this spring break, we are opening our doors to 10 people – high schoolers or college students to spent a week geeking out with us at our offices and workshop at american steel studios. we will spent the week exploring some potential solutions to basic human needs such as hunger – handson, through the integration […]

a close-up of my garden showing springtails below wikipedia says they are the largest of modern hexapods that are not considered insects because they have internal mouthparts  they are called springtails because they have an spring loaded appendage folded underneath them for jumping  when threatened. that is the long part shown extended in the picture […]

i spent a lot time about 2 degrees south of the equator where the days and nights are about the same length. the seasonal variations in  the length of day light in the northern hemisphere has always thrown off my internal clock. the darkness in the day still confuse me but I noticed something over […]

Part 1 Sensor Testing Hello World Arduino Side 1. Power Board 2. Press on Power Button 3. Plug in micro USB 4. Open Arduino IDE 5. In the IDE go to Tools  Board and select “Arduino Mega Arduino Mega2560” 6. Go to Tools  Port  and select  “usbserial-XXXXXXX” where “XXXXXXX” is the serial number […]

i enjoy looking at things i cannot see – such as concentrations of soluble solids in water. in such instances i really appreciate the power of visualization even more. we use atlas-scientific sensors often and the following tutorial is on how to use atlas-scientifics pH and EC sensors using a v2 controller. easy stuff … […]

download this pdf on how to setup library files on OS X! setting up OS X Arduino library

and san mateo was the clear winner in a couple of gardens i help manage remotely. here in is san mateo oakland, chicago, milwaukee

i have always enjoyed using 1-wire devices because i like that i can use multiple digital sensors from the same data pin. this was another fun document to write. here are further instructions on how to use a 1-wire temperature sensors with the v2 controller. the v2 controller has inbuild interface circuitry for adapting 1-wire […]

i had fun creating this tutorial on how to update your v2 controller and linux applications the kernel files for this can be downloaded here