MMM, Javascript!

Having recently moved, all my arduino gizmos and 3d printers are packed away in the garage. (sadface!)   I figured in the interest of keeping my blog going, I'll shift gears a little bit.     I recently accepted the position of Senior Frontend Developer at a very well funded "startup" backed by an age-old brick and mortar.   This means I'll finally be able to shed much of the "burden" that being a Coldfusion developer has created in my career.  

I've been a fan of Javascript for a loooong time.   I remember making "dynamic" pages with lots of iframes and some very cryptic code.   It's aged well over the years with many new tools and several shifts in the overall mindset of its application.    Along came jQuery and I was in love - write less code?!   I'm in.    The newly-wed stage lasted for a few years and other trends came and went.   After attending some conferences that were less coldfusion-centric, my interest was ignited again when I was introduced to the world of "full stack javascript" and MV* frameworks for the front end.

I worked on several projects with NodeJS, then introduced MongoDB, then AngularJS.   I really started to sink my teeth into Angular!   Suddenly, I was writing large chunks of functionality with very few lines of code!  

I'm looking forward to writing more about the tools I'll be using in my new position, so please stay tuned!  

Mozzi - Arduino synthesis at its best!

It's been a little while since my last post, and I didn't want to neglect my blog!    I've been making good progress (considering how little time I've had available lately) on my RGB Matrix Button Pad.    I've got the LED's sorted, and I've got the buttons reading in data (altho, it doesn't seem quite right).  So, the next step there is to implement whatever serial protocol i decide on  (likely will be arduinome variant).

I ran across this library today during my routine geek searches.  It's called Mozzi (http://sensorium.github.io/Mozzi/) and it looks pretty cool indeed!  

From the Mozzi Homepage:

Currently your Arduino can only beep like a microwave oven. Mozzi brings your Arduino to life by allowing it to produce much more complex and interesting growls, sweeps and chorusing atmospherics. These sounds can be quickly and easily constructed from familiar synthesis units like oscillators, delays, filters and envelopes. 

You can use Mozzi to generate algorithmic music for an installation or performance, or make interactive sonifications of sensors, on a small, modular and super cheap Arduino, without the need for additional shields, message passing or external synths.

How cool is that?!   Implementing oscillators, envelopes, filters and more, with a very simple, streamlined arduino library.   I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on it!!