Author Archives: Skye Sweeney

FIRST LEGO League

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

I have been involved with FIRST LEGO league for over ten years. Lately it has been as a judge at the local and state level. Last weekend and this weekend were the local tournaments that qualify teams to move to … Continue reading →

Posted in FIRST LEGO League, Personal | 2 Comments

Experiments with BlueTooth

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

For a work project, I have been experimenting with BlueTooth wireless transceivers. I purchased a few of the BlueSmirf devices from Sparkfun. Following some instructions on the web, we got the units programmed and communicating to each other as well … Continue reading →

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Furnace monitor bugs

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

After the power outage and all the work involved with getting the household back up and running (I have never done that much laundry at one time) I had some time to work on the furnace monitor. I finished the … Continue reading →

Posted in Furnace Monitor, Projects | Comments Off on Furnace monitor bugs

The storm is over

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Almost exactly one week after the New England freak October snow storm hit, my power is back on and I have internet. As you might image very little got done during 7 days of living off the grid.

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Working from home

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

At work I have been helping on a failure review board. Once every 10,000 boot cycles, sometimes the system gets stuck displaying the splash screen. They asked me to figure out a way to automate the booting and then to … Continue reading →

Posted in Python, Software | 2 Comments

“Playing Hookie”

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Since I worked all day Saturday and finished my project at work, I decided to stay home today (Monday). Although I am using the time from Saturday to account for 40 hours this week, it still feels vaguely naughty staying … Continue reading →

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Weight off my shoulders

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

For 4 years I have been working on a project at work. Yesterday (Saturday) at 6:30PM I finished the last qualification testing of the unit. The customer has approved the device for immediate deployment. In the next few weeks everything … Continue reading →

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Moving Furnace Monitor over to RS-485

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Last night I got the three primary zone circuits instrumented and connected to the Arduino. I also have the two thermistors working but I have yet to run the outdoor sensor through the house wall. All this has been done … Continue reading →

Posted in Furnace Monitor, Projects | Comments Off on Moving Furnace Monitor over to RS-485

Furnace Monitor

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

I have been up against a bug in my furnace monitor Arduini code for two days. The first night I looked for it I had had a rough day at work. My mind was spent. Last night (although it did take … Continue reading →

Posted in Furnace Monitor, Projects | 3 Comments

Backup SW bug V2

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Skye Sweeney

Last night I spent some time with this bug. The problem is it takes several hours to reproduce and hence I get just one iteration a day. But what I found is that the reason the MD5 checksums do not … Continue reading →

Posted in Projects, Robotic DVD burner | Comments Off on Backup SW bug V2