Toys, Open Source Hardware, Littlebits.

Seems like new important technologies can often get a beach head in toys or playthings. Batteries, Energy harvesting, AI and Watson... Regardless - toys are fun.

It is said there are five proto-toys - seen from the earliest times: ball, doll (including animals), stick/stylus, string/rope/cord, musical-instrument (like wind and percussion instruments) .

Magnifying glass, magnets, and telescopes are some nice more "advanced" toys. Blocks and vehicles come along too. My personal favorites are classic construction toys.

The modern age has brought electronics and tablets as toys. Especially electronic toys and kits. Brings to mind the venerable first handhelds.

At the OHS2013 at MIT was introduced to Littlebits. They gave away a small sample kit. Very intriguing.

And the idea has gotten legs. Search for littlebits pops up many things. There is an Internet of Things connection with the cloudbit.

So it seems littlebits is becoming the Internet of Things construction toy. They want to be an app store for hardware designs with the bitlab.

Littlebits are in many ways "perfect"... though one caveat is cost (for a toy)... but it is understandable. And it leads one to think of alternatives (and a marketplace) - which has its ecosystem benefits (for littlebits and others). Might come back to that in a later blog entry.

For now thinking of ways that the deluxe Popular Science kit might be used -(sorry)- played with *grin*.

IoT, PTC, LiveWorx, Analytika.

Notices are starting to circulate about PTC LiveWorx 2015. Attended Axeda Connection and PTC LiveWorx last year. Been watching Internet of Things (IoT) in pursuance of making Cimetrics' offerings like Analytika more conformal. Year started with meeting some people from ThingWorx at M2M Miami. Watched as ThingWorx and Axeda started melding into PTC. Attended local events regarding the PTC Smart Connected Products programme.

Good friend of ours, from the energy efficiency and buildings modeling space, joined PTC. Went into high gear regarding analytics, and Cimetrics is now in the ThingWorx partner program. 

The Analytika piece for PTC is mostly about consuming and delivering data for mashups. But there are data connector pathways too. Connections had been a topic we were looking at with Axeda before the acquisition by PTC. Seems everyone is trying to understand how it all fits together. Here is an image from the connectIOT project:

And Cimetrics is still actively pursuing IoT pathways.

Early Failures Sour Future Efforts. Energy Efficiency. 3D Printing.

That early failures sour future efforts is almost self evident. Mentioned in piece about 3D printing that failures (or weak successes) often sour further exploration. Various are working on getting barriers to success lowered. Better tools. Better examples. Better materials. Here is a Greentech article with a similar sentiment, on how low hanging fruit in energy efficiency might actually poison worthwhile efforts.

Cimetrics Introduces Analytika for Internet of Things.

Analytics for Internet of Things... Previously.

Picked up by

- CNBC.
- BusinessWire.
- Automation.com

Analytika for IoT extends existing analytics capabilities to address the needs of designers, manufacturers, owners and operators of all kinds of “things”. And provides a variety of cost saving and revenue-enhancing value propositions for the Internet of Things.

MBTA Green Line Government Center Routing - Suggestion.

Just posted regarding train shuttle operation on Orange Line. Praise for MBTA flexibility and trying new things. Another suggestion. While Green Line station construction is ongoing at Government Center why not run almost all the trains to North Station and turn around there?

Would seem like

- a nice perk to the ridership for the inconvenience of the closure.
- a more effective rerouting for the connections to Blue and Orange Lines and North Station Commuter Rail.
- just as easy to turn trains around at North Station (maybe easier).
- central management of reroute at North Station.

MBTA Orange Line Train Shuttle - Kudos.

MBTA deserves a compliment. With Orange line delays lately, and the uproar about weather and maintenance, it was a pleasant surprise to have the MBTA doing a very sane thing using train shuttles between Wellington and Oak Grove. The one track shuttle is a great idea...

- Only one track has to be kept running.
- Switches need less operation.
- Signals can be minimized (one train just goes back and forth).

There were minor delays. There was some confusion. Though the confusion seemed unwarranted and somewhat frivolous from the ridership. Riders standing in the door at Malden asking "does this train go to Boston?" seemed almost comical. The anonymous answers "Eventually." and "Just get on, its frigid out there!" seemed very appropriate. The only real confusion was at Wellington with announcements saying to get on for Oak Grove on the "South" side (aka Inbound or Boston-bound track, or the Westside track, or the track farthest from the busways, or the track nearest the MBTA Orange Line repair shops).

The delay from train change at Wellington seemed to be mostly due to holding for the outbound shuttle to fill. Always a somewhat dubious decision (rather then setting a schedule), but is nonetheless understandable.

Staying on Track Blogging.

Stay on Track Blogging 2015 by thoughtlight, LLC, Thursday, February 5, 2015 from 6 to 8 PM.

Great group, presentation and ideas. At 50 Milk Street at new(ish) CIC Boston. Visit to the space worthwhile. Takeaways:
- schedule regular blogging
- images always worthwhile (even a little relevance is fine).
- okay to curate or review.

So as a part of the scheduling "exercise": Editorial calendar : (and maybe this has some tongue in cheek spirit *grin*):

Thousand blogs by end of main career (next two decades). Smoothed average: four to five blogs a month.

Current feature: IoT. Ongoing emphasis: Energy and metrology. With a mix of hobbies, book reviews, sociology, robotics, manufacturing, design, toys, transportation, travel, science, engineering and so on.

LED Nobel Prize 2014. LEDs.

Have met more than my fair share of Nobel Physics Laureates. Much saddens to think of the great minds and hearts who have passed on.

Have written about LED technolgy (toys and practical) before. Enjoy telling story of my friend, Kyle, showing me one of the first blue LEDs (via Cree) at Cornell pre-2000. 

Missed writing about 2014 Physics Nobel Prize for LEDs. Have family near Nagoya in Okazaki. Wonder if should stop by sometime?

LEDs are more important and ubiquitous than one might imagine.

LEDs go hand in hand with the stories around solar photovoltaic production, advanced storage systems, and better efficiency (especially insulation).

3D Printing MIT Introduction.

Was at a short bootcamp regarding making and 3D printing at MIT.

The introductory presentation was very direct. Context: subtractive (cutting) and additive manufacturing contrasted. Then the types of additive described... including... 3D printing. There are many resources from which to get your fill of details regarding 3D printing.

The panel discussion was great - if somewhat MIT project and offering centered. But why not? The event was hosted at MIT after all. And there are indeed some great offerings from MIT or started at MIT... There are too many to list.... but
Hint: Edgerton Center Saturday Thing.
Hint: Fablabs.
Hint: Affiliated hackerspaces.

One panel question stood out in my mind. To paraphrase:
What is needed to make 3D printing (CAD making) go forward (more quickly)?

And the answer was two fold....
- Better materials (and materials science).
- Simple design environments (aka design software).
The panelists and audience generally seemed to agree.

The issue is how to make it easy for anyone to design 3D objects. Maybe said "environment" will be an evolutionary step from existing CAD design tools? Maybe something revolutionary will come?

It is not exactly "design", but design market places (or sharing places) are already starting to make things easy. The paradigm parallels "there is an app for that" taking it to "there is a model existing for that" and maybe the best design is little to no design at all, but more modification or mashups of existing designs.

3D printing has an interesting landscape. The small players are abundant. From printers or machines to makerspaces to environments.

But larger players are starting to notice. Solidworks (Dassault) seems to be trying to be what is needed. Autodesk: Spark Ember, Autodesk 123D, spaces in San Francisco and Boston.

It was mentioned in passing that it is unclear what people want to create. And in many cases a created object failure sours people to the technology. Maybe the area is waiting for a "killer model" for people to create? Have heard it kicked around that most people print phablet cases, trinkets or parts for printers. And there are always "issues".

Toys always seem a good place to start. How about adapters for various sizes of construction blocks? They largely already work by allowing larger series to stack on smaller series. What one really needs is to go the other way. To allow smaller details to be affixed to larger constructs (based on larger units). Project from F.A.T. (warning - unfortunate acronym).

Like this Lego Duplo Primo adapter or kit.

FLIR Thermal Survey of House.

Late last year on a cold dry night did a FLIR E4 survey of my house. Will not include the photos. A google image search for FLIR will get stuff much more interesting visually than I could present. Some online FLIR images even tend toward art.

Issues found:
- Massive kitchen heatleak. Wall too thin behind radiator. Unfortunately no gap whatsoever into which to insert a batt of Spaceloft.  Thinking about a tiny under window greenhouse or exterior adhoc insulation.
- Big heat leak on inner corner of front porch where radiator pipes go to second floor. Insulation has probabbly fallen down around pipe. Unfortunately hard to get to. Again thinking about something adhoc on exterior. Looking at ComfortBatt wrapped in Tyvek.
- Exposed basement cinderblock wall. Thought our 12" thick basement blocks (with air core) would do fairly well. But the whole thing is uniformly warm. Considering stryofoam rigid panels - dig down to allow 2' height, UV protect with thin water and vermin resistant sheathing (maybe Tyvek again), regrade... will have to wait until snow gone, and ground thaws.

Places I thought there would be leaks - but there were none:
- Basement sills - suprisingly tight.
- Basement windows - had installed secondary glazing on most.
- Upstairs windows - have storm windows and they seem to do a good job.
- Attic floor - thought the rockwool had been distrubed to thin here and there, but good overall.

FLIR is about to update the FLIRONE .
And it addresses a couple of big issues with first version
A. Any device with Lightning or Andoid micro USB.
B. Consolidated App for everything.

Micro management of your lawn becomes a real possibility. See my previous post on Big Data in Agriculture. Here is something a bit "farther out" from NASA. And a bit more down to earth from IsraelAgri.