So I haven’t actually posted something new here in a while, if you discount updating the previous entry umpteen times with new pictures. That got a bit unwieldy so I moved it up to it’s own page above (look up there at the top) and hide the entry that was here. Speaking of which this site was overhauled too. It was past time for a new look. I was never 100% sold on the previous theme I downloaded so this time I just made one of my own. I’m happy with it again. It’s not complete yet. I need to put the dynamic stuff back in, the background color changing with the time of day and the top image. Currently both are fixed to what you see. This weekend I hope to have the time to do it right. There will be fewer colors and the top image at the top will match the color of the page instead of being random. And I’m going to get rid of a bunch of the less then stellar images. The stellar ones are mostly from the Astronomy Picture of the Day, linked above. I’ve massively abbreviated everything up there, but it’s all still there plus lots of new stuff.
One of the big reasons I haven’t had time for this much neglected site is school. I’m into my final year of Mechanical Engineering. I only have my senior design class this semester. Or rather I did until I thought “hey I’ve got LOTS of free time, I should learn Mandarin!” so now I’m taking Mandarin too. Additionally I’m also relearning/refreshing Spanish and French and maybe, sort of considering Tagalog too. Tagalog likely won’t happen for me this year though. The senior project is great though. We’re designing a replacement for the MIT Handiboard. That may have been a good system at one point but it’s certainly seen better days: it’s too slow, big, heavy, error prone, and expensive. Our system will be small, lightweight, under $50 (preferably about $30), modular, and completely open. You can buy one or roll your own. We should have the beginings of a prototype here in the next week or so. Controlling a robot will come a few days/weeks after that. World domination commences with the new year. As it stands we have more demo ideas then time, effort or money will allow and we’re still coming up with more ideas. Come Design Day in mid-April we’ll hopefully steal the show!