I’ve tweaked the rules of the Battle Tags game to include a dice. This adds a bit of chance to the game, although there is still room for skill and bluffing. The die also makes for a nice test of your 3D printer’s abilities. You can find the designs here.
A multi-coloured set of Battle Tags
If you want to use your 3D printer to have fun, make nice things and earn cash for a fantastic charity then you’ve come to the right place. You can print yourself a set of Battle Tags from my “Tags of Fun” designs and then challenge other tagsters (as I’m calling them) to a game of skill and bluffing. You can find all the files for the game here.
Click the image to get a PDF of the rules
I’ve put my Tags of Fun on Thingiverse. If you’ve got a 3D printer you could print some, sell them and raise some money for Comic Relief or any other good cause. Go here to get the designs.
Big news today!
I’m doing one of my world famous (in my world) Lectures in Rhyme in March. These go back over thirty years, to a time when I actually did deliver lectures for a living. You can find out what I’ve been up to in the past by taking a look at my archive here. This year I’m going to talk about something very close to my heart; the “Internet of Things”. In fact I’m going to tell you how to make one of your own.
Do you want a light to flash red when someone goes near your stuff? Do you want a light to flash red when it is cold outside? Do you want a light to flash red when you’re late for your bus? What is it with you and red lights?
Anyhoo, in this poetic and technical lecture I’ll tell you how to do all these things, and also how to put your name in lights (as long as your name is Rob, David, Imogen, Mary or “Red Nose Day 2021”). You’ll also discover how to make connected objects that can move things, light up, detect a person, tell you the time and do something when you press a button or turn a knob. And you can’t say fairer than that.
The lecture will be on the 19th of March at 7:00 GMT on the Internets. And there will be slide decks, a recording and probably a T shirt.
Keep coming back here to find out more about how its going to work and how you can get involved.
For 2021 I’ve updated my Tags Of Fun so that they have mystery squares and circles on the bottom. I’m going to be printing off the tags and selling them to anyone who comes into “selling range”. If you’ve got a 3D printer you might like to make and sell some for yourself. Every tag is software generated and I can make you designs that are unique in the universe. Unless you print two.
You can play silly games with your tags or you can just collect the different colours and use them to liven up your keyring. You can find the design for the “starter kit” of tags here. If you want your own completely unique set of tags, let me know in a comment on this post and I’ll generate a set of 16 just for you. For a donation of course.
Talking of donations, you can give me money here.
A work in progress for something mildly exciting..
This is the Red Nose Day presentation in super-duper widescreen and high resolution and also starring a bucket of money. Which has all the best lines. Watch out for the bit where the cameraman falls asleep.
This how I made my Air Quality Top Hat. It’s actually more of an Air Quality belt really, in that the sensors and the lights are attached to a strip of webbing which can then be fitted around the hat. I’ve made it slightly too long, so that it can also be turned into an Air Quality belt if you prefer.
Click on the image for a large version on Flickr
I’m using a Wemos D1 Mini and a Winsen ZPH01 particle sensor. The sensor will detect 2.5 micron particles but it’s not super stable (mind you - it is very cheap). For the light display I’ve added a strip of NeoPixels.
The wiring is just point to point, with some wires twisted together, soldered and then covered with heat shrink cable. The ground line is connected to the grounds on the pixel strip, the Wenos, the ZPH01 ground and the ZPH01 control line to pull that line low and request that the sensor sends serial data out of the TX line. The 5V line from the WEMOS is connected to V+ on the ZPH01 and the V+ of the NeoPixels.
The data line of the NeoPixels is connected to D4 on the WEMOS which is actually GPIO2. I’m using a lovely pixel library from Makuna which uses the onboard UART on the ESP8266 to drive the pixels. This forces them to be connected to GPIO2.
I’m using a specially hand tampered SoftwareSeral driver to get the sensor data, which is read on GPIO12 which is exposed as D6 on the WEMOS device.
The device is powered by a short usb cable that I’ve plugged into the WEMOS and then taped in place. I can use a USB extension lead to program the Wemos and plug it directly into a usb power bank to power the whole thing.
Rather than find a plug and wire up a cable, I’ve actually soldered the wires directly to the back of the sensor. I’m not proud of this, but it does seem to work. The Air Quality sensor and the Wemos are secured to the belt by double sided adhesive foam.
The software I’m using is an early release of my Monitair software for Air Quality sensors. You can find the “Top Hat” version on GitHub here.
I’m actually ahead of myself. Amazing. I’ve got the words for the lecture written (a mere 96 slides), the Air Quality Top Hat works, and I’ve even had time to record a quick screencast of the material.
The screencast goes live after the lecture, at 14:00 GMT tomorrow on Red Nose Day.
I’ll update it with footage of the event over the weekend.
Oh, and you can still sponsor me here.
I’ve decided to do a section of the Lecture in Rhyme as Haiku. This is because I want to reflect all genres of rhyme in my quest for poetic perfection. It also seems much quicker to write….
Behold the updated Red Nose Day Lecture poster, with new enticing banner. If you want to click on the banner you can sponsor me. I’ve been busy writing poetry today and trying to get code to work .
I’m building an Air Quality Measuring Top Hat for my Red Nose Day Lecture in Rhyme next week.
I think I’m the first person in the world to do this. No idea why.
Anyhoo. I’m going to equip the hat with a bunch of coloured leds to indicate the quality of the air around the wearer. Yesterday I started building up the hardware. I was driving all the leds with one of my trusty Wemos 8266 devices. Half way through my first test of the leds I noticed smoke rising from the device. Now, I don’t know much about electronics (obviously) but I do know that all electronic devices are actually powered by “magic smoke”. I know this for one simple reason.
If you let the magic smoke out of a device, it stops working.
It turns out that I hadn’t turned on my main power supply for the leds, so all the power was being drawn through the Wemos device; specifically the blackened and unhappy looking component above. Which got very hot, let out its magic smoke and stopped working.
Oh well.
The good news is that the Wemos devices only cost around two pounds each. I’ve ordered ten more…
I’ve just sponsored myself for my lecture in Rhyme next week. I’d love it if you did too. Click on the image above to go straight to my donation page.
If you can make it to the lecture I’d love to see you. It should be fun and there will be FREE DONUTS as well as lots of the usual fun and games.
You might even learn something about air quality, which is what I’ll be rhyming about.
The lecture is at the University of Hull on 15th of March (Red Nose Day) at 1:00pm in Lecture Theatre A in the Robert Blackburn Building. David from c4di-Eagles Labs is bringing the donuts. I’m bringing air quality sensors and maybe even a light up top hat. As you do.
You can find out all about my illustrious Red Nose Day history at my special red nose day page.
II’m doing another Red Nose Day lecture. This time I’m talking all about Air Quality. In Rhyme. Just because it’s important doesn’t mean that we can’t have the occasional (and I do mean occasional) laugh when talking about it.
I’m going to talk about good air and bad air, and then describe how you can get involved and build your own air quality monitors and use them as part of the awesome Connected Humber Monitair project. It might even be interesting and useful, as well as raising some proper cash for great causes.
And David from Eagle Lab Hull is going to bring along some donuts.
As usual, entry to the lecture will be free, but you may have to pay to get out. If you can’t make it to the event then you can still contribute here. And there will be a video. Oh yes. And if I hit my funding target I will wear a tutu. Again.
You can read more about my illustrious Red Nose Day career here.
Well, that was nice. This afternoon a chap delivered a rather nice frame with an award in it from the Red Nose Day folks. I'll be doing more lectures in rhyme in the future. Try and stop me.
Well, that was a fun day. Up bright and early to head up town to talk about the Great Robot Race on Radio Humberside, then home to write some poetry, then up to c4di to run the first race (which went rather well as you can see above). Then home for another radio chat, then tea and finally out to the University to deliver a lecture in rhyme. And race some more robots.
This is the winner of the first ever Hull Pixelbot Great Robot Race, who succeeded by using a cunning trick called "taking the race seriously".
This is the racing action at the Lecture in Rhyme
..and these are the winners of the rhyming race.
A good time was had by all, I took 149.68 over the two events, which I've generously rounded up to 150 pounds. That'll make my total takings up to over 600 pounds once I pay it all in. Not quite tutu money, but I'm happy with that.
If you want to take me closer to my 1,000 target, you can still give me some cash here.
Don't forget that this Friday is Red Nose Day. I've got a couple of Hull Pixelbot themed events going on.
On Friday 24th of March at 3:00 pm in the Ground Floor Boardroom at c4di we're having a Great Robot Race. We'll have lots of robots for you to drive, and a tricky course to negotiate. With a "Big Prize" for the winner.
On Friday 24th of March at 7:00 pm in the Large Lecture Theatre in Applied Science 3 at Hull University we'll have "An Evening of Bad Poetry and Robot Dancing". It will be the first outing of my robot dance group, tentatively named "The Pixelbotettes" (now there's a word my spelling checker hasn't seen before). They'll be going through their routines while I attempt to find rhymes for technical terms. And just so poetry fans don't feel left out of the racing action, we'll have another "Great Robot Race", just for them.
The event is open to anyone from Hull, you can find a map of the university campus here if you want to find your way to the Applied Science 3 building. Doors open from 6:30.
If you're in Hull, you should come. If you're not in Hull, I'll make sure that it is all captured lovingly on video so you can enjoy (ha!) it later.
Please, please, whatever you do, sponsor me here. If I get more than 1,000 pounds pledged I'll consider bringing the tutu out of retirement. If I get more than 2,000 pounds pledged I'll definitely not wear it. Now there's an incentive.
A sneak peek at the "Pixelbotettes" at their first rehearsal....
I've got confirmation of the venue for my world famous (in my world) Comic Relief lecture in rhyme for 2017. I've been producing bad poetry in aid of charity for over twenty years. This year I'm breaking one of the immutable laws of showbiz:
Never work with children, animals or robots.
My lecture will be accompanied by a horde of Hull Pixelbot robots, each of which has a mind of its own (and isn't afraid of using it). You'll even be able to control the robots yourself during the lecture. As long as you've sponsored me here.
I've chosen a crack team of robots to help in the presentation. Above you can see them being put through their paces.
The lecture starts at 7:00 pm in the Large Lecture Theatre in the Applied Science 3 building on the Hull University campus. You can find a map of the campus here.
There is free admission to the lecture but, as always, you'll have to pay to get out. I'll have robots guarding all the doors.
Please come. Bring money. Bring a friend. Bring pies.
"Because the world definitely needs a man dressed in a tutu explaining how to create video games....."
After a bit of time learning how to use Adobe Premiere again (I learn to use it every time I have to make a video - at six month intervals) I have now got the recording of the Red Nose Day lecture ready for the waiting world.
You can choose to regard it as either a "Poetic masterpiece combining rhyme and technical achievement in a single, flawless whole" or "Twenty minutes of my life I won't get back". Whatever.
But if you do get anything out of it, please throw some money my way by visiting here:
Well, there goes any level of credibility that I might once have had. The lecture in Rhyme went well, but at the start I was overcome with guilt about reneging on my Tutu promise for two years in a row. I hadn't met my, admittedly very ambitious target, but over 800 quid is not to be sniffed at. Thanks for your generosity folks.
Anyhoo, I took pity on the audience (is that the right way to put it) and tutuified myself as you can see on the right.
After that it was pretty much an anti-climax I guess. The audience were great and laughed at nearly all the jokes.
Eventually.
A video was taken and I'll have it onto the Internets as soon as I can. Because the world definitely needs a man in a tutu explaining how to create video games.
My favourite bit though was when I was doing a tutorial session this afternoon and someone said they were a bit upset to find that I'd changed back into my normal outfit. So I said, "You mean you want a tutu-tutorial?". I live for moments like those.....
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
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