A low-power, low-performance single-disk NAS for backup

I do in-house backups for my data, but the system that eats the data now is an all-in-one Intel Atom PC with a dying fan, and I don’t really trust it. Luckily we’re in the future, so fanless ARM-based computers are everywhere, so I built a little backup machine out of one. Details after the break.

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An Ocean-diving Rocket Pod Control System

Sorry I haven’t posted more. I have done some cool projects, but finding time to post has been hard. To help fill that gap, here’s a report I wrote up detailed a small chapter in my involvement with Team Blue Devil Ocean Engineering, which is Duke’s entry into the Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a world-wide contest to develop the technology to map 500 km^2 of ocean floor in 24 hours. It presupposes some knowledge about the project, which you can find in this brochure or even these slides, or you can just dive in and have fun gawking at this crazy thing we built, sunk 2km deep in the ocean, retrieved, then debugged.

Details of an intense 48-hour effort to build an deep-ocean-survivable Arduino control circuit for underwater rockets is after the break. It was written as an after-action report for the project, so the language is a bit drier than usual, but I think it’s still a fun read.

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