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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulett, and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting
Speaker 1: here across from me, as always, his senior writer, Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland binary solo that that was a short quote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it helps balance help the epic quote I did a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes ago. That's true. That's true. Today, we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about a topic that a couple of
Speaker 1: people have brought up to us in the past, and uh,
Speaker 1: we just sort of tabled it for a while. Um,
Speaker 1: but we're both sort of interested in it, and UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's time we, uh we pulled this one
Speaker 1: out and give it a give it a try. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the ard we know, which is a an open
Speaker 1: source platform, both of hardware and software. Yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting to mention. When we talk about
Speaker 1: open source a lot, we are often referring to software,
Speaker 1: and by open source we mean uh, when they release
Speaker 1: in this case, the software, Um, it's made public to everybody.
Speaker 1: What the code is behind the software, so that other
Speaker 1: people want to make contributions or look for vulnerabilities, or
Speaker 1: find ways to improve it, ways to incorporate parts of
Speaker 1: that software and other software. They're welcome to dig in
Speaker 1: and get to work. But you don't often see that
Speaker 1: with hardware. Yeah, it's a little trickier to do. For
Speaker 1: one thing. Um Also, Yeah, if you're if you're looking
Speaker 1: at your general kind of hardware, let's say a microprocessor,
Speaker 1: you're looking at your your general microprocessor, you tend to
Speaker 1: um to have a prop proprietary right like Intel doesn't
Speaker 1: publish it's micro architecture and complete detail to the entire world.
Speaker 1: That's that's for prietary knowledge, because that's that's what Intel's
Speaker 1: business is built upon. To go open open sources to
Speaker 1: kind of um uh, well, just to take the veil
Speaker 1: away and say this is exactly how this is put together.
Speaker 1: This is what each component of this thing. You know,
Speaker 1: how it works and what it does. And if you
Speaker 1: want to build your own you are more than welcome to.
Speaker 1: Or if you want to take this and modify it
Speaker 1: and and evolve it in some way, you're welcome to
Speaker 1: do that too. There are a little there's some guidelines there,
Speaker 1: but we can get into that. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of very simple kindelines really. But in the case
Speaker 1: of the the Art we know system, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a a tool for people to get familiar with electronics
Speaker 1: and to learn how electronics work and how to not
Speaker 1: just design the hardware, but to to program electronics so
Speaker 1: that they do what you want them to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's funny too. You may should Intel, because of
Speaker 1: course they are. It's really not even arguably the leading
Speaker 1: my microprocessor manufacturer in the world. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: when when somebody like Intel or Apple or Google or
Speaker 1: somebody else who has a worldwide reach comes up with
Speaker 1: a new product UM, in a lot of cases they
Speaker 1: come up with focus groups and marketing efforts to try
Speaker 1: to come up with cool names for this product because
Speaker 1: they wanted to to sell UM an open source that
Speaker 1: might be a little different. Actually, this this all came
Speaker 1: about around two thousand five. I was reading UM, an
Speaker 1: issue of Make magazine that came out a few months
Speaker 1: ago UM from the time we're recording us UH. In
Speaker 1: the piece by Dale Doherty, who who wrote the welcome
Speaker 1: to that issue, said this all started in two thousand
Speaker 1: five UM and it came from an Italian institute, the
Speaker 1: Interaction Design Instant Toute Ivrea. I'm if we have any
Speaker 1: Italian listeners, please correct me on my pronunciation, but it's
Speaker 1: near Milan in Italy. Basically, uh, some of the art
Speaker 1: students there and an associate professor named Massimo Bonzi came
Speaker 1: up with UH an idea to come up with electronics
Speaker 1: boards that you could program yourself, but it was for
Speaker 1: artists and people who weren't programmers. Yeah. The the goal
Speaker 1: is to use this this basic foundation to build really
Speaker 1: anything that you can imagine as an electronic device. Really,
Speaker 1: you're limited by your budget and your creativity and your
Speaker 1: comfort with working with electronics. Uh. I was sorry before
Speaker 1: before we get into the details, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: add this a little trivia. Think it's fun. Yes, the
Speaker 1: name because like I said that, you know, you come
Speaker 1: up with these hyphil names that are supposed to indicate
Speaker 1: some kind of coolness factor or do we know, Actually
Speaker 1: it's it's got sort of a coolness factor too, because
Speaker 1: Bondsi has suggested the name of the bar that they
Speaker 1: used to go to discuss these things as the name
Speaker 1: for the board, and are do we know is what's stuck.
Speaker 1: So there we go, and they're they're programming language is
Speaker 1: of course called the ard we know programming languages based
Speaker 1: on an older programming language called wiring, which is another
Speaker 1: open source programming language, which I think is a little
Speaker 1: weird because if you're not if you're just doing your
Speaker 1: preliminary research on our do we know? You might say wiring?
Speaker 1: What kind of wiring? Yeah, that's just the programming language
Speaker 1: name threw me a little, but yeah, if you if
Speaker 1: you take a look at this, if you were to say, well,
Speaker 1: let me, let me see what you're talking about, you
Speaker 1: would you would be looking mostly at circuit boards, and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily know just by looking at it what
Speaker 1: the circuit board does. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: because the circuit board is that, you know, they've designed
Speaker 1: the circuit board to be as flexable as possible, uh figuratively,
Speaker 1: not literally, you're not gonna you're not gonna bend this,
Speaker 1: but flexible as possible so that it can perform as
Speaker 1: many different functions um as you can come up with
Speaker 1: in theory. Anyway, by by using programming it properly and
Speaker 1: linking it to the other parts of hardware that you
Speaker 1: would need to do whatever it is you're going to do.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a you can just call
Speaker 1: it a micro controller. Really, Yeah, that's what most people
Speaker 1: seem to refer to the ard We know and it's uh,
Speaker 1: wouldn't say competitors similar products. Yeah, there are other open
Speaker 1: source micro controller products out there, and some of them
Speaker 1: are a little more limited. Uh, some of them are
Speaker 1: are really they've done a lot of the engineers behind
Speaker 1: it have done a lot of the work for you.
Speaker 1: For example, there are modular computing systems out there, or
Speaker 1: modular electronics systems out there where you can create an
Speaker 1: electronic device by purchasing the the various modules you would
Speaker 1: need need and then linking them all together. It's almost
Speaker 1: like legos, right, Like you've got all these these electronics legos,
Speaker 1: and if you put the right Lego bricks together, suddenly
Speaker 1: you have, you know, whatever device it is that you
Speaker 1: were looking for, like an accelerometer. It's funny you would
Speaker 1: mention legos UM. The make issue that had the Arduino
Speaker 1: and it um listed several different types of controllers UM,
Speaker 1: including io boards like pico board and fidgets p h I,
Speaker 1: d G, e T s UM and some others UM
Speaker 1: the net duino, which is very similar to Arduino controllers
Speaker 1: like the pick axe and propeller um. And then programmable
Speaker 1: modules including basic Stamp two and Lego mind storms. So
Speaker 1: these are all related to I mean, the similar kinds
Speaker 1: of devices to the Arduino but um. But yeah, Arduino
Speaker 1: has gotten really popular I think because of its open
Speaker 1: source Yeah, and and again because of its flexibility. Uh
Speaker 1: you can you can program and our Dwino based device
Speaker 1: to be essentially self contained where it's going to follow
Speaker 1: it's it's programming and uh, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: set it up with power and everything like that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just like it's some magical device that can
Speaker 1: work on its own. But but the you you can
Speaker 1: have it where it's a self contained device, or you
Speaker 1: can have it where it's a connected device, where you
Speaker 1: could connect it to a computer and you run uh
Speaker 1: software off your computer to the circuit board to make it,
Speaker 1: uh do whatever it is you plan like. I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. Let's say that you you have your
Speaker 1: Arduino circuit board UM that you've purchased, and you can
Speaker 1: actually build these yourself if you want to they do
Speaker 1: have the the directions on how to build one. Uh
Speaker 1: most people I think would probably be a little intimidated
Speaker 1: by building a circuit board and would be more comfortable
Speaker 1: purchasing and a completed one. And remember, a complete circuit
Speaker 1: or it's still pretty much a blank slate. That's just
Speaker 1: the foundation for you to build whatever it is you
Speaker 1: want to build. Uh. Well, let's say you've got your
Speaker 1: circuit board and you get an LED uh so, and
Speaker 1: you connect that to your circuit board in the proper place,
Speaker 1: and you program your circuit board in such a way
Speaker 1: so that when it receives a particular kind of information,
Speaker 1: the light goes on. And you program it so that
Speaker 1: every time you get a new email, a little light
Speaker 1: comes on. And then you plug it into your computer
Speaker 1: and you've logged into your email client, and whenever you
Speaker 1: get a new email, it sends the signal because you've
Speaker 1: programmed it this way and you've programmed it to interact
Speaker 1: with your computer. The there's a signal sent from your
Speaker 1: computer to the electronic board and the little light goes on. Now,
Speaker 1: that's just a very simple application of the art we
Speaker 1: know board. Right, That's just one tiny little example, but
Speaker 1: that's the sort of thing you could do if you
Speaker 1: wanted to. Yes, yeah, if you uh, if you're listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast to this point and you're you're sort
Speaker 1: of trying to get an idea, um, you you would
Speaker 1: basically see the same kind of thing. If you're you know,
Speaker 1: if you haven't actually seen an ARD we know board yet,
Speaker 1: you if you popped open a remote control or really
Speaker 1: you know, any kind of electronic portable electronic device, popped
Speaker 1: it open and looked at the guts of this, that's
Speaker 1: basically more or less what an RD we know is.
Speaker 1: It's the board that has um all kinds of whatever
Speaker 1: the components are that needs to run that device. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the case that ARD we know, it's a
Speaker 1: do it yourself type thing. So it comes to the
Speaker 1: basic the board like the ARD we know you know,
Speaker 1: which is I would I would guess probably the most basic,
Speaker 1: you know, multi purpose, very popular board, although there are
Speaker 1: again many others. Um, you know, it comes with certain
Speaker 1: things pre installed on it. But though that's by no
Speaker 1: means you know, that's really just sort of to get
Speaker 1: you started, I think, but really, um, it's not very
Speaker 1: if you're not the kind of person that likes to
Speaker 1: take stuff apart or built stuff from scratch. This may
Speaker 1: not be very interesting to you might look at it
Speaker 1: and go, I don't care. I want it to be
Speaker 1: what I wanted already. The thing is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: for people who like to do a little hacking and
Speaker 1: getting into uh some programming, this can be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun because you can do It's sort of like, um,
Speaker 1: this is sort of like the physical representation of a
Speaker 1: programming language, I would say, because it takes. What it
Speaker 1: does is you can hook things into it to receive
Speaker 1: inputs and then hook other things up to it to
Speaker 1: give you an output. Um. They're all kinds of projects
Speaker 1: on the web. Um. I've seen games for it. UM,
Speaker 1: I've seen you know, different kinds of input detectors, like
Speaker 1: you were talking about the the email when it comes in,
Speaker 1: things like that where it says, okay, when you get information,
Speaker 1: send me a signal somehow. Yeah, And I mean you
Speaker 1: can do almost anything with it really really. In order
Speaker 1: to do these things, you have to hook up other
Speaker 1: circuitry to the arduino. Uh. They are two, like I
Speaker 1: says it, that's that's the board. It's just the foundation.
Speaker 1: And you have to you have to provide the other
Speaker 1: bits that are going to build into whatever electronic device
Speaker 1: you're designing. So here let's give a couple of other
Speaker 1: just examples of devices you could you could create with this. UM.
Speaker 1: I found a site called hacken mod h A c
Speaker 1: K N m O D and it had a list
Speaker 1: of the top forty Arduino projects on the web, and
Speaker 1: it was an interesting list. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: different applications and these are just things that hobbyists thought, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what I want to build such and such.
Speaker 1: The cool thing with our dwino is that, let's say
Speaker 1: that you have come up with an idea for an
Speaker 1: electronic device, but you're you know, you don't you don't
Speaker 1: know any way of going about and doing it without
Speaker 1: without starting from scratch. Well, the Arduino might serve as
Speaker 1: the foundation for your device, and you can even create
Speaker 1: devices that you can go on to sell in the market.
Speaker 1: Uh that that use our two as the basis for
Speaker 1: the electronics. That's perfectly fine with the the Creative Commons
Speaker 1: license that they've used to to license this stuff. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: there are cases where if you're going to make modifications
Speaker 1: to the hardware, you need to publish those those changes
Speaker 1: so that other people can benefit from your work and um,
Speaker 1: and you stay true to the license. But anyway, some
Speaker 1: examples include I read about collision avoiding robots. So in
Speaker 1: other words, you're using that circuit board as the brains
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term of this of this robot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and so you have to attach the right sensors
Speaker 1: that will detect any sort of obstacle in the way
Speaker 1: of the robot. And you have to connect the the
Speaker 1: other wires over to the various motors in the robot
Speaker 1: so that the the robots able to process the information
Speaker 1: that it it pulls in and act on it. So
Speaker 1: that's an example of what the artwino could be used for.
Speaker 1: But you can also do other things. Like I said,
Speaker 1: there's accelerometers. I came across a guitar pedal that was
Speaker 1: using the artwino as the main circuit board for the
Speaker 1: guitar pedal. It's just a hobbyist made it key tars. Hey, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to bring those eighties days back? You wanna
Speaker 1: have your keytar out? Uh that This is one that
Speaker 1: I thought was really a great idea. Someone used the
Speaker 1: ardwino as the basis to create a turn signal biking jacket.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a jacket that has turned signals built
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, and uh and this, you know, these
Speaker 1: are these are just kind of neat ideas that that
Speaker 1: people came up with and they tooled around with the
Speaker 1: Ardwino and various other electronic components and made them. There
Speaker 1: are others as well. There are radio control device devices
Speaker 1: I've seen. I've also seen a gaming devices like there
Speaker 1: was one it was essentially called an open source game boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the idea of being that, you know, using the
Speaker 1: Arduino as the main circuit board, you could create a
Speaker 1: gaming device. Now again, you still have to have all
Speaker 1: those other components and you have to hook them up. Now,
Speaker 1: for a lot of these devices, people what they do
Speaker 1: is they just went to an electronics store and bought
Speaker 1: the individual components, went back home and then started to
Speaker 1: hook them up to the Arduino in the proper configuration.
Speaker 1: And then you know, then you have to program it.
Speaker 1: And like I said, the programming language that's you know, Ardwino.
Speaker 1: Uh uh give makes that available to so you can
Speaker 1: learn how to program your electronics device through the Arduino
Speaker 1: system and actually you know, create the parameters that your
Speaker 1: device needs to follow in order to execute whatever actions
Speaker 1: you want it to do. Um, and you can you
Speaker 1: don't have to use the Ardwino language either, you can
Speaker 1: use others, but you would still have to uh create
Speaker 1: the halfway from it to go from whatever programming language
Speaker 1: you were using into the art programming language. That would
Speaker 1: add an extra step. But um, but it is a possibility.
Speaker 1: And I've seen there are a lot of tutorials on
Speaker 1: the web as well on how to use are we
Speaker 1: on how to program? Aren't we know? Yeah? Actually the
Speaker 1: language is expandable using C or C plus plus according
Speaker 1: to make and that's that's pretty standard, um, you know, comparatively,
Speaker 1: for example, net net we know uses C sharp as
Speaker 1: it's programming language. Um. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: that they saw as a downside to that if you're
Speaker 1: not comfortable programming and see, it might be a little
Speaker 1: daunting at first. Um, but you really don't need all
Speaker 1: that much if you want to get started with that.
Speaker 1: Of course, as we were saying before, you know, it
Speaker 1: does take uh some cash to get started to buy
Speaker 1: the uh the main controller board, whichever board you decide
Speaker 1: to choose. There are several UM and I have some listed. UM.
Speaker 1: You would also need some stuff to go with it, UM,
Speaker 1: led s, potentiometers, accelerometers, speakers. Yeah, you definitely need a
Speaker 1: USB cable because you have to attach the board to
Speaker 1: your computer to program it. UM. Then one of the
Speaker 1: nice things about it is that it works with Windows,
Speaker 1: Mac and Linux. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that sets it apart from a lot of other
Speaker 1: of these micro controllers that you can purchase. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are our platform specific, most mostly Windows, because
Speaker 1: of course that's the the most popular operating system out there.
Speaker 1: You have the dominant operating system, and so that does
Speaker 1: set it apart. Um. So yeah, that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I really liked about our Twino is
Speaker 1: that it's it's you know, platform agnostic. It doesn't doesn't
Speaker 1: align itself with a specific platform. Although those of us
Speaker 1: with amigas are still out of luck. Those of you
Speaker 1: with a megas, I'm amazed that they even run. I
Speaker 1: have to be fair, I haven't plugged it in quite
Speaker 1: some time. UM. So yeah, if you if you, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter if you've got one of the predominant
Speaker 1: operating systems out there. Even the smaller ones. Um. Then
Speaker 1: you're welcome to go ahead and dig in. Um. You
Speaker 1: just need to, you know, figure out what it is
Speaker 1: that you want to do. Uh. Some of the you
Speaker 1: can find kits online from a number of different stores
Speaker 1: that will give you the basics to get started with
Speaker 1: some easy projects, sort of get your feet wet with it.
Speaker 1: And it kind of reminds me when we were talking
Speaker 1: about radio in a podcast not too long ago, about
Speaker 1: the crystal radio kits that you used to buy. This
Speaker 1: is sort of like that. It doesn't require a whole
Speaker 1: lot of soldering or anything like that. Uh, there are
Speaker 1: you know, some of the other systems that I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier and others like them do It depends on whether
Speaker 1: you're buying just a controller or controller board or an
Speaker 1: input output board. You know, it sort of depends on
Speaker 1: what you're working with. But the Arduino doesn't necessarily require
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of thing because it's it's
Speaker 1: designed to be used in a variety of ways, so
Speaker 1: you can you can hook it up with wires just
Speaker 1: basically clipping the wires into place to see what it does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a teaching tool in a way. It's really
Speaker 1: so that so that you can learn and experiment with
Speaker 1: electronics so that you know you don't Also you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry so much about if I what if
Speaker 1: I made a mistake, What if I'm not supposed to
Speaker 1: solder this wire to this contact point here? What if
Speaker 1: that's the wrong one, and then I have to you know,
Speaker 1: desauder and then resolder and then yeah, it's a it
Speaker 1: could be a headache. So this is kind of a way. Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a way to avoid that and
Speaker 1: to have a little more flexibility and and not feel
Speaker 1: as anxious every time you're about to make a connection.
Speaker 1: Um as for the programming language are duo. Divides it
Speaker 1: into three different parts structure values, which are your variables
Speaker 1: and your constants, and the functions. And it's the combination
Speaker 1: of using these three parts that allows you to tell
Speaker 1: the circuit board what you know, what information it's going
Speaker 1: to receive, and how it's going to act on that.
Speaker 1: So it's a neat idea I've and I do recommend
Speaker 1: you check out the the hacken mod article on the
Speaker 1: top forty because there are there are a lot of
Speaker 1: really interesting applications there and also there are like you said,
Speaker 1: there are some tutorials online that are pretty helpful. It's
Speaker 1: funny because I found tutorials on two different sites and
Speaker 1: they share something in common. Yeah, let's see if you
Speaker 1: pick up on it. There's Ada Fruit Industries and Lady
Speaker 1: Ada dot Net. Okay, so Lovelace there had a bit
Speaker 1: of an influence on both of those, but both both
Speaker 1: sites have um tutorials on the the the RD we
Speaker 1: know micro controller, and we'll even go so far as
Speaker 1: to walk you through the first couple of projects, like uh,
Speaker 1: the Lady Eta one. The very first project that will
Speaker 1: walk you through is the what they call the the
Speaker 1: electronics version of Hello World. Hello World. If you aren't
Speaker 1: familiar with this, Hello World is one of those very
Speaker 1: basic basic programs. Yeah, you're supposed actually, it's a I
Speaker 1: would put this in quotes. You're supposed to just, you know,
Speaker 1: write your first program and have it say Hello World.
Speaker 1: It's sort of it's it's sort of a tradition, a
Speaker 1: programming tradition, but yeah, it's it's the whole idea is
Speaker 1: that you pick something that's incredibly simple to accomplish, but
Speaker 1: that that gives you the basis to learn the tool.
Speaker 1: In this case, the programming language. Um, so with the
Speaker 1: electronics version of Hello World, what that is is a
Speaker 1: blinking LED. So it's it's learning how to program the
Speaker 1: art we know so that it will cause a an
Speaker 1: LED to blink. Very nice. Yeah, you can't get really
Speaker 1: any simpler than that. Yeah, it's about as easy as
Speaker 1: it gets. But then that beyond that, the later tutorials
Speaker 1: start to teach you how to incorporate things like sensors
Speaker 1: and switches and buttons, things that we take for granted
Speaker 1: as users of electronics. You know, you tend to forget, Oh, this,
Speaker 1: this button that I'm pressing is actually interacting with this
Speaker 1: electronic device in a fairly complex way. You know, you
Speaker 1: just think I pushed the button and uh and and
Speaker 1: Joel and the bots get the really bad movie of
Speaker 1: the week movie sign ah good times. Yeah, just don't
Speaker 1: as it a side note. Um, the founder of Ata
Speaker 1: Fruit Industries actually was profiled on the cover of Wired
Speaker 1: not too long ago. Uh, that's a neat article. She's
Speaker 1: a she's an interesting person. Yes, yes, I remember that. Definitely.
Speaker 1: The cover caused some some controversy, as I recall, yeah,
Speaker 1: which was unmerited. Well anyway, Nonetheless, she and her company
Speaker 1: is very into taking stuff apart and hacking it and
Speaker 1: doing it yourself. So, um, it's very cool. Actually, Uh,
Speaker 1: she's got some I believe she's got some stuff that's wearable.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those funny things. When I got
Speaker 1: into the different boards. Um, as I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: who knows the very basic board, but there are different ones.
Speaker 1: I mean you have the Bluetooth board that comes with
Speaker 1: the Bluetooth module installed. Um, there are mini boards and
Speaker 1: nano boards. Uh, not literally nano, they're not actually on
Speaker 1: the nano scale. They're just smaller than the other boards
Speaker 1: use the USB Mini b cable instead of the regular
Speaker 1: And I mean you would want to have those if
Speaker 1: the if your goal was to create an object that
Speaker 1: would need to be smaller, and you wouldn't want this
Speaker 1: this larger circuit board in there because it would it
Speaker 1: would change the form factor you have in mind. That's
Speaker 1: why you would go with one of these smaller boards.
Speaker 1: In general, it's one of the reasons anyway. And then
Speaker 1: there's the lily pad. Did you see this? Not? The
Speaker 1: lily pad is an argue. We know a board for
Speaker 1: h that's designed to be worn. It actually comes in
Speaker 1: purple um. But it's it's designed to be sewn into
Speaker 1: fabric so that you can wear whatever it is you're
Speaker 1: you're building and for and for those who are working
Speaker 1: on a professional level who want to use the art
Speaker 1: we know and something that you're going to leave as
Speaker 1: a permanent you know, I want to create this device,
Speaker 1: and I want it to be this way forever. It's
Speaker 1: not something I'm going to take a part again. There
Speaker 1: is a pro version of the board too, so really
Speaker 1: they're reaching out to a pretty broad section of the community.
Speaker 1: And you could tell. I mean, uh, Seth Rosenblatt did
Speaker 1: an article for zd net just a couple of days
Speaker 1: before we recorded this. Actually the week we are recording this, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're following up on Google i OH, which is their
Speaker 1: developer conference um and uh Seth Rosenblatt was writing that
Speaker 1: about the Android Open Accessory Initiative and the Androids Android
Speaker 1: Device Kit, which used the art we know for people
Speaker 1: to build their own Android based devices. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: a that was a big part of Google's IO event
Speaker 1: was that they were talking about how Android is not
Speaker 1: just going to be a smartphone and tablet um platform,
Speaker 1: but a platform that will be on top of lots
Speaker 1: of different kinds of electronics, things that you wouldn't even
Speaker 1: necessarily have thought. Oh well, yeah, clearly you want Android
Speaker 1: on that. So things like you know, stoves and and
Speaker 1: and refrigerators and you're robot dog, robot dog. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I think that the the system actually would
Speaker 1: continue the art we know part of it still continue
Speaker 1: to run, um the I D that comes with, aren't
Speaker 1: we know? But this this kit would allow you to
Speaker 1: basically create an interface between your Android based device and
Speaker 1: the thing that you're building. Um, So that's that's pretty
Speaker 1: cool to to reach out and sort of bridge that gap,
Speaker 1: so you could make something that you could control with
Speaker 1: your phone for example. Yeah, I've seen some in that
Speaker 1: hackened mod list. I think there were a couple of
Speaker 1: things that people have already already built where you can
Speaker 1: control certain devices through a phone. Um. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I don't have the list ring in front of me,
Speaker 1: but I do seem to remember that. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a really neat kind of idea. If you guys are
Speaker 1: interested in electronics and building your own electronics and just
Speaker 1: really learning what makes electronics tick, then you might want
Speaker 1: to you can actually make the electronics tick. What does
Speaker 1: it do? It ticks? I got a ticking module and
Speaker 1: I hooked it up and it's yeah, I don't suggest
Speaker 1: you make something that ticks and then put it in
Speaker 1: a public place. Yeah, let's just right now, that's not fun.
Speaker 1: Don't do that. Yeah, they'll trace it back and then
Speaker 1: they'll come back and they'll knock on our doors and
Speaker 1: they'll say, why did you tell people to do this?
Speaker 1: So we didn't tell them to do that. We said
Speaker 1: that they would it is possible to do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: we now disavow ourselves. And then he taking our duenos um,
Speaker 1: although taking our twos would be a great name for
Speaker 1: a band. Yeah, I'm getting a little sidetracked, I think anyway.
Speaker 1: I was trying to say, if you're interested in electronics,
Speaker 1: you might want to look into this. It is a
Speaker 1: bit of an investment. Although they there their boards tend
Speaker 1: to be fifty dollars or less. Yeah, it's not an expensive,
Speaker 1: expensive investment. But if it's something that you're doing as
Speaker 1: a hobby and you know, well, you also have to
Speaker 1: buy the stuff in addition to the board. A lot
Speaker 1: of the kids or whatever, sorry, go ahead, A lot
Speaker 1: of the kids I've seen her a little or usually
Speaker 1: around nine or maybe a hundred forty for a kit
Speaker 1: that has again you know, a speaker and a potentiometer
Speaker 1: and some other stuff that you can use to make
Speaker 1: it do stuff. Um, so that's not it's not terrible,
Speaker 1: but it's not pocket change for a lot of people. Right.
Speaker 1: But if you are interested in really getting into electronics,
Speaker 1: and maybe you want to design electronics for further down
Speaker 1: the line, and this would be you know, probably a
Speaker 1: good way to kind of learn the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of the basics and maybe even you'll come up with
Speaker 1: the next you know, killer electronics device, and you never
Speaker 1: know that this is the sort of stuff that can
Speaker 1: inspire people to to really push the envelope as far
Speaker 1: as consumer electronics goes, well, you and I have talked
Speaker 1: about it before, and we've talked about programming and things
Speaker 1: like the Commodore sixty four and how many people who
Speaker 1: are in what is now a billion multibillion dollar video
Speaker 1: gaming industry started off typing in commands and there very
Speaker 1: low power Vick twenty or vicy Vick twenties and Commodore
Speaker 1: sixty four's back you know, years and years ago. You
Speaker 1: know this is a way to get your feet wet
Speaker 1: in the electronics world. So if you're interested in in
Speaker 1: electronics engineering, uh, and you really don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience with it, this is a good way to
Speaker 1: get started, and it's a good way to build on
Speaker 1: it if you already do have some experience exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anything from robotics too, Like I said, consumer electronics. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that wraps up this discussion on our DW know.
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future topics, let
Speaker 1: us know. Or let's say, maybe you've worked with our
Speaker 1: two If you have, let us know, let's know what
Speaker 1: sort of projects you've you've worked with or any of
Speaker 1: our DWIN knows um, uh, you know, contemporaries, any of
Speaker 1: the other kind of micro controllers, if you have experience
Speaker 1: with that, let us know. And uh, you can let's
Speaker 1: know on Facebook and Twitter are handled. There is text
Speaker 1: stuff hs W or you can send us an email.
Speaker 1: That email address is tech stuff at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Chris and I will talk to you again
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