HullPixelbots at Azure Craft

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I'm taking some HullPixelbots out on the road in December. I'm going to try out some group exercises involving 8 robots being controlled at the same time. 

Which means I need 8 robots. 

I'm feverishly building them at the moment, then I'll have to write some code and get it all working in time for the event on the 10th December. Such fun.

This is all at the AzureCraft event in London, where they are also having lots of fun activities for kids (bring a parent) involving Minecraft and whatnot.

Places are limited, but if there are any available you can sign up here

Begin to Code - Get a Free Copy

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I need your help. And I'm prepared to give things away to get it. I've had the above error reported to me when trying to use the Begin To Code with C# demo programs. I can't reproduce it, and I can't find out the circumstances in which it happens. 

This bothers me. 

I would love it if someone could get in touch and tell me how they managed to make the error occur. All you have to do is go to to the book site here and get the Snaps examples from the Downloads page. Unzip them and try to build and run them using Visual Studio 2015. There's a help document to tell you how to do this, or you can watch my screencast here. 

If you get the error error above, send me an email to ibrokebegintocode@robmiles.com so I can work with you to fix the problem. First person to do this gets a free copy of the book. If you get a different problem please get in touch too.

And if your version works send an email to begintocodeworksforme@robmiles.com and I'll draw a name at random in a couple of weeks and send them a free copy of the book too. 

Everyone who gets in touch will receive a "Certificate of Undying Appreciation" as well. 

I'm prepared to post around the world (which means it will cost me money) but I'm determined to find the source of this problem. 

Automotive Shenanigans

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I would think that the primary purpose of a motor show is to make you want to buy a car. In this respect the Seattle Auto Show has must be counted as a success as far as I'm concerned. 

In amongst all the monster pickups and unfamiliar brands of the show I spotted this little gem. It's a BMW i3. It's an electric car, but you can get a version with what they call a "range extender", essentially a small generator that can top up the battery when it runs down a bit. Which means that your range is not limited by how much electricity you have left and you are never in the situation where the battery runs completely flat. 

I'd read about the i3 but never actually seen one in the flesh. Until last week in Seattle. I really liked the look of the car and made a mental note to check it out when I got back to the UK. I definitely make the most rational purchasing decisions when I've got jetlag....

Anyhoo, I went and sat in one earlier in the week and discovered that it fits me just fine. And apparently one of the rites of passage for retirement (although of course I'm not really retired) is the purchase of a shiny car. So said the jetlag. So I began the search for one that was in my budget. Which proved tricky. Until I found what seemed the perfect vehicle. Only snag is that it was 250 miles away from Hull. In Canterbury. 

So...... Today I got up at 6:15 and took the train to Canterbury with a return ticket I hoped I wouldn't have to use, and an overnight bag if I had to stop and take on wood (or whatever) on the journey back. A test drive convinced me that it was the car that I wanted, and after a modicum of paperwork, they let me drive the car away there and then. So there was just the matter of a 250 mile night drive which included the Dartford Tunnel and the M25. In a car with a 75 mile electric range. 

Erin said I'd be fine. And I was. In fact I got home with the battery still half charged. I had to stop a couple of times to add petrol to the tiny tank that the Range Extender runs from but apart from that it was a comfortable journey. 

The aim of the Range Extender is not really to let you drive 250 miles in one go, but to allow you to go a little further on a charge (hence the name). But it is nice to know that you can do long journeys if necessary. 

Thanks to the folks at Broadoak Canterbury for looking after me so well, particularly Erin who deals with their electric vehicles. I never ever expected to be a BMW driver, but here I am. 

And the Cube will be staying around too, but now in the hands of number one wife. 

"Soul of a New Machine" now on Kindle

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One reason why I liked Ada's so much is that they had a computer book club and their next meeting was going to discuss "The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. 

It is one of my all time favourite books. 

It's supposed to be about building a computer, but really its about people. It's about management, ego and human interaction. Along with a good dollop of how computers work. 

It was written a while back, but still holds lessons for anyone who wants to get thing done. I lent my printed copy to someone (no idea who) a while back and I didn't fancy buying another paper copy. What I wanted was a Kindle version I can carry around on my phone. 

And now I've got one. Amazon have just released the electronic version. If you are in any way serious about computers or management you should read this book. Oh, and it also holds some lessons about how to write a compelling story. A fantastic read.

How to Begin to Code

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It turns out to be very hard to record videos when you've got jetlag. I found this out yesterday, when a ten minute recording session turned into a "fur lined copper bottomed ocean going disaster". Andrew had asked for a bit of help and I thought I'd oblige.

Anyhoo, it's done now. It's tells you how to install Visual Studio 2015, get hold of the example programs for my Begin To Code book and then run them. Let me know what you think. 

Subtle plug eh?

Ada's Technical Books Rocks

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I have a number of favourite places in all the world (it saves on the travel). I've now got a new one. Ada's Technical Books. It's a cafe. And a bookshop. And a technical library. And a meeting place. And wonderful.

Our apartment is just down the street from the place (you can even see the Space Needle on the walk down 15th Avenue). Ada's become our place of choice for coffee and meals. I'm not saying that I'll travel all the way back to Seattle to go there again. Oh, hang on, yes I would. 

Living Computer Museum Grand Opening

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I'm impressed that people could actually use these lights to understand what the machine was doing 

Another favourite place of mine. The Living Computer Museum in Seattle has a fantastic collection of computers, both large and small, going back to the days of valves. And, as the name implies, many of them are working machines, including some mainframes. 

I first went there a year ago, and I really wanted to go back again. So we did. They were having a grand opening of some new exhibits, and it was awesome. They now have robots, cubelets, embedded stuff, they have a full size computer controlled car and of course all the computers that I know and love. If you are in Seattle you really, really should visit. I'd go every week. 

This is what I learned to program on. No. Really.

Boeing Factory Tour

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Apparently Disneyland would fit in here

A major holiday highlight today. We went to see airplanes  being made on the Boeing Factory Tour.  Most impressive. All the numbers are big. From the size of the plant to the price of the product (at least 200 million dollars). On the factory floor we saw five planes in different stages of construction. That's a billion dollars, right there. And they are making up to forty of these in a month in one plant. 

Within the constraints of the business (they've got a lot of planes to make) the tour was excellent. We weren't allowed to take cameras into the factory (shame) but we did get a feel for just what they do there. Highly recommended. 

High Fashion and Bainbridge Island

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As part compensation for a day spent looking at cars, today number one wife and I went to look at the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. 

There is true genius in the way that a few pencil lines can evoke a figure and a style. 

The finished product.

After as much haut couture as we (or at least I) could handle, we headed off to take a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island. We had no particular need to go there, but the weather was being very kind to us and, hey, life's in the journey....

Seattle waterfront from the ferry

View of Seattle going out...

View of Seattle coming back....

Surface Dial controlling a Hull Pixelbot

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I've managed to get my hands on a Surface Dial. It's a spiffy new PC control that acts like an, er, dial. You can use it to manipulate value in programs in a very precise and controlled way. The dial works best with the Surface Studio (which I've not been able to get my hands on) but you can use it on any PC which has Bluetooth. It appears as a Human Interface Device and has a really simple API that you can use to make any of your programs dial controlled. 

I wanted to use it to control the movement of my Hull Pixelbot and, after only half an hour or so of coding I had it working. 

It's not a particularly direct form of control just yet, but that is because of the way I'm sending control messages via the Azure Internet of Things hub, which is not really created for such rapid messaging, but it does work, which is rather nice.  I made a "hotel vision" video of the program working. I'm going change the code to make a more direct connection to the robot. 

Of course, what I really want is two dials on the PC, one for speed and the other for direction, but just at the moment you can't connect two Surface Dial devices to a single PC. 

MVP Summit Day 4

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MVP Robot ready for action. 

Day 4, and I don't think I'll be breaking any non-disclosure agreements by telling everyone that I went to a session about Microsoft Azure Internet of Things today. I took a long a Hull Pixelbot that I happened to have brought with me, and showed what my particular style of connected device looked like. Folks seemed quite impressed, which was nice.