Hackfest!

Last night I attended a hackfest at Quick Left in downtown Boulder.  Teams were given SparkFun Inventor's Kits with an Arduino Uno starter board and some sensors and transducers with which to build projects during an evening of hacking fun.

A trio of web developers from New York and I formed a team, but they took off early to have a bite to eat and attend a tequila tasting, so I pressed along on my own.  We set out to build a system that would use a light sensor (eventually two light sensors) and a servo to track the position of a flashlight.

After about two hours of work, it was working!  See the video below.

I spent the last 45 minutes or so tweaking the code to smooth the motion of the servo and light sensors by adding hysteresis and a delay after writing a new position to the servo before re-starting the main loop (and re-reading the analog values from the light sensors).

With more time, there are a handful of straightforward improvements to be made:
- Add gain to track faster when the light is moving quickly.
- Build a more symmetrical light guide (something not pieced together with a slip of paper and scotch tape).
- Perform a more careful calibration of the light sensor circuits.
- Add some signal conditioning to the light sensors to take advantage of the full input range of the ADC (analog to digital converter) on the Arduino board.
- Refine the servo control to improve motion stability and device reliability.

Some of the other teams had a lot more software/application development background than I did, and put together some really neat projects.  I think my favorite was an R/C car that was driven by an Arduino that interprets text messages.  Anybody could send a text message with an 's', 'g', 'l', or 'r' (for stop, go, left, right) and make the car drive around.  I think they tied for 3rd place, but if the judging were based on positive audience reaction, they would have been the clear winners.

All in all, it was a fun evening and a nice introduction to the Arduino platform.  I anticipate some interesting projects in the future; making the Arduino work with other circuitry, sensors, and actuators to do interesting things.

If any of the other hackfest participants find their way to this blog, please do feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message if you need some awesome hardware added to your next project.

New job

Last week I accepted a new job with a company in North Dakota and will be re-locating in October.  It will be a significant change from living in Boulder, but I'm ready to move on to the next chapter in my life (and career).  After a couple years of splitting my efforts between cycling and trying to be an engineer, I am going to put bike racing on the back burner and turn most of that effort towards engineering.

I'm going to keep this short, in hopes of getting back into the habit of posting regularly.  The idea is to keep posts shorter but more frequent.

Before heading to North Dakota, I will make a trip to California to compete in the 2012 paralympic track cycling national championships as a tandem pilot for a visually impaired cyclist from North Carolina.  We will compete in the 4km pursuit and 1km time trial.

After having a later start to track riding this year compared to previous years, I took a while getting my track legs going, but am feeling pretty good now.

In the tradition of including a picture or two with each post, here are a pair of wildlife pictures I took in the last week or so:

The neighbor's cat is totally relaxed, even in the presence of three deer (there was one standing to my left when I took this picture) and a nerd.

I rescued these raccoons from the dumpster a week ago last night.  They had climbed in looking for food but then couldn't climb out.

April Fools!

I have quit my job as an electrical engineer, given up the bicycle, and joined the circus as a professional cotton candy eater.  Ok, that's not true at all.  Read on for the real story about what I've been up to.

After a couple months of schedule filled to the point of overflowing with non-stop activities, I finally decided to sit down before dinner tonight and compose another blog post.

This is not going to be another picture-less blog post.  However, the picture is very recent (taken 3 days ago), so comes near the end of the post after I describe what has been going on since January.

Since last time, the Navy/Coast Guard had another camp in Ventura, CA for the Wounded Warrior Games team.  I attended the camp, again as a dual-role coach and civilian athlete, piloting tandem for blind riders.  A couple weeks ago, sad news arrived.  Due to a late withdrawal from the competition, there were no longer enough riders signed up for the tandem race, so that portion of the event was canceled for 2012.  I suppose that means Dan Peters (who won last year) gets to hold on to his championship title for another year before having to defend it.

In February, I traveled out to California to watch the paracycling track world championship event at the Home Depot Center velodrome in Carson.  There were some absolutely impressive rides, both from Team USA and foreign visitors.  I was perhaps most impressed by a couple of riders who each had only one arm and one leg, yet still rode remarkably fast.  Also of interest to me were some of the C5 (least disabled category) riders who would have won medals at the US Elite Nationals (able-bodied) if they were US citizens. 

Related to the tandem riding, for the last several weeks I have been making trips to Colorado Springs each weekend to pilot tandem for one of the blind resident athletes at the Olympic Training Center.  In addition to the tandem riding in Colorado Springs, I have also begun piloting for a blind US Marine Corps veteran living in Castle Rock.  Doing two tandem rides in a day is rather tiring, but terrific training for whatever happens on the bike later in the season.

At work we have been plugging away at synthesizer development.  At the moment my workbench is covered with an array of prototype circuit boards and mechanical housings.  The individual boards have been turning on nicely, and we're now into the system integration phase of the project.  The next couple weeks will be exiting as we deliver the first prototypes to a preferred customer.

This week President Barack Obama visited the University of Colorado at Boulder, the first time an acting president has visited the university.  He gave a speech about the upcoming changes to federally backed student loan interest rates, and delivered a message that higher education is not just about an individual's success but is an investment in the future of the community (and country) where that individual lives.  He encouraged all the students to take their degrees, go out, and be hard-working, productive contributors so that the investments pay off.

After the speech, he walked around and shook hands with various people in the audience.  The venue (the Coors Event Center) was filled nearly to capacity, so I didn't have a front row spot.  Having long arms, though, I was able to give/receive a handshake.

The bald Secret Service agent is wondering why my suit matches his.

Normally I'm fairly cynical about politicians, but I liked the message the president delivered on Tuesday.  With elections coming up later this year, the visit was most certainly an attempt to drum up support before the campaign season starts in earnest.  Nevertheless, I'm glad I was there.

End of 2011, Start of 2012, and a Trip to Navy Base Ventura County

That is a warm doggy.

Over the holiday break from school, my sister took care of her boyfriend's dog, pictured above.  During dinner one evening he burrowed under a jacket to find a nice warm place to hang out.

Between Christmas and New Years, I made my way back to Boulder, this time by airplane rather than automobile.  It saved time, but I did miss out on the Motel 7 in Wyoming.

Upon returning to Boulder, I made some last-minute preparations for my "Drink Like the Brits" New Years Eve party.  The event went off as planned, from about 4:00 to 6:00pm (5:00pm Mountain Time is midnight in Britain) with a handful of friends coming over for English tea, ales, ciders, and Scotch.  To give things a Colorado spin, I also had guacamole, hummus, salsa, and various chips and crackers for dipping.

My fridge looked a bit like the front of a Tesco store before the party started.

On New Years day, I embarked on an interesting physical challenge.  I attempted to walk approximately 33 miles from downtown Denver to my apartment in Boulder.  Having inappropriate footwear doomed my effort after about 27 miles.  However, I expect this challenge and I will have a re-match sometime in the not-too-distant future.

The first week of January, it was back to work drawing, building, and testing circuits.  Some prototype RF (radio frequency) filters returned from fabrication, so I tested those, and then assembled a table-top phase noise measurement system to verify performance of some amplifiers that needed to ship to customers.

These filters are all GND from a DC perspective, but to RF, do all kinds of cool things.

Phase noise measurements can sometimes be a real pain in the neck, but this time the system came together nicely and the measurements went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

Last Thursday, I made my way to Denver to catch a plane to LA for the next of (hopefully many more) adventures of 2012.  I was invited by the Navy Safe Harbor program to attend a training camp at Navy Base Ventura County, helping to prepare a group of athletes for the Wounded Warrior Games to be held in Colorado Springs in early May 2012.

In the Wounded Warrior Games, veteran athletes from each branch of the armed forces (Army, Navy/Coast Guard, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command) compete in a variety of individual and team events to lay claim to the Ultimate Champion (individual) and Chairman's Cup (team) awards.  Last year, I joined team Navy/Coast Guard as a tandem pilot for a blind cyclist.  We won the gold medal in the 30km tandem road race event, and now have our work cut out for us to defend that win in 2012.

After waking up to a low of 6F in Boulder on Thursday, I was greeted by temperatures in the 70's in Southern California.  It felt luxurious!

A park at Navy Base Ventura County (NBVC) neighbored the apartment where I stayed.  And there was no snow in sight!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all full days characterized by early mornings, long training sessions, short meals, and activities continuing into the evenings.  The athletes were all pushing themselves and each other, which was great to see.  The level of energy and enthusiasm was contagious.

I hope everyone looked in the same direction when the real photographer took his pictures.

The camp participants were a mix of athletes who competed in the Wounded Warrior Games in 2011 and new athletes who are hoping to make their Games debut in 2012.

My workout on Sunday afforded a chance to do battle with a very large truck tire.  There was no clear winner.  We both wound up lying on the grass.  I, however, did eventually walk away.

On Sunday afternoon when the cycling sessions were complete and the bikes were all stowed in the storage facility, I did some training of my own.  Being mid-January, I'm in the middle of doing lots of hard workouts which don't involve the bike at all.  In this case, I rolled a tire, the difficult way, down the length of a football field.  Then I went to a pull-up structure and did 25 pull-ups.  After that, I ran two laps of the track and called that a round.  After five additional rounds, both the tire and I were lying on the grass, neither of us feeling particularly motivated to move.

Monday was another early day, with travel back to Colorado being the primary activity of the day.  While walking through LAX on my way to check my bag, I saw a sign (pictured below) that amused me.

Will a teamate serve a hot beverage if my baggage is lost?

I'd like to meet a teamate some day.  Hypothetical question: if I hand up tea to riders from my club as they pass through the feed zone in a road race, does that make me a good teamate?

Now I'm back in Boulder for a while, until the next adventure.

Holidays in California

On Tuesday afternoon I left Boulder, caught the bus to Denver, and then flew to San Francisco, California.

Here's my gear for a California trip: jacket, waterproof bag, backpack, helmet, glasses, and mittens.  By packing light, I can was able to go to the bus station by bike.

During the last couple weeks in Colorado, I had some more interesting adventures.   At work we built up a circuit board that I designed while I was on my last trip.  It is pictured below.

The green circuit board set a record for fast turn-on: less than 7 hours from the board being delivered by FedEx to having been populated, powered up, and programmed.

Guinness was pleased by progress in the lab.  He sometimes lies on his back in the middle of the floor and takes a nap.

The weekend before I left Colorado, I took a trip to Colorado Springs.  On the way back, I stopped off in Castle Rock and Denver.  While I was away from Boulder, the conditions outside my apartment turned from slightly annoying to outright hazardous.

Here is an ice-covered sidewalk where I lost my footing when leaving for work on Monday morning.  That was an unpleasant surprise.

Yesterday I went for a bike ride in the coastal hills here in the San Francisco bay area.  I climbed up Old La Honda Road from Portola Road to Skyline Blvd, then descended the west side of highway 84, and then climbed the west side of Old La Honda Road back up to Skyline.  Here are a couple pictures from the ride:

Looking west from Old La Honda Road over the coastal hills.

Here is a view looking south from the same point.  The road in this view is where I climbed up.

Here is the view looking east.

With snow falling in Boulder, it is really nice to enjoy some warm, sunny, California weather.

How I almost quit racing on Oct. 7, 2010 and goal setting for 2012

There is a story that I mentioned briefly on this blog back in October 2010, but at the time left out some of the excruciating details.  I felt it might be interesting to fill in a few of the details so that readers can see, for better or for worse, what goes on in the deep dark corners of my brain.

The story, in its original form, is fairly mundane.  The specific story that I am referencing here is detailed in the paragraph beginning with "I think it is safe to say..."  Employing some British understatement, my campaign in Manchester started with a rough first few hours.

At the time, I was rather insulted by being required to take an introductory-level track riding course.  I appreciate the need to follow rules, but rules should be applied with good judgement, not blindly.  After my personal experience and then going to the masters track world championships this fall and seeing riders (who did not go through the accreditation course) slide off the track and cause crashes made me wonder just how well those rules are applied.  Luckily, I have thick skin, and while the accreditation requirement felt like a stinging insult at the time, it's not a big deal anymore.

Further along in the story, I mention being caught up in a crash on the track.  When I composed my blog post on Oct 11th, I still had a large scrape on my hip.  The scrape and associated impact hurt quite a lot, but have both healed.  There is still a 2-inch diameter scar on my right hip, which is an interesting souvenir from that experience.

Where the episode back in 2010 became a real mental test was after I left the track surface.  The person in charge of bike storage space rentals was gone for the day.  I asked the remaining staff if I could leave my bike for the night and sort out the storage rental in the morning.  They said, "No."  I pleaded.  They were adamant.  So, as I went to disassemble my bike and put it back into the travel case, I had tears welling up in my eyes from a combination of pain from the crash and frustration with the bike storage and equipment damage situation.

Finally, after packing up my bike, I began the walk to the bus stop to return to the Manchester City Centre.  It was late in the evening, cold, and raining as I left the veldrome.  As I walked through the parking lot dragging the 70-lb bike case, I thought to myself, "I can leave the case here in the parking lot and come back for it in the morning.  Maybe it will still be here if I come back early.  But if it's not?  Maybe I wouldn't care.  I could forget about being an athlete and just be a tourist for the next two months."

Then, standing there alone in the dark, 7000 miles from home, feeling cold, wet, exhausted, battered physically, and shaken mentally, a smile crept across my face.  I said to myself, "Karl, this will make for an amusing story later.  You need to harden the #@$% up and get moving."

So, I continued.

Jumping back to the present, I am in the midst of formulating goals for the 2012 season.  They're still a work in progress, but at the moment I am planning to turn my focus back to the road and earn my cat-2 upgrade there.

After that, I will turn my attention toward some endurance events.  In the last six years, I've completed several hundred races on the road and track, without the question of whether I was capable of finishing ever crossing my mind.  This season, rather than just seeing how fast I can go, I want to test my physical and mental limits.

I'll write more about my 2012 goals as plans firm up, but I can say right now that the 2012 season will look very different from all my previous seasons.

Back to Colorado and off-season racing

On the way back to Colorado, I stopped in Rawlins, Wyoming for some fuel and a chance to get out of the car and stretch my legs.  Right there on the I-80 business route, I saw something that took my breath away, and had to take a picture.

If Motel 6 doesn't quite do it for you, Rawlins has a Motel 7.

At the end of my first week back on the Colorado front range, I was able to compete in two races.  One was a track racing event at Boulder Indoor Cycling and the other was a run/bike duathlon at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver.

First Friday track racing
Boulder Indoor Cycling, 2-Dec-2011

I jumped in for two races at the December edition of First Friday at Boulder Indoor Cycling.  The first event was a 20-lap tempo race.  He had a field of 6 or 7 riders and the race started off with a moderate pace but quickly became quite brisk and shattered the field.  After bridging over a split in the field, I picked up a few points in the 2nd half of the race, including the 5 points on the finishing lap.

Due to some confusion about which riders would be in which races, I wound up sitting out until the final event of the night, a 70-lap points race.  Colby Pearce and Alex Howes wound up dominating the race, although I felt pretty good about the attack I put in following the first sprint at 60-laps to go.  By the time the field caught me, several riders had dropped out and the field was splintered.  I'm satisfied with how it went for being my first ride back at elevation after two months at sea level.

Only tangentially related to the racing, I walked from my apartment to Boulder Indoor Cycling and then back to my apartment after the event was concluded, 1.8 miles each way, carrying my track bike.

The next First Friday event should be held on 6-Jan-2012.  I'm looking forward to it already!

Chilly Cheeks duathlon series, race #1
Cherry Creek State Park, 3-Dec-2011

There was snow overnight, and the morning was characterized by cold temperatures and more snow falling during the race.  The first race of the Chilly Cheeks duathlon series was a 4-mile run and a 10-mile bike ride.

I started the run at a comfortable pace, intending to increase my tempo at each mile marker.  Many racers started too fast, so I wound up passing people right away and continued to do so throughout the run.  The run course transitioned from road to trail to bike path and back to road at the end, so we had a variety of surfaces to keep things interesting.  Having snow all over the ground required being careful about where I placed my feet.

With the cold temperatures, I had to make a conscious effort to keep my hands from going numb.  In order to stay warm, I wore wool socks, cycling shorts, leg warmers, two base-layer undershirts, a short-sleeve jersey, a long-sleeve jersey, a vest, and a cycling hat. For the run, I wore lightweight windbreaker-style gloves.  They worked well, although midway through the run I pulled my fingers out of the gloves' fingers and wore them more like mittens with my hands clenched into fists.  By the end of the run, my hands were nice and toasty so I could manipulate shoelaces and Velcro to change from running to cycling shoes and operate the buckle on my helmet.  The last step in the transition area was to put on my heavy mittens to keep my hands warm with the windchill on the bike.

Heading out on the bike, my glasses immediately fogged up.  Arg!  I spent a couple minutes fooling around with the glasses trying to clear them of fog while riding slowly (I could barely make out the snow-covered road).  Once my glasses cleared up, I picked up the pace as conditions allowed.  I felt much more comfortable on the climbs than the flat or downhill sections (something about that just seems wrong).  The course wrapped around the lake at the park, with a turn-around on the east side and then headed back to the west side for the race finish.  On the way back, I managed to drop my chain twice. On a fixed gear, a dropped chain means I had no drive and no stopping power.  Needless to say, it was quite exciting as the first chain drop happened on a downhill.

Each time the chain dropped, I coasted to a stop, dismounted the bike, and lifted the chain back onto the chainring and cog by hand (despite being an engineer, I still do some things by hand!).  The first chain drop was on a downhill section.  Riding a fixed gear bike downhill on a snowy ride is an exercise in vaguely-controlled chaos.  In light of the low chain tension I was running, that first chain drop was largely unavoidable as I bounced, slid, and rolled down the hill.  The 2nd drop, however, was due to sloppy pedaling technique.  Following the second drop, I focused on a fluid pedal stroke with steady power for the remainder of the race and kept the chain properly seated through the finish line.  I even managed to catch the two riders who passed me while I was re-setting the chain the 2nd time.  One of them was the winning woman.

The next edition of the race will take place on 21-Jan-2012.  Between now and then I will have some more time to re-acclimate to high elevation exercise (it's been just 1 week since I returned to Boulder after 2 months at sea level) and do a bit of run training (a couple of interval workouts on the track would serve me well for an event like this).  I'll also be able to adjust the chain tension on the fixed gear road bike so it is less susceptible to jumping off when the course is bumpy and figure out a solution for foggy glasses when I am stopped in transition between segments of the race.

That's it for race reports.  I've also been back to the lab, and should have some interesting pictures of circuit boards and measurement systems in the next couple weeks.