Category Archives: articles

A visit to a St. Louis hacker space – Arch Reactor

On a recent business trip to St. Louis, I had a chance to drop by the St. Louis Arch Reactor hackerspace. It was fantastic to meet a few makers/hackers from another part of the country; Gene Jordan, the PR guy … Continue reading

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Arduino Seminar

This week, I had the great pleasure to give an introductory seminar on the Arduino at Autodesk.  Autodesk is a sponsor of Artisan’s Asylum, and they have donated some fantastic design software. The folks at Autodesk are smart (in fact, … Continue reading

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Photos from Delay

Some new photos of the ‘Delay’ piece were posted here.  The installation looks amazing; I was glad to be a part of it.    A video on it is being put together as well; it will be posted as soon as … Continue reading

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Making Makers Make – Arisia 2015

In consulting, or in other pursuits, there is always the issue of getting over the first hurdles, and proving that something works, before spending all sorts of time, effort, and money on things that don’t. I moderated a few panels … Continue reading

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Art and Kinetic Light Painting – First Night 2015

Last year, I helped build the controls for a kinetic light painting. It reappeared at First Night 2015 again, this time with some upgrades. Here are some photos of the system, showing more detail. Again, it was a great hit.

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Non-contact water flow detection on the cheap

A colleague of mine was asking about cheap ways to measure water flow via non-invasive methods in a pipe. The ultimate goal was to see if water flow into a house could be detected. He was concerned about small water … Continue reading

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Trade Magazines

Good sources of what is happening in the world of engineering and controls are free trade magazines. These are some good ones that can give you an idea of what is going on in the field. Many a time you … Continue reading

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Things non-control people should know about control engineers

This recent article says a great many interesting things. Of all the things that jumped out at me, it was #2, “computer geeks are not control experts.” Yes, modern controls encompass a lot of computers and sometimes a bit of … Continue reading

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Delay makes its debut

‘Delay’ (the official name of the piece that used XBee radios, Arduino, and some motor controllers) made its debut in Trondheim, Sweden; Clipboard Engineering was responsible for a large part of the controls (and corresponding documentation, of course). See here … Continue reading

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A MakerTale

I was interviewed for the MakerTale podcast. Listen to it here. It gives a good overview of my background, and part of how Clipboard Engineering came to be.

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