Orionrobots (Danny Staple)

Wide-Board Breadboard for Pico, ESP32 and Similar DESCRIPTION Many modern microcontroller boards like the Raspberry Pi Pico or ESP32 dev boards are too wide for standard solderless breadboards, leaving little or no usable space for wiring and compone...

Ok - this is an awesome idea - hackaday.io/project/2050.... I use breadboards for students/mentee's to prototype and try stuff on. The slot incompatibility made the Pico and Esp32/nodemcu factors a bit awkward. This is a nice solution.

You’ll find a 555 doing that in the spindle motor control on cheaper cnc mills among other things. Two diodes, a variable resistor and capacitor plus the 555.

A cool thing about teaching others something is that you usually end up seeing them teach someone else it.

That's probably a great way to doom itself into irrelevance.

The full circle moments are awesome. One of my python beginners kids has grown into confidently mentoring microbit for the last few years.

Good afternoon from downtown Chicago, where despite heavy snowfall, thousands have gathered for an anti-ICE/CBP demonstration in solidarity with the Twin Cities. More are still streaming in.

Lt. Illinois Gov. Juliana Stratton just addressed the crowd, and called for ICE to be abolished.

A cartoon of a news report. The picture shows a government official doing a press conference flanked by goons. The headline reads “A man attacked federal bullets with his body” Underneath the picture is a quote saying “those bullets had families”

US government rn

There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets. Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.

OpenAI exec James Dyett calling out the cowardice

The US . Stupid auto correct.

Trying to determine if the YS has hit some kind of threshold for a rogue state, is perhaps like CMOT Dibbler’s (Discworld) dragon detector. That was a bit of wood on a metal handle, when the wood burns, you’ve found your dragon…

The rise of the right had left me sickened and withdrawn for some of the previous year, so I tried to stop reading the news. But to be honest - it's in my face. People I work with, rely on, spent time with are being threatened and hurt. WE need to get off this dark path.

The world I want to be in is one of kindness, learning, growth, progress, elevating humans to better levels of tech, fun, fulfilment, thriving, satisfaction. By humans, I don't just mean the ones that look like me or share the same gender, neurotype etc.

I want to remain talking about robotics, 3d printing, Lego and so on. But what is going on in the world has me increasingly concerned. The US appears to be turning into terrifying right wing dystopia, and the far right in the UK (through Reform) are trying to follow suit.

If you were computing in the 1980s then these books were a must! Still have my originals from back in the 80's when I started with a #ZXSpectrum.

I'm still developing for 8-bits. Hardware / software / magazine for the #SAMCoupe (www.samcoupe.com) plus some Speccy hardware too (zx.samcoupe.com)

I have SOOO much stuff to build robots with, although mileage may vary on if it's the right stuff already...

Now that's an interesting challenge. Perhaps I could tame it to 52 robot projects in 52 weeks - where "project" means improving/fixing an existing robot as much as getting around to building a new one from my parts stores?

ok, lets change that servo on the robot arm. TO THE BOX OF SERVOS! The old one comes out with 2 screws.

For those interested, here is a 'flying tour' of this robot arm. I pulled some neat tricks when I was building these. Each of them was more 3d printable than the last.

If you see this, post your dragon art!

Childish drawing of a tubby dragon riding a motorcycle. Drawn in a combination of felt tip pens, and pencil crayons.

I was quite young when I drew this... Looking at it now, clearly a dragon, but the proportions are all wrong.

ok! we have live robot!

yay, all my work to do something easy got me finished 2 days early!

(52 robots in 52 weeks)

Use them as part of a "shonky" filament system to try keep them dry? At least until i get a "real" filament drying system - lots of dessicant with the filament in the enclosure.

A chunky herbed beef & herb stew with rustic bread, buttered (real stuff). Not really about puddings.
That said - Rarebit and butterscotch surprise sound like a meal combo I should try. I've eaten both, but not as a meal like that.

The design process

Yay - found you again... Awesome stuff as always!

playback from realtime trainer recording!

I can also do waypoints that are linearally interpolated. (realtime is just a fast stream of the same interpolation)

And then the unlabelled ones, or the appliances for which you've never re-united them with the original power supply....

I went through a phase of collecting old 5v and 12v power supplies. All of which have the wrong connectors for stuff. One day, I need to make them more useful...

In 2026 that I still find it crazy that schools send word documents in emails, and fail to put actual content in the email.
Often, that word document has less than 4 paragraphs of text - it really could just be email body. Sort out teacher digital literacy in the UK!

YouTube video by Orionrobots Smart Robot Localisation with Python and Raspberry Pi

Last week, I managed to build a python 2d robot physics simulation using PyGame and Pymunk - something I wanted to do for year. I connected it to the code I'm building for Learn Robotics Programming 3rd Edition - I think the result is pretty cool. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbNH...