Modified Power Wheels
Backstory
Back in 2016, we were about to bring home our new daughter from India. She has been diagnosed with Caudal Regression Syndrome. In her case, she is actually missing her legs. So when we saw that Power Wheels was about to release their new “Wild Thing” model, we thought it would be great for her to be able to play in the yard with the kids. Of course, the price wasn’t great at the time and we ended up forgetting about it.
Debugging a Lambda with VSCode
Writing code for the cloud is great! So many positives that it just makes sense. The biggest downside with some is debugging your code….it gets tricky making a change, deploy, test then dig through your logs. Of course this can be automated but still get tiresome. With AWS enhancing their SAM (Serverless Application Model), it is now possible to actually run your lambdas locally within a docker container and have your IDE’s debugger attach. There are plenty of tools/plugins to utilize this (Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio…full list here) but I’m a big fan of Visual Studio Code. So let’s take a deeper dive in how to debug our java lambda line by line with VSCode!
First try with flexible filament
I decided to purchase some sample flexible filament to see if my printer could handle it without any modifications. I decided not to go with the Ninjaflex as I would most likely have to modify my extruder (bowden style) and tube as it might be too flexible. I ended up going with the Sainsmart brand….just purchased some clear off of Amazon.
All I did was turn the heat up a little (205 deg) and slow the speed down to 30mms. No heated bed on my printer…just did my typical glue-stick and I am highly impressed with how my prints came out! I started with just a hexagon shape just to see what would happen and then got more adventurous with an iPhone 6 case. Came out amazing! Ended up going with 3 layers on top and bottom and 2 layers for the shell.
Only problem is…I don’t have an iPhone 6…=( I am sporting the Samsung Note 4 currently (I’m an Android guy at heart) but couldn’t find anything on Thingiverse that looked like a good print for this and it would take me forever to design my own. Going to take these cases in to work and have some co-workers give them a try. Might post an update.
RetroPie Controller
I’ve had a USB SNES controller for a while and kept wanting to throw a Pi Zero in it….but I also wanted a USB hub to be part of it somehow. I have been sitting on it for a while but couldn’t seem to get things to fit in nicely. Well, today I decided not to care about form so I could have function. So I present the ugliest controller build your eyes have seen!
Obviously, not pretty…but at least I can plug in a mouse and keyboard or whatever when needed.
