as smart as a chicken in a thunderstorm …

if you hear me say this to you, well i’m sorry, it’s not a compliment.

those chickens are cute, but pretty dumb.  standing in the rain instead of walking up their plank, which they go up and down all day long normally, isn’t that bright.

 

cool little bench / coffeetable

i like it…

Essence Bench

nerdville, pt. 1

apparently i like these sequenced posts for some reason, anyways here we go.

so it’s official, i have taken the arduino – total nerdville plunge.  pretty fun stuff, which is the accurate measure that I am a nerd, and proud.

so tonight i built my first circuit board.

My first circuit board

So there it is.  A few hours ago it was a pile of parts, and now I’ve got this cool thing which will be driving an old drill/driver to raise and lower my chicken coop door.

I had my buddy Joel over a few nights ago to help me with this stuff, but we mainly ended up talking.  He schooled me on Electronics 101: voltage, current, resistance, resistors, transistors, relays, circuit boards, capacitors, etc.  Then we discussed various ways of killing racoons in a highly technological and automated way.  It was a good time.

So I soldered up this board and another one tonight which will do some work for me once I get the programming end of things done.  So that’s up next!  I’ll keep you posted.

I would like to note that this must be in the genes, as my sister and I (she’s over visiting us from Ohio) were reminiscing of our dear old dad doing some soldering of all manner of things back in the day.  He even built a computer from component parts back in the days before you could buy a computer.  He had to build not only all the innards, which included a single line LCD display, a 10″ floppy disk drive (i think this was the size), and a keyboard which he constructed himself.  Crazy times, I was computing before there were really computers i guess.  Truly I am gigabot and I come from gigabot heritage.

Word up, embrace your inner nerd.

attempting chicken coop awesomeness, pt. 13

More coop… I’m getting tired, but hitting the home stretch, and officially I’m gonna arduino this coop out.  So look out.

Got some wire on that coop.....

related to chicken awesomeness MEETS i am a big time nerd

For a while now I’ve known about Arduino.

I’ve been intrigued…

I’ve thought cool, I wonder …

I’ve thought, I could get into that, but man that’s really nerdy …

But now that I’m in chickenville, I feel  like I’ve got a good actual use for something like this.

But you don’t even know what I’m talking about probably.  Well get ready because here is what an Arduino is:

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

arduino

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So really haven’t I arrived!!  I feel like I’m at the center of nerdville!

BUT I must say, this thing is pretty awesome in terms of what it can do.  I’m not sure that I’ll dive in yet or not and really trip out this friggin chicken coop deal or not, but I’m leaning towards it.  It’s relatively cheap for what it can do and it’ll give me a hobby for my “free time.”

Look out uber-nerdiness, i’m coming (assuming that i’m not there already).

attempting chicken coop awesomeness, pt. 12

i’ll hope to add some pictures to this post tomorrow, when i get a chance to shoot em, but here’s where we stand:

• automatic waterer with chicken nipples is working like a champ
• automatic feeder is filled and the girls are eating out of it without pooping in it.
• hard wired in a lamp holder that we can use for heat lamp right now and during some winter cold spells.  this is on an automatic timer and never runs for more than a half hour.
• finally have the door working like a champ from an up / down & timing standpoint, but it was really racking my brain and some of the brightest chicken door minds out there (Matt n Ben) as to how to lock that sucker given the current setup.  Long story short, we got it figured with some help from T-RO who did the obvious, just looked it up on youtube.  Now just to be legit, he didn’t really solve the problem, but it got me moving in the right direction.  So there is some work to do here so that the coons can’t just pry open that door and eat our gals.
• got some motion sensing gadgets installed as well to alert me to intruders and set me crazy with my airsoft gun.  i. am. ridiculous.

Full Chicken Feeder, and they actually know how to use it!

Remote Temp Sensor

Hardwired Lamp Receptacle (trying not to burn down the barn, yes I know)

Here's those gals, checking it all out.

Really what’s left is to get the wire on after a small amount of painting.  Then out to the backyard they’ll go where I think they will be very happy! We’ll see, hopefully sometime later this week.

Pics to come…

attempting chicken coop awesomeness, pt. 11

added the auto feeder today. here’s what i got.  basically you take the cap off, pour in a bunch of food, and the chicks eat it inside, should last me and my girls a good week at a time at this stage in their development.

Bottom part of the waterer

not the best shot

 

also got to work on the auto door opener, getting closer, how long have i been saying that????

mark out.