Soldering the Octolively Kit

Note, I decided to solder the switch on the front of the board as the instructions say is an option; this way we can turn on the board as we play with it more easily!

Here are my learnings:

 

These were so tiny, but they are in the kit! So look for them before you solder the LEDs since the LEDs are much taller and you'll have to otherwise hold the 6 pin onto the board and potentially burn your finger like I did… haha ;-)


Evil Mad Scientist's kits:
http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/Octolively

The $90 Spark Fun Kit is also highly recommended.
Over the Christmas break we played with it with our 7 year old niece and 11 year old nephew.
The 7 year old had just enough motor control to place all the leads into the breadboard, whereas the 11 year old was programming combined exercises together -- sound + buttons, morse code, reaction game, ...
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11576

Drawing Lessons

My 7 year old niece is very into crafts and interested in drawing.
So instead of the usual math or programming activities we do with the nephews, I decided to make an illustrated video with her this Christmas!

I was trying to encourage her to free-hand draw more.
Unfortunately she still mostly preferred tracing most of the time.

Here's our first draft in Keynote.
I asked her to name and type the titles of each illustration.

There are a few more scenes I would like to add including singing Frozen songs all week and practicing the Cup song.

I wanted her to learn that things don't need to be perfect first off; we can iterate!
I also purposely did not correct the angles of the pictures to see if she'll learn to take better pictures of the drawings next time.

I didn't have exciting Christmas songs, so we upgraded to Animoto and of course used one of their spiffy styles!


And here's an Animoto version w pics.
We took some videos over Christmas, so hopefully I can add those in once the brother-in-law finishes them.

Your Majesty

Our cat Gray has been sick. We were not sure he was going to make it.
However, after a blood transfusion from a technician's cat, and several days of IV, Gray began to finally eat out of his food bowl again.

I commended him in that dog owner voice, "Good booooyyy."
And I immediately felt bad about offending him for talking to him like a dog.

...
Your majesty. I'm so honored you are eating again ...

Last Strawberries of the Season

Probably the last strawberries of the year. It's been getting colder in Cali.
I love the garden irrigation the hubby helped me put together when we first got the house.

This past year we tried strawberries & tomatoes outside; they worked great. I had to give away tons of tomatoes and strawberries to friends and neighbors throughout the year.
The first year we had cucumbers, romaine lettuce, sugar snap peas. They grew much faster than we could eat them.

We haven't been cooking the basil we're growing indoors.
In the next year, I want to try green grapes. I hope I have enough land to grow them!

Fixing Bikes for the Community

A girl friend and I volunteered at the bike workshop today, fixing bikes for under-served children. We learned so much about bikes in just 3 hours.
Ppl who were just a bit more experienced were helping those w less experience. If anyone needs more help, we just look for ppl who have even more experience. Really interesting chain of mentorship.
Someone organized it really well, had the passion to set up the whole process, tools, new equipment, ... Admirable.
We learned to inflate tires the 'right' way, took tires apart, put in new tubes, started to work on brakes, tuning spokes, ...

So many bikes get stolen in the bay area ...
I hope by providing more affordable bikes, ppl not buying from shadey individuals, bike theft would go down ...

Learning team work and confidence building!

Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition

http://bikesiliconvalley.org/bikeex

Nurturing 2 Birds with 1 Nest

Instead of saying "killing 2 birds w 1 stone,"
we should instead say that we are "nurturing 2 birds w 1 nest."

Less violent.


It takes a village to raise children.

Monsters U

A great movie that I'd bring children to go see.
Lots of great morals told in non-trite manner; learning is fun! Team work.

Another great one was "How to Train a Dragon."
[Spoiler Alert]
It was amazing they ended the story with a child who had to amputate a limb. Fantastic story of perseverance.

Blueberry Season

But...i also accidentally stepped on one of my tomato plants 

The squirrels are adept at getting these yummy berries. We never have much left despite having planted 3 along the path.
These blueberry plants are however not getting full sunshine throughout the day, and hence the stunted growth.

Tomato Time Lapse

i know this is not going to earn an academy award, but i finally put up the tomato time lapse the other day 
johnny thinks the big change is due to it actually doing a lot of growing at night!

Online Accounts for Children -- Power of Attorney Option

Instead of today's process where the parent has to falsify a child's age (above 18) in front the child when creating an online account, what if all online accounts allow the option to add 'Power of Attorneys'.

In today's world, it seems inevitable to provide our children access to the powerful tools online -- Google Calendar, Skype, ...

What if we can set up affiliate users who can view and monitor another user's account?
The set up can be as simple as, who else can 'log into' this child's account.

More advanced integration can involve the affiliates having options to [Flag] or [Hide] inappropriate posts. The affiliates can also be limited with the inability to send email under this child's account, thereby setting respectable boundaries and consent between the child and parent.

 


This idea can be extended for any account in case of an emergency or a passing of an individual (elderly parent). Loved ones just need to log into their own account, and since they are flagged as 'Power of Attorneys' to these individuals' accounts, enables the loved ones to access the other's account and gather the needed information.

Down Syndrome User Friendly UIs

My 40 yr old down syndrome brother knows how to use YouTube on the iPad to watch an old anime series. he tends to watch stuff he was more cognizant of in his younger years. Revolving around old memories seems to be an important part of his world. Youtube's 'Other videos like this' feature allows him to just tap with one finger and always get to another episode. I've heard parents tell me their 2 year old knows how to use YouTube on the iPad, but seeing it first hand with my brother is so much more moving. With an ipad, the world is open to my brother. He can discover things where previously he might just rock himself in the dark or sleep all the time from boredom.

Ideal Corporate UX Structure - A mix of a Central UX team And Partner Large UX teams

As I sit and listen to the annual All Hands, there are a lot of small teams who want to hire ux talent. The corporate goal is to hire global top talent. I can see it difficult for these small teams having difficulty attracting top UX talent.

So, what if the company developed a central UX group in conjunction with large sister ux teams dedicated to the company's top products.
The designers in the central ux team would divide their time 70 or 20% on the smaller product teams while dedicating the rest of their time supporting and developing the corporate ux brand and design standards.

The separate ux groups would be for product specified teams that require a larger and fully dedicated team of designers.

By having a central ux team, we can attract top talent to work on the central brand yet also can support the smaller teams.

The responsibility, egos, and power could be better balanced.

So instead of debating whether a company should have a central ux group or disparate ux groups, have both structures. There are pros and cons of both strategies; if we support both, we can have the best of both methods and hopefully cancel out the cons the silo-ing of the 2 structures caused.