Barometric Pressure, the BMP180 & Gambas

Some birds and other animals are thought to be sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure.

This year I plan to monitor & record pressure, in addition to activity in and around my bird nesting boxes.

The BMP180 is a very small, low cost sensor which can be used to determine temperature and atmospheric pressure. ...looks like a great place to start!

RoboBuggy and Me

I received another bag-of-bits type Christmas present in 2015.

This one contained nuts, bolts, bits of acrylic, wheels, motors and a battery holder.

Despite being involved with electronics for over 50 years, I have zero experience with robotics.

BlissFlixx on RaspberryPi

A few days ago I stumbled upon a video media application for the Raspberry Pi.

I've tried others in the past like XBMC, and I don't really like them. But BlissFlixx is different.

I have only been playing around with it for a couple of days, and I'm already hooked!

The Murder Mystery Game: create a Facilitator

The Murder Mystery Game is strictly low-tech and can be played without any real equipment.

But you do need a Facilitator, and this normally means one person setting the game up, but not playing the game themselves.

However, the role of the Facilitator can be replaced by a computer running a simple program.

BirdBox2016: the role of the Picaxe

As 2015 gives way to a new year, so its time to ready those bird boxes for the coming nesting season.

My original 2014 Raspberry Pi box remains unchanged, although it will be sited higher than previous years, this time maybe 3 metres up the trunk of our Canadian Maple.

But last years (2015) Picaxe + Pi box has undergone a few more changes, so maybe this is a good time to mention them.

PicaxePi: in circuit programming

I used the combination of Picaxe and Raspberry Pi for the first time a year ago.

At that time I programmed the Picaxe by temporarily soldering a connector to the board and connecting it to my laptop.

But I've now made a few simple modifications to my BirdBox2016 controller so I can program the Picaxe from the Raspberry Pi.

Picaxe syntax highlighter for gEdit

I hate trying to understand and edit source code when its presented as plain black text.

It is funny how just a splash of colour can make so much difference to the readability of a source file.

So if you have to examine Picaxe source files on Linux (and you cannot use the LinAxePad editor) you need an alternative.

BirdBox 2016: fitting the UV LEDs

Although initial testing with a bunch of UV LEDs did not look too promising, I've decided to push ahead and fit them to a bird box anyway.

They were very cheap, and I'd like to say they were easy to retro-fit into last seasons bird box.

But a wiring error resulted in a blown Darlington driver, so it took up more of my Sunday afternoon than I'd expected.

Making the case for the StupidPhone

A couple of months ago my Smart phone started playing up, then it stopped working as a phone.

It seemed to develop a hardware problem whereby I was sending more noise than speech.

So I had to decide whether to invest £100+ in a new Smart device, or consider the alternatives.