I'm finishing up the button box project that I've been working on since September. It's a holiday gift for each my coworkers.

Button Box

My Sense energy monitor came in the mail last weekend. I installed it the following day. Due to some technical glitches on the recently released Android app; I wasn't able to log in to check my data for a few days. The support people at Sense were very helpful, they diagnosed the bug and pushed through an update to the app. My monitor has yet to identify many devices, just my AC, fridge, and an "Unnamed Motor1" - which sounds pretty cool.. but I'm pretty sure it's just the AC condenser since all my large motors are still waiting to be unpacked from their boxes.

Overall the app is pretty neat; the different sized bubbles are a nice way to visualize the differences in power usages. I've found myself a few times now, running around the house looking for the source of the power draw.

I forgot to take a picture of the install, but it was real simple - just had to clam the two amp meters around the mains lines, punch out a slot to run the wifi antenna outside the box, and tap into a couple breaker bars to power the Sense unit. I really wanted to open up the Sense unit, but they sealed its enclosure up pretty good (not surprising since it's running two 120V lines as input power).

So yesterday my uRadMonitor finally came in the mail. It took a couple hours to solder everything onto the board. My unit is now reporting data at ​http://www.uradmonitor.com/, so now we have a radiation monitor in Williamsburg, VA :)

I need to get around to creating a project page for this guy, but as of right now the bot is capable of being driven around remotely and here are some videos of testing it from a few weeks ago.

Everyday that I would come back to work on this project I would start off with weird issues, mostly completely unexplainable.. Turns out it was my project cats, helping out over night. They wouldn't actually pull the wires out of the breadboard but they tug on them enough to disconnect the pins from the traces and so it would appear as if the connections were intact. So I'm in the process now of making an enclosure, and after that the plan is to wire up some ultrasonic ping sensors for collision detection (trying to avoid denting the wall too much).

So I have a fairly large tree stump in the back yard that I'd like to get rid of, or hollow out a bit to use as a decorative flower pot. I assumed that thermite was not going to be particularly useful on the stump, but I've always wanted to make thermite. I heard countless anecdotal stories about how awesome it is, and it's relatively easy to put together so I figured I'd give it a try...

And yeah, it really wasn't effective at all on the stump :) It was fun though, and it took a few tries to get the mixture to the point that it instantly ignited with the magnesium strips. The initial reaction was short lived and hard to ignite, so I had to increase the ratio of aluminum.

I also tested the thermite on a steel lid, and was a little disappointed.. I'm sure that I could have further tweaked the mixture to make the reaction more effective, and I could have set up a better "funnel" system for the molten metal, but I don't think I could have made it effective enough to melt through the steel lid.

**And after doing a quick search on thermite's effectiveness on steel I ran across this well documented video where 'NightHawkInLight' tried to melt steel but had no luck, even after trying several different additives. It's a bit sad, because in my mind I still want to believe that thermite is that super amazing compound that when ignited on a car hood "will melt straight through hood and engine, until it hits the ground"..