New Semester

I am such a rebel. I never can start swimming in the shallow end I always feel like I have to dive into the deep end and that usually leaves me sputtering and thrashing trying not to drown.... but I love it. I think I get high off stress or something. Most people would agree with that.

This semester I'm trying to take a different approach towards life. I am only working two jobs for about 20ish a week and depending how things go I may only be working one job for 10 a week. I'm taking two grad classes that are not specifically related to Linguistics but deal with Cognitive Science (my main interest) just because I want to take them now and don't want to wait. One of them hasn't been taught for 2 years so I'm taking it while I can.

During the break I worked on some fun projects, enjoy the glorious images of hackery.

Tearing apart my RC tank to have it driven by my new Motor Shield for my Arduino

Me putting together the motor shield (lots of fun, works fantastic)

The motor shield driving a stepper & 2 dc motors with my little IR sensor having fun

Taking a 5$ hot glue gun and turning it into a rough plastruder (something that melts plastics and "extrudes" it from the tip, allows you to build shapes out of plastic)

 Built an "Extension" cable with a dimmer switch so I can have a rough variable temp control for my soldering iron and my plastruder. This project cost ~10$ to put together and has been really useful so far

 Throw in some threaded rod, nylon T-shape pipe, a funnel and I've got myself a Shape-Lock extruding gun.

Had to drill out the end of the gun b/c Shapelock is much more viscous then standard glue gun glue. 

Ross