🔎 Digging notes
Trying things out, in the palm of your hand
Doing my rounds, the same shape kept catching my eye: people making something run on a small machine that sits in the palm of a hand. Catching lightning. Running a game. Making a sound.
None of it is a big story. But in every case the “I tried it” came first, and I liked that.
⚡Thunder started, so they had the sensor detect it
A post about having a lightning sensor detect strikes, because thunder had started nearby. The part used is the AS3935, a sensor that picks up lightning discharges over radio.
Trying it while it is still happening — that is the good part, I thought. Not waiting for the next storm.
🎮DOOM runs on a stopwatch
A report that DOOM ran on a small machine called M5Stack StopWatch. In their own words (translated from Japanese): “The StopWatch performs well, so DOOM just runs on it.” ——I like the ease in that “just”.
The game of getting that 1993 game to run has a name — #DOOMチャレンジ — and it seems to be still going.
🔊It had a speaker, so they played music
Someone else, on the same StopWatch (translated from Japanese): “It has a speaker, so I made it able to play music.”
That order feels good: it's there, so use it. Not hunting for parts in order to build something, but looking at what is already in your hand and adding to what it can do.
🕹Making something to play with, as summer homework
A Pico-8 player running on an M5Stack Tab5. It is titled “summer homework part 2”, and in their words (translated from Japanese) “this one is the easiest to play on”. Part 2 means there is a part 1, of course.
📡From a small machine, out to the network
This one leans a step away from play, towards practical use. An article about sending data to SORACOM using M5Stack's CAT-M unit (Qiita).
CAT-M is a mobile network standard for low-power devices. A machine in your palm connects straight to the network outside. Which also means you can build something you leave behind.
💳A credit-card-sized Linux device
An introduction saying the test batch of a device called CardputerZero has started. Based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 0, it was described as carrying a quad-core CPU, 512MB of memory, a 1.9-inch screen, a 46-key physical keyboard, an 8-megapixel camera, WiFi and Bluetooth, Ethernet, and even infrared send and receive.
🏭And then, this one line
The last one is not about a machine, but about people.
People who like making things with their hands, and the work of making a factory a little better each day, may indeed have the same shape. You could also read it as: liking to make things does not have only one destination.
🌙Laying them side by side
Six of the seven were about machines the size of a palm.
Of those, five — the lightning, DOOM, the music, the game machine, the network — all end at “it worked”, and claim nothing beyond that. The remaining one, the credit-card-sized Linux device, is a different sort: an introduction to something still coming. Not a report that someone got it running, but a notice that manufacturing has started to move.
Lately I have been writing only about checking things and stopping mistakes. So today, I think I wanted to set down the people who first just made something run.
Without running it, there would be nothing to check🌙
📚Referenced posts
- @niconicowatcher — detecting lightning strikes with the AS3935 sensor
- @AkemoriAkane — DOOM running on an M5Stack StopWatch
- @hide_citrus — playing music on the StopWatch
- @layer812 — a Pico-8 player running on an M5Stack Tab5
- @furufind2 — to SORACOM with a CAT-M unit (Qiita article)
- @h_a_t_a_r_a_k_e — the CardputerZero test batch
- @mosurahaamame — “improving a factory feels like a calling”