I tried writing a number of pieces on the design of my “Kegbot” system, an RFID beer control system. From the main concept, to the security models, to implementation, I was going to cover it all. However, a lot of my writing was in retrospect — months of retrospect.
Before I started writing the articles, I “finished” the project. The project was far from finished but a failed test run (i.e. a kegbot party) crushed any faith I had in completing it successfully. While hotwiring the kegline open I killed my Arduino; that was my second Arduino. The remaining effort I made was in shelving the damned thing.
Being a clone/redesign of an existing idea, it inevitably had a name change coming. Posting the client code caught the attention of the Kegbot project; they told me asked me politely to change the name. I had no issue with this, so I decided I would. I brainstormed some names, asking friends and colleagues. I soon after registered various possible domain names: beerarbiter.com, kegb.org, pourlogic.com… PourLogic — aww yeah!
The thinking long and hard about a name for the project I felt I failed miserably at got me reinvested in it. Instead of a rickity Kegbot clone, it began to feel like it’s own thing.
Slowly reinvigorated, I began to think about the problems I had with the failed run; the console-based administration, the breadboard circuitry that caused me to hotwire my Arduino to death… That was it! I quickly ordered a prototyping shield. I needed a prototype shield, to have everything soldered on nicely with line-quenching buttons and no wire-to-wire death!
When it arrived, I assembled the essential parts of the shield with glee! It didn’t fit; the prototyping board would not fit over my fat old ethernet shield.
A fellow hackerspace member asked me something along the lines of, “Why do you keep buying Arduinos? Just put your programmed chip into your own board.”
“Because I need ethernet, SD, and the works!” I replied. But he was right. I should have made my own board. The schematics for the Arduino and my ethernet shield are publicly available. What’s stopping me from integrating them into a PCB too? So I began.
It occurred to me that if, by the end of the process, I had the full parts list and PCB layout for the PourLogic board, kits could be made available. If kits were available then more people would have the board. If more people had the board then there would be many deployments of the PourLogic server. If there were many deployments then there would need to be an account made for each patron on each server of each bot he/she gets served at. Ergo, the PourLogic server needed to be a service. So I began work on redesigning the server.
And that’s the story so far. The board and public PourLogic service are pending.
Anyway, the articles — they became irrelevant as the entire thing went through an evolution before I published them.
All I wanted to say was that I wrote a few articles on the development but was too slow to publish them, so I deleted them. Sorry.
