Hardware beta testing has begun!

I am pleased to announce that a box of 16 Rascals arrived from China on Tuesday, the first Rascal sale has been made, and the first Rascal has been shipped to a Distinguished Gentleman in the District of Columbia. I've been working on the Rascal for exactly a year as of tomorrow. It's taken longer than I expected, but the result is also far more awesome than what I originally had planned.

A few of the beta units are being tested by courageous individuals over the next few weeks. When the Rascal software has matured, I'll send out an email inviting normal people to join the vanguard of internet gadgeteers. Sign up for the mailing list if you're interested.

Rascal demo ready for action

In related news, there's now a demonstration of a Rascal connected to the web.

It's a simple setup that reads the voltmeters ("A/D converters") on the Rascal and graphs the results. The voltmeters are connected to a relay, a capacitor, and a temperature sensor. You can turn the relay on and watch the capacitor charge up, or turn it off and watch the capacitor discharge. It's good example of the basic capabilities of the Rascal-- monitoring and control through the web.

(I'll keep the demo up for the next day or two, but if you're reading this in mid-April, or 2016, or similar, it will probably be gone.)

I announced this demo via email to a couple of my engineer friends earlier today, and within 1 minute, the relay on my desk that you control with the demo was clicking on and more wildly. As the afternoon went on, multiple people attempted to use the relay to send me messages in Morse code. (I don't know Morse code well enough to have translated them on the fly, but I've been told that one of them said H-I-F-R-O-M-M-A-T-T.)

Look at this beautiful fleet of Rascals!