Hello World,
I've been busy, so busy that I've been neglecting to blog. Luckily, some of what I've been up to is worth blogging about, so it works out.
At work, I've started a new position as a Senior Technical Environment Artist. If that seems like a long title, its because it is. I'm straddling a strange gap between grumbling about crappy tools and actually writing better ones. It's a great place to be, because I get to save myself tonnes of time and pat myself on the back about it at the same time.
Outside of work it was my birthday and something strange and computer-ey fell into my lap in the shape of a Raspberry Pi. We quickly became friends and I decided to make it a home.
Some Stuff about 3d Printing:
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| My Pi's new case. |
Its my first attempt at industrial design! I created the case in Maya, based off of a CAD model of the Pi itself. I'm pretty
surprised happy that the Raspberry Pi actually fits inside the case! Not only that, but it fits pretty damn well! I paid careful attention to how the case would open/close (its a two part slide) and how to access the GPIO pins.
Although this case works, its not quite where I want it to be. On the next version:
-I need to slightly adjust the positioning of the HDMI access point, and the Ethernet port which line up well enough to work, but could look better.
- The most disappointing part of the prototype is the complete failure of my light transmitting rods in the bottom right of the case... due to inaccuracies in printing these were not only very difficult to install, but also constantly mis-aligned due to the inherit flexibility of the transparent material used. These will be redesigned. Lame.
- Additional room will be added for the composite video output's metal sleeve. Not that anyone really uses them, but yeah. Its there. Why not make it work?
- Structural support will be given to the GPIO access point. Its kinda floppy at the moment, which makes the case feel unstable.
- The USB outputs will be flush with the case in the next version. This will increase the price of the model a little, but it will look waaay cooler, and also allow more air circulation inside the case.
- The text next to the LED status lights will be made bigger. Right now it prints more like Braille than text...
- Also... the next version will have bevels on the micro USB power port. Bevels are in right? Trendy.
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| The original design, soon to be updated! |
Some stuff about code!
I've been continuing with writing tools in both CSharp and Python, and I've found as I learn and write more CSharp it's been making my Python code, for want of a better word, better. I'm a big fan of structure and readability, and while I've always been a fan of Python's flexibility, I feel it is a language that really gives you enough rope to hang yourself with.
Working with a language like CSharp that forces you to define the return type as part of the inherit properties of a method (even if its just void...) has really forced me to think about the way I approach my classes and methods in Python, and has resulted in my newer tools being leaner, with more modular logic and much more robust structure than my earlier ones. Yeah, I still love writing in Python, but now I feel a bit more confident that I'm not placing as many traps for myself in the future!
More stuff about 3d Printing:
Finally, my first color print!
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| I realized after the fact that the chicken leg in his knapsack does not present too well... |
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| A speedy speed sculpt. With color! |
