How I Spent April and Engineers Without Borders

When I resigned from the government, I had planned to spend the entire month of April watching movies.

Instead, I built and electronics lab, published 25 of my ideas, and have been trying to learn basic electronics.

Possibly this is a sign of mental instability.

I have been working a great deal for the Instrumentation Group of the  Austin Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).  I'm doing this in part to stay involved with other people and avoid navel-gazing.

EWB does engineering. They are not really doing "invention" in the sense that I want to do it.  They are producing potentially novel solutions but they are "designs" not "inventions".  For the most part, what we are trying to accomplish is relatively straightforward electrical engineering based on using an Arduino.

This is aligned with what I want to do, however, because:

• It is helping me to learn basic electronics.
• Many of published ideas require computer control in one way or another, and mastering micro-controllers will help.  In particular, my various ideas around biochar production will benefit from this.
• I have always believed the greatest room for invention is that intersection of software and they physical world, despite the fact that I personally am more expert at pure software.

EWB Austin is heavily influenced by the University of Texas members. It is going to shut down for the summer.  We have been invited to the Austin Mini Maker Faire, and am working to have several of our Arduino project ready by May 16th.

When I have done this, however, I am going to go back to more of the invention-oriented work I have written about.

As always, I welcome collaboration---y'all don't be shy.  I'm happy to shift priorities based on what excites others.