I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Category: Tech

Technology. We all use it, we all love it. We all hate it.

Messing around with littleBits MIDI bit

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I’ve been playing around with my new littleBits MIDI bit. It’s pretty easy to get to grips with. It handles USB MIDI and 5 pin MIDI too, which is very handy. It all worked very well actually. I tested it out using Genome MIDI Sequencer on my iPad. No problems at all.

I got it to hopefully make my littleBits collection a bit more useful. I think that it will. The down side is that it appears that one of the oscillators in my kit appears to have stopped working. Which is disappointing. I doubt that there’s anyway to fix it sadly. I guess I’ll just have to get a new one.

Romos I and II side by side

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Romo 1 and 2 side by side
Romo 1 and 2 side by side

It’s interesting to see these two devices side by side and compare the quite startling differences between them. It isn’t just size, it’s build quality and finish, and, basically, everything!

Quite amazing really. It’s a shame the Romotive seem to have now vanished off the face of the earth.

So Reaktor 6 is here

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And it looks really interesting and like a good update from 5.5. But before upgrading I have to ask myself if I’m actually going to make enough use of this update to make it worthwhile. So far I’m not doing anything really interesting with Reaktor so I’m sitting on the fence about getting the upgrade. There’s always the argument that actually the upgrade itself will make me make something interesting with it, but I’m even struggling to get myself to believe that!

I think I’ll leave it for a couple of months and see what I feel like then.

Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2015

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Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2015: Dalek
Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2015: Dalek

It has to be a dalek really doesn’t it?

I hadn’t been to the Brighton Mini Maker Faire for a couple of years, so it was nice to go back again. It felt bigger than the last time I was there, and certainly felt like there were a lot more people there too.

I had a good look around the whole show and there were a few interesting things there, but nothing that totally grabbed my attention. But then it really isn’t something that’s aimed at me I think. It’s more focused on kids and parents, which is good, and as it should be really. Even so I found it interesting and good to see a few companies I really like showing off their stuff.

Sad that the E&C Mini Maker Faire isn’t on this year

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It’s a real shame. I went last year and the year before, and I was so sorry to find out that this year it wasn’t happening. According to their site it seems they weren’t able to get sponsorship for the event. It makes me sad because when I went last year there were so many people having a great time there. It was packed. All those people won’t get the chance to go again this year. It’s sad.

But there’s the Brighton Mini Maker Faire that’s happening on the 5th, and I’m planning to get along to that for a few hours if I can. It’s not as convenient as the Elephant and Castle, but it’s ok.

I hope that the E&C faire comes back in 2016. It would be a shame for it to stop for good.

Romo II

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2nd Generation Romo Robot
2nd Generation Romo Robot

I’ve wanted a Romo II for a while now. I originally funded the first Romo on Kickstarter, but never got the second one. So I finally managed to get hold of one on eBay for just a few pounds.

So I’m looking forward to getting this one going and maybe even doing something using both of them together.

2nd Generation Romo Robot
2nd Generation Romo Robot

And then Phoenard arrived

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Phoenard Prototyping Device
Phoenard Prototyping Device

I’d sort of forgotten about funding this on Kickstarter until it arrived. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it. I did have a couple of ideas, and I’m sure I wrote them down somewhere, so I’ll have to look them out and see what I can do with it.

I’m sure it’ll find a place and I’m sure I’ll have some fun with it too.