Well, I finally got around to testing my code for the BoaArm, and I almost immediately ran into trouble. Firstly, the motor sensors are powered separately from the rest of the circuitry. After locating the pin used to enable the sensor power, and connecting it up to the new cpu, I ran into another issue, jitter.

I spent most of my free time today putting together this kit that I ordered. Its a satellite receiver, it picks up APT transmissions from weather satellites. Although the receiver is assembled, It will still be a while before I'm receiving images of the earth. The receiver needs to be calibrated first, which requires a frequency generator capable of at least 150mhz, as well as a frequency counter capable of at least 150mhz. I'll also need an antenna, but I can build one of those.

Don't you hate it when you glue down a component, only to discover that one of the wires (one now cover with glue) is just that little bit too short.

It looks like its been nearly 6 months since I last did an update. Interestingly enough, several things have happened in that time. The site has been transition to a new version, and might get a layout change in the near future.

So first up, WowWee's 2008 range has been announced. There are a lot more offerings this year than the last few years. Of particular interest are Rovio and the RoboRemote. Both of these should be interesting to play with when released.

It looks like the new year is going to be promising. We have CES 2008 coming up in a few days, where we should get to see what WowWee has in store for this year. One possible product they will be releasing is the BladeStar, which appears to have been prematurely linked to off the flytech website.