I was thinking about what to write a blog post about. I set a weekly goal to at least work on a blog post every night, even if I don’t publish anything.
So, I did what I do and DuckDuckGo’d “how to find good blog post ideas”. That led me to How to come up with great ideas for articles, every single time. The #11 tip on that blog says to “Train your idea muscle” with a link to The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine.
That post is quite long and I only skimmed half of it. The suggestion that stuck with me is to practice coming up with ten ideas. By forcing yourself to do this, you’re exercising your “idea muscle”.
I’ll give it a shot with a component I played around with this weekend from my Raspberry Pi kit, a stepper motor.
Ten ideas using a stepper motor
- Attachment to the knobs on a stove top. It can turn the knob to reduce or increase heat over time. Remote control of stove allows for turning it off when not at home.
- Pot stirrer that hangs to the side of a slow cooker and stir the contents.
- Automated camera panner. Get a 360 degree view of an area every 30 seconds.
- Plant turner. Plants are accustomed to the sun moving throughout the day. Indoor plants or lights can be turned to simulate that.
- Physical progress tracker. Attach a circular whiteboard to the motor. The user can draw and calibrate points on the board. Feed scores or progress to the device through a local API to twist the board to indicate progress.
- Door lock attachment to remotely lock or unlock a door.
- Solar system model. Users can customize gears to change the speed of planets.
- Analog clock with independent hour/minute/second hands. They can overlap like a pseudo Venn-diagram or arranged as desired.
- Solar panel tilter. Turns a solar panel from east to west over the course of a day.
- Face tracking monitor. It attempts to aim a monitor such that it is perpendicular to a person’s line of vision.
Several ideas may be impractical. I don’t know the torque of a little 5V stepper motor. Putting it near food might not be the best idea, at least without a good case to keep it clean.
Other ideas are unsafe. I’m not sure if I would trust a hacky device controlling my stove top or locks on my doors.
The camera panner is easily viable. I’m working on an idea where I want to take pictures of my apartment for a whole year for a sort of time lapse. It could be interesting to take pictures from several angles without needing multiple cameras.
The solar system model sounds like a fun art project, as does the clock. I could set the clock up on the wall behind my desk. I could hang the solar system from the ceiling.
Reflection
It took an hour and a half for me to come up with ten uses for stepper motors. I feel embarrassed that it took so long. Maybe I have an atrophied idea muscle.
There are a couple ideas that I may pursue. I like this practice, and it works for straightforward blog posts this week if I don’t have other ideas.