HN post on getting the word out on an idea links

Seems like some good ideas, biggest takaway is to figure out your target audience, and make sure to market to them as your primary source, but sometimes other areas find them interesting too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822


This is kinda my way of bookmarking something I'm interested at the same time, hope you find it an interesting read like I do.

My 30 minutes

Ok I spent a little more then 30 minutes working and thinking about projects yesterday, as well as organizing my workspace, so I'll detail a little about what I did.

1. I got my Open Bench Logic Sniffer working, That was a HUGE hurdle, as I really wanted to use it for reading chips on my arcade to see that everything is working as planned.

2. I thought about how I can use my latching hall effect sensors. I wanted to build a gear indicator for my motorcycle, but thought I would need to buy a new set of hall effect sensors because i didn't research the ones I purchased well enough. (There is a lesson here, make sure you research what you're buying, this can save you time and money). For these hall effect sensors I'm going to figure out how much time removal of power will take to reset the sensor, then everytime I see a logic 1, I'll reset the sensor, it's not fancy but I think it'll work.

3. Cleaned up my workspace a little more again, put all my LED's in bins, as well as my resistors, rather then leaving them on the tape reels and baggies.

Also being without internet is rough, I now know I need to download all my datasheets for all my chips, sensors, etc. so when I'm home I can hook things up, not having things like my Quick Reference Guide for programming my PIC16f913 was a real hindrance to progress yesterday, maybe if I have a little time I'll get to play a little more tonight with it.

Getting Started

The Hardest Part
What's the hardest part of doing a project in your free time (especially when you're not a motivated person in general)?

Getting Started.

Over at the simple dollar trent makes the statement:

Big goals, big dreams. None of them will happen until I sit down and make the decision to get started with them. I can dream all I want, but until I get started, nothing will happen.

The Key
This is key to what I've said before about getting started, start spending time on what you're passionate about. Trent makes the challenge to go home and spend 2 hours on the big thing you're dreaming most about in your life.  This reminds me a lot about what my dad said about working on our backyard. Looking at it from the perspective of the whole project it looks like it's going to take a lot of work, but if I spend 30 minutes a day on it, you realize it goes a lot quicker then you really ever thought it would. The beauty of it all? It only takes 30 minutes a day. If you can't spare 30 minutes a day about something you really genuinely care and dream about, it really can't be that important to you.

Directing Focus
I like to think of it this way. I used to spend my "relaxation" time just watching tv. But I found myself getting more and more restless. Why? I don't care about watching TV, and unless I am specifically watching TV for a specific show, I just start to get mad at myself. I might complain because I have a bit of a belly, but I don't work out hardly ever. Bam 30 minutes a day, and I bet I could start to fix that. What is 30 minutes? 30 minutes is 2% of your day roughly. Start focusing your time on what you care about and you'll find you have more time. All it takes is a little bit of focused time each day. I truely believe that my "relaxation" time will become the thing I'm passionate about. and the more I

My Project
For my Car project I have some specific things I need to finish, but just getting myself up and doing them can be a challenge. So here is how I'll start finishing things, I'm going to map out what I have left and start making plans to complete each piece.

1. Program my PIC 18F4550 to determine if I can emulate a COM port. If not Use a 16F913, and use true RS232.
2. Using the PIC 18F4550, communicate with my CAN bus chips. (Or 16F913)
3. Find out the CAN messages that my car will produce when I press the song change buttons, as well as various other buttons. (Map out the entire CAN message structure if possible).
4. Hook up my USB port I installed in my car with the right resistances to charge USB devices.
5. Integrate iPod Touch Control with Microcontroller.
6. Use Messages determined in 3 to convert and send to my iPod with knowledge from 5.
7. Determine how to "trick" my tape deck into thinking it's got a tape in it but don't require the motors to be running. (prevents the terrible noise of the motors spinning).
8. Clean everything up and make it look professional. (Possibly cable channels or wraps to make the wires look clean.

School starts in about a week, so finding time is going to become challenging but I know that I can do it.

Designing Learning

In today's day and age, is the current methodology of teaching the best approach?

Here's my hypothesis, Changing HOW we are taught can net greater results on a broader spectrum of students.

It's a well known fact that there are different types of learning

from: LD Pride

These Learning styles are, Auditory, Tactile, and Visual.

How can we improve each of these area's in today's classroom?

I believe that if a student doesn't "care" about what they're learning, it's like trying to force oil to mix with water, it doesn't work.

What we need is something that will be the go-between from the oil (the student) and the water (the material). One way to do this is by not stifling creativity, and in fact fostering it, the best engineers in my opinion are the ones who find the most creative solutions!

Point in case, I'm working on my microprocessors class. Right now we are learning how to handle interrupts, using timer's, buttons, led's and various other things. Individually these projects are dry and don't inspire creativity.

My solution suggests that the student attempts to create a game in one case. For example, Simon Say's, a great game, could be a pretty easy one to build, but in building that you learn a lot of things, here are many of them I can think of:

1. LED Outputs
2. Pointers
3. Timer's
4. Interrupts
5. Button Presses
6. LCD (maybe give the user a score?)
7. Stack
8. Algorithms

So I could manage to learn all those things and actually have fun doing it.

I am so far having a blast with the class because I can SEE the potential I'm given while learning this information, but many people see it using blinders, where they can only see what's directly ahead of them, and not see the potential, I believe that letting student's pick projects force them to learn how to design a project, work through the team building details, and the final implementation. I don't think this should be a one time project that is part of graduating, but shoot find a project that the student needs to complete that takes each piece, and as you learn, you can build more and more.

For example, let's say you're given a project as a freshman, some of the techniques to build this project may require math level x (doesn't have to be overly difficult), as you push through each semester you can learn more and then literally apply it to a project as you go along, so when you finish your degree you can say...Look I completed this project and it required knowledge and skills in all these area's.

How do you think learning should be implemented in today's day and age? And do you have any ideas for programming that may induce learning indirectly?

Digging into New Code

One of the biggest challenges in learning a new system is trying to get a picture of that new system as a whole.

Right now I'm trying to learn a pretty complex system, one of the big challenges is that there are so many SLOC that simply opening a file and poking around won't do you any good.

So the question becomes this:

How does one become knowledgeable on a particular system and how do they find that starting point?

I think this question applies to projects big and small. If you don't know where to start, you will continually find yourself asking the more experienced programmers where to begin.You might even be able to modify small portions of code to do what you want and that works as long as those developers are there to point you in the direction, but when the time comes (and it will) that they aren't there, you have to be able to figure it out yourself.

So back to our question, HOW do you do that.

Of course the simple answer is start at the beginning and READ the code as it progresses, and that is an acceptable answer in a lot of situations.

In other situations it's not so easy, some systems are real time embedded systems, so you'll then have to figure out when you enter your frame again, do you start at the beginning, where you left off, or in a predetermined location?

Here's some questions to ask yourself when you are just starting to look at an entire system:

1. Where do you start and can your program be interrupted,
• If your program can be interrupted, how is it handled, like I mention above where does it start again when it's given control again.


2. What is your program trying to accomplish in this section of code that you're reading
• How does it pertain to the project as a whole.


3. Can you break the code into groups, I.E.
• If your project is a car, can you break it into sections such as brakes, engine, steering?


4. Create a list of all pieces (if possible) that make up each group.
• Look at how they each contribute to the whole.


5. Does each group interact with another group directly or is there a common group that handles all requests to each group?
   
   • Make a web chart that connects each group and primary methods of communication between each of them.
     

Let me know if you have any suggestions as to how to learn and understand large projects that you didn't code yourself.