The Fauxtar

The Fauxtar:

It's a controller for Frets on Fire an open source version of Guitar Hero. Katie and I have gotten kind of addicted to it, so I decided to make a real controller for it. It's made from a lot of scrap pine, some pieces of steel and aluminum that I had lying around, and the control PCB from an old PS/2 keyboard. The game requires the F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, right Shift, and Return keys, so I mapped out the F-keys on the neck, and the right Shift and Return (alt pick and pick, respectively) to two switches in the body. I'm working on the second generation of buttons, made from the same lighted membrane switches as those on the Monome.

Good Weekend!

Well, that was a good weekend! Katie and I recently discovered Frets on Fire, an open-source alternative to guitar hero, so I decided to make a guitar-shaped controller for it. I'm now half done, so here's a picture of Katie's Axe in its current condition:

Also, on a visit to Finger Lakes ReUse yesterday, we found an iRobot Roomba 400 for $20!

All in all, a pretty good weekend. More on the Axe, and what we do with the Roomba as events warrant.

New Work at Work

Let's see... since the last post, I've worked on several things at work, but the most interesting thing coming soon will probably be the chimp-proofing project I'm going to be working on for sound recorders that are going to be used in central Africa. I'll have pictures of the new office in all its glory up soon.

Over a Month

Lots of things have happened in the last month, but here's what matters:
1. Katie and I moved to Ithaca, NY after
2. I got a job as a "Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Engineer" with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Bioacoustics Research Program after which
3. I was told to I may be refurbishing this shop

CLO BRP First Week

and
4. Katie built a worm bin!

Today, I think we're going to the Dragon Boat races on Cayuga Lake, and watching from the Ithaca Farmers Market. And on monday, I have to write a justification for spending $1800, rather than $10000, on a milling machine.

Pine Siskin Patterns

pineSiskin1
Originally uploaded by petmar0

I took a look at some bird songs in RavenLite, and when I saw this in the "twee!" syllable of Pine Siskin song, I realized something interesting was going on. Not only were there two independent signals, the melodies were going in opposite directions, and the composition led to a great deal of harmonics. The most interesting thing is the way you can tell that they are harmonics: the slopes of the lines increase geometrically as they increase in frequency, causing what looks to be an exponential increase.
Who says songbirds aren't fascinating?!

New Instructable

Simple Bike Pannier - More DIY How To Projects
And next time, I think I need to rant about seltzer, and more importantly, soda.

It's been a while...

Though, in my defense, I've been rather busy. I will admit that a lot of this time has been spent birding, and, strangely, I feel as though that's not quite the right subject matter for this blog. I may have to start a birding blog. Over the last week, I have had a lot of job search-related things to do, and so that is what's keeping me busy now. I think I'll probably get a little bit more update time, but I'm not certain how much, or when.