Within the midst of our AI slop revolution, touring to the West coast for Open Sauce this previous weekend was the right antiseptic for rising prices, summer time warmth, and on-line divisiveness.
It is ironic, then, that I used Claude to vibe code my Tufty GPS Time Badge.
Partly attributable to time constraints, and partly as a result of I wished to see if I might full a private venture end-to-end, with out modifying a line of code, I throw my necessities at Claude and in the end got here up with this 2141-line MicroPython app for Pimoroni’s Badgeware ecosystem.
GPS Time Badge
Utilizing Pimoroni’s Tufty 2350 and Adafruit’s PA1010D MiniGPS addon module, I constructed a Badgeware App known as ‘GPS Time’ which disciplined the badge’s inside RTC utilizing GPS’s time knowledge, which could be correct to the nanosecond.
I say could be as a result of I wasn’t capable of finding a GPIO pin accessible on the Tufty 2350 for PPS enter. Due to this fact I used to be reliant on MicroPython’s tough timing and I2C interrupts to displine the inner clock. This isn’t very best, and in some circumstances, resulted within the clock being 100-200ms off. Most frequently, it was just a few milliseconds, however the variation is probably going attributable to BadgeOS’s extremely abstracted structure.
It is easy to program (particularly for fast UIs), however not constructed to be a strong real-time OS!
The purpose of the Time Badge was “to have the very best time” at Open Sauce, although—what’s just a few microseconds between buddies?
I might get PPS out to check my GPS to different clocks—and I did that (extra within the video embedded later on this submit). However I additionally wished to perform a little experimentation. Having direct entry to a wearable GPS module’s knowledge, I logged GPS satellite tv for pc and repair high quality all through the day, as I walked across the venue.
With just a few thousand datapoints, I whipped up this visualization of all the info factors utilizing Claude:
(You may click on on the above picture to go to an interactive internet web page.)
One-off coding of scripts and aspect tasks is helpful, however the principle use case I’ve had for AI instruments is knowledge visualization. I used to be at all times horrible at turning datasets into helpful interactice graphs (I struggled mightily again once I was working Server Examine.in)… however this was fairly helpful and usable. I did must redirect Claude just a few occasions, to do the fitting factor (AI is fairly dumb, nonetheless).
One factor I rapidly discovered: moreover the corridor the place the Most important Stage was positioned, all of the buildings had both wooden or in any other case RF-transparent roofs. I used to be getting fairly good 6-8 satellite tv for pc fixes wherever I went!
There have been just a few sections the place I noticed extra interference (that is the place a lot of the purple dots come from), however on the entire, it was simple to have a great time at Open Sauce.
Open Sauce
However that is simply GPS time. I additionally had a good time interacting with everybody. And as I discussed within the introduction to this weblog submit, it was extremely refreshing to have 8+ hours with no screens current, no AI, solely direct human interplay.
I met quite a lot of of the HN crowd at Open Sauce this 12 months. A venn diagram of Hacker Information readers and people who would get pleasure from the vast majority of the Open Sauce reveals is virtually a circle.
There have been quite a few reveals of be aware:
A 3D printed orbit-accurate reproduction of our photo voltaic system—full with every planet’s moonsMultiple Raspberry-Pi managed pianosMultiple driving couchesA purposeful 3D printed 737 cockpit (wherein I witnessed NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick buzz your complete bay space whereas egged on by Scott Manley and a big crowd of bystanders)Nifty Apollo-era house {hardware} CuriousMarc, Ken Sheriff, and TubeTime deliver for on-the-floor restoration and displayRoving freely on the ground: a Mac Traditional on tracks, a Prusa Core One 3D printer on hexapod legs (actively printing), a strolling espresso desk, a number of star wars droids](https://www.bayareadroidbuilders.com), even TROGDOR!Taser Chess (which I used to be fortunate sufficient to expertise)A drone that converts right into a automobile (and vice-versa)A moon rock from Apollo 15, and a part of Artemis’ warmth protect, at a NASA Ames Analysis Heart exhibit
There’s far an excessive amount of to cowl on this weblog submit—I attempted to take action final 12 months, solely to understand I nonetheless missed about 30% of the cubicles!
So here is a video displaying a few of my highlights, particularly referring to my private theme this 12 months, time:
Some folks come to see their favourite content material creators, however the principle draw for me is speaking to exhibitors and attendees. Most of them give me a extreme case of imposter syndrome.
