2009-08-06

Arduino NG rev. c

About a year and a half ago I bought my first Arduino, it was a Arduino NG. At the time it was quite new by the fact that it had a USB port. I did a lot of experiments with it, borrowed it a couple of times and now it is back home.
I never used it with external power until one day I wanted to do an autonomous robot. I programmed some test code, removed it from the USB port, powered the auxiliary power supply (a.k.a 9v battery) and nothing...
The usual debugging technique followed:
- test program with USB, it worked.
- remove from USB, change switch to external, power external and wait...wait..nothing.
- check the web... I found here that the problem existed and already had a solution.
- while browsing "problem Arduino NG" I also found here that the "autoreset" feature of the diecimila had been implemented.
So I picked up the soldering iron, my pack of SMD components and went on to hack the board. So I changed the 3rd resistor from the top and I placed the capacitor just below the RX Led (a reader told me it was very clear what I had really done to the board...)
Here is the final result:

2009-08-03

Harvesting the Carrots

Last Weekend we decided to Harvest my carrots from the vase. When we came back from a week away we noticed that they were not growing that much. We thought that they must have reached their limit in the vase so...it was harvest time... and we were in for some surprises...

The first one out of the vase was "Quasimodo", because we transplanted the carrots some of them had grown into strange forms. Lesson learned.... do not transplant carrots...

This one we really don't know what to call it... or... we do but it's not nice...they are actually two carrots that started in the same yogurt cup and ended up knotted together.Here's a picture of the whole crop, not bad for a single vase. Last but not the least:
This is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but with a chicken stew (at least for our carrots).