Welcome to My Modern Renaissance!

Hello and welcome to My Modern Renaissance! The Renaissance was a time period in Europe from 14th to 17th century when people were clambering their way  out of the darkness that were the Middle Ages and emerging into the modern era. During this time was when numerous notable polymaths emerged. A polymath is an individual whose expertise spans a wide variety of areas. A couple examples would be Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei. While I by no means claim to have a drop of the expertise these great historical figures possess, I do however have an eagerness for many and all things such as these:

• Technology
• Drawing and painting
• Cars and motorcycles
• Music and dance
• Tennis
• Annoying my family and friends

Many of the items listed above exist entirely in the modern world hence, “My Modern Renaissance”, my blog’s name. Since these are my main passions, there is a good chance that they’ll show up on some o my posts, however there is no way that a predetermined list will cover all that you will have to hear from me!

If my 5th grade English teacher (from whom I learned the most about writing) saw this blog, she’d have a fit. I am by no means a writer and this blog will exemplify that fact. So expect many cringe-worthy mistakes if you still decide to read this blog!

So if the above list catches your attention and you have a high tolerance for bad writing, be my guest and tag along for this hectic journey!

P.S. Clicking on my hyperlink will probably be more worthy of your time than my posts! Most of them are links to Wikipedia articles that I find interesting, but others will be just random things I decided to share like music.

 

New Project! – Smart Mirror

When discussing all things tech, the term “smart” appears to pop up a lot. Making an object smart means to add some sort of technological aspect that makes it better. There are plenty of common objects today that have been made “smart”, the most notorious of which is the smartphone. Most of us have one by now and can see how much more useful and entertaining it is than a normal landline or flip phone. Some other smart items you’ve noticed may be smart watches and smart glasses.

Today I’m going to be talking about smart mirrors. Every day most people get up and stand in front of a mirror. Whether it’s for brushing your teeth or combing your hair, we all do it… but I’d like to do it a little bit better. That’s why I am embarking on a journey to create a smart mirror. Imagine waking up in the morning, walking in front of your mirror, and your reflection comes to life, with “Good Morning [Your Name Here]!” at the top. Smart mirrors like this exist, but most of them are DIYs that people do to only display information like the weather and the time. I want to go one step further and add a bit off pizzazz to the one I’m making! I am going to create a sort of hub that will also display a calendar, a to-do list, notifications, reminders, and much more! I have a terrible memory so a daily reminder while getting ready would do me some good. Plus, it’d be really cool!

In a two-way acrylic mirror, if a bright light shines on one side, it will be displayed on the other side of the mirror. That is the main principle I’ll be using to integrate a display into my mirror. If you have a display such as a computer monitor on one side that displays white letters on a black background, the letters will shine through. In order to prevent having to attach this display to a computer that is huge and unsightly, I’m going to be utilizing a Raspberry Pi 3. This machine is basically computer that runs Linux, and it can also fit in the palm of my hand! So, I can incorporate the Raspberry Pi 3 behind my mirror so that it can’t be seen.

I will be following this blog by Dylan Pierce just to get an idea of measurements, dimensions, and hardware, but I’ll be winging , much of the rest, like the software component.

My mirror is going to be different and more useful to me because it won’t be static. It’ll have a changing and updating feed for what I deem important day to day. To accomplish this, I’m going to make a website that I display on the mirror that will be stylized to look like a hub. I’ll port another website designed to look like a phone user interface to an Android app and run it on my phone. This app will be used to modify the hub, so I can update and add things whenever and wherever I go!

This is the basic premise for my project, and I’ll update you on my progress as time passes. I’ll be thinking of other additions as time goes on, so the whole project might morph a bit. At the end I will post a finalized sort of instructions outlining what I did if you decide to make one yourself!