Friday and We are all a Bit Sick of this Weather

So I guess most of us are wondering what is the next weather installment. Well not me, Ive had all the weather I need. So Ill just sit here and get on with work:


It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I had never written anything reviewing my Friendly Aquaponics Commercial Training experience.  It was a profound four days in my life and yet I have never chronicled it.  I think I finally will now.

We arrived in Kona late Saturday night after grounded planes and nearly missed flights.  We were tired but excited as we drove from the airport up to Waimaia where we were staying.  Tomorrow we would go to the farm tour and then the class would start on Monday.  We slept well, but cold in the little Hawaiin hotel room with no heat.  It was dipping into the 40s there at night and we Florida girls were freezing!  The next morning we headed out for breakfast and to go to the farm tour.

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Gardening by the use of an aquaponic system will enable you to cultivate plants along with aquatic life, and starting out at a small scale will allow you to get started without the need for significant amount of expence or maintenance. Understanding the benefits will help you to determine what type of system is best for your needs.

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Food Justice Workshop at GrowHaus
The GrowHaus of Denver and Hazon invite you to a special Food Justice Workshop with Nigel Savage and alumni from Hazon’s food conference on Sunday, February 6th, 1:00-4:00pm.  Come join “Hazoniks” of Colorado and friends for a tour, discussion, and volunteering at the GrowHaus in west Denver. The GrowHaus serves fresh fruits and vegetables that they grow in their cutting-edge aquaponics greenhouse system to a large community in a food desert in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.

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Aquaponics in Education, Inspiration, and Community Building
By slywoman
Video of the presentation I gave at the Sweet Water Organics Workshop titled Aquaponics in Education, Inspiration, and Community Building.

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Aquaponics 101-Part One: The Process
This is the first of a series of articles that are going to teach you most of what you would need to know about Aquaponics to build and maintain your own system. These articles are part of a book we are writing and will eventually be selling on our website at www.aquaponicsusa.com

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How to build a basic Aquaponics System
A basic guide on how to build your own Aquaponic system. This is sytem is based on the barrel ponic and S&S setup and was built by me in the summer of 07?.
I have been very pleased with my DAYMAK AUSTIN electric motor bike. This is the fourth season of riding around the city streets and local highways. I have had a few electrical/electronic issues which I repaired quickly...

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[WATCH]: Aquaponics Greenhouse Tour
This is a Harbor Freight 10×12 greenhouse that is used for an aquaponics system. It’s not as big as my regular garden, but I can start it 2 months earlier! Thanks for viewing! For more info, see my blog at web4deb.blogspot.com or http Also “like” us on Facebook by searching for “Bigelow Brook Farm” 


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Barrel Aquaponics Workshop
If you want to get started producing a constant supply of fish, rabbits, chickens, vegetables, herbs, greens and other plants in an efficient, inexpensive small-scale system, plan to attend the Aquaponics training in Starksboro, Vermont.

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Lynn labor leaders look to form workers co-op
LYNN - Two local labor leaders want to start a worker-owned cooperative in Lynn, modeled after a successful one in Spain, as a way to create jobs and wealth for the citys working class.
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The GrowHaus: Building A Community Around Food In Elyria-Swansea
Growhaus
"What I really see here is a hub for community development, a place where we support and inspire the neighborhood," says Adam Brock, of Northeast Denvers GrowHaus.
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Community Calendar
11:30 a.m. Feb. 1, Savannah Morning News Auditorium, 1375 Chatham Parkway. James C. McCurry Jr., director of administration at Georgia Ports Authority, will be speaking on the Port of Savannah and the Savannah Harbor Deepening Project. Cost: $11. For information, call 912-644-6434 or go to
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Diy Aquaponics - Very Easily Make Your Aquaponics System.
If you are seeking any sample Aquaponics Layout you could follow then Im planning to place you in the right direction. There are a lot of different types of aquaponics tanks & gardens, hence you have to consider which you would like to select. The best way to begin this would be to work with a DO IT YOURSELF guideline
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My DIY Aquaponics REVIEW-Organic Gardening Secret
If you are wondering about My DIY Aquaponics REVIEW , Mydiyaquaponics.com reputation, or...
is My DIY Aquaponics SCAM or The Real Deal? Youve come to the right place.
With aquaponics it is simple to grow 10X the quantity of plants within the same space a garden would normally take. This step-by-step guide continues to be engineered to obtain your personal aquaponics system ready to go to help you produce your personal produce with 1/10th the quantity of work. Certified Organic Food that tastes great! ...[more details]
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Movement in the Bottoms: Operation Canned Spinach!
Starting a grassroots urban farm with little means on a small plot of industrial wasteland with soil so toxic you can’t put any seeds in the ground is no small feat. However, for a small African American community in the Village Bottoms district of West Oakland, being able to feed themselves

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 Well, Thats a wrap - For Now
Be Back Soon
A U Z Z I E

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Little Bit of Information About LittleBits

So Im pretty sure everyone reading this blog knows what the Internet of Things (IoT) is. Anyone who likes to use or read about microcontrollers (MCUs) has probably read a couple news stories about the IoT or at least about how some microcontroller is being used in the IoT. The topic of tonights blog is littleBits, which are now "an easy and open way to contribute to the Internet of Things without wasting time prototyping devices from scratch."

littleBits circuit with module snapped and wired together

In addition to that preceding description of littleBits, the July 23 Engadget article about these modular electronic marvels says:

"The magnetic, interconnecting circuit boards that make up LittleBits library of electronic modules make it easy to build all sorts of neat (and noisy) devices with almost no technical knowledge at all...today LittleBits is announcing the Cloud Bit, a new module that, as company CEO and founder Ayah Bdeir puts it, allows builders to "just add internet" to almost anything...More complex modules -- like the Arduino module and todays WiFi-enabled Cloud Bit -- raise the ceiling of complexity for potential LittleBits projects. Its her hope that the product will be used for rapid prototyping of new ideas in addition to being a fun hobby toy. "If you wanted to recreate a Nest or recreate a Sonos or a DropCam, you could. If you wanted to create the next billion dollar idea, you could do that..."

cloudBit

The Wired article announcing the cloudBit has this to say about the new component and about littleBits in general:

"The cloudBit, announced today, is a new component that’ll connect any littleBits creation to the internet, allowing it to be programmed through a simple web interface. There have been other kits like this before, powered by Raspberry Pi and Arduino—but while those remain powerful, flexible, and inter-operable, none of them possess littlBits’s plug-and-play simplicity. So with the addition of the cloudBit, littleBits could become a reasonable, DIY gateway to the Internet of Things...Rigging together motors, sensors, and noisemakers can be painstaking work, requiring lots of soldering and testing equipment to make sure all your circuits are done right. littleBits, instead, is a modular library comprising dozens of neat electronic components that simply snap together in a line, with magnets...To get started, users first sync their cloudBit to the web app. From there, the web app can link to any any web API, including IFTTT (a service that allows you to chain together websites with simple “If this, then that” logic). Users can then use those data streams to turn the cloudBit on or off, or activate any partial state in between. By linking the cloudBit to any number of other bits, users can create whatever chain of mechanical reactions they like...the littleBits ecosystem now has 59 different components, ranging from basic items like motors, a microphone, and a keyboard to a growing body of sensors that detect everything from light to bends to motion to pressure. (There’s also an Arduino component, for more serious hacking.)"

littleBits tagline is "the easiest and most extensive way to learn and prototype with electronics." Maybe its because Im an engineer and not a marketing person, but from my perspective, it seems unlikely for any product to be both the "easiest" and the "most extensive" way to learn and prototype with electronics. My guess is that littleBits is probably a lot closer to the easiest claim of their tagline than the most extensive claim.

littleBits Big Drone Synth 

In spite of their overreaching marketing department, which may be an apt description of the marketing department at pretty much every company, I do feel littleBits does have a strong appeal for non-technical people who want to incorporate technology into unique or interesting products that theyve created in their minds. If an artist, sociologist, psychologist, disaster worker or many other types of people with no desire to figure out how to breadboard an Arduino circuit can fairly quickly learn how to snap together a couple modules that accomplishes something meaningful to them, they will tend to use that product again in the future and start learning how to do more with that product and complementary products.

What this potential appeal for non-technical people says to me is that if littleBits can figure out kits that are useful to a large number of target users and successfully market those kits, it could very likely lead to an active, growing and loyal user community. By removing the Arduino barriers (perceived or real) of learning at least the basics of electronic design and programming basics, littleBits has given itself a much larger potential market. The challenge for littleBits now is figuring out what modules will appeal to and get buzz among non-tech early adopters.

littleBits DIY smartphone-enabled thermostat

I think it would be interesting for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group to build a product with littleBit modules, then build an MCU-based product that has the same capabilities and features of the littleBit product. We could benchmark the operation of both products, compare the component and build costs for both products and keep track of the actual build time to go from loose components to a properly and reliably operating unit. The main thing stopping us from doing that is the lack of components. If I can identify clear benefits for sponsors, Ill put together a project proposal for doing that comparison and pitch the project to potential sponsors.

One side note of particular interest to me is the IFTTT aspect of littleBits. Ever since I read about if this then that, a couple years ago, Ive wanted to experiment with it. Doing a littleBits project would be a good excuse to set up some IFTTT recipes and figure out how much value the service has for me. Ill have to bring up IFTTT at the next MCU meeting to find out how much, if any, people at the meeting have done with it.

If youre reading this blog post and have used littleBits, please come to the next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting, which will be from 6 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 7, to talk about your experience with them and to demonstrate how to use them.

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Humboldt MCU Opportunity Tech Companies Recruiting IoT Developers

One of my goals for this blog is to identify ways for Humboldt microcontroller (MCU) users to earn money and to try to highlight those money-making opportunities for people who are interested in them. It will help Humboldt people and the regional economy if we can increase the number of Humboldt MCU-related paid projects and jobs.

IoT concept graphic (from comsoc.org)

Wired.com had a short July 25 article, "Tech Giants Begin Recruiting for the Next Big Platform Wars", which talked about a technology-economy trend that Humboldt MCU people should be aware of and should look at as an opportunity for projects or jobs. The article says that the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be a huge revenue opportunity for MCU developers, the next big platform. The killer app for the IoT hasnt come over the horizon yet, and there is no clear leader among companies competing to cash in on the billions of dollars expected to be spent on embedded computing systems and other IoT products and services. Even though no company has a firmly established lead, those organizations who want to have a chance in this race are hiring technical people, including MCU developers, to create and improve their organizations products. As Wired puts it:

Microcontroller (from ti.com)

"The Internet of Things is still young, but it’s real. There are already dozens of internet-connected devices available, ranging from home-automation tools to wearable fitness trackers. And it’s about to start growing at an even faster pace. According a new survey...17 percent of the world’s software developers are already working on Internet of Things projects. Another 23 percent are planning to start an IoT project within the next six months. The most popular devices? Security and surveillance products, connected cars, environmental sensors and smart lights and other office automation tools. The world’s largest tech companies are already in fierce competition to attract developers to their respective connected device platforms. After all, the winners of these new platform wars will define the future of computing."

Two previous technology-economy trend platforms early stages that employed a lot of developers were when businesses started having websites on the Internet and when the iPhone catalyzed a huge market for smartphone apps. New sustainable trends have a tipping point where the trend actually becomes an important economic factor and creates a significant amount of ongoing sales and reliable employment. The IoT appears to be approaching that tipping point, and the Wired article is saying the trend is sustainable and there will be a large number of steady employment opportunities for IoT developers. The Barrons.com article "Silicon Labs Tuned In for Upside" phrased it this way:

"...we dont think IoT for Silicon Labs will turn out to be an overextended hype cycle. Connected/smart-home adoption has parallels to smartphones in 2008, where developers created unanticipated high-value applications on a platform to drive rapid adoption. From that perspective, 50 billion IoT devices by 2020 does not seem unreasonable."

Other recent articles about MCUs, embedded computing and the IoT have also talked about MCU-developer opportunities in the upcoming months and years. So the question at this point is, how can Humboldt developers get involved with the IoT platform to make money? Ill talk more about this topic in some of the future posts on this blog. But for now, Humboldt MCU developers and users might consider doing some or all of the following activities.

1. Learn a lot about the IoT and microcontrollers and keep up-to-date on these two topics.
2. Learn more about the IoT and MCUs by designing and building unique projects and document them online.
3. Use the internet to document and promote your IoT and MCU knowledge and skill.
4. Teach a class about Arduinos, MCUs or the IoT.
5. Build and promote interesting MCU / IoT products and sell them online.
6. Identify and reach out to knowledgeable and interesting people who are relatively well-connected in the IoT and MCU communities.
7. Use craigslist and other online developer job boards to look for MCU / IoT job or project opportunities and to advertise your availability for MCU / IoT projects and employment.

All the above activities can be done without participating in any of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meetings or collaborative MCU projects.

But the above money-making activities can also be done with people who are active in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. In my experience, its often more fun and more interesting to work on projects or activities with other people who have complementary or similar knowledge and interests. If youre interested in discussing any of the above IoT money making opportunities, come to the next MCU meeting. Or email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

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