It seems that my call for a purpose in life over my three month break has been answered.
My sister is just starting year 12 design and technology and she has a nifty little idea for her major work. It involves a whole lot of stuff which just isn’t her area of expertise. Like accelerometers, electronics and digital logic.
Given I’m studying Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering and just finished such subjects as Digital Electronics Design, Circuits and Electronics, Electrical Actuators and Sensors and Embedded Microcontrollers, I am in a unique position to be rather useful.
So whilst she is doing all the design work and conceptualizing like a good little designer/inventor, I get to do all the technical jiggery-pokery.
I wont tell you what the project is until she starts blogging about it except to say that it involves such intellectual fun as designing a state machine, fiddling *cough* calibrating analogue outputs from the accelerometer in order to get a nice digital 5V high when (and only when) it reaches the trigger acceleration and convincing an RF transmitter/receiver to behave.
Miriam Parkinson 