ard

AI • Engineer & Researcher • Automating everything

Collabs | DM open

[ard @ardchain]

update: my ESP32 classroom now has practice!

a few days ago you could explore the board. now you build the circuit yourself on a virtual breadboard:

> drag a resistor and an LED into place
> draw wires from pin to pin
> press Check circuit, then Run, and watch the LED blink in 3D
> download the .ino once it works

guided mode explains every step, down to why five holes on one row are already connected

3 practice lessons so far: blink, a button and an analog dial. more are on the way

free, in your browser

[ard @ardchain]

I just built an ESP32 classroom with Astra

no need to buy a starter kit just to figure out what the pins do, start in your browser:

> explore a 3D ESP32 and hover to learn what each component does
> follow highlighted pins and step-by-step wiring guides
> experiment with LEDs, sensors, motors and a tiny piano
> go from interactive demos to wiring diagrams and Arduino code

16 lessons. Free & open source. Desktop & mobile.

Try it in reply↓

[ard @ardchain]

how a banana becomes a button

the ESP32 charges and discharges the pin over and over, and the wire makes the whole banana part of that pin. touch it and your body joins in. more capacitance, so every charge takes longer

the chip sees the cycles slow down, touchRead() drops below the threshold, and that's a touch

[ard @ardchain]

6 bananas, 6 wires, one ESP32. no sensors

touch a banana and its twin on screen turns from blue ASCII text into the real fruit. let go and it falls back to text

the trick: the ESP32 has touch sensing built into its pins. a banana is mostly salty water, so the whole fruit becomes a touch pad. your body adds a little capacitance when you touch it, and the chip feels the difference

[ard @ardchain]

6 bananas, 6 wires, one ESP32. no sensors

touch a banana and its twin on screen turns from blue ASCII text into the real fruit. let go and it falls back to text

the trick: the ESP32 has touch sensing built into its pins. a banana is mostly salty water, so the whole fruit becomes a touch pad. your body adds a little capacitance when you touch it, and the chip feels the difference

[ard @ardchain]

@Frankkis2 I think you should stop spouting bullshit and generating this slop using AI

[ard @ardchain]

6 bananas, 6 wires, one ESP32. no sensors

touch a banana and its twin on screen turns from blue ASCII text into the real fruit. let go and it falls back to text

the trick: the ESP32 has touch sensing built into its pins. a banana is mostly salty water, so the whole fruit becomes a touch pad. your body adds a little capacitance when you touch it, and the chip feels the difference

[ard @ardchain]

building an ESP32 project? before you buy another sensor, learn how to choose the right one, wire it safely, filter noisy readings, and turn physical changes into reliable actions. this guide takes you from the first signal to a working machine: https://t.co/q8rlZyjApL

[ard @ardchain]

airpods as a mouse is cool, but your hand as a mouse is better

a tiny board and a battery on the back of the hand. move it and the cursor follows. click with the thumb on the index finger. it even closes the window

how to build one: a motion sensor on the back of the hand turns hand movement into cursor movement. a small button on the index finger is the click. an esp32 with bluetooth sends both to the laptop as a regular mouse

no mouse, no mousepad

[ard @ardchain]

airpods as a mouse is cool, but your hand as a mouse is better

a tiny board and a battery on the back of the hand. move it and the cursor follows. click with the thumb on the index finger. it even closes the window

how to build one: a motion sensor on the back of the hand turns hand movement into cursor movement. a small button on the index finger is the click. an esp32 with bluetooth sends both to the laptop as a regular mouse

no mouse, no mousepad

[ard @ardchain]

building an ESP32 project? before you buy another sensor, learn how to choose the right one, wire it safely, filter noisy readings, and turn physical changes into reliable actions. this guide takes you from the first signal to a working machine: https://t.co/q8rlZyjApL

[ard @ardchain]

this is what every computer does, slowed down enough to watch

a clock ticks. the chip grabs an instruction from memory, figures out what it means, does it, and moves to the next one

the whole program here is five lines: load 5, load 3, add, show the result, jump back. so the number just keeps climbing by 3

your phone does this billions of times a second

[ard @ardchain]

@ShishirShelke1 the person who made this video is a fucking genius.

phones generally only record at a maximum of 60 fps, so even if he filmed a 120Hz phone screen, there wouldn't be any difference

[ard @ardchain]

a lighter you charge instead of refill

how it's built:

1. cut a window in a clear gas lighter and pull out the gas valve
2. fit a tiny lipo cell and a charging board inside the shell
3. wire the cell through a switch to a coil of resistance wire in the old flame spot
4. press the button: current heats the coil until paper catches

no gas or flint and matches

[ard @ardchain]

a lighter you charge instead of refill

how it's built:

1. cut a window in a clear gas lighter and pull out the gas valve
2. fit a tiny lipo cell and a charging board inside the shell
3. wire the cell through a switch to a coil of resistance wire in the old flame spot
4. press the button: current heats the coil until paper catches

no gas or flint and matches

[ard @ardchain]

building an ESP32 project? before you buy another sensor, learn how to choose the right one, wire it safely, filter noisy readings, and turn physical changes into reliable actions. this guide takes you from the first signal to a working machine: https://t.co/q8rlZyjApL

[ard @ardchain]

would you like to have a tiny robot like this?

it shows turn-by-turn directions from your phone and the time, and makes faces while it does. but it's not a product

it's a project built by hand with an ESP32 and a small screen

a lot of what separates a project from a product is how it's shown. this article is about that

[ard @ardchain]

@kenonews

[ard @ardchain]

would you like to have a tiny robot like this?

it shows turn-by-turn directions from your phone and the time, and makes faces while it does. but it's not a product

it's a project built by hand with an ESP32 and a small screen

a lot of what separates a project from a product is how it's shown. this article is about that

[Mitchell @MitcheIl]

https://t.co/tDOj60lFbt

[ard @ardchain]

this light can see your heartbeat through your skin

a green LED shines into the wrist. blood absorbs green light far more than the tissue around it

every heartbeat pushes a fresh pulse of blood through, so for a split second more light is absorbed and less bounces back

measure that tiny change over and over and draw it on a screen: one spike, one heartbeat

move the light away and the line goes flat

same trick as the sensor on the back of a smartwatch. this one is a homemade oscilloscope on a breadboard

[ard @ardchain]

this light can see your heartbeat through your skin

a green LED shines into the wrist. blood absorbs green light far more than the tissue around it

every heartbeat pushes a fresh pulse of blood through, so for a split second more light is absorbed and less bounces back

measure that tiny change over and over and draw it on a screen: one spike, one heartbeat

move the light away and the line goes flat

same trick as the sensor on the back of a smartwatch. this one is a homemade oscilloscope on a breadboard

[ard @ardchain]

@instantricecook the gyroscope is only in the earbuds, which are powered off while the case is closed. something doesn't add up here…

[ard @ardchain]

engineers undervalue one thing: being seen

two of my posts on the same ESP32 topic, ten days apart. same kind of work, very different reach

the demo you already built is the proof. what's missing is the first line that makes someone stop.

this article shows how

[ard @ardchain]

@Psalteric so many talents in the world go unnoticed

[ard @ardchain]

engineers undervalue one thing: being seen

two of my posts on the same ESP32 topic, ten days apart. same kind of work, very different reach

the demo you already built is the proof. what's missing is the first line that makes someone stop.

this article shows how

[Matt Epstein @mattepstein]

https://t.co/EvuZirefxS

[ard @ardchain]

@Psalteric works perfectly, the pinnacle of home engineering