Now that (most of) the clocks in my house (It’s Chris btw) are set to GMT and the leaves are turning orange we’re in a reflective mood at MCQN HQ. So the large whiteboard got pulled out for our planning meeting. It’s useful to look at where the projects on the board are at, and which are priorities going forward. It’s also the time we realise we really should be telling people about the My Bike’s got LED kits for the discerning cyclist looking to be seen this winter. (It was also a time to condsider alternative platforms to Tindie, but that’s for another day)

Over the last few weeknotes I have been feeling a bit repetitive with the ‘assisting customers with their boxes’ update. We document responses to the most common questions on an internal wiki, and some spawn issues to improve the experience. One thing that came out of the planning session was the need to create more detailed documentation for the box admin for users. Adrian described an interactive flowchart, highlighting the process for the task of interest. The intention is to cleanly present the relevant information, but be easily navigable to other tasks if needed. Along the way we will create some additional videos of key steps.

So I am currently getting to grips with the new to me flowchart markdown tool Mermaid Initally to plot the flows we need to describe box admin, hopefully in the coming weeks there will also be some more interactive content to show. For now I just get to create very long repo issue replies because this markdown is integrated in github and gitlabs.

Screenshot of a section of a flowchart showing users how to connect their Museum in a Box devices to the network. It was created using mermaid.js

Adrian has moved his Auracast broadcast Bluetooth audio experiments on a bit: he can now play the received audio out through some headphones, and therefore confirm that all these numbers that were showing up in the receive buffer actually do sound like tones when you turn them into audio.

He’s also got the beginnings of a VU meter on the LED matrix on the micro:bit. Not sure if the buzzer on the newer micro:bits is going to be up to playing proper audio, but at some point we’ll find out.

With the end of British Summer Time, he also was called in for some artist support. We’ve provided technical support to artist Angelo Madonna for his artwork Tide Piano in the past, and it needed to have its clock updated before the opening of his latest exhibition INTERMISSION.

A view of the Tide Piano: the frame of strings mounted horizontally with a plywood bridge running across, perpendicular to the strings. The bridge is split into two halves: each of which has a stepper motor and leadscrew mounted on top, driving the plectrum across the strings. In the background of the shot we can see the rest of the gallery with the video feed showing the close-up coil of a piano string projected onto the corner wall

It was great to see it in action again at the private view on Friday; it’s a piano frame, played by a pair of plectrums driven by stepper motors that move in step with the local tide. Every few minutes a note fills the room as one of the steppers move over a string.

Looking ahead a few weeks, Adrian will be down in London for the 14th-16th November. In part, it’s to attend the 15th anniversary of IoT London meetup but he’s looking to catch up with a few folk during the days too. So if you’re London-based and fancy a coffee, drop us a line.