Good News!

Sparkfun's GLCD

The other day I was awarded, by Mr. Harrill, the "Outstanding Student Award" for Electronics and Computer Technology. I was honored by him two days ago at the Meyer theater and my family attended (including my sister's boyfriend). This honor is definitely a resume booster. On top of that, I received a call the same day for a potential job. I was out when I was called, and had to call back. I go in for an interview on Thursday, after all my finals are finished. I'm really excited, if I am able to get the job this will be my first real job in electronics. I also receive my Electronics and Computer Technology Associates Degree after I finish this semester, and I expect to have at most one B for this semester (in Sociology). This has been a great week, and I'm really happy.

In addition to all the important things, I also have finally gotten a GLCD to work properly. Mr. Harrill purchased one a few weeks ago and unfortunately it only came with a single page for a datasheet that gave a potentially wrong pinout. The darn thing wouldn't work after 3 hours, and after extensive debugging of the program I checked the wiring over again. I happened to touch the controllers on the back of the GLCD and noticed they were extremely hot. After that fiasco I went and bought my own off of Sparkfun since they provided heavy documentation (to note I was the one who told Mr. Harrill to buy the faulty GLCD from Mouser). The Sparkfun GLCD used the same controllers and after plugging everything in the program worked great. As of now it is a very simplistic program that displays a line (simply to test the thing). I intend on making a quick picture displaying program for it after I finish with finals this upcoming week. It should be great for the presentations we (Mr. Harrill, Alex and I) do for the Electronics section at various High Schools. Mr. Kelly and Alex suggested a simple game, which I probably will end up doing. A simple scroller where you control a horizontally stationary sprite that navigates through a path, similar to this.

Over this weekend I have to wrap up studying and any leftover homework. If we manage to box up most of the lab (for the lab renovations) before the weekend I will be able to finally start reading K&R. Ugh, 8 classes with 8 tests next week. Thankfully I only have 19 credits next Fall semester, the free time for personal projects and a possible job will be amazing. Below is my schedule for the Fall,

ART-155-01 (13466) Art Appreciation
MECH-102-01 (13902) Manufacturing Processes
MATH-162-02 (14052) Introduction to Statistics
PHY-251-01 (14065) Engineering Physics I
MATH-271-01 (14061) Calculus III


Don't mind the Art Appreciation, that's for the Computer Engineering Degree. After all, I need to be "well rounded." :)

My first real mini-game!

This has to be the first real game that I have created, and it is of course in Python. The game reads your last input, and if it is one of the arrow keys, it will shift the map according to the direction you chose. It was slapped together pretty quickly, so the mechanism to exit and the display are very simple.

So far Python has been great, although I am not going as fast as I would like to in terms of reading my books. I've read roughly 150 pages in the Programming Python book and about 50 pages in the Python in a Nutshell book. I have decided to read through the latter book in order to get a better understanding of the foundation, and to better remember everything I learned from my first book. I setup a LAMP server with FTP and SSH access on my laptop(soon to be on a regular desktop computer), the URL being http://salgat.homelinux.net, and am hoping to do some CGI with Python on that server.

School is coming up, so this week is when I start going to bed earlier, start gathering materials needed, and review all the materials from last Spring and Winter semester. The main focus of my review will be Calculus. With so many classes, I'm nervous about my ability to focus on Calculus 2. The saving grace for me is that homework wasn't bad in the Spring semester, although we received a weeks worth every day, and if I can handle 3 hours and 30 minutes of Calculus 1 three times a week, 2 hours of Calculus 2 two times a week should be bearable. With 6 classes of electronics, and 3 having Mr. Harrill in them, I know I will do fine and be happy with my schedule for the next 3-4 months.

The program is packaged in a format commonly used on Linux, but if you are using Windows, be sure to download a program such as 7-Zip or winrar to open this package. To run the program, go to the directory that the files were unpackaged, and simply double click it(this is for Windows, remember that Python needs to be installed).
Attachment: minigame.tgz

Nearing completion of my book, very anxious!

5 Chapters left, or roughly 100 pages to go until I finish Learning Python(the book). I'm very excited, soon I will be able to move onto Programming Python and start to do some real programming. Unfortunately with all the excitement of finishing this book comes the anxiousness of wanting to start the next book. I started reading Learning Python the second week of this month(9th or 10th, can't remember which), and after 3 weeks I am already becoming very familiar with the language. My hopes are to have this book finished by Wednesday. Chapter 25 is really short, some 10 pages long, so I will probably finish that tonight, leaving me with 4 chapters to read over the next 3 days. I will be able to read two chapters at work Tuesday, so I can almost guarantee finishing by Wednesday.

My second year of college(and fourth semester) starts next month also, August 30th, two days after my birthday! With only a month left until school I feel a need to start moving through my Python studies a little faster, this fall I have 23 credits, and although the only concern is Calculus 2 as far as difficulty, I am still kind of weary about having so many classes. Heres a list of the classes I have(in no particular order),

1. ELEC-133-01 = Circuit Analysis
2. MATH-172-01 = Calculus II
3. ELEC-211-01 = Med Voltage Power Dist Systems
4. ELEC-137-01 = Microprocessors
5. ELEC-134-01 = Electronics II
6. ELEC-130-01 = Introduction to PLCs
7. ELEC-126-01 = DC Motors and Controls

7 classes in total, thank goodness they are all classes I will enjoy. I love electronics, and math is an awesome subject, so I should be fine this upcoming semester. If homework is the equivalent to what it was last Winter when I had 17 credit hours, then I should have plenty of time on the weekends to continue studying Python. Thank goodness, even with so many credits, that I could maintain having Friday off. The extra money saved from not having to drive 35 miles on Fridays really helps.

I'll probably get back to my book in an hour, going to grab something to eat soon and just browse some of my favorite sites, such as Digg, Slashdot, AllaboutCircuits, and so on.