Living The Dream

Some days living the dream is harder than others. Today was one of those days. Work on AMOS was delayed for about an hour this morning due to a clogged kitchen sink. I tried using a plunger, sucking the drain with a shop vac, and poking around with a long piece of plastic, to no avail. The smell of the water that came out had a disgusting fishy odor, but whatever solid material was in there was not budging. While doing this, Kirsten was in a minor panic before her math test, and was texting every few minutes for advice on how to solve a couple of problems.

After giving up on the sink, I continued adding some code to the iOS version of Boat Captain for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communications with the AMOS remote controller. Here's a picture of the remote controller inside a waterproof Pelican case:

Some of the wires in there have pins on both ends and are intended for prototyping boards. The problem though is that sometimes the crimped connections to these pins fail (especially when you cram the wires into little boxes). I wasted 2 hours on Friday trying to figure out why some new software changes were not working; only to discover that a broken wire in the remote controller box was to blame.

After the morning sun had charged AMOS up a bit, I took the Android phone, the remote controller box, and AMOS and headed over to the beaver pond across the road. Normally the area of the pond near the road is overgrown with grass and vegetation, but at this time of year, there is a nice bit of water there, with a substantial layer of ice a couple of inches below the surface.

Here was the launching point for AMOS:

The moment the propeller was turned on, I heard a loud honking coming from nearby:

It was a large goose, and he (or she) did not seem pleased to have AMOS motoring around on its turf. It did eventually stop honking, but remained standing nearby for at least half an hour. Driving AMOS around in this location was pretty tricky. There were a lot of ice patches, tufts of grass, and a high amount of wind. AMOS seemed a bit under-powered. Maybe a beefier motor and propeller would help things a bit. Possibly it would have been easier to steer if the phone acted as a tilt controller, instead of using regular push buttons, ex: tilt forward to go forward, tilt left to turn left, etc. Eventually AMOS ran aground on an ice patch, so I just left it there to grab some lunch and then ran to Measurand.

After supper, I returned to the pond to find that AMOS was still in the same spot, but the ice had risen up under it. Of course it was still impossible to get AMOS moving off the ice on its own power, but an attempt to do so attracted the attention of a curious beaver who poked his head up a couple of times to have a look.

Fearful of what might happen to AMOS overnight if I left it with the geese and beavers, I went back home to fetch the kayak. With a bit of effort, I was able to slowly paddle and pole the necessary 100 feet or so to retrieve it and bring it back to our backyard. 

I spent the remainder of today ramming a plumber's snake down our kitchen drain, without any luck. Still clogged, so I guess we will have to call a plumber. Kirsten said she aced her math test though, so at least there's that! 😸