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  • Author Author: PaulMakesThings
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Smarter Life Challenge - Brief Update

PaulMakesThings

A friend of mine at the MakerSpace has a spare espresso machine he's planning to give to me. So that will help with that aspect. It sounds like my coworkers care far more about espresso drinks than coffee, and I am planning to install this at my office. I was kind of getting the impression that they didn't care either way, but then I mentioned in passing that maybe I would just put it at my house and they flipped out. I guess you don't hear how much people want something till it might be taken away. The upshot is that I finally got some feedback, since I was trying to explain why I might not put it at the office and they were trying to argue that I should. For example I said "It would be harder to run water to it, and I don't think they want a big water bucket here" and my manager said it would be fine, I suspect if I'd asked permission to do that he would have said no.

 

For now I'm doing what I do at work, starting with the parts that seem to be the biggest obstacle, so I've been working on getting an espresso machine. On the technical side I've been working on interfacing optical encoders to the PsoC 4 board, which should not be too difficult, but I will need them for some of the automated components of this design. Before I can really get into the details of automation I'll need that machine in hand.

  • Yes, they didn't even have it yet and I hadn't promised it to them, but they seemed pretty upset, not in too harsh of a way, just making a very clear attempt to talk me out of it. Of course I'll put it in the office because they want it there, and it will give it more chance to be used. I just found it funny that instead of asking me to put it there because they want it, they started coming up with technical reasons that it would be worse at my house or better at the office. But we are engineers in an engineering office, it can be hard to switch modes. It's OK though, it made me smile, they were saying that moving it to my house was a bad idea, but what they meant was that they are excited about my project image

  • Hi Paul,

     

    Acquiring communal property brings out  many strange issues with some people.

    I have found that if you want to repurpose something that you first post a notice of intent and then let some time pass so that everyone gets a chance to see, read and comment.  After that you take the gear and leave a note in its place explaining where it went and reference your earlier post.

     

    You still can get into urinal olympics, but a least you tried to do the right thing. image

     

    Good luck,

    DAB