I have reached my second milestone! This milestone has been a very complicated experience for me. I got used to tools and instruments that were utterly foreign to me just a couple of weeks ago. I learned how to use a drill, saw, and dremel.  More importantly, I learned how to apply these skills to build structures. I would say a major challenge I faced was getting used to using these tools. The biggest difficulty in getting used to using these tools are realizing the strength and power these tools possess. But the repetitive nature of building my structure in particular enabled me not comfort but the familiarity of a budding skill- building.

I have reached my first major milestone! The installation of the MagicMirror program is victorious. I have hooked up my pi to the monitor and customized almost every little bit to the terminal display and the name of my raspberry pi. I learned how to connect my raspberry pi to my computer via SSH. Figuring out what SSH was a challenge I truly struggled with. I felt as though I could never get it done. However,  I put in a lot of time and eventually figured it all out to the point that I can SSH with no problem at all. I inserted my pi’s address through a command on my macs terminal and entered my password. I heard that learning that is just about half the battle of the Pi. Today, I learned how to modify, save, and edit on Nano text editor. On Nano Text editor I enabled the MagicMirror to autostart properly using pm2. Through the Pi’s text editor I have added lines to certain files to allow the program to automatically start up.  I have also just started my very own module. I am at the very beginning of the process of what I want it to do. Although I am not sure what I want my module to do I have added a directory for the module. My module is installed on my pi and added to the MagicMirror folder. My future plans include building on my module. I hope to not only figure out what I want it to do but I plan on having it coded and up and running. I plan for my second milestone to feature the finalization of the framework and cutting of the mirror.

The theremin is an underappreciated instrument as it is now associated with cheesy often B rated Sci-Fi movies. Created in the 1920’s it is credited for being the very first electronic instrument. What’s really funny about the theremin is that it was in fact created by accident. Leon Theremin initially tried to build a sonar device for the Soviet Union but stumbled upon something that interested his musical mind. He realized that our body’s capacitance could be used musically. I would like to note that Capacitance is the ability to hold an electrical charge. So the sound produced is influenced by the capacitance of our bodies. In my Junior theremin the piezo acts as the speaker. These two buttons change the mode of the theremin to give variety to the sound. The small black chip in the center of the board on IC2 is a microcontroller which is a small computer that works as the brain of the theremin. This similar looking 555 timer IC chip nearest the orange aerial wire specializes in the timing of the theremin. The LEDs demonstrate the pitch of what the theremin is playing. The l805 regulator converts the output 9V battery into 5 volts of power through the circuit.  So in order to produce a noise, you must disrupt the capacitance of the circuit. A challenge that I faced when creating my theremin was understanding the concept and physics behind what a theremin is and how my pitch-only theremin works. But I understood after reading about the physics behind it as well as being able to see it and experiment with it myself. When I place my hand along the aerial wire by exposing the capacitance of my body, I am changing the capacitance of the circuit itself. The pitch of the noise created is dependent on the distance of my hand to the wire, and that’s why you hear such a unique sound. Creating my starter project was an intriguing experience. It forced me to learn about an unfamiliar concept that turned out to indeed fascinate me.