Ah, Thanksgiving, the time when families are thankful for one another and turkeys are wishing they had opposable thumbs to escape their cages. For those of you outside of the US, Thanksgiving is when Americans celebrate obesity each other and what we are thankful for.

Come to think of it I should have made a roboturkey or something to celebrate, maybe next year.

Global

A Cambridge student named Qui Pan has built a fantastic program that lets the user scan any desktop object with only a webcam. The computer generates a 3D model in real time, all you have to do is move the object in 360 degrees on your desk. This gets me really excited as this would be the perfect way to get 3D models into Unity games. Rather than paying $20 for a 3D model of a water bottle to use as a prop in a game, I could go out and buy a real bottle for $1, scan it, and import it into my game- no $1,000 laser scanner required.

[or watch this video here]

Micro

I’ve been able to spend a little more time this week coding my 3D game, but only for about 30 minutes, which is about 3 minutes in “coding time”. I was able to spend about 3 hours this weekend working with an Arduino microcontroller, and hopefully I’ll get on to more advanced Arduino projects later, but for now I only did enough to get the basics down.

It’s been a pretty good week for the BW Science Labs Store, the Vivus the Robot kit has sold really well, and sales are going up with Christmas coming ’round the corner.

With only 2 days left in school until Thanksgiving break, teachers feel the need to give us loads of exams so we can earn our freedom through hours of grueling tests.

One of the great things about going to an awesome school is the teachers, especially those who will let you borrow microprocessors.

I’ve been wondering for several months now if I should buy an Arduino, the relatively low cost microcontroller that has hobby engineers going wild (seriously, wild. You would not believe how much someone can love a computer chip until you’ve seen the die hard Arduino fans). Fortunately, my school’s ASR (Applied Science Research) teacher let me borrow an Arduino for the weekend. I’ve only had a couple hours to tinker with it, but so far I’ve been very impressed by both the Atmega 328 (the chip) and the design of the board. I’ve had the chance to sift through some of the documentation on the Arduino site, and my favorite tutorial so far has been the Melody tutorial.

Setup was quick and easy, once you get the hang on which pins do what, and yielded a pretty annoying little song (but still pretty cool).

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that there should be more videos on BW Science Labs, so here’s one I shot of my borrowed Arduino playing “Marry Had a Little Lamb”.

I only recorded this once, even though it plays in a loop. After about two or three times of playing “Marry Had a Little Lamb” you start to lose your mind.

And for those of you too lazy to click on the link above, here’s the code I used to make this happen:

int speakerPin = 9;

int length = 15; // the number of notes
char notes[] = “ccggaagffeeddc “; // a space represents a rest
int beats[] = { 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 };
int tempo = 300;

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {
for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {
digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(tone);
digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(tone);
}
}

void playNote(char note, int duration) {
char names[] = { ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘C’ };
int tones[] = { 1915, 1700, 1519, 1432, 1275, 1136, 1014, 956 };

// play the tone corresponding to the note name
for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
if (names[i] == note) {
playTone(tones[i], duration);
}
}
}

void setup() {
pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (notes[i] == ‘ ‘) {
delay(beats[i] * tempo); // rest
} else {
playNote(notes[i], beats[i] * tempo);
}

// pause between notes
delay(tempo / 2);
}
}

A little while ago, I was contacted by a book publisher who was interested in my work. He asked me to write a short essay on technology from the perspective of a 15 year old. The essay will be published in a book hopefully sometime this year.

Here’s what I wrote:

“Technology is anything released after you are born.” – I first heard something like this a few years ago. At the time the Apple computer was obese, PCs were in style, and kids spent their days playing dodge ball instead of Call of Duty 4. What is technology to my parents is nothing like what technology is to me. When my dad was a kid he and his friends immersed themselves in sports, arguing over who could throw a baseball faster. When I was in Kindergarten, we spent our recesses playing a Dr. Zeus adventure game, arguing over who could finish the maze faster while gaining the most points.
My first real experience with a computer was when I was in third grade. As usual, the teacher aid was freaking out over a non-obedient computer that locked her out. I can remember sitting in front of the monitor, staring up at the glowing screen while the aid was panting, taking a break from ripping the hair from her scalp and throwing an I-hate-technology tantrum. I slowly tapped out the word “admin”, key by key, in the password box. I confidently pushed enter, and the computer sprang to life. The teacher aid swayed back in fourth in shock, and stared down at me with a look of terror streaked across her face. Before that moment she knew me only as the loud, somewhat obnoxious yet innocent third grader who cowered in power shortages and wailed uncontrollably at knee scrapes. From that point on, in her eyes I was a malicious computer hacker, unbound by library pass codes and login prompts. I was unknown, and I was horrifying.
Six years later computers are small, sleek, and powerful. Instead of kids pretending to play Army with sticks, they chase each other with the iPhone Gun application. Html is a markup language taught to many along with their ABCs, in between snack time and recess. A couple years ago, I showed my 8 year old cousin some Python code I had written, and he nodded along as I explained if… else statements and for loops. Now, he’s building complete videogames with MIT’s Scratch program and knows more about computers than his parents ever will.
Technology has transformed the lives of every child in America. Each and every kid who owns a computer has access to literally everything they could ever want to know. Quantum Physics, English literature, World Economics, it’s all a click away and yet my generation’s thirst for knowledge seems to have been lost. This endless sea of information is littered with distractions and can snatch away what precious time we have. When I walk into a library, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing students on the computers playing “Buffy the Boy Scout Slayer” and “Zombie Wars.” If you ask the average American teen what his passion is, chances are he’ll shrug and say “videogames”.
Technology is neither good nor evil, it is just a tool. The key is how we use it and if we use it to better our lives or just to fill our time.

I’ve been following Waterloo Labs for a while now (they even commented on the lecture I gave on passion and science last year), and now it seems they’re doing pretty darn well for themselves. They were recently on BBC radio and a variety of blogs (now this one). Their most recent project is a car that’s controlled by an iPhone, which is probably the coolest youtube video of the year (yes, even better than the llama song).