I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Tag: Electronics

I do like electronics, I’m not sure I understand a lot of it, but I do like it.

Finally starting to do something with my TouchBoard

Posted by on in Making things, TechLeave a comment
TouchBoard up and running
TouchBoard battery
Back of the TouchBoard
TouchBoard in packaging

I backed the TouchBoard on kickstarter, but ever since I got it I haven’t either had the time to do anything proper with it, and haven’t had any ideas of projects to start with it either. But the other day I started having a few ideas of things I wanted to try out. So I got the box out and started to investigate what was in there as I hadn’t looked in ages.

It’s a nice kit, and everything works or at least seems to work just fine even though I haven’t touched it in ages. I’ll hopefully get to use it for a couple of projects soon enough.

So, I love the idea of modular phones and device, but I’m not sure it’s going in the right direction

Posted by on in TechLeave a comment

The whole idea of the modular phone is great. Not a new concept of course but a good application of the idea. I think that this stuff started with hardware like the Handspring Visor and its springboard modular hardware. I think that what’s happening now is a continuation of that. It’s a step in the right direction. But I do have issues with it.

So it appears that there are at least three different companies working on modular phones. That’s fine. It’s a good thing. But what I don’t like is that they’re all doing things in different ways and without a single central standard. So you won’t, as far as I’m aware, be able to swap modules from one type or brand of device to another. That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I think it’s a lost opportunity.

My other problem is that these modular phones are all going to run Android. I can understand the reasons for this. I know it makes sense, but I’d really like to see some other operating systems available. In fact, more than that I’d like to see the ability to dual boot systems on modular phones, that would be consistent with having a modular phone. Makes sense doesn’t it? So why have only one OS? I don’t get it.

I hope that at least one of these companies can get it right and make a big step in the right direction, but at the moment I’m not convinced.

Thinking about what to do next with my Romo

Posted by on in RoboticsLeave a comment

IMG_5961

I bought the very first iteration of romo, or rather I kickstarted Romo. It was fun, once I got it working, which did take a little while as there were some issues with units in Europe. But it got there. Of course it didn’t support the iPhone 5 so when I moved from a 4 to a 5 it wasn’t workable any longer.

This situation went on until I had the 4 back, relatively recently. Since then I’ve been playing with using it with my TWINE as well. That’s sort of been fun too, but now I’m wondering what, if anything, I can do with it next. I don’t really have any new ideas for it at the moment, and it seems unlikely that Romotive will bring new features to this first iteration of the device.

Also, I never did get to the bottom of what you could do with the little aux ports on the front of the device. I would have liked to know what was possible, and why they put them there.

So for now Romo is gathering dust sadly, until I can come up with a new use. If I do, I’ll let you know.