AVR is a family of 8-bit RISC microcontrollers developed by Atmel and is well known for being used on many Arduinos. AVR is also the name of the instruction set and architecture used by these microcontrollers. The goal is to write a program in AVR assembly, assemble it into a .hex file, and upload it using AVRDUDE to an Arduino Uno with an atmega328p microcontroller. I hope that this post will provide a quick introduction to the AVR architecture and assembly language, as well as some of what goes on in an assembler.

I’ve been working on a magnetic levitation project, and I needed an electromagnet. The electromagnet I made has about 600 feet of 24AWG magnet wire wrapped around a custom 3D printed spool, and has a low carbon steel laminated core.

Given the radius and height of a cylinder and the desired width of each layer, this simple calculator calculates the width of each layer and the total area of the layers. For example, this could be used to make a cylinder out of a sheet of metal by stacking rectangular strips (and avoiding having to cut circles). Open this post and click the “calculate” button to see how it works.

My desk wasn’t very big and was being used by my computer, so I decided to make another desk. However, putting a desk where I wanted it would block part of my closet and stick out into the middle of the room where I might stub my toes. So I built a desk that can be winched up to the ceiling and doesn’t have any legs that make marks in the carpet or on my poor toes.

I’m going to attempt to use real world examples to explain why I don’t trust kilograms when they are used to weigh things. I think Neil Armstrong (or, in the picture above, James B. Irwin) would agree with me.

I like rockets, especially when they do things like fly back and land on their launch pad or a barge in the ocean. I don’t have the budget to do stuff like that, but I have Kerbal Space Program (KSP). Recently, I wrote a script (a program) that automatically launches a small two-stage rocket, and then flies the first stage back to the launch pad and lands it.

In October of 2014, a company by the name of Hendo announced a “hoverboard.” While I won’t call the hoverboard a fake or a total lie, the advertising for it is very misleading, and its abilities are extremely limited.

How does the Hendo Hoverboard work?

The way Hendo’s hoverboard works is based on Lenz’s Law, which states:

“An induced electromotive force (emf) always gives rise to a current whose magnetic field opposes the original change in magnetic flux.”

Welcome to the future home of all things awesome!

And slightly exagerated slogans.