Open Hardware: Arduino, Phosh, MIDI Hacking, and CircuitMess
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This reverse geocache gift box only opens at specific GPS coordinates | Arduino Blog
Geocaching is a hobby that combines the fun of a scavenger hunt with modern GPS technology. One party will hide a small cache somewhere, then post the general location and the exact GPS coordinates for other parties to find. The goal is to use GPS navigation to find the hidden cache. Often, people will sign a log or leave a small memento in the cache for others to find. Trent Wyatt took that idea and flipped it with this “reverse geocache box” that will only open when someone takes it to a specific GPS location.
Wyatt designed this with gift-giving in mind. The box has an internal lock that isn’t accessible from the outside. The only way for the recipient to open the box and get their gift is by pushing the red button when they are at the location set by the giver. If they aren’t at the proper location, the display on the box will show the distance to the proper GPS location and how many tries they have left. The idea is that the giver will tell the recipient the general location and the recipient will have to perform triangulation to find the exact coordinates where the box will open.
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Phosh 2022 in Retrospect - Purism
We’re usually aiming for a phosh release at the end of each month. In 2022, we did 10 releases like that, 7 major releases (bumping the middle version number) and 3 betas. We skipped the April and November releases. We also did one bug fix release out of line (bumping the last bit of the version number).
I hope we can keep that cadence in 2023 as it allows us to get changes to users in a timely fashion (thus closing usability gaps as early as possible) as well as giving distributions a way to plan ahead. Ideally we’d not skip any release but sometimes real life just interferes.
Those releases contain code contributions from about 20 different people and translations from about 30 translators. These numbers are roughly the same as 2021 which is great. Thanks everyone!
In phosh’s git repository we had a bit over 730 non-merge commits (roughly 2 per day), which is about 10% less than in 2021. Looking closer this is easily compensated by commits to phoc (which needed quite some work for the gestures) and phosh-mobile-settings which didn’t exist in 2021.
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MIDI For Makers
MIDI stands for Music Instrument Digital Interface. It’s the standard communication method for all things music. It’s the way an instrument can talk to a computer. Every musician working in the digital space uses MIDI. Laurie Anderson’s violin? MIDI. Chemical Brothers? MIDI. But why might a DIY MIDI project be useful for you?
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CircuitMess Spencer: The Educational DIY Voice Assistant Hobby Kit - Random [Tech] Stuff
Around the same time last year, I posted a review of a project where my son and I built a DIY mobile phone: the CircuitMess Ringo. Well, this year, both he and I built a DIY voice assistant: the CircuitMess Spencer.
I have to admit, this kit took a bit less time to assemble [than the Ringo]. It also required less soldering which is good for my son, because he needs to spend time practicing before taking on projects such as this. Fortunately, CircuitMess manufactures and sells practicing kits which I will need to purchase for him to build up his soldering skills.