<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><b>Dumbest thing I've ever done?</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><b><br></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><b>I was working on adding a watchdog timer to one of the Arduino robots I use when teaching my children's robotics course. The timer just didn't seem to be working, so I kept shortening the timeout. Turns out the timer wasn't the problem--my code wasn't providing me the feedback I expected. Once the timer was shorter than the boot time, the Arduino got stuck in an endless reboot cycle. I couldn't even interrupt it long enough to establish contact to reload code. As soon as it happened I knew exactly what was wrong and realized my mistake, but there was no way back out. Suddenly had a new, high priority project--learning how to burn the boot loader directly onto the AVR chip.</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><b><br></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><b>Luckily, I have a AVR development board because I used to write code directly for the AVR chips before I fell in love with the ease of Ardunio programming. With that background, and Google, I was able to figure out how to regain control of my chip and Arduino board. Took a few hours, but on the bright side I learned a new skill.</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><b><br></b></div><div apple-content-edited="true">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><b style="font-size: 12px;">Regards,<br>Michael Sepa<br><br>LinkedIn: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsepa">http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsepa</a><br>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/michael.sepa">https://www.facebook.com/michael.sepa</a><br><a href="mailto:michaelsepa@gmail.com">michaelsepa@gmail.com</a></b></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; "><div><br></div></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; "><br></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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