[0:00] Well, it’s the end of January, and I’ve just about recovered from Christmas.
[0:04] It’s time for a bit of reflection, and to start thinking about future projects.
[0:08] 2022 was a pretty amazing year for the channel.
[0:11] We went from just under 20,000 subscribers to almost 27,000.
[0:16] We’ve also had almost 800,000 views, with around 30,000 hours of watch time.
[0:21] That’s pretty amazing.
[0:23] Thanks to everyone for watching and subscribing, it means an awful lot to me.
[0:27] Thanks also to PCBWay for continuing to support the channel.
[0:30] We’ve had quite a few PCBs from them in the past year, and I’ve even been trying out
[0:34] some of their 3D printing services.
[0:37] As always, they’ve been great to work with, and I can’t help but recommend them.
[0:41] In terms of videos, I’ve got a few favourites that I’m pretty pleased with.
[0:45] The weird or solving robot was brilliant.
[0:47] One of those things that just seems to fall together and work really well.
[0:51] The Jumbo 7-segment display project was also great fun.
[0:55] Particularly the videos building up to it, where I was generating quite high voltages.
[0:59] I learned an awful lot, and I only killed one ESP32.
[1:03] The prize for the most bonkers video has to go to the spinning holographic LED fan.
[1:08] I’m not often scared, but with this one, I was terrified.
[1:12] I’m sure you’ve also got a favourite, let me know in the comments.
[1:15] All in all, it’s been a pretty great year for the channel.
[1:18] So what’s planned for this year?
[1:19] Well, in no particular order of priority, this is what I’ve got on my list.
[1:24] When we kicked off this channel, I had a real focus on using audio on the ESP32.
[1:29] It’s now been several years, and a lot of my sample code has suffered from BitRot and
[1:33] is out of date.
[1:34] I think it’s time to revisit this area and bring everything kicking and screaming into
[1:38] the present day.
[1:39] So watch out for some more audio videos.
[1:45] Staying on the subject of audio, I thought it might be fun to do some audio projects
[1:49] using the Raspberry Pi.
[1:51] It’s got a lot more power compared to the ESP32, and even more excitingly, it looks
[1:55] like we’ll actually be able to buy some this year.
[1:58] I’ve got quite a fun project in mind, so it should be pretty interesting.
[2:02] Keeping with the Raspberry Pi theme, I’ve got all the bits I need for a DIY microscope.
[2:07] I’ve had a lot of use out of my Andonstar, but I think it could be quite interesting
[2:10] to build my own using the Pi’s high quality camera.
[2:13] I think using a Pi will give me quite a lot of flexibility and I’m hoping I’ll be able
[2:17] to record from the camera and microphone at the same time, which will be great for shooting
[2:21] videos.
[2:23] The Wordle Solving Bot project was really interesting, I thought it might be good to
[2:27] do a bit of a deep dive into how you can use your own 3D printer as a robot.
[2:31] You can do some pretty amazing things and it’s really easy.
[2:34] I did make the mistake of trying to do everything over WiFi when I did the Wordle Bot, but I
[2:38] could have just done it over USB and made it much more reliable, so stay tuned for that
[2:42] video I think it’s going to be really useful.
[2:45] I’ve been really happy with my MHP30 mini hotplate from MiniWare, it’s been working
[2:50] really well, but it is tiny.
[2:53] I’ve got all the bits needed for a much larger DIY version, so I’d like to get on
[2:56] with that and try soldering up some larger PCBs at home.
[3:00] I’m also thinking of investing in a proper hot rework station, so any suggestions for
[3:05] a good one, please mention it in the comments.
[3:08] My new soldering iron uses a USB powered livery as does the mini hotplate, I don’t really
[3:13] need the hotplate to be portable, but it would be nice if I could power the soldering
[3:17] iron more easily.
[3:18] I’ve got some pretty big lithium sails and a control board to make a DIY power bank,
[3:23] so I’ll add this to the list as well.
[3:25] This may just form part of another video, but there may be enough content for a full
[3:28] one.
[3:29] Let’s see what happens.
[3:31] I replaced the batteries in my old keyboard with a rechargeable version last year.
[3:35] I’ve had the bits for doing the same to the trackpad sat on my desk for ages, so I want
[3:39] to get around to this and break my nasty battery habit.
[3:43] I made this nice e-paper weather display a couple of years ago, it works really well
[3:47] and it’s really power efficient.
[3:49] It only needs charging up every few months, but after playing around with a solar powered
[3:53] Christmas slice, I think I can improve on that.
[3:56] I’m going to try out a power scavenging board that should let me collect a lot more power
[4:00] from these small solar sails.
[4:01] This should let me get away with never charging the weather display.
[4:05] Pretty cool.
[4:06] To continue the experiments with the PCB motors, hopefully we’re getting closer to having
[4:10] something that will work well enough to create a haptic knob, but we still need to do a bit
[4:13] of testing and experiment, but it’s progressing nicely, so watch out for these videos.
[4:19] Staying on the haptic knob project, we want to be able to detect strain in the PCB.
[4:24] My partner in crime has been doing some experiments using surface mount resistors to do that.
[4:28] It’s pretty interesting stuff, so I think a bit of a deep dive into that would be fun.
[4:33] I’ve also been accumulating all the parts to make a sand table.
[4:36] These are amazing pieces of installation art.
[4:39] All I’m really missing are some laser cut parts and a nice enclosure for it.
[4:43] When I did the Super Science LEDs project, I got a bunch more PCBs made up.
[4:47] I was planning on making a giant calculator.
[4:49] I think we’ll probably get round to this sometime this year, my fingers are crossed
[4:53] for this one.
[4:54] I’m still messing around with wireless power.
[4:56] I did try and make my Christmas lights charge up wirelessly, but something went horribly
[4:59] wrong and I just ended up making magic smoke.
[5:02] I’ve got some new wireless boards to try out and this time I think they might work
[5:06] quite nicely.
[5:08] So that’s the immediate projects I’ve got components for.
[5:10] Obviously, this is all subject to change and there’s a bunch of other blue sky projects
[5:14] that I’ve got rattling around in my head, so who knows what will actually get built
[5:18] from the journalist and what other projects will come up.
[5:21] I’m still pretty interested in what’s happening in the world of AI, there’s lots of fascinating
[5:25] things going on, so maybe we’ll dig more into that area as well.
[5:29] As always, thanks for watching, I really appreciate it.
[5:31] I’ll see you in the next video.