Forem: Charlyn Gonda

How to get inspired (about making things!)

Charlyn Gonda — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 00:16:29 +0000

Hello! I've been having fun making things for 12 Months of Makes (as evidenced by the state of my desk pictured above haha), and I figured this post will be dual purpose: give an update about what I've been up to, and answer a question a few friends have expressed.

I've been getting this sentiment from friends quite a bit: "I really want to make something, but I have no idea what to make or where to start finding ideas." Friends, this is a common problem, and you are not alone. Some people try to solve this problem by looking at stuff to buy or buying a bunch of things before they have an idea of what to make. That's one way to go, but I think that if you have a project in mind first before buying a bunch of random stuff, you'll have a better chance of getting motivated to finish. Great news: there are ways to get your creative juices flowing. Here are 5 ways to get through creator's block and get inspired.

1. Look at tutorials

This is a great way to get inspired. There are people whose full time job is to inspire you to make things. Let their magic happen. Sometimes you'll find that there's a guide for exactly what you've been wanting to do. And then sometimes, you'll see a project and then think of a twist that'll make it uniquely you. Check out Adafruit's tutorials or anything in Make: magazine. This method is how I made my April make pictured above: a Birthday Mailbox Printer - it was a livestreamed printer that printed out happy birthday tweets, and messages on a thread in my FB page. The messages were heartwarming and people had fun seeing their digital messages become physical paper notes!

2. Bring to life things from your favorite stories

You ever watch a movie, read a book, or play a game and think "I would absolutely live in that world"? The VR/XR revolution is coming, but while we're waiting, you can make replicas of your favorite props today and feel a bit more immersed. How about making BOTW Link's guardian sword++? Or make Hermione's wand that will properly say "wingardium levi-ohh-sah" every time you wave it? Let your love of the story drive your creativity.

3. Make something for your other hobbies

I happen to live in silicon valley, where table tennis is the office sport of choice. I am quite terrible at it. But, I've made things related to it, like this nifty trophy I made a while ago and an online internal office tool to keep track of office team scores. Think about other things you like to do, and what you can make to spice it up. For example, if you like to live stream, here's an interactive cannon you can use to engage your audience in a new way.

4. Create solutions for life’s struggles (big or small)

Instead of buying something to help you get off your strugglebus, why not make one and learn something along the way? Have a pet, and want to be able to check in on them? You can buy a product for that, OR you can choose to make it instead! Here's an Octocam kit from Pimoroni that gets you everything you need. As a bonus, making something yourself usually means you can find a way to fit it to your particular needs/wants. I'd love to see someone hack this camera to throw around a ball or frisbee to play with their pet while they are away.

It doesn't even have to be your struggles -- for my March make, I made a Shop Traffic Analyzer out of a Raspberry Pi for my friend's shop so that he could track foot traffic through his store over time and plan staffing accordingly.

In the spirit of making not buying, I wanted art on a wall in my new apartment, but needed it to be special and meaningful and also function as a bright light for the dining room. So, for my June make I created this wall art installation to mount instax photos and postcards I collect and receive from around the world. Meets all my criteria, got to use a Dremel for the first time and learned about forstner drill bits. Plus, it's controlled by Google Home. Super satisfying.

5. Make it for other people

And last, but definitely not least, I find that the most motivating projects are ones that inject delight into other people's lives. My February make was a Pusheen valentine, and pictured above is my May make, a 3D printed platypus trophy mounted on a hand stained wooden base, made to recognize the hard work of my teammates. These kinds of projects are satisfying because I know I made people I care about happy, plus I improved my skillset in the process.

So there you have it, 5 ways to get inspired to make your own projects. Reading back through this list, I think most or all of it applies to software projects as well 😄. My last tip is this:

Don't aim for perfection, done is better than perfect.

There will always be a more polished way of making something, and there will always be some better solution out there. Don't let that stop you from rolling up your sleeves and making something. You'll learn new things and build up your skills, and that's incredibly valuable. The experience of making doesn't always have to be about the end product. Get yourself some basic tools, pick one idea that you're excited about, and get to building. If you're looking for a group to share ideas with or make things with, join our FB group Day Coders // Night Makers -- we're excited to help and to be excited with you! :D

And of course, don't forget to share your makes here on Dev.to! This community is incredibly supportive, I'm so impressed by the excellent Dev.to team, and I've really been blown away by how inspirational you all are. Keep being awesome, and keep making things!

Is there a project above that you'd like to know more about? Leave a note in the comments below, and I'd be happy to make a separate post about it! PS: I'll be at Github Universe talking about making things, I hope to see you there!

February Make: Pusheen Heart

Charlyn Gonda — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 06:08:14 +0000

Creating a google assistant app, how to avoid soldering, and discovering what makes projects motivating and fun. Warning: extreme Valentine cheesiness ahead.

If you don’t know about Pusheen yet, you’re in for a treat.

This month, I wanted to make something that involved Google Home. I usually just ask google what the time is and what the weather is, so I thought it’d be fun to make something that could work with it, instead of buying. I’ve been interested in smart lights for a while, so I wanted to see if create my own. I found this Pixar style lamp and printed it out, used a Neopixel Photon kit I had lying around, and made pretty good progress:

I could turn it off and on remotely using the Particle API. Project halfway done yay!

But there was no emotion, no joy in this (albeit cute) little lamp. I couldn’t tie it to any feels.

That’s when I realized that I enjoy creating things most when I’m creating them for more than just me. I suppose my hobby is to anticipate how to get a smile or a laugh out of someone, and then see if I can create something to make that happen. Its fun when I get to create something cool, but it’s more fun and meaningful when I get to create it for someone else. This lamp, though cute, didn’t hold a special meaning, or refer to a shared experience.

I suppose my hobby is to anticipate how to get a smile or a laugh out of someone, and then see if I can create something to make that happen.

Then it hit me: it’s February! Maybe I could make a cheesy valentine project for my valentine. He just happens to be as obsessed with Pusheen the cat as I am (maybe more), so a plan started to form. We’ve both always dreamed of having that huge Pusheen plush, but since I can’t make a huge plush (yet!), I’d find some other way to make a big Pusheen that’s connected to Google Home.

I came up with this:

Cheesy, as promised. Also quite sweet.

It’s a smart heart that lights up with an invocation to a google assistant app I called “Pusheen Heart”. It lights up when I say "Ok Google, ask Pusheen Heart to tell Bryan I love him", and it turns off when I say "Ask Pusheen Heart to turn off". 😄💖 Simple and sweet.

Prototype and circuit diagram

First, I wanted to quickly create a Google Assistant app and have it control Neopixel strips. So I started out with first creating the firmware on the Particle Photon (firmware is code that goes into the microcontroller which controls the color of the lights).

The notable part here is that the Particle API allows me to make POST requests directly to my device (with Particle.function(), line 25 above) so that I can trigger the light animation. Then, I made the Google Assistant app, which consists of these three parts:

An agent named “Neopixel Strip”,
A user intent (“power up Neopixel strip”)
An action for that intent (POST request to my device)

I used Dialogflow for this, they made it really easy to get to a working prototype of the user interaction from scratch in under an hour. Highly recommend checking it out. They even have the boilerplate code for you right in the dashboard, ready to deploy, so all you have to do is edit the code. Here's what the prototype looked like:

I changed the name of the agent “Neopixel strip” to “Pusheen Heart” later on. Didn’t wanna give the surprise away too quickly 😄.

Here’s the simple circuit diagram for this (the microcontroller is powered separately from the pixels through its micro-USB port):

Made with Fritzing

Print parts and assemble!

After figuring out how to put the circuit together and prototyping the interaction, it was time to assemble the heart and the big Pusheen. This is only the second 3D design I’ve ever made, and the first one I’ve published in Thingiverse! I designed the heart in Fusion 360 (they have a 365 day free trial) since I couldn't find one in Thingiverse that fit my needs.

At first, I tried to cram an entire meter of Neopixel strip into this heart, but that didn't look nice when lit, so I ended up lining the edges instead and letting the rest hang out (as you can see in the bottom right part of the photo).

I opted to keep the project simple but delightful, so I went to a local print shop to print out the Pusheen, backed it with one of those 24" x 36" tri-fold poster boards, cut a hole to line up with the 3d printed heart’s hole and threaded the Neopixel strip through it.

I printed out the heart on my Monoprice Maker Select, and because was trying to surprise my valentine while living in the same house, I had to get creative:

DIY recycled eco-friendly 3D printer cover! You think he’ll notice?

It worked! He knew something was coming, but he was surprised anyway. 💖

How to save some time and avoid soldering

I realize that to be able to learn fast and do all 12 of the projects I set out to do this year, I need to scope projects well and keep them small. I’m fascinated by soldering and I’m learning how to get faster at it, but I’m really slow right now. I found that if I could avoid soldering until absolutely necessary, that would shave off a significant amount of time, AND I’d expand my repertoire of known tools. Plus, then I can more easily re-use components. I managed to do that for this project, so I thought I would share some components that will help with creating projects without having to solder everything.

I think just knowing that these exist and what they’re called will help you decide if they are useful for your particular project situation.

Terminal Blocks: These handy connectors allow you to tighten a screw to clamp exposed wire ends, and then stick them onto breadboards. This means that if you have stranded wire you want to connect to a microcontroller, you can use one of these to connect those wires on a breadboard.

Look ma, no solder!
Headers (male) (female): These come in “male” and “female” versions. The idea is you can avoid soldering your microcontroller directly to anything by using rows of these headers. Also useful to use for components that only have “pad” connections, like the Neopixel strips.
Jumper Cables (f-m)(f-f)(m-m): These come in all combinations of “male” to “female” connectors. You can use them on breadboards, or on headers directly.
Alligator Clips: These are useful when you have these circle conductive pads and can also be used to connect exposed wires to each other. Also, there are alligator clips to male jumper combos! What a world we live in.
Breadboard (of course): Breadboards have long clamps that hold pins in place so you can test your circuits easily. They’re like lego pads but for circuits.
Pogo sticks: I haven’t tried these yet, but they exist. They’re spring loaded metal pins. One day I’ll find out how useful they are.

Note that the linked items above are just to illustrate what they look like — there are so many different variations of these components. Let me know if there’s more of these prototyping components you’d recommend!

Conclusion

This was a really fun project, and it was extra special because I got to make someone smile. 💖 Projects in general are much more rewarding for me if they are also benefitting someone else, so thank you for being on this journey with me. I hope that you find some inspiration here to make your own project come to life!

Thank you for being awesome!

Connect with me!

I’m considering publishing step-by-step guides for all of my projects in #12MonthsOfMakes, as well as more in-depth dives into the world of making. If you’re interested, sign up for the newsletter to get notified once those are live!

Also, I’d love to hear about your projects. Tweet me @chardane with #12MonthsOfMakes, and let’s flood the Twitterverse with awesomeness.

Useful links

Heart lamp on Thingiverse
Dialogflow
Getting started with Particle Photon
Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide: The Magic of Neopixels
Pusheen! By Claire Belton

This post was originally posted on Medium, lightly edited here for your reading pleasure.

12 Months of Makes

Charlyn Gonda — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 05:48:09 +0000

This year, I’ll be making 12 projects in 12 months. They’ll mostly involve circuits and coding, maybe costumes and cardboard. Some will be useful, some will be silly, all will be fun. Follow my progress with #12MonthsOfMakes on Twitter, or right here on Dev.to!

When I was a tiny young human, people would ask me what I wanted to become when I grew up. Back then, I thought the only jobs available were firefighter, doctor, lawyer, policeman, or inventor. I would say “I want to be an inventor!” even though I didn’t know what that meant, or if it was even a real job. I just knew that I liked to take toys apart and put them back together, and sometimes I would make something new out of it. Sometimes (ok, most times) I’d also end up breaking it, but that was part of the fun!

Then I grew up and became a software engineer instead. I’d forgotten my childish dream of making something out of other physical things. Instead, I was creating digital things out of other digital things. Still fun!

But then I became a developer advocate, and my genius coworker had a genius idea:

Genius coworker: “What if we made a hat that lights up whenever you get into an Uber ride?”

Me: “ 😮. I don’t know how to do that. Let’s do it.”

So I did.

This is a hat. A shark hat.

Meet Humphrey the Sharknicorn. It’s a shark with a 3D printed unicorn horn that lights up depending on the state of your Uber ride. It uses the Uber API to get notified if you just ordered a ride, and triggers different light animations depending on whether you just ordered a ride, or when the driver is about to arrive, or when you are in the middle of the ride. It was such a fun project, and I learned a ton about circuits, soldering and 3D printing. Plus, it’s the silliest thing to put on your head! Disclaimer: I did not make the shark hat itself.

Do not be alarmed! No heads or sharks were harmed in the taking of this photo.

This project really made me remember my forgotten childhood dream of inventing. There’s something so viscerally satisfying about holding something you created with your own hands. I’ve always liked crafting and making things, but to be able to put together my love of coding and my love of tinkering was just so giggle inducing. Look at how ridiculous my smile is in that photo.

And I realized that there are a lot of us out there that want to be creative with our code. I want to find more people who like to make things, and I want to be able to share this awesome bubbly happiness I feel over soldering irons while learning something new.

And there's so much to learn! How do I get the perfect Benchy print? How do I solder wires to an SPDT slide switch without pulling my hair out? Therefore, I decided to make one project per month for the entire year. I’ve never done anything like this before, this is honestly quite daunting, so come with me on this journey. Let’s learn about the world of making together!

This was originally posted on Medium, lightly edited here for your reading pleasure.

The Easiest Way to Connect a Neopixel Ring to the Particle Electron

Charlyn Gonda — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 04:50:44 +0000

I've always wanted to play around with circuits, and this year's Twilio Hackpack got me thinking that maybe I should really get on it.

So, I got a Particle Electron - it's a microcontroller with a built-in 3G module and its own data plan. Check it out, it's pretty awesome.

Hello, inner inventor.
Goodbye, sleep. @particle pic.twitter.com/VarTuqPsqM
— charlyn gonda (@chardane) May 31, 2017

And then I wanted to play around with something fun, so I got a Neopixel Ring with 16 pixels. There's a Neopixel library that you can directly use with Particle's boards, so I figured this would be easy-peasy. (Spoiler alert: it's wasn't super easy, but I learned a lot! Maybe this guide will make it easier for someone else.)

I should mention that I know next to nothing about circuits or hardware in general. My greatest hardware achievement was when I once made light bulbs light up in parallel circuits. Exciting.

After setting up the electron, I found that there was no straightforward guide out there for the simplest way to connect the Neopixel to the Electron. People talked about logic level converters and boost converters (are those the same thing?). Hence, this guide was born.

If you mostly know software, don't know how to solder things and like pretty lights, you've come to the right place.

I'll show you some tips on how to setup your brand new Electron and how to hook it up to your Neopixel Ring so you can run a simple light animation. This guide assumes you are familiar with the command line, and is mostly targeted towards Mac OS X users.

This is what we'll make!

So pretty.

What you'll need

Particle Electron (the kit with the antenna and battery)
Two half breadboards (the Electron comes with one, but you need another one.)
Jumper wires, minimum of 4. I think it's good to have plenty of these around.
Adafruit Neopixel Ring, 16 pixels.

I got the Particle Maker Kit which contained the other half-breadboard and the jumper wires (wires with both male tips). These are the twist-tied bunch of wires, not the colorful wires stuck together that you have to pull apart (those have one male tip and one female tip. idk what they're called.).

Step 1: Go to particle.io/start

Select the big Electron image. You'll get to this page, but you'll actually want to go to the "Introduction" page, and not this "Getting Started" guide yet.

Protip: click on the Introduction link (green arrow above)

In the "Introduction" page, look for the "SETUP MY ELECTRON" link and follow the steps. Or you can just click that link. It requires a credit card, so get that ready too.

At some point they'll tell you to insert the SIM card to the Electron. You'll have to pull the Electron out of the breadboard to insert the SIM.

Just pretend you're Arthur and this is a sword stuck in a rock.

You'll also need to connect the antenna.

I was a little scared of forcefully pushing in this delicate looking piece of metal, but it'll be fine. I wish someone told me these things.

You can continue with the rest of their guides, it's actually really helpful to get a better feel of things (like what the pins do and how to blink an LED). Come back when you're ready to connect your Neopixel to the Electron.

Step 2: Install Particle CLI

You'll need this to be able to flash your code directly to your device through USB. Because you have to pay for that data, you'll want to flash directly so you don't waste it. You can follow Particle's guide, or just run these two commands for now.

Make sure to install npm if you haven't yet.

$ npm install -g particle-cli
$ particle login

Step 3: Connect your Neopixel!

Ok, this is the entire point. I learned a lot from Core Electronics' Using Neopixels with Particle, but in that guide they describe how to connect to the Neopixel ring kit with the Photon. And they describe using a logic level converter on a breadboard, which I'll learn about later, but right now I really just want to see my first pixel light up. They do have a cool portion there that zooms into Neopixels and how they can produce different colors, so definitely check that out too.

I don't know how to solder, and I found out that you can simply use a breadboard to connect to the Neopixel pins! ðŸ˜±

Yay! I'll eventually solder these but what a great idea.

There are also some wire color conventions you can follow to build a good habit.

Red -> Power
Black/Blue -> Ground
Any other color -> Data

And here's the wiring diagram! I put this diagram together with the help of my friend Abhinav (also known as Pun Master).

I've been looking for this treasure map

Particle GND to Neopixel Power Signal Ground
Particle D6 to Neopixel Data Input
Particle VIN to Neopixel Power 5V DC

When wiring this up with the Electron powered, always connect Ground (GND) first. Pun Master recommends this order when connecting:

Ground (GND)
Data (D6)
Power (VIN)

Follow the reverse order when disconnecting.

Now, we should note that this setup has a couple of caveats:

The Neopixels will only light up when you have power connected to the USB.
You probably should not set all the pixels to full white brightness while in this configuration.

Since we're going to be flashing our code directly through USB, this will let us see something light up right away. Here's a photo of this setup:

It took a lot of googling and asking for me. Hope you got to this faster.

Step 4: The code!

Now we're back in familiar territory. Make sure you've already installed Particle CLI from Step 2.

We can either use Particle Dev (their Desktop IDE) or just go to the Build Web IDE. We'll go through the steps for the Build Web IDE for this tut.

Build (Web IDE)

Go to the Build Web IDE to create a new application. I mentioned earlier that there's a Neopixel library that was ported over, so let's add that into the project.

Name your new application, and click the "Save" button. You have to save to add a library. Here we're naming it "SimpleAnimation"

Find the "Libraries" icon and click it. Search for neopixel in the search box. Click the "Neopixel" library, click "Include in Project" choose "SimpleAnimation" app, and click "Confirm". Phew.

Notice that it added this line on top:

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <neopixel.h>

Copy pasta this code that lights up the first (0th) pixel on the ring. It also sets the brightness pretty low, so that we don't explode. (Just kidding, we won't explode. Hopefully.)

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <neopixel.h>

// IMPORTANT: Set pixel COUNT, PIN and TYPE
#define PIXEL_COUNT 16
#define PIXEL_PIN D6
#define PIXEL_TYPE WS2812

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(PIXEL_COUNT, PIXEL_PIN, PIXEL_TYPE);

void setup() {
  strip.begin();
  strip.setBrightness(70);
  strip.show();
}

void loop() {
  // Light up the first pixel
  strip.setPixelColor(0, 50,50,50);
  strip.show();
  delay(500);
}

Click the "Save" button again. Then, click the "Verify" button to compile the app. If everything went well, we should see the phrase "Code verified! Great work." at the bottom.

Now, click the "Code" button, and click the icon next to your app name to "Compile and download firmware binary".

Your downloads folder should contain a file called firmware.bin. With your Electron + Neopixel connected via USB, go to your downloads folder in your terminal and run:

$ particle flash --serial firmware.bin

Press and hold the MODE button on your Electron until it blinks blue, and hit Enter to flash.

If everything went well, you should see ONE PIXEL LIGHT UP! WOO! ðŸŽ‰

Step 5: Let's get some lights moving!

Now that you know how to turn one light on, the last step is to do our simple animation! Replace your code with this:

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <neopixel.h>

// IMPORTANT: Set pixel COUNT, PIN and TYPE
#define PIXEL_COUNT 16
#define PIXEL_PIN D6
#define PIXEL_TYPE WS2812

#define PEACH 200,50,5
#define CYAN 10,150,70
#define PURPLE 180,3,180
#define BLUE 5,5,190
#define WHITE 150,150,150
#define GREEN 10,180,10

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(PIXEL_COUNT, PIXEL_PIN, PIXEL_TYPE);

int waitTime = 25;
int i;
void spin(int R, int G, int B);

void setup() {
  strip.begin();
  strip.setBrightness(70);
  strip.show();
}

void loop() {
  // spin forever rotating through colors!
  spin (PEACH);
  spin (CYAN);
  spin (PURPLE);
  spin (BLUE);
  spin (WHITE);
  spin (GREEN);
}

void spin(int R, int G, int B) {
    for(i=0; i < PIXEL_COUNT; i++) {
        strip.setPixelColor(i, R,G,B);
        strip.show();
        delay(waitTime);
    }
}

And then download the firmware and flash your Electron like you did above. That's it! You've just animated your Neopixels!

Too much fun.

Remember, this setup only works for prototyping, and if you want to turn the brightness all the way up you should probably research how to do that properly. If I get there soon I'll write up another guide about it.

What next?

Well, there's a whole lot to learn! Here's a few links for you to read up on:

Using Neopixels With Particle from Core Electronics. They seem to have plenty of guides around the Electron/Photon.
Neopixels Ãœberguide - Everything you need to know about Neopixels!

Thanks, I hope that helped someone like me who's just learning about all the cool things you can do with circuits. ðŸ‘ŒðŸ¼

Originally posted in my blog, Codelove. Share it with a hardware person who may be trapped in a software person's body. You can find me on Twitter.

Special thanks to Abhinav S and @_eeclaire for helping me understand, and @cassidoo for showing the Twilio Hackpack to me! â¤ï¸