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  • Author Author: dougw
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What Is Your Favorite Project?

dougw

It is common to have a favorite song from when you first got heavily interested in music.

Do you have a favorite project from when you were getting into projects?

Maybe something that provided a lot of satisfaction and still inspires you to do projects.

Please elaborate in the comments. A picture would make it even more interesting.

Maybe your favorite song inspired a project...Relaxed

Parents

  • Through the first 25 years of my career, full time work was my only project (that and raising kids). In the mid 90's my first marriage ended and I began a phase of self discovery.  One of the things that I discovered is that I really missed building projects outside of work.  One of my first projects was a simple Bi-Ped robot, which I called Walky.  I built Walky in attempt to get my young son interested in electronics.  It was a simple, rudimentary walker, that would just start walking forward when you turned it on.  It was built with a simple Atmel Attiny12 processor and a pair of servos.  The body/legs were cut/milled out of plexiglass. There were a pair of 2-AA battery packs (two cells each, wired in series for ~6V) mounted up high on the body to help it lean enough to lift the opposite leg so it could swing forward, then the process would repeat for the opposite side.  If nothing else, Walky allowed me an opportunity to rekindle the joyful aspects of build something for nothing more than the joy that it brought you.  Sure even simple project also taught you new things.  Here is a look at Walky back in 2001:

    imageimageimage

    Fast forward to 2018.  Walky had became a part of my robot display that sat on a shelf in my home office (he even survive a move to Texas).  I had been lurking around on element14 for a while (First blog in November 2017, followed by a few more over the next 6 months), when I saw an announcement of a project14 contest called "Movers and Shakers" in June of 2018.  I saw this as a chance to try to improve on the Walky concept (he did move in a very shaky manner), adding sensors to protect it from falling off an edge or running into objects, along the radio control to test out various walking patterns (forward, reverse, left/right turning).  It also allowed me to start a more active level of participation here on element14.

    imageimageimage

    I achieved a lot of what I had hope to accomplish on this project, including the unexpected, actually winning the competition. The experience and acceptance of my peers was a real boost to me.  I became a active member and found friends and a sense of belonging that I never thought would come from a virtual community.

  • in reply to genebren

    23 years of walking - keep on truckin'

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