanks for the help!
I got one of these:
https://parallax.com/product/32810
for 8 bucks due to a manufacturing defect. I have an old Smile flat screen monitor I took apart that I could potentially make in to a programmable 10lb .01GHz .001GB RAM tablet for her.
I've taught her a little programming. The goal is to make something that will help her learn.
Do you guys have any suggestions for making that, or something else? I do have old PS2 Mouse and Keyboard etc.
What about some simple bundle of parts and I help her solder etc?
Everyone always gets the girls girly Smile and I'm the only person that gets them scientific stuff like this.
Thanks for the help!
Comments
You can always put in just a smidgen of the girlie stuff, remember, she has to show this to her mates as well
$20-$8=$12. $12 doesn't get you much on Parallax's website, and you still need a VGA port. $2.25 at Parallax. You're down to $9.75.
Obviously you'll need to solder, but I would add pin headers, which will make it much easier to connect future peripherals, as her learning advances. A 40-pin Single Row Header (which can be broken into smaller pieces) is $2, leaving $7.75.
Next, and without reservation, RGB LEDs. I've done enough projects to know they have broad appeal. My suggestion is the WS2812B RGB LED module. They are less than $2 each. The module takes care of PWMing the LED, and even better, you can daisy-chain them on 1 data pin and control each LED individually. The WS2812B driver handles this. Get more than 1. 2 parts x $2=$4, leaving $3.75.
Here are some other parts I would suggest, but to select all of them would put you over-budget:
* 3-pin Signal-Power-Ground cables, available in various lengths.
* A breadboard.
* Human Interface. (maybe a button? maybe IR receiver and a remote?)
* a standard LED, with appropriate resistor. It could be used to debug, and will not rely on the WS2812B driver.
* a piezo speaker. It can be driven directly by an I/O pin.
* a servo. Just like LEDs, servos can be very fun!
Might I ask what programming language you've begun to teach her? SPIN, as you may know, is different than BASIC, which is often a first step in learning to program.
While it's not impossible to connect one, it appears that the selected PCB does not accommodate soldering on a PS/2 port.
A bundle of assorted resistors, capacitors, ICs, and whatnot could be intimidating. Does she even have a place to organize all these small parts? If she wants to get in to building circuits, start small: wire an LED. If she's interested in circuit design, I'm sure she'll express it. If circuit design turns out to be unappealing to her, let her focus on programming.
One great thing about the products offered at Parallax's website is that it is often unnecessary to add elaborate circuitry to use, and necessary code is well documented.
Definitely, help her learn to solder. Pick a few parts that she can practice on, but do most of the soldering yourself.
I think that a paced approach is most likely to preserve and nurture her interest.
Plus I've already taught her some SPIN. BUT, theoretically it won't change anything, she can just use FEMTO later.
Yeah that's one thing I'm considering is not slapping a torn apart flat screen on it, and just getting her some extra parts to let her tinker.
One thing I really want to do is make this in a way that it can be a repeat gift. Basically each birthday and christmas I get her an extra part that she can integrate in to her little system.
I'm still thinking about the tablet and writing in something like a super simple pong game which she can modify. The main thing is designing this thing so it can be added to in the future, while hopefully keeping it easy to store.
For example I could throw on a joystick, but at that point it's a big square object with a joystick sticking out of it.
Learning Femto can be something you can both do.
Add a keyboard/monitor/SD card and you basically have the Amigo (see reference above). With some tweaking of ports, you can run the same Basic used on the Amigo or used on the PropellerPowered PMC (or PEB). We've built PMCs and PEBs form a wide variety of "found" and Frankensteined components.
One of your future add-ons could be a PICmx#@ loaded up with Micromite BASIC. Hook that up and change the software on the propeller and you have the Propeller acting as a terminal for a very powerful BASIC computer. WARNING: That add-on will set you back $6 or so plus a breadboard!
If you had the project board just lying around unused, then that shouldn't be an $8 hit on your gift budget. So you are back up to $20 to spend!
Instead of decent, did you mean, "easy-to-use"? Producing text to VGA couldn't get much easier, if you use VGA_Text. I've never used "VGA_Text" before, but I wrote this in just a few minutes. It's based on "VGA_Text_Demo" by Chip Gracey.
CON VGA_basepin = 16 OBJ text : "vga_text" DAT myString byte "Merry Christmas!" ,0 PUB main | pointer text.start(VGA_basepin) ' Starts the VGA_Text driver text.str(@myString) ' Prints the contents of myString text.out(13) ' Prints a carriage return repeat ' begin repeating the following: if pointer&1 ' if pointer is an odd number text.str(string($C,5)) ' set color to green / gray-green else ' else (it must be even) text.str(string($C,6)) ' set color to red / pink text.out(byte[@myString][pointer]) ' print the character of myString that pointer points to if ++pointer==strsize(@myString) ' if we have reached the end of the string, quit ' quit repeating. text.out(13) ' Prints a carriage return text.str(string($C,1,"all done!")) ' Prints "all done!" using color 1.All that you need to change is VGA_basepin, based on how you wire it. When the above is executed on a Demo Board, it prints "Merry Christmas!" once, then again in alternating color. The program ends after printing "all done!" in a third color.Great minds think alike. I'm gifting Propeller-based projects with the notion of providing future "upgrades", also. My audience, however, is likely uninterested in developing.
That board is just crying out for some soldering action.
The quick programming turnaround that PropTool provides (i.e. hit F10 for instant gratification) makes for uncommonly productive experimentation.
Nice big book to look things up and have lessons.
A box with all parts needed for the lessons. A breadboard of good size and quality.
The main effect is that she can (has to) build the propeller by herself, sticking parts in the breadboard, following a nice big schematic, printed in color.
Even if the schematic and the resulting breadboard may be a black box to her like a ready made Prototype board, she will be more excited, because she build that black box by herself.
Later on put a SD adapter and @mpark's Sphinx on it.
That will get her hooked on the propeller. At least it did for me.
Enjoy!
Mike
I'm going to get tinkering pretty soon with this. First I need to test if the monitor works since it was an old hunk of junk given to me without a power cord (has a weird plug I haven't seen often).
I want to get something into EEPROM so when she opens it, it's doing... well something.
I definitely want to be able to leave something left to solder so she gets to get her hands dirty working on it.
What would we use the resistors for? I like the idea of giving her some basic components, but for the Tablet idea I don't see the purpose just yet.
Yep I will definitely be including WS2812 regardless of if I go with the tablet or not.
Mike - Though I like the idea the family has a rule that it has to be hand made. Plus I think she's old enough but I don't want to rely on her attention span up front and give her something that doesn't work. I want to give her something I made and at least has some immediate functionality. But you're right I do want to give her something that she can learn as much as possible.
Thanks for all the input so far guys.
So buying a prototype board is handmade in opposite to a PEK? Anyways I do like your idea of a Prop Tablet. But making it interesting? I personally like the self hosting capability of Sphinx of @mpark. @Dave Hein(?) made something called Spinix, also self hosting. And then there is tachyon from @peter J. But that is FORTH. Femto Basic is also a good choice.
On the other hand you could put some sdram on it and install CP/M on the board. I think @cluso99 and @dr_acula are the guys to ask how to there. Then you have the full power of a Z80 simulated by the prop to run a lot of existing programs.
Thankfully Parallax lets you download the pdf of the book for free. Get some breadboard and assorted parts like resistors, caps, LEDs, 2 cheap servos as extension pack at Easter weekend or so.
Enjoy!
Mike
I had a prop and IIRC 1.5" color LCD. I wrote some things in spin to drive the LCD with them. First I made it draw a line, then a colored line, then a box, colored box. Then we filled it in. Then we made a circle. Then I added text ability.
So, then we drew a circle, put the numbers 1..12 in it. See where this is going?
Yes, then we drew long and short lines (too slow for seconds). Then I made it tick but faster so we could see the hands move. Didn't get to use a cog as the RTC, yet anyway.
But I am going to use the CpuBlade7 I built for them. It's a 2x2" protoboard with prop, eeprom, crystal, vreg, and microSD. The LCD plugs into the prop pins directly including for power as it's power is so low the prop can supply power and ground from I/O pins. And later we have space for pb switches or a rotary encoder w switch. I have a microUSB on this board so I can power it from a USB battery (cheap eBay 18650?? + case w 5V switcher).
Many moons ago, I taught my kids to solder and all about computers and electronics. We not only had Apple computers and later PCs, but also a mini-computer (length of my garage - literally that's where I installed it
My daughter didn't much care for electronics, but she did top her high school year in electronics beating the boys in the class! Both boys went into electronics although one is into management now.
These days though, there is more to it. Its hard to keep their interest with so many other things around.
Not sure if any of this helps.
None of us are Martha Stewarting our gifts. So I have no problem taking the board, the monitor, etc, and mixing it with my labor to make something demonstrably unique. My wife is making something of wood. We got the wood like I got the board.
I'll look in to Sphinx. The issue I'm probably going to run in to unfortunately is given how busy I am I'm most likely going to have to do something familiar which will probably mean Spin or C.
From the sounds of things there won't be a large hardware difference between a traditionally Prop system and a simulated Z80.
Yep I want to be able to get later gifts that are in line with what I'm making her now.
Cluso,
That's a really cool story. So far they've eaten up all the technical stuff I've thrown at them, assuming it was presented in a way they could understand and then immediately apply.
IR:
http://learn.parallax.com/propeller-c-simple-devices/ir-receiver-and-remote
If you go the computer route there's always Zork:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/124402/zork-for-propeller/p1