somenice – Art & Robotics

Old man shakes fist at cloud animation

October 27, 2025

My Arduino UNO Q arrived today and I eagerly unboxed and admired the board layout. The north-south resister “cities” contrasting with the led matrix 45 degree slant. New chips but all of the pin layout of classic Arduino boards. Lots of business going on underneath which is also new.

Now if you haven’t aready, please read my previous post.

Sucks that the first thing you need to do is read another article.

Well..

The first thing Arduino App Lab asked me to do was flash the board after installing a CLI (Command Line Interface) tool. This is not just the update software upon arrival we’ve all come to experience. That would also come later. This requires female to female jumper cables to short two pins. Not exactly beginner friendly.

I understand these are early days and there will be some bumps to get user friendly software and hardware.

Unfortunately I choose “Get Flasher Tool” instead of “Skip” which I abandoned, then got stuck in a set-up loop. After restarting App Lab App, I now had a choice between two boards? Because I was stuck after setting up the Wifi, it showed two UNO Q boards. “USB” and “Network” being the only difference.

Now the update… 15 minutes wha?

Board name however cannot be the default…

errr U”NOpe”Q.

Way too much friction during onboarding for my liking.

I did manage to get in and duplicate the Weather demo, update the location string found on the Arduino side of things, and get it running.

Some interesting stuff with this unique Python/Arduino setup is that it uses a newer version of Python than I currently have installed when it creates a virtual environment.

The most annoying thing right now is the Arduino App Lab 0.1.28 for Mac window blink. It randomly looks like the window is gaining and losing focus. Purple – Grey, Grey – Purple etc. Some mouse hover seems to trigger it briefly but not reproducible.

I tried to take a look at App Lab source seeing as it is open source to see if I could contribute in any way but found a bunch of TypeScript and SCSS.
Fine for someone who hates the web and builds “Apps” not “Web Pages” but not my monkeys, not my circus.

I’m a bit more familiar with UI now but I think the Learn > First Setup would be a good onboarding option during the users first UNO-Q connection.

My real vision for this board will be to combine the use of low power microcontroller to trigger more powerful Linux abilities.
“is there a face? > Run Facial recognition” etc.
Sensors running on microcontroller can be tied directly to webserver. Lots of ideas with this dual combination, each with their own strengths.

Next steps will test some I2C sensors.
Qualcomm Acquires Arduino

October 7, 2025

At todays “blink to think” event a new Arduino board was released, the Arduino Q, however perhaps most important was the announcement that chipmaker Qualcomm had acquired Arduino for an undisclosed amount.

After watching the entire two hours of announcements I’m not crazy about this but I remain cautiously optimistic.

My first Arduino was the 2009 Duemilanove followed by multiple other boards, Uno R3, R4, Mega, leonardo, lilypad, Mini, Sense, etc.

I still have my first breadboarded “Arduino” while getting really into electronics in about 2010.

Full upfront disclosure: At the time of writing, this author has a very minor holding in Qualcomm shares, purchased in April 2025, shortly after their acquisition of Edge Impulse.

You see, for years I have been a huge fan of both Arduino and Edge Impulse. I truly believe in AI “at the edge” or on device. TinyML as it was once known ran on select Arduino boards, and has expanded to larger more capable models run on beefed-up dedicated accelerator hardware as well. Large or small, Edge Impulse makes collecting data, training small AI models, and running inference easy. It runs on a bunch of different boards/chips, and that has not changed so far after 6 months under Qualcomm. The founders remain to this date, and this is what I hope for Arduino.
The Edge Impulse service had been built into the Arduino IDE a while ago in a slick software white labelling which is why todays news seems to make sense to me.

And while this reads as huge chip conglomerate absorbing a beloved open-source hardware company and community, they didn’t need to buy. They could have just taken, like many clone or knock-off arduino boards, it’s all open and free to do so.

Some of the community reaction has been negative. Phillip Torrone aka PT of Adafruit has written about, advocated, and contributed to open source hardware for years. There may be literally no one more qualified to talk about open source.
Recently critical of Arduino’s closed source “Pro” boards and VC funding, he writes about “Turning Maker Dreams into Shareholder Value“. With hints of 2014 documentary Print the Legend as a recent blueprint, I really respect Phil’s views.

Here is where I feel there might be some hope…

First, Edge Impulse has so far been allowed to continue independently and continue to support competing silicone.

Arduino vows to continue to support and add other future vendors.

Today’s hardware announcement from Arduino runs Debian Linux, runs Zephyr RTOS. The Qualcomm accelerator chip supports OpenGL ES. Qualcomm has a Director of Software – Open Source. The CEO Fabio Violante says there is Gerber files and schematics coming soon for the Arduino Q.
It supports Qwiic I²C connection made popular by both Sparkfun and Adafruit.

They seem to really align with many open source initiatives at this point.

Sure this could change at any time. Time will tell.

I’ve got two on pre-order.

Like I said, at this point I’m cautiously optimistic.
Coding with Claude Code

August 4, 2025

Vibe coding, code assistance, no-code, call it what you want. “AI” coding tools are likely being used to produce a good majority of software today. And for good reason as they have come a long way in a short time. A popular article written this week titled Claude Code is a Slot Machine comically describes the mechanics.

This is my experience with using Anthropic’s Claude Code tool, having paid a month on the Pro Plan recently.
I have prevously used Github Co-Pilot, chatted with OpenAI’s Chat-GPT, used Google AI Studio with Gemini, and many others. In fact, in many cases I use multiple AI models or companies to compare the output of the same request or “Prompt”.
Peer code reviews if you will.

What is Claude Code and how it different from Chat GPT or CoPilot?
It essentially takes action from the terminal to create/edit/delete whole projects from the command line interface. It can add proper Classes and Functions, fetch APIs, adjust interfaces, import libraries, even perform Git actions pushing code to production with just a suggestion. It does this all the while it enthusiastically replies to your prompts. “Perfect!”, “That’s a great idea!”, “You are the best!”.

Creating from the Microscopic and Macroscopic level offer similar amazing orchestration.
At the 10,000 foot level it’s pretty cool to see a coding agent throw together an entire working framework such as a Python based Django with Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s also quite useful to refine algorithms, shuffle pixels on a display interface, or change slight webform behaviour.

Having domain knowledge helps immensely. Prompting a LLM or AI Agent to do your bidding can be really successful if you know what you want. Feeding source information such as examples, schematics, charts, PDF’s etc will get you the most accurate return.

You get an immediate satisfaction when these coding tools save you time creating the boilerplate or framework but notice it takes more time to refine or steer the results. Recently announced Subagents make maintaining or pegging down specifics a lot easier.

If you are a stickler for anything, having a subagent to focus on that detail can be convenient way to maintain quality assurance. A Brand Standards Design subagent for example could refer to a design document and catch any infractions as updates are made by Claude. I giggle to think that in the future having a “Seat at the Table” might just be a subagent. “Marketing-subagent had a great new campaign idea but Legal-subagent won’t allow it.”

As for the slot machine reference, there is the repeated action-then-wait command prompting. Tokens ticking by and clever synonyms Claude is “running”. Followed by win after win.

I really do appreciate the Todo lists Claude churns out to detail what it will perform next. Showing the work may be where some trust is formed. Letting you know it’s only going to do these four things. Checking the boxes as it goes.

Error recovery and creating self-tests is quite impressive. Hardly ever did it seem to trip up. However at some stage I imagine vibe-code may be difficult to debug if unfamiliar.

It’s impressive to see progress specifically towards code generation quality. With MCP and the ability to control other tools, I can see Claude performing more and more custom actions in the future.
Winter at the Beach

May 11, 2025

A couple more pictures from the Nikon FM with Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
This time using Ilford Delta 100 film, developed in Ilfosol 3 for 5 minutes at 20°C
Fairly rare for snow in Vancouver to stick around very long.

Trees really are the lungs of the earth.
The negative I developed looked like lightning. I like this one.

I’m a bit slow to shoot a whole roll of 36 and develop it so it feels out of season while currently enjoying Spring.
5 Frames with Nikon FM and Fomapan 100

February 8, 2025

On a few photowalks around Kitsilano in Vancouver BC with my first roll of Fomapan Classic 100.
All pictures shot with older, non-AI Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Developed in Ilford Ilfosol3 for 5 minutes at 20°C and scanned with a cheap film scanner. Color has been removed and some levels adjusted slightly.

Gate to the Northwest Passage

Here at this impressive 4.6m (15ft) art installation sculpture by Alan Chung Hung (built in 1980) I walked around appreciating how the profile changes as you view it from different angles. The rusting weathered steel boasts some great textures and patina.
Without a battery for the FM I metered using a phone app and shot handheld usually 1/125

Museum of Vancouver

The Museum of Vancouver was rehoused in this funky building in 1968. As I walked up the street I noticed a stormy backdrop over the city with light getting through to the building. The ramp curves help frame the picture a bit as well I think.

False Creek – Burrard and Granville Bridges

Vancouver really does have great looking bridges. Down at the public boat launch you can look down False Creek. Maybe too washed out, I may like the landscape version of this better but this one has some tension.

Seaforth Armoury

This Canadian Forces LAV III or Light Infantry Vehicle sits at busy Burrard Street in front of the Seaforth Armoury. With a 50mm lens I needed to back up to the curb with a sidewalk and bike path in between. Head on a swivel.
You can really make out some of the soft grain in the white building behind.
The lighting and perhaps a cheap scanner make that front tire look Photoshopped but it’s not.

Wharf Light

I liked this shot even though there appears to be glare and light leaks. At the edge of the public boat launch dock in frosty temperatures I remember feeling a bit nervous and perhaps gripping the camera a bit firmer than normal.

Took me a while to both get through a roll of 36 and also to narrow down to just five pictures. Happy with the results and will definitely use Fomapan 100 again.