Choppy's front lawn has been a little less green this summer, but that's all going to change now!! I've been scheming up a plan to make a synchronized sprinkler for a few months now, and I finally just spent a weekend playing around with a few of my ideas. I had the extra servo laying around my garage from one of my many broken rc airplanes. The plastic enclosures are left over from a previous version of the rockbox. And the potentiometer was found in a pile of pots I have on my workbench. The Arduino microcontroller board I got at employee discount from Sparkfun - thank you, thank you! I love my job! And the code I learned from the many awesome examples that come with the Arduino software. I am planning on using a compass to get the sprinkler position on my next sprinkler, but the idea will basically be the same. I've almost got my code to auto-sync with the position - it works... just not every time. I know from the video, Choppy doesn't seem that excited, but when the grass starts getting greener, I'm sure he'll perk up!

Pete Lewis showing how boards are tested using Pogo Beds

We turned an AVR into a HID device that uses a touchscreen as a mouse!!!

Using a small battery powered accelerometer connected to a data logger, Pete records the G-forces of a rocket launch.

SparkFun.com

Pete Lewis shows off the TrackBaller from SparkFun Electronics. This trackball has 4 LEDs below a diffused ball which also double as a button. Pete explains how the test jig for the TrackBaller tests all of the lines and how the trackball uses Hall Effect Sensors.