Today we debut a new monthly video series: Projects with Ryan Slaugh. Each new episode will air on the first Tuesday of the month. The series aims to help people with their own projects by offering ideas, techniques, and inspiration. While most projects will be electronics related, many of them built around Arduino and Raspberry Pi, some will offer insight on using specialized tools and working with different materials. The projects will range from easy to challenging and from application-based to something just for fun.
Ryan, 35, lives in eastern Washington with his wife of ten years and four children on an 8-acre farm where they raise various animals. As for his maker cred, he has an AAS degree in electronics, a BS in software engineering and he will be completing a masters in system engineering this fall. He has more than 14 years of experience working in electronic labs, designing, building, testing, and deploying many different systems. But most of his training came off the job and outside of academia.
My first, and greatest, teacher was (and is still) my father, a journeyman electrician. I grew up on a farm so not only did he teach me electrical, but also construction, welding, concrete, woodworking, working with animals, working with crops, and how to figure out problems and build things using only what you have on hand. Together we wired many industrial, residential and commercial properties. Everything from homes to potato cellars, churches to restaurants.
At home I make things for enjoyment and out of necessity. On our small farm I have needed to build things like chicken tractors, grain feeders, and a better system for moving my irrigation lines. I also build electronic gadgets for use by my family (games for the kids, yogurt maker, etc.) and a local youth group that I am a leader for. Apart from that, I love to do woodworking and challenging myself with bigger projects.
In his first video, Ryan shows us how to make an Arduino-powered, Pelican case-encased mobile prototyping platform for writing code, arranging tools, and all around making.
See the whole series here.
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