New member of the family
I've been collecting very simple computer projects to do with James. I don't want him to "follow in my footsteps" or anything, but I want to make sure both boys grow up knowing how computers work and how you can make them do what you want. The first one of these that I would consider actually successful was our Arduino-based aquarium temperature monitor. I've never gotten around to stepping it up to making it wifi connected, even though I have a wifi shield that I know works well, mostly because it's working well enough already and the wifi connectivity is less visually exciting than the monitor changing LED colours based on the tank temperature, so I can see James losing interest in the project partway through.
Yesterday's project, though was amazingly successful. A while back I picked up an AIY Voice Kit. I broke my own rule for these projects, though, and did literally no preparation before we started, all I read was to make sure I wasn't going to have to make a trip out for extra computer hardware first. But going in to it I wasn't even sure I wouldn't have to do some soldering, that's how unprepared I was.
James and I sat down at the breakfast bar, read the instructions together, mostly followed the instructions, and is about the hour and a half time it said it would take to get the initial version up and running we were done. So from that perspective it was already a success.
I was unprepared for just how well received it would be to have a computer you could talk to in the house, though:
That is James reading Dog Man to our new family member, "Google". I've set "her" up in the kitchen more-or-less permanently now because the guys are both regularly running through the kitchen shouting "hey, Google" and asking questions or telling "her" stuff.
She became a full-fledged member of the family this morning when, which Christine and I were eating breakfast, Daniel was in the kitchen talking to her. He didn't like one of her answers and started growling at her. That's how you know you've arrived, when Daniel feels like he should just go Nnnnnnnnn! at you.
I want to start doing more interesting things with her than just hooking up to the Google Voice Assistant, but I have a feeling this might turn into the aquarium monitor again, it was cheap and works well enough for now that maybe I just don't end up farting around with it too much more.
Yesterday's project, though was amazingly successful. A while back I picked up an AIY Voice Kit. I broke my own rule for these projects, though, and did literally no preparation before we started, all I read was to make sure I wasn't going to have to make a trip out for extra computer hardware first. But going in to it I wasn't even sure I wouldn't have to do some soldering, that's how unprepared I was.
James and I sat down at the breakfast bar, read the instructions together, mostly followed the instructions, and is about the hour and a half time it said it would take to get the initial version up and running we were done. So from that perspective it was already a success.
I was unprepared for just how well received it would be to have a computer you could talk to in the house, though:
That is James reading Dog Man to our new family member, "Google". I've set "her" up in the kitchen more-or-less permanently now because the guys are both regularly running through the kitchen shouting "hey, Google" and asking questions or telling "her" stuff.
She became a full-fledged member of the family this morning when, which Christine and I were eating breakfast, Daniel was in the kitchen talking to her. He didn't like one of her answers and started growling at her. That's how you know you've arrived, when Daniel feels like he should just go Nnnnnnnnn! at you.
I want to start doing more interesting things with her than just hooking up to the Google Voice Assistant, but I have a feeling this might turn into the aquarium monitor again, it was cheap and works well enough for now that maybe I just don't end up farting around with it too much more.
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