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Declaration of Intent | AJ intends to Hack Like Heck |
YouTube Channel | Aron Katz |
Hack Like Heck Project Progress | Design & 3D Printing Soon! |
Name: ajkatz83
Element14 Community member since: August 31, 2015
Notable projects: Raspberry Pi Gameboy
More about the contestant:
What were some of your early projects?
Some of the early on projects I got into was with Adafruit, I really loved what they were doing, and so, my first was a wearable that was call Roo Walkers (a take off their name and that the shoes were called Roos) I adhered E6000 to some NEOPixel strips, used Gemma for each to control the the mercury slide switch so when I walked they lit up. Velostat was suppose to be used but I improvised seeing that I couldn't find a material like it. It was a hit at Vidcon 2014 lol.
The long term project I worked on was a PKE meter, and not just a prop, I wanted to make a real working one that I could take on paranormal investigations that I was going on. The whole endeavor took about two years going and using discrete components to track transient EM signals just floating in the air to eventually coming around using Arudino Fio and Uno to make a bar graph light up the EM field intensity and for it to work to move some servos for the wings. I did originally get the shoe polisher that was used for the prop in the movie and used that case for awhile before I used a resin casting which then worked better for the boards and servos. All in all, it was working very well tracking EM fields wherever they were, however, it while on investigations it just show nominal fields of computer power supplies and the wiring with in the buildings, plus it was just too super bright for the environments I was in lol. A 3D printed revision is soon to be on the horizon again!
I think the best one was the Geiger counter I made and brought on paranormal investigations too lol. That was not from Adafruit at all lol.
There was also a Very Low Frequency receiver I made too from the INSPIRE Institute that was NASA designed to listen to frequencies 3-30KHz when looking for ghosts. Unfortunately, all I got was 60Hz hum from the wiring in the walls and light fixtures lol.
The one project/kit I liked a lot was Ramsey Electronics' tri-field meter where one could switch between RF, magnetic fields and electric fields. It used hall effect sensors for the EM fields and again much better the ghost hunts I was doing at the time. The RF and electric were wonky and never really used those modes too much.
Overall, a lot of the projects came from Adafruit, just as a challenge to myself to see if I could do it. There was everything from RPi computers to the guardian sword from Breath of the Wild. I have just kept doing these projects here just so while I am in school I can keep using it and hopefully not loose it at all. I try to use the concepts that are being taught to me, though at times its hard to keep practicing them seeing it costs money an time which usually is in short supply at times lol.
Want to know more? Ask in the comments below and tag ajkatz83!