Archive for February, 2007

0

BASIC Stamp 2 Microcontroller

By
Bart Piotrowski
– February 10, 2007Posted in: Electronics & Robotics

BS2 IC The BASIC Stamp 2 is a 24 Pin programmable microcontroller made by Parallax. It can be programmed to do a series of tasks such as turning on digital light displays, controlling servo motors, creating sound,  and even controlling a robot. It can be programmed using a variation of the BASIC programming language to do many tasks at hand.

The BASIC Stamp is can be controlled on a these special circuit board, the particular one that i use is called the Board of education and there are 2 versions that you can get.

Board of Education Serial

Board of Eductation Serial

Board of Education USB

Board of Eductation USB

Both motherboards will work but one has a Serial interface and the other has a USB interface.

Programming Software

BASIC Stamp Windows Editor version 2.2.6

Other Resources

What’s a Microcontroller? (PDF)
Board of Education Schematic (PDF)
Board of Education Manual (PDF)

0

New Aquarium Pets

By
Bart Piotrowski
– February 8, 2007Posted in: Aquariums

Hello Boys Welcome to the Tank!

On February 3, 2007 I got myself a crayfish named Tank. He has big claws with bright orange knuckles and is about 3″ long. After seeing how cool he looks I went back the the pet store next day and picked up another crayfish and this time I named him Homer.

Now as far as why i named the first one Tank, well he was gonna be the master of the fish tank and Homer got his name from always hiding in his treasure chest home.


Closeup of Tank beside the pirate chest


Closeup of Homer inside his pirate chest home

Unfortunately Homer being the bigger of the 2 crayfish started bullying Tank around the fish tank and they started to scrap a lot of the time. During the day I didn’t really notice to much with working and all day but during the night it was getting pretty bad so I had to make a decision to ship one crayfish to my dads well established fish sanctuary. He has one 33 gallon tank and two 10 gallons tanks. Homer is in one of the 10 Gallon tanks and last time i heard he is busy away making his new home a better place on a daily basis.

Tags: Crayfish