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I managed to update my RPi that runs the pirate ships/tiki hut to mount everything as read-only. Now its a proper embedded system and I don't have to worry about file system corruption due to improper shutdown, power failure, or people yanking out USB or SD cards while it is running.

Also, I got a B+ to play with, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet.

My Node.js server is up and running on my Pi. The server includes a button which when pressed causes the Pi to take a photo using the Pi Camera.

Still having some issues with serving that image back to the client. The communication is working fine, I just haven't been able to deliver a valid URL pointing to the image.

I think this will require me to use the Express framework to do well and without a ton of work. I was considering using that anyway. Just one more Javascript framework to learn.

From what I've seen other people do I shouldn't need to use any part of the rc cars control board. Some additional electronic components will of course be required to get power to the servo and DC motor. But i think i will build my own rather than using the cars board. If my understanding is correct I should be able to run the whole thing off a single rechargeable 5v battery.

This is the first step towards a more advanced method of transportation, yes. I am trying to start as simple as possible. Also the car won't sink to the bottom of a lake on its first test run.

My current electronics project is to take a toy RC car and turn it into a web-controlled Robo-car using a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino.

Luckily for me other people have already accomplished this task so I won't exactly be blazing any trails with this project. Seems like a good stepping stone towards more advanced robotic vehicles.

I'll be using the Raspberry Pi as a Node.js server which handles all the user interface and communication. The Arduino will be connected directly to the steering servo and the DC motor. There is a handy module already created for Node.js called Johnny-Five which enables communication between the Pi and the Arduino out of the box. For a psuedo-real-time experience I'll be using socket.io for communication between the client and server.

The Pi will also be equipped with an RPi Camera for video/photo taking.

I've chosen to use a toy car so that I don't have to worry about building a chassis, getting steering working, etc... It cost like $12 at Wal-Mart anyway.

So far I've stripped the RC car down to it's body and base electronic components. Most of these components I'm going to strip out too. Photos are attached.

Next step is starting on the base Node.js server, creating a server which can take and display photos from the RPi camera. Also, I need to practice wiring up the Arduino to a servo.

PS. I would have made this a blog post but attaching photos there is too much work (no upload option) so I didn't.

Nice! Keep up the good work.

I am not removing the buttons just reassigning them to different tasks. The reasoning for this part "this would be really cool" and part "risk vs reward" philosophy.

The newest addition for my arcade machine just arrived today... an actual working coin door. This coin door has two slots (required for certain games like Guantlet) and accepts quarters. It uses the exact same type of switch as an arcade button or joystick so it should be easy to wire into my arcade system.

This will replace the existing yellow buttons on the control panel which currently serve as an emulated coin insert. These buttons will be used for showing additional information on the game select screen and as the SELECT button on console game systems.

I am thinking of taking pictures and writing up a blog entry on the reasoning behind using actual coin entry rather than a coin button. Maybe I'll post it to the new test blog.

So I've started talking into a trap which often gets me when working on complicated projects. I find myself spending time programming and designing for future features which might not ever be implemented rather than focusing on the getting the phase 1 features working.

In this case it relates to rotation speed of towers. I have found myself spending too much time trying to program so that you can set variable rotation speed of towers. 95% of TD games do not even have this feature, towers just rotate to the desired direction instantaneously. Adding this feature adds a lot more complexity than you might think.

I found myself spending a bunch of time thinking about where the best place to calculate the angle to the current target and how to pass it to all the different components that needed it. Not being able to come up with an elegant solution made me a little frustrated. Even if I did succeed in adding this feature I would be complicating the game balancing process (as well as adding complexity to several different components). Currently towers have 3 variables (dps, range, health) which need to be tweaked for game balance. Should I really spend time adding a somewhat boring and complicated one like rotation speed or more interesting ones like area of effect, unit slowing bullets, emp temporary unit disabling bullets, damage over time bullets, etc...

These are the kind of traps that prevent me from completing projects. Yes, it is an interesting feature. But do I really need it? This is just a hobby project, I already have the idea for my next new exciting project. If I ever want to bring this project anywhere near completion I am going to have to try and avoid these pitfalls and keep chopping features.

Has anyone seen Twitch Plays Pokemon yet? It's thousands of people attempting to play a pokemon game through IRC chat all at once. Everyone is attempting to control the same character. It's kind of entertaining in an chaotic way.

Right now it's being played by more than 72,000 people.

I don't actually have a problem with the landing page being just a giant list of posts (obviously only showing a few posts per page) so long as everything is neatly chopped up into categories/projects in the sidebar.

Using a combination of static pages and tags we should be able to reach some kind of setup that isn't a total and complete mess. Not sure we have enough content to really warrant multiple separate blogs. The last post on our current site is from March 2012.

If we ever have a project with 1/10 of the scope of Dwarf Fortress we should really build its own site. Huge projects may never fit well in blog type format. But some of the things we do a lot of (or at least could do a lot of) dev/project logs would work really well. Following a project from conception through building and to a post-mortem wrap up. Or at least some examples of nifty things you figured out along the way. That is my vision anyway.

For larger/more permanent type projects way may need to utilize static pages which we can link to from the sidebar. This will stop them getting lost in the sands of time (i.e. our mostly useless jabbering posts). If necessary you can make static pages for each category with links to notable projects (and their own static pages if required).

This sort of thing doesn't really seem like a wordpress only type issue but really more of general CMS issue.

Do we have logins for the wordpress? I tried "admin" and our standard password but that isn't working.

Finished Black House and it was really good. Despite the strange intro I really got into the book and enjoyed it quite alot.

this was the most dead I've seen it in a long time

I was wondering what happened. That sucks.

So I started reading (listening to actually) Stephen King's book Black House. This book is a sequel to The Talisman which I really liked.

My first impressions are "what the heck?". This book is redefining what a "sequel" is to me. The very jarring switch of perspective to this floating third-person birds-eye-view perspective made me question continuing with the book. Also the book starts at a glacial pace with long descriptions of the town and county. Eventually the book picks up and starts to get interesting but I have been listening for over 2 hours now and the main character hasn't even been introduced yet.

Quite a change from the lord of the rings meets tom sawyer style book that is The Talisman.

Keep at it. Need to keep making things to keep your skills sharp.