The Geek in me has Taken Over 2

Must Stop Capitalizing Each word. The Geek has taken over. Hence the lack of a new personal financial article this week. I haven’t forgotten about you, though.

My son is into locks. Not just a little, he’s obsessed. So last week I decided to build him a super lock. I purchased the Arduino starter kit and now I’m geeking out. I think I may actually add a little “Geek” section to my blog.

So if you thought I died and don’t care about this kind of stuff, I’m still alive and I promise I will write about money soon enough again. You can leave now and go on with your day. If you’re a geek like feel free to keep on reading.

So like I said, last week I purchased an Arduino starter kit on Amazon. The one depicted here is what I got but there are tons of them available. Depending on the price these will come with more or less and different kinds of sensors/devices. These kits come with basic instruction on how to get you started. It’s almost child’s play.

So what is this super-luck you may ask? It’s a combination lock that requires you to light 3 LEDs in a specific order by means of little joystick. If you get the combination right a little servo will open a good old fashioned door latch. If you get it wrong you’ll be buzzed and have to restart over.

Here it is in it prototype stage (no that is not the combination). All the bells and whistles are working (although you can always add more bells and whistles) so the next step is to take it from the prototype stage and package it in a nice case.

This is where I get to geek out even more. Shortly after I retired I built myself a big honking CNC. I was going to use the CNC to cut out part for the Open Source ROV. The components and parts for that did not really fit in our budget so the CNC has been sitting idle.

Time to dust off the CNC, and start cutting some holes. One for the LED, one for the joystick and one for an on/off switch (note I’m leaving plenty of room for more bells and whistles).

Well that is how far I got but you can see why I’m distracted. Must get back to building stuff. I will keep you posted the progress. I hope to be done later this week after which I will again focus on some personal finance.

Good luck reaching your financial goals. While doing so, don’t forget to follow your passion though.