Dangerous Mike and I have spent the weekend at a tinker.it workshop, learning about Arduino. It’s a simple yet powerful board with a microprocessor that can be programmed using a language similar to processing.
Pretty soon after you’ve created your first working circuit, you start to realise that the possibilities are limitless. It can accept a variety of digital and analogue inputs, and can feed back to a computer, or be used to control any number of devices.
Already it has been linked up to numerous Flash applications, used to create a glockenspiel that plays a tune based on the magnetic strip on the back of your favourite credit card… Or you could use it to control a espresso machine, using a Wii remote. If you really wanted to.
And to think, some people waste a beautiful sunny weekend by going outside and sitting in parks or pubs.
The show aired yesterday, and has just gone live on the BBC i-player. Which means, you have 6 days left to see it! (Although, we may just have a recording of it in case you miss it!)
We’re not saying anything about whether he won or not…
We’re a sociable lot at tonic, and sometimes after a hard day of website-making, we enjoy nothing more than sitting in the local pub and mulling over the issues of the day.
Discussions of the current state of the economy, the political crisis in Zimbabwe, the plight of the Olympic torch as it makes it’s way to Beijing, who would win if we were to start a tonic fight club, no topic is considered too high-brow.
This time around I brought my camera along to try to catch some of the lively debates in action. However I only seem to have captured…
After all the recent celebrations (and cakes!) in the studio in the past couple of weeks, we’re all feeling a little caked-out. So we’ve designated the studio a cake-free zone.
I give it one day…
Cake watch update! Three days later…
Second update: By Friday it’s descended into something all too familiar
Final update - One week later, the craziness of the cake-free zone is over
When it’s lunchtime, and it’s pouring down with rain, there’s nothing better than staying in the studio and having a marathon multi-player game of Mario Kart…
Here at tonic, beer o’clock has become something of a special event. So much so that ex-intern Seb the German made us a leaving gift of sorts, our very own countdown clock - www.beeroclock.de
However, he never finished it, and when the fateful second would finally strike, signifying the start of the weekend and the opening of the legendary tonic beer fridge… nothing would happen.
After half the company petitioned Seb last week to finish the site, I got a little more than I expected.
