2021 Wrap-Up | Jan Neumann

We’re wrapping up this week with Jan Neumann, Third Party Software Engineering student.

Jan has spent the last year working on some really cool projects, and we’re excited to show you some of the work he’s done. This semester, Jan focused more on learning and having fun with different projects. He’s currently working on some personal projects, mostly on hardware/embedded and prototype development. He’s currently not in Berlin, but plans to return next semester to continue with his projects on campus (hopefully soon).

My biggest challenge this year/semester…

Sticking to one thing and finishing it. Also german bureaucracy/authorities are a real challenge.

My greatest success…

I built a device to visualise WiFi signals. When Hackaday.com wrote about it it gained some traction and I met some cool people from the networking industry which resulted in new projects again.

Proud of yourself because I…

Worked myself into electronics for the past years and was finally able to get some ideas I had for some time running and professionally manufactured. I find it fascinating how one can learn most things just by doing and trying!

Here are some of the projects Jan worked on over the last months;

Measuring the speed of light with an oscilloscope, a laser and a telescope. (Has not worked 100%)

Webcam in a bird box

Solid state anemometer

Building an anemometer that has no moving parts using load cells.

Force feedback servo motor

Adding position and force feedback to a standard model servo motor.

Laser engraving grains of rice with a DIY laser engraver

Building a laser engraver that has a resolution high enough to engrave my name into grain of rice.

Installing a solar roof and building a real time power logger

I built a 1kW solar array and added real time power logging to keep track of production and consumption.

3D depth mapping our harbour

I was stranded in the harbour because I didn’t know of the low water depth. So I built this mapping thing to create a (true) depth map of our harbour.

What grounding in ht harbour looks like:

3D WiFi strength mapping

Here I built a machine to visualise how wifi spreads in 3D. The pattern is interesting as it has a feature distance of one wavelength go 2.4 GHz Wifi (12cm).

Ethernet stepper motor controller (ongoing project)

I built a network connected stepper motor driver that takes json instructions via UDP and translates them into motion. All the position feedback, homing functions, etc. ( Github )

The revenue clock

Actually a birthday present I build for my grandpa. He wanted to get involved in crypto but doesn’t feel confident using a web browser. So I bought him some and now he can watch the revenue change. It is WiFi connected and fetches crypto prices and time from the internet.

Some exciting mentions of Jan’s work can also be found here;

Jan Neumann created this small, low-cost logging device with an Arduino and an echo sounder to collect water depth data: https://t.co/VTUIDmnT9f pic.twitter.com/06R3U0Khwh
— Arduino (@arduino) September 7, 2021

Dan Maloney wrote about Visualising WiFi & Homebrew Sounder Maps on Hackaday.com

The Arduino Team wrote about Jan’s DIY 3D water depth mapping on Arduino.cc