{"id":140,"date":"2008-10-16T03:07:42","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T07:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itp.indiamos.com\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2008-10-16T03:10:07","modified_gmt":"2008-10-16T07:10:07","slug":"physcomp-week-6-bride-of-serial-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itp.indiamos.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/16\/physcomp-week-6-bride-of-serial-out\/","title":{"rendered":"PhysComp, week 6: Bride of Serial Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s lab<\/a> was mostly uneventful, although it took me something like six hours to do—I started after our CommLab make-up class ended, around 4 pm, and stayed until nine or ten.<\/p>\n

First I thought I’d use one of these nifty sensors I got from SparkFun, <\/p>\n

\"PComp<\/a><\/p>\n

but then I realized I have no idea how you’re supposed to hook them up. Stick the pins straight into the breadboard? Solder wires on? How long should the wires be? So instead I used the stupid knob again, plus one of the IRs I bought for our midterm project.<\/p>\n

The thrill of the knob has totally worn off. Then I saw Jorge soldering wires to an ultrasonic range finder just like the one I have, and I thought maybe it was a good time to try out my own. Ha! Thus began one of my more frustrating soldering bouts so far.<\/p>\n

\"Helping<\/a><\/p>\n

It must have taken me forty-five minutes to solder three freaking wires onto this cookie . . . and then it took me another hour to realize that the reason it wasn’t working was that I’d soldered the yellow wire to the wrong hole. And then I couldn’t get it un<\/em>soldered to save my life, so I just attached a fourth wire.<\/p>\n

Finally I got them all hooked up:<\/p>\n

\"1<\/a><\/p>\n

And then, there was serial output:<\/p>\n