Lessons Learned at Nautilus (Part 1)

     

In my two and a half years at Nautilus I learned a tremendous amount about IoT, Hardware, Software, Data Science, and myself in general. Given the amount of ground to cover, I plan to split this topic up into the following: The importance of supporting firmware OTA (Over the Air) updates from the start The importance of data scientist input for analytics at the start. The benefits of Android OS for IoT and how hardware can unintentionally impact software So without further ado, the first lesson!

The Passage of Time

     

It’s been almost half a year since my last blog entry! A lot has happened since then. Stars were born and collapsed, civilizations rose and fell, planets formed and destroyed! But in all seriousness I’ve been pretty busy. At one point I had three separate part-time contracts in addition to my full time job. I also changed jobs. So I haven’t had a lot of time leftover for blogging. But I plan to resume my normal monthly cadence, and I’ve accumulated quite a few different topics to write about.

Hall Sensor FTMS Server

     

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on my FTMS server for my bike. I’ve settled on a hardware configuration and completed the firmware implementation. Now I just need to solder it together and 3d print an enclosure! In the process I’ve learned a lot about Arduino, C, C++, and Hall sensors. For those that haven’t worked with Hall sensors before, they detect electromagnetic fields and generate either an analog or digital signal based on the magnitude of their force.

3D Printing Rennaisance

     

I learned halfway through January how easy it was to capsize the catamaran when I failed to shift my weight fast enough during a tacking maneuver in a 30 knot wind. So I’ve gotten back into 3d printing in a big way in anticipation of needing to print water-tight enclosures for the electronics in my sailboat anemometer project. After dusting off my Creality Ender 3 printer I was reminded of the challenges of open-air ABS printing, specifically, preventing uneven cooling that leads to warped ABS prints.

A Year in Review

     

Last year I posted my New Years’s resolutions and discussed my hopes and ambitions for 2020. Needless to say, things didn’t exactly go as planned. I had three resolutions. The first was to do 3 sets of push ups every day. As the pandemic unfolded that evolved into “do 50 push-ups prior to each serving of alcohol that I consumed. Generally that meant 50-100 pushups a day, translating into roughly 20,000 pushups over the course of the year.