August 2016

Priorities

Ranking of priorities:

• Teaching preparation
• Ham radio
• Personal projects

Teaching

July preparation and notes: July 2016/Teaching Preparation

Procedure:

• Course syllabus draft
• Course outline draft
• Brainstorm about how to incorporate concepts into hw/exams/other

August course preparation:

• Programming - CSC 142 Course Notes
• Math - Math 107 Course Notes

UGR project:

• Notes: UGR Project
• July notes: July 2016/UGR Project
• Make concrete project plan and writeup
• Create your story, your objective, your scenario
• Nice link: Raspberry Pi IoT temperature sensor: http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2015/06/basic-temperature-logging-to-the-internet-with-raspberry-pi/

Ham Radio

General Upgrade

Big priority here is passing the general class license exam - see General page for notes

Passed my General 8/5/2016 at Defcon 24

Digital Modes

Main page: Radio/Digital Modes

Working through learning about digital modes. Right now, focusing on how to generate signals - independent of radios. SSTV and PSK.

Yaesu VX 6

Currently have a USB to line in cable, but this is basically useless without the Windows Yaesu software for interfacing with the VX-6. Fldigi and the hamlib library do not seem to have interfaces defined for the Yaesu VX-6.

Instead, I ordered a line in to two (2) audio-out jacks, so that this thing can be hooked up to a TNC modem (like the Raspberry Pi TNC that I have). Then you can have the VX-6 radio hooked up to the Raspberry Pi to transmit digital signals to a base station.

HackRF

Getting the HackRF working with Kali Linux: Kali/HackRF

Okay, so we're able to receive with the HackRF... Now what?

Projects

Raspberry Pi

Building an Internet of Things Thing platform out of Raspberry Pis, robust weatherproof cases, and various sensors. The components and sensors are listed below with more details.

Timelapse Camera

Working on a third timelapse shoot with the Raspberry Pi camera.

Major goals for this shoot:

• Have a working weatherproof camera case that is tripod-mountable
• Adjust camera brightness/contrast/white balance settings in script
• Fix minor annoyances from last time (LED, etc.)

Weatherproof case notes are here: RaspberryPi/Weatherproof Camera Case

Camera timelapse notes are here: RaspberryPi/Timelapse3

Integrating the weatherproof case is a part of this timelapse, so that's where things currently stand.

Next Steps

Want to turn the weatherproof Pelican case into a "platform" for internet of things thing - sensor - generating sensor data.

Hook up any manner of various sensors - starting with the most complicated sensor of all, a camera, and working our way back down.

Lots of different routes to pursue with this project. Examples include:

• Weather sensors, making this a plug-and-go weather station, working on remote connections, TNC modem, etc.
• Power - providing power from batteries, providing solar power to run the thing and recharge the batteries
• Using the camera for doing time-lapse movies
• Using the camera for performing active image analysis with Python (facial recognition, motion detection, active time-lapse analysis, etc.)
• Transmitting images via SSTV
• Serving up images, content, statistics, information via an encrypted wireless network
• Using a Widy as a central networking hub (DHCP server, router, etc.)
• Using a hardware switch for operating in different "modes"
• Listen mode/Analyze mode/Attack mode/Jamming mode/Wall of sheep mode/Honeypot mode
• Control circuitry - via telephone, or via web browser

There are simply too many ideas to try and implement all, or most, of them in one device. Instead, pick a particular application, work on that, and don't get sidetracked by a bazillion other things you could do with it. Let's focus on one thing at a time - focus on something in line with our goals - and focus on something useful for the UGR project, and building remote sensor networks.

What would fit the bill?

• Building a weatherproof, power-provided, plug-and-go sensor node/platform.
• One Raspberry Pi is your weather station. You're building in multiple sensors to analyze the environment - camera, humidity, ambient temperature, &c. Weather station Pi.
• One Raspberry Pi is your signals station. You're listening to wifi and other radio signals from the environment.

Programming

Python wireless tools

Needed for the undergraduate research project. Tools to analyze wifi data - what are we looking at? what is interesting? we need to have an actual illustration of a finished product goal to help them see the big picture of the whole project.

OpenCV

Image classification and learning with OpenCV - actually utilizing/analyzing camera data from the sensor

Answering simple questions - is there a car in this photo?

Graphene (Nope)

Kicking around the idea of starting back up with Graphene.

Notes on getting Cantera set up: August 2016/Cantera

Once you've got Cantera installed, you need to make sure you can run some simulations for Graphene: August 2016/Cantera Test

More notes/brainstorming on Graphene development: August 2016/Graphene

Reading

Started re-reading Brothers Karamazov - my dog-eared and much-underlined copy...

See My Reading List for full reading list

Gives me stirrings of thoughts about NaNoGenMo and a Brothers Karamazov bot.

This leads to thoughts of other Python projects: Python for computer vision, audio analysis and microphone recordings, music synthesis, maybe some language analysis bots