This weekend I began development of the next BW Science Labs kit, a robot that would have far greater functionality and awareness than Vivus. I can’t say I’ve ever had a single flawless prototyping experience. I always seems to destroy one invaluable component or another. This was no exception.

I wound up over applying 1/2 too many volts to the microcontroller, causing it to fry almost instantly. Of course, there was no way for me to know this at the time, I’d used a 6v power supply of other chips that are nearly identical with no issue. So when I couldn’t get the chip to interface with my PC to run a test program, I assumed the chip may have been a dud and hooked up my back-up, and wound up frying that one too. I have replacements coming, and should be in by the end of the week. Sadly however, I may have little time to work on BW Science Labs for a few weeks. Rest assured there will still be some posts, but I have exam-prep this week, exams next week (counting up to 1/2 my grade depending on the class), and then break.

Have a good week, now go fry a robot brain.