Hashtag Test

This is a #test to see if I can insert hashtags into #Blogger posts.

Why can't Blogger just take the Labels I add to a post and make them into hashtags?

#innovate #tardis #raspberrypi #sorryforwastingyourtime

Tardis Lights Mostly Wired

Yesternight I was at the Milwaukee Makerspace. I wired up the LEDs for the Tardis I 3D printed a month or so ago. While I was there, I also 3D printed four more white bases for the wobbly chess set.

Last weekend, I bought six ultra-bright white LEDs from Radio Shack.  They will go into the top of the Tardis.  The plans for the Tardis on Thingiverse included a support that will hold four small LEDs.  A fifth LED will go into the top of the Tardis.

I used the circuit shown below that I got from a website that helps design circuits for LEDs.  (See this blog post for details about the circuit design.  Also, here is a link to the circuit below on Digikey's SchemeIt tool.)

I got the resistors, some wire, and a 9v battery plug at the Makerspace.  Below are some pictures of the soldered together LEDs both outside of the Tardis and then installed inside it.  I still have to wire in a switch that will attach to a special pieces in the bottom of the Tardis.  My son thinks I should put some kind of pushbutton switch on the top of the Tardis.  I'll have to look into that.  Finally, one of the windows for the Tardis are no longer in my locker.  I'll have to print another one.  Then, I can assemble the lights into the Tardis.

Printed Some Wobbly Chess Bases

I made it back to the Makerspace after a few weeks off.  Tonight, I took a spool of white PLA filament and printed five (5) bases for the wobbly chess pieces.  This took about 2.5 hours and was all the time I had tonight.

I'll take the pieces home and glue them to the top pieces that I printed before.  I need to figure out a good weight to put in the base to make them stand up.  The Thingiverse instructions says to put in five pennies.  I'm going to try lead from Pinewood Derby cars.

Avahi Server Works at Star

After my failed attempt to get the get the Raspberry Pi running Avahi working on the Star school network, I got some help.  I met up with Chip, our router and networking expert, at Star of Bethlehem to try again.

The first thing we did is changed the name of the device from exodus to acts because exodus was an old server name that the network still remembered.  It was causing problems.  Changing the host name is done in both the /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname files.

Next, we gave the device a fixed IP address by editing the /etc/interfaces/network file.  I had previously setup a fixed address and simply uncommented those lines and commented out the dhcp line.  Rebooted.  The new name and IP address were configured.

Chip went into the DNS program on the Windows 2008 server and cleaned some things up.  There were entries for some old servers that he deleted.  He also added acts as a server in the DNS.

Now that the device was setup properly, and the network issues were fixed, we moved acts to the server rack in the work room and fired it up.  It worked.  PTL!

The next step was to get the Avahi server working with the Cisco router.  Cisco has a web page where they explain how to do this.  We followed the four steps below.  Chip decided to use vlan id 10 on the Pi's IP address.

1. Add the Avahi daemon and VLAN packages to the OS via the sudo apt-get install vlan avahi-daemon commands.
2. Edit the Avahi configuration file and enable the reflector functionality in the Avahi Daemon.
   

   ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo nano /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf

3. Within the configuration file, change the “enable-reflector” option to yes and make sure that no # symbol is before the line.
   

   #publish-domain=yes
   #publish-dns-servers=192.168.50.1, 192.168.50.2
   #publish-resolv-conf-dns-servers=yes
   #publish-aaaa-on-ipv4=yes
   #publish-a-on-ipv6=no
   
   [reflector]
   enable-reflector=yes
   #reflect-ipv=no

4. Issue the sudo vconfig add eth0 10 command in order to add a VLAN:
   

We added the vlan id information to the network file. We then started configuring acts to work with the Cisco switch.  Chip did some stuff on the Cisco switch itself.  I'm not exactly sure what he did but it involved setting up some kind of "route reflector".

The Cisco page tells us to run avahi-browse command to see all apple devices on the network.  However, we had to execute

sudo apt-get install avahi-utils 

before this would work.  These instructions were not on the Cisco instruction page.

Finally, the vconfig command we executed at the command line did not stay after a reboot.  We added the following line to the rc.local file.

sudo vconfig add eth0 10

Chip tested the solution with the teacher who first reported the problem.  It works great.  Problem solved!

Wizards Staff is Done

My son, Dmitry, finished making the wizard staff that I made by connecting two three foot dowels.  He covered it with strips of grocery bag and then painted the strips brown.  A darker brown paint was used to paint runes onto the staff.

His hand is partially covering a leather strip that he wound onto the staff.  The leather is from his sister's old purse.

The top of the staff has a metal hanger bent to look like, well, I guess something that is on the top of a wizard's staff.  The director of the play he will be in wants to replace the wire with some kind of globe.

I kind of like the staff the way it is.  Nice job Dima!

Here is a link to the play he will be using the staff in: Once Upon a Mattress.

Installing OpenSCAD

I wanted to document the process to install OpenSCAD on my Linux laptop.

Ideally, all I should have to do to install OpenSCAD is type

sudo apt-get install openscad

at the prompt.  However, when I did that, I got an error message that the libcgal8 part could not be found.  I found an internet page that explains how to installed libcgal8.  I tried the easy part of simply running

sudo apt-get install libcgal8

That did not work either.  It said something about missing files.

The web page above said to make sure that the multiverse repository is enabled.  Here is a page that talks about adding repositories to the sources.list file.  I edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file and added the last two lines shown below in green.

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universedeb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe## 19 Jan 2014.  Added multiverse lines.  ksb.deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiversedeb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse

Next, I executed

sudo apt-get update

A number of things were installed.  So, it must be looking at the multiverse repository now.  The next command to run was 

sudo apt-get install libcgal8

This time, it worked.  Just to keep things tidy, I ran 

sudo apt-get autoremove

Six programs were removed.  Finally, I executed

sudo apt-get install openscad

This worked as well.  

Phew!  That was too much work.  On a side note, I never would have been able to do this 10 years ago.  Linux and its documentation have really matured.  I wonder if I could have done all this through the GUI...

Here is the "hello world" drawing in open scad.  OpenSCAD works as well.  PTL!

I tried opening my dxf file using the command Pete Prodehl, self-proclaimed expert, shared with me 

linear_extrude(height = 10, center = true) import("./Things/ToolHolder.dxf");

but it did not work.  Well, at least it did not display anything.  I did not get any errors.  I'll have to make sure the dxf file is in the correct format and try again.  Progress is progress.

Wobbly chess piece printing

I stopped off at the Makerspace this morning to pick up the Wobbly chess pieces I started printing yesternight.  Four of the pieces finished printing but the King, Queen, and two Bishops did not.

The spool of filament had fallen off the rack and the wood dowel slid out. I suppose that means that the filament was stuck on the spool and got pulled off the rack.  That's a lot of force pulling on the filament.

The Makerspace got the PLA filament for free from some company that makes filament. Maybe that sticky rolls is why they donated it. Actually, it's not that bad as long as I keep loosening the filament on the spool every few minutes. I tried loosening as much of the spool as I could before I left last night but I guess it was not enough to last the entire print.

Oh well. The description on Thingiverse said that printing all of the pieces is a challenge.  I'll have to print only a few pieces at a time.