Wired
My dad still tells the story today: I was born a tinkerer. At age four, I was drawing pictures of electric fans (a youthful obsession of mine) and by first grade I was scrawling the word “osalating” across the top. By my eighth birthday, I was wiring together light bulbs, battery clips and switches from Radio Shack. Faced with a shortage of flashlights and candles during the upstate NY ice storm of 1991, I wired together “electronic candles” for my parents and brother to use during the 6-day-long blackout.
At twelve, a neighbor gave me a copy of the 1980-edition Engineer’s Notebook by Forrest Mims, and I launched into tinkering with microchips and logic gates. By this time, I had also discovered relays and reed switches, buzzers and beepers, and I had “wired” my bedroom with battery-powered intrusion detection… I was definitely hooked. Is it any question why I got my degree in Electrical Engineering? Or why I got a late start on that whole dating thing? I wired everything – my bicycle (complete with turn signals and a backup beeper) and the lawn mower (wired for sound) couldn’t escape. I spent summers mowing lawns for spending money with a childhood friend – and thanks to CB radios bought at the local flea market for $10 each, we could chat while we cut.
So it almost seems natural that when I got my driver’s license, the car would end up being my next victim. Since the house rules strictly forbade modifying mom or dad’s vehicles, I had to wait until I had my own set of wheels to do any serious mobile tinkering. My chance came after I had gotten involved at the local ambulance, and received my own ’95 Ford Taurus. The first project? A series of control boxes to handle my lights for me when I responed to calls from home.
Since then, I’ve sold the Taurus and moved out of our ambulance district, so I don’t do much responding from home any more. A suction-cup LED dash light with a cigarette lighter plug more than meets my needs – it’s there in the back seat foot well if I need it. But now there are new and exciting electronic things to do on four wheels…
Ever since I read about the Microship, a “technomadic” marvel from engineering-hippie Steven Roberts, I’ve had a teensy technical itch to extend my tinkering into the realm of the mobile. After reading about projects like the Mobile EVDO StompBox, the InDash PC or the Toyota Prius graphical interface, my desire to play gets even stronger. Seeing fun toys out there doesn’t help, like GPS and mobile phone modules from Sparkfun Electronics or cheap PLCs and PC/104 computer modules on eBay.
Of course, shortages of available time and fundage, and the presence of far more important things to do make good balms for this technical itch … but it’s fun to dream! I’d love to be able to start the car with a phone call from my desk at work, or e-mail a destination address to the car so that turn-by-turn directions and GPS guidance are waiting for me the next time I start the engine. It would be cool to automatically sync my MP3 library with the car while it sits in the garage each night, or to have the car call our house to turn on the lights and adjust the thermostat as we approach. There’s all sorts of fun stuff one could rig up…
I guess it’s another proof of the old platitude: old habits die hard! Maybe someday, when leisure time permits and I have a vehicle worthy of the project, I’ll try my hand at mobile geekiness. But for now, I’m happy just to get where I need to go…
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[...] A few months ago, I wrote a post about mobile geekiness: installing cool computational or otherwise electronic gizmos in your car. Whether it’s just for the sake of doing it, or the stuff serves some practical purpose, it’s still fun. I still kinda miss it. [...]
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Beatifully…
There’s no place like ~
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Have you ever though of investing in Battle Bots. The Robotics program at my college were into those and they were so much fun to watch. I was amazed at the things they could do, myself being tehcnically challenged and barely securing my certification in Computer Maintenance and Repair could never take on such a challenge. But to have your own battle bot and to be able to set out to destroy all the other little battle bots that we be heaven!
p.s. what is it with you guys and for taurus’s ?
It’s all Dave’s fault I even own one, really. ;p
And if it weren’t for my severe lack of fundage during my jr year at RIT, I probably would have a black 99 Ford Taurus SE as well… See, after the head gaskets in my 95 went bad, Ford grew conscience and felt really bad about it, so they offered to a) refund my money or b) give me $3000 toward the purchase of any new Ford vehicle. So I actually test drove (and really liked) this sexy jet-black SE that was a previous-year leftover at one of the local dealerships.