Technology

New Early Release from O’Reilly: Making Things See (Kinect, Processing, and Arduino)

New Early Release from O’Reilly: Making Things See (Kinect, Processing, and Arduino)

I’m proud to announce that my book, Making Things See: 3D Vision with Kinect, Processing, and Arduino, is now available from O’Reilly. You can buy the book through O’Reilly’s Early Release program here. The Early Release program lets us get the book out to you while O’Reilly’s still editing and designing it and I’m still finishing up the last chapters. If you buy it now, you’ll get the preface and the first two chapters immediately and then you’ll be notified as additional chapters are finished and you’ll be able to download them for free until you have the final book. This way you get the immediate access to the book and I get your early feedback to help me find mistakes and improve it before final publication.

Zero to Maker: Arduino and Beyond

Zero to Maker: Arduino and Beyond

Learning how to program Arduino was a must-do for my Zero to Maker process. For a beginner like me, this turns out to be an easier thing to say than to do. I wanted to learn it right and really understand what I was doing, which meant – and I’m really going to expose the Zero in me here – starting with basic electronics: soldering, circuit testing, and understanding fundamentals like Ohm’s Law.

Raytheon-Sarcos Prototype Power Loader

It rolls on tracks instead of walking, but this ditch-witch style tracked chassis retrofit with a pair of giant waldos is pretty much the power loader from Aliens. This video showing it in action is a great news segment from Ed Yeates of Utah’s KSL-TV, right up to the point where they start talking about the system as an “equalizer” opening up jobs to women “that might’ve otherwise been closed just based on strength issues.”