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EE
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PULSE
EE
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Issue 12
September 20, 2011
Dino Segovis
Electronics Hacker /
Rapid Prototyper
Electrical Engineering Community
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
4
Dino Segovis
Self-Taught Hardware and Electronics Hacker/Rapid Prototyper
Interview with Dino Segovis - Founder of Hack A Week.
8
Inventing an Interactive Cat Toy
BY
DINO SEGOVIS
Learn about one of Segovis’s newest inventions—the interactive cat toy, Whack-A-Mouse!
11
From Touch to Call: Tracing the Path of
a Touch Gesture
BY
TREVOR DAVIS
AND
STEVE KOLOKOWSKY
WITH CYPRESS
Take an in-depth look into touch screens, from the physics of capacitive sensing to the final
action on the screen.
16
Smart Energy in the Home: How MCUs
Provide an Intelligent Solution
BY
STEVE DARROUGH
WITH IXYS-ZILOG
Darrough discusses Smart Energy improvements for both commercial buildings and
private residences.
19
RTZ - Return to Zero Comic
3
EE
Web |
Electrical Engineering Community
Visit
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INTERVIEW
Dino Segovis
Hack A Week
How did you get into
electronics/engineering and
when did you start?
It happened in 1973—I was 13 years
old. I used to watch a TV show on
PBS called ZOOM. It was produced
by WGBH in Boston. Each week
they had a DIY project they called
a “Zoom-do,” and one week it was a
crystal radio. I ordered the “Zoom-
do card” and set out to build one. I
got everything together and it didn’t
work. I checked and rechecked
everything, but it just wouldn’t work.
I later realized why. The instructions
said to use a “Cat’s whisker” which
I later found out was a thin piece of
wire. I used a REAL cat’s whisker
clipped from my Cat! Anyway, that
project sparked something inside
me. I was hooked! I started going
house to house asking people if
they had any broken or unwanted
radios and or TVs I could have so
I could learn about electronics. I
got tons of free stuff to mess with.
My Mom and Dad were pretty cool
about letting me experiment with it
all. I was taking apart TV sets and
old radios in my room and actually
fixing a few of them. I was in love
with electronics. I had an intuition
for understanding it.
What are your favorite
hardware tools that you use?
My Weller variable temperature
soldering iron, a good set of small
precision side cutters, my volt/ohm
meter and my hot glue gun. I want to
add a vertical mill and lathe to that
list.
Dino Segovis - Self Taught Hardware and Electronics Hacker / Rapid Prototyper
What are your favorite
software tools that you use?
I use Adobe Illustrator to draw all
my plans and schematics. It just
works. It’s simple and I like to keep
things simple. I also use Photoshop
a lot for editing photos that I use on
my projects, blogs, and for adding
text and guidelines to photos. True
Real Time Analyzer (RTA) is a very
useful and free waveform generator
and spectrum analyzer. I run it on
my bench laptop.
4
EE
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INTERVIEW
for revolutionizing the way people
communicate over distance, and
Guglielmo Marconi for creating
a device which enabled news
to travel faster than ever before,
thus enabling the beginning of the
information age.
What is your favorite
electronic component?
The 555 timer.
What has been your favorite
project?
That would be one I recently did on
Hack a Week, the “Whack A Mouse!”
I just love this thing! It was designed
to be a cat toy and I brainstormed it
all up without anything already out
there influencing the design. It’s a
silly toy that looks like a little house
with two mouse holes in the front,
one of which has a catnip-stuffed
mouse poking out of it. When the cat
paws at the mouse, a motor inside
retracts it and sends another mouse
out the other hole! What I love
about the design is its simplicity.
It functions on nothing more than
five switches, a servo, and a battery
pack with an on/off switch! Lots of
fun!
What is the hardest/trickiest
bug you have ever ixed?
I recently built a Fuel Injector Tester
that uses two 555 timers. I had it all
working fine on the bread board. I
drew up a PCB layout by hand and
etched a board. I placed all the
components in their places, turned
it on, and it didn’t work. So I sat down
with the schematic and went over
every single trace. They all checked
out, or so it seemed. I called it a
night and came back to it the next
day. I went over everything again
and again, testing the outputs from
each part of the circuit with an LED.
Suddenly the problem presented
itself. One of my traces was missing
a jumper! I just left it out for some
reason. The LED helped a lot with
that one. A very handy and simple
troubleshooting tool.
...Hack a Week, the
“Whack A Mouse!”
I just love this thing!
It was designed to
be a cat toy and
I brainstormed
it all up without
anything already
out there influencing
the design.
Do you have any note-worthy
engineering experiences?
I helped inspire a group of engineers
at the University Of Oklahoma this
spring to build a ball launcher after
a design I came up with. They
needed a little more information on
the mechanics of the device so I
made a video describing it in detail.
They ended up building their own
version. I really enjoy helping out
students.
What is on your bookshelf?
Digital Apollo
by David A. Mindell,
Failure Is Not An Option
by Gene
Kranz (one of my heroes).
The
Tube Amplifier Book
” by Aspen
Pittman, “
Zero – The Biography of
a dangerous idea
by Charles Seife,
and
Tektronix 453 Oscilloscope
Instruction Manual
.
Do you have any tricks up
your sleeve?
Keep it simple! This also applies
to troubleshooting. The solution is
usually the simple one so look there
first. My approach to design is with
simplicity in mind. Simple means
less variables, less things that can
fail. Of course this is all dictated by
what the thing is being designed to
do. Sometimes things have to be
complex. Let form follow function
and the thing will practically design
itself!
In 2009 I was in Maker Faire San
Francisco with a robot I built from
a hacked toy and I won an Editor’s
Choice award! Kip Kay ended up
shooting an interview with me which
ended up in his “Weekend Projects”
series. A few years ago I pioneered
a technique to apply silicone to
Who are your three favorite
inventors?
Nicola Tesla because he believed in
himself and never gave up pursuing
his dreams. Alexander Graham Bell
5
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