Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Day Two


Here you see the fruits of our labor. Willy and I started the day by letting the magic smoke out of an LED, but it would seem that our burnt offering (a blown out diode) appeased the electronics gods and we ended up making significant progress.

I eventually decided that it might be to our advantage to, you know, *learn* something about how electronics work. Thanks to this excellent tutorial I was able to get a simple two element charlieplexed circuit up and running.


Our confidence restored, Willy and I went on a shopping expedition. We returned toting electronic components, Red Bull, and a fancy pair of wire strippers. After a little bit of frustration we got a six element charlieplexed circuit all breadboarded up. I wrote some code to control it all and we capped off the night by giving the whole mess an on/off switch!

3 comments:

  1. What is Red Bull? A gallon of wine?

    ReplyDelete
  2. College fuel: a disgustingly over sugared, highly caffeinated "energy drink" that is really useful when you need to stay up late and concentrate on something. It should be avoided in all other circumstances because it's everything that's gross about pop, but more so.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It tastes like liquid Smarties. It's so gross.

    ReplyDelete