Posts Tagged ‘plans’

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Things I want to work on

July 16, 2013

I finished up my last contract, other than a few weeks of answering questions. Old clients want new things but I think that’s just a few weeks of work. And then I have a big open space (right after the family vacation).

Those used to make me nervous but I’m getting better at being excited to have time to work on my own ideas, if only to freshen my skills. I’m not as worried that I’ll never find a new client. For a little while (at least), I’ll be choosier with contracts (such a luxury!).

A friend asked what I want to work on. I think he has entrepreneurial motives though I’m not ready for another turn on the startup merry go round. In trying to figure out how to answer him, I’ve sat down and thought about what I really want to work on. Not the technology or location or industry, but concrete things I think must be happening that I particularly want to be a part of.

  • Smart prosthetic limbs (feet):  measure surface something (electrical impulses? micro movement? tension?) on the remaining limb and use it to control things like artificial toes for enhanced balance.
  • $5US clothes washer (the TED talk about how washing machines change everything really got to me). I suspect other things would do: a $5 ereader (put a whole encyclopedias on it) or a $5 something else that can make a huge difference to someone outside the US.
  • Use chemical sensing MEMS to make a pocket mass spectrometer/gas chromatography system (bomb sniffing, tricorder, being able to visualize 1/100 of what my beagle smells).

Thinking about concrete examples is difficult. I want to work on something innovative but my innovative ideas are smaller than I want to work on, smaller than a company could sustain. (Though, my ideas get bigger as time goes on so this may not remain a problem.) There are other things I can identify as great things about my next potential contract:

  • I’ve done a bit of work with devices that attempt to use game-ification as a motivation tool. I’d like to see a focus also on pet-ification. Many people tend to nurture more than compete. I don’t know if I want to apply this more to fitness or to education devices. Either. Both.
  • A genius’ vision of something that make the world a better place. While there are a lot of things I don’t want to work on/with (application, methodologies, and companies), I really didn’t want to make this a negative list. If I were to make this a list of things I don’t want about my next project it would be “I don’t want to work on something designed by committee”. I find those projects increasingly unsatisfying. However, the times I’ve worked with someone who had a plan and could articulate how my help was needed, those have been great projects where I have learned a lot and provided a lot of value. (Hey, Elon Musk, if you read my blog, please consider how my embedded software skills can help you with the LA/SF 30 minute transporter thingy (Hyperloop).)
  • Proof of concept prototype for a skunkworks. This is kind of like my recently complete project. I like shipping things, it is incredibly gratifying. But I also like proving something unlikely is actually possible.

I suspect I’ll find something interesting that pays bills while I ruminate further on my plan to take over a tiny portion of the world. In the meantime, I’m enjoying this thought exercise. And break.

 

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Embedded systems podcast?

April 23, 2013

At the embedded systems conference, Star Simpson, Jen Costillo, and I did a talk called Start Tinkering. The goal was to get people interested in doing hobby projects: why we do it and how to get into it. We did a radio show, I announced at the inaugural podcast.

But if it is the inaugural, that indicates there would be more podcasts. So what would we do podcasts about?

This one was very high level, an introduction to getting involved. I think I'd want to do a deeper dive into technical things, but still with a hobbyist bent.

I'd like to have a podcast that was just Jen and me, getting a box from Amazon that contains an Arduino and maybe one other board (accelerometer? ThingM LED?). We'd chat and open the box and download the software to make Arduino work. We'd do the normal Hello World to make the LED on the board work (that code is included when you install the compiler), and then change it so the LED blinks at a different rate and all the stuff we'd want to do to get started. Then we'd make the other board (accelerometer? LED?) work to show a few more things. Then, I think we'd rip the Arduino part off and treat it like an Atmel processor. Jen and I would chat over all of this, talking about what we were doing, talking about why we'd do this instead of that, mentioning AVR Freaks and other helpful communities.

I suppose we could do this with Raspberry Pi as well. Oh, MBED, XPresso and MSP430's cheapest board as well. It could be a segment “box to xyz”

And I'd like to do an interview with Jeri Ellsworth, asking her about what she's done and what's she planning. Actually, I'd like to interview all my friends first- Phil over at Weekend Engineering would have a lot of interesting things to say, especially about designing for consumer products. My husband could talk about FDA and UIs and embedded systems. Star could come on and talk about TacoCopter (she's locationally challenged so having her be a regular part might be difficult).

Maybe we could do a radio show of teaching someone to solder. Or talking about software design.

We'll need theme music, I think. And editing software. And good mics. And time. Lots of time. That may be the most difficult part.

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New Year Resolution

January 8, 2013

I remember once in a shared office, two guys I worked with were complaining that they never had time to exercise. They had plans but never got to it. They commiserated with each other about exercise falling by the wayside due to stupid work deadlines then turned to see if I’d join in. I said, “Don’t look at me. I get on the exercise bike with a beer and do my ten miles as soon as I get home.”

They were impressed. Probably more by the beer than by the consistency in exercise.

This year, I made a small new year resolution: for one week (starting January 1st) I’ll focus a bit more exercise; I want to get 10k steps on my Fitbit and spend time on the exerbike as well. My goal is to get into a new habit. The plan is that I didn’t need to do ten miles on the bike, just get on it for a few minutes. For the most part, I have done my normal ten, except for that day we rented a Wii Dance game (Rick Astley and Carly Rae Jepsen wore me out).

I only have one more day to walk and bike. I don’t anticipate any problems completing my goal and I plan to make a new one for next week. Though I may take a day off. I hoped for a habit but I find I’m starting to drag a bit. Maybe on Wed, I’ll do one or the other instead of both. Also, I’ll change resolutions to something else.

After all, over the last week, I have gained wait (but lost body fat according to the scale). Maybe next week, I’ll ditch the exercise goal and spend a week counting calories. Or maybe I’ll ditch health goals for a a week and spend a week writing more (I have a 10 part series I want to blog but haven’t had time with all the exercise). Or possibly I’ll do something particularly nice for someone every day. That is always a fun resolution. Or maybe I’ll spend an hour every day promoting my book (I suck at self promotion but there are people I should ask for reviews or send copies to). Or I could garden for an hour every day, clean up the backyard so the spring wildflowers can some in.

I suppose my real goal is to have some self-improvement-ish thing every week to focus on. Every thing I add takes time.  Some thing will turn out to be worth the time. Some things won’t. Some things will form habits and after a week of concentrating on it, I won’t need to think about it anymore.

So, starting tomorrow, I’ll keep exercising (that has been a habit for years) but with a little less focus on it so I can try something else. Wish me luck and strong resolve.

Happy new year!

Walking at Sunset

 

 

 

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Dreams vs. goals

September 12, 2012

In a romance novel I once read (seriously, even with this intro, it is going to be a good, insightful post) (really (probably))…

Let’s start again.

In a romance novel I once read, the heroine is a well-connected woman. Plus, she’s a nice human being. So when another person says they’ve always wanted to write books for children, our heroine moves heaven and earth to get proto-author the right contacts into editing, agents and children’s publishing. The proto-author then flakes out completely.

Because the proto-author didn’t want to write children’s books, she wanted to talk about how someday she’d like to write children’s books. It was a safe dream but it was not a true goal.

(I’m a little worried at this point because two friends who  occasionally read my blog have said they’d like to write children’s books. This is not about them. This is about my neurosis, not about anyone else. Not even Phil. Who, as far as I know, doesn’t want to write children’s books.)

Ok, let’s switch away from children’s books into something that may get me into less trouble. But, really, I promise, there is a unified point.

When C was serious with the band, a neighbor of ours joined for awhile. But he didn’t ever practice. He couldn’t remember the words to songs he wrote. I actually liked his voice but he just wasn’t serious about the band. And as they started to have gigs, the neighbor’s lack of dedication was a frustrating barrier for the whole band. See, the neighbor didn’t want to be in a rock and roll band, he wanted to talk about being in a rock and roll band. His mental model was not only dad, provider, husband, handyman, etc. It was also “singer in a rock band”, it made him feel cool; C’s band fed that image. But it was a dream and not really a goal.

I worry that part of my personal mental model is “mad scientist inventor” but I don’t have the oomph to do it. I like reading and watching television and going to the beach and hanging out with my friends and sleeping and exercising (and working on projects, shipping software).

I’ve been thinking about dedication as I work on this prototype for my infant product idea, trying to figure out if my project will survive and how. Do I have what it takes to see it through? Forget that…I’m too afraid of the answer, let’s try a smaller chunk: do I have what it takes to build a prototype for my own personal use and for demonstration purposes?

When I work on other people’s products, it is easy to identify the work involved and motivate myself to get it done (ahem, cash is a nice motivator for me as is the “done” finish line). But with my own project, somehow I believe that is I just wish hard enough, it will magically be complete.

That hasn’t been working so I carved out some time to work on it as a project. (My rates are really quite reasonable when I work for myself.) Today, I hit a limit of my tools that showed I have compiled my program and downloaded it 100 times.  Some of those were dumb, formatting tweaks to printfs but not all of them. This ridiculous milestone  represents a lot of work, a lot of time spent with my butt in the chair thinking about this product. Sitting here, reading datasheets, putting hardware together, learning to crimp cables, drawing schematics, buying beer and sushi to bribe people into helping me, and writing code, it really is a lot of work and not nearly done.

And still I fear that this may be a phase, something I’m excited about but only because it is new and shiny. And when something else shiny comes along (or this bauble loses its gleam), well, I’ll drop it in the gutter.  I don’t know the path ahead or if I’m really on any path. Or if I want to be.

I don’t know if this is just a dream or truly a goal.

Funny, as I finished this post, I just got a call from a past client. They want me to do something for them. They pay pretty well (and on time). It will be just a few weeks of work. I just managed to carve out time from current clients to have time for my project. But it would be a lot of money to work for these clients which would give me the freedom to work on some other future idea. It is an easy job. So shiny.

 

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Where do ideas come from? And where do they go from here?

August 16, 2012

A friend emailed me about a design contest. I took a look and found it to be mildly interesting. She suggested we get together to brainstorm.

I let it percolate a bit and sent her email with a half dozen ideas. And then a day or two later, I sent her another half dozen on a different theme. And then… well, she emailed me back, reminded me she was out of the country on vacation, getting hundreds of emails to wade through. She wanted to brainstorm when she got back.

Well, one of those ideas haunted me. I kept thinking “I wish I had that” and “I bet it would make my life better” and “how hard could it really be?”. It even kept me up one night until I sketched the idea out. Well, possibly my cold kept me up and doodling was a way to keep me from whining too much.

So I wrote a somewhat comedic elevator pitch and sent it to my favorite electrical engineer (Phil) and to my husband (Christopher). Both were encouraging. I started to fantasy purchase the parts on SparkFun and determine the minimum processor requirements. I figured out some areas that I didn't know enough about.

A few days later, I told my hairdresser about the idea. She got it instantly and wanted to buy one. (My hairdresser is awesome and likes lots of my crazy ideas. And she understands my hair is wash-and-wear; the only person who ever blow dries it is her.) So, everyone was in agreement, and I was getting more excited. I was still wishing I could just buy one and start using it. (And somewhat afraid to do much searching online to find that I could buy it though I did finally bring myself to do it.)

A few days later, Phil came over (lured by homemade pizza and possibly games). We hashed out some of the gaps. I decided on a processor (from the extensive selection of my dev kits on my bookshelf, though Phil went home with one of the dev kits he found interesting). Then I actually forked over cash to SparkFun and Digikey to get parts. And I started keeping a bound lab notebook, signed and dated. I neatened and copied all my weekend notes into my notebook. I made lists of things to do.

I made an appointment with an expert in the area my product would be sold in. I made some more sketches, ones that didn't involve the technology and focused on the user experience. I bought her lunch and told her about my idea. I figured even if she didn't like it, I'd still continue on… not because I didn't trust what she'd tell me but because I was willing to try even so, I'd fallen into deep like with my idea. But my expert was so enthusiastic, I could easily have sold her a dozen. Or gone the pyramid route and her start selling them for me. And her excitement made me start thinking about Kickstarter and how she'd be perfect for a video presentation.

I got my parts in the mail (SparkFun boxes are the best!). I spent a few hours on Saturday trying to make it all work. Nothing worked… it was like each component worked but nothing would play together on the solderless bread board. On Sunday, stuff started working but it lacked robustness, probably because I didn't want to solder anything (I'm not the greatest at that and undoing my giant globs of solder is impossible; my plans for later connectorization had to wait until I had some proof that the components would work.)

Later that day, my husband and I went out to lunch and drew all over the paper-covered table, making plans for data collection and demo software and user interfaces. He'd already downloaded and tried out Valve's engine, thinking maybe the demo could be a cartoon (I wanted it to be made with the giant guy with all the bullets!) but it was overkill. And, to be fair, all my sketches so far involve stick figures and messy handwriting (I'm not *even* to powerpoint yet).

I'm fortunate that my friends are not only wonderful and generous, they also have mad skills. Yesterday, when I showed up at my favorite patent agent's place for lunch (bearing the customary summer lunch gift of popsicles), I asked if she minded if I told her about my idea (hey, she doesn't make me fix her printer, I'm not going to make assumptions though she'd been happy to talk shop in the past). She said yes, got the idea immediately, was very excited about it. She's planning to buy one for her husband for his birthday (I should find out when that is). She's going to do a patent search and if that is clean, I'll start on the provisional patent, which she'll help me file.

I had lunch with Phil today. Between miso soup and bento boxes, he took apart the competitive product (ok, there isn't a competitive product, it is just a distant cousin, the closest I could fine). His leatherman got a workout and the waitress gave us a few strange looks. Once he was done taking apart my toys, he looked at my components and approved my soldering plan.

There is so much to do still. The prototyping software was egregiously basic and does about 1/100 of what I want it to do. Plus, I need to get some real data in a reasonable format to feed to Christopher's demo and data collection software.

The proto boards need to be soldered and then attached, made to function and then made smaller and easier to build. And there is another electrical component that is far more complicated, it will need a very complex schematic and power will become an issue (such as dealing with a rechargeable battery).

Phil pointed out today that I was ignoring the enclosure. Yep. Planning to keep doing that for awhile. We'll put the microprocessor in tupperware or baggies or something for a little while. I want proper mechanical/industrial design and I'll skimp until I have the funding to do that.

I need to work on the provisional patent, write up the idea properly, and try to think of all the possible applications (and clauses). My patent agent friend will help but I will probably need to cough up some money for patent drawings, probably.

I know who I can pitch the idea to. They may even want to license or buy it. If not, I'll ask them to sign a paper saying I presented the idea to them on such and such a date. Hopefully, I'll have the provisional patent done by then. Even if they don't want it, they may have some advice for pitching and people to pitch to. We'll see. There is still that design contest (which ends in November). And this is a good candidate for Kickstarter if I can really figure out the costs associated with starting manufacturing. I know there is a lot of business side things to think about. After the first prototype is collecting data and functioning for me.

There is so much to do. I should get to it. Wheeee!

 

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