Sometimes you can write a macro, and it works right off the bat. Even one that spans a dozen commands might work right off the bat. My current program was on day two. Some of the things I was doing taxed the RasPi processor, so I had to add lots of delays, but I started adding commands to "heal" the spreadsheet. Errors would occasionally erase a critical equation, so the Arduino retyped it on every cycle. It was a strange criterion for programming.
I needed the third day for macro programming. Once again, I needed to change my approach and assume that commands would be lost, and the program had to bounce back. I could tolerate a repeated word or if the voice went silent instead of reading, so long as it self-corrected within five cycles. I got there. The macro should run flawlessly on a fast machine, but it ran at reduced capacity on my low-power computer.
Even though I put in a lot of work, I decided to venture away from the pseudo-random macro&spreadsheet approach. I already had some solid building blocks, like the word list and voice synthesizer, but the necessary macro was a flimsy card house. I weighed out my other options.
I decided to start looking at a music player to shuffle audio clips from the word list. I didn't need a macro to read the list in order, but the resulting file was over one-hundred minutes long. With 6,800 words, that was shy of one second per word, on average.
I had all my words saved into unique files. My macro duplicated some words, which means those words should come up more often. It wasn't worth the time to look for duplicates. I started the treacherous road of streaming a window on my RasPi to YouTube, which may be the toughest part of the whole project. I hoped it would be as arbitrary as sharing my desktop inside a video chat, but that was not the case.
The rest of the summary posts have been arranged by date.
First time here?
Completed projects from year 1
Completed projects from year 2
Completed projects from year 3
Completed projects from year 4
Completed projects from year 5
Completed projects from year 6
Completed projects from year 7
Disclaimer for http://24hourengineer.blogspot.com and 24HourEngineer.com
This disclaimer must be intact and whole. This disclaimer must be included if a project is distributed.
All information on this blog, or linked by this blog, is not to be taken as advice or solicitation. Anyone attempting to replicate, in whole or in part, is responsible for the outcome and procedure. Any loss of functionality, money, property, or similar, is the responsibility of those involved in the replication.
All digital communication regarding the email address 24hourengineer@gmail.com becomes the intellectual property of Brian McEvoy. Any information contained within these messages may be distributed or retained at the discretion of Brian McEvoy. Any email sent to this address, or any email account owned by Brian McEvoy, cannot be used to claim property or assets.
Comments to the blog may be utilized or erased at the discretion of the owner. No one posting may claim property or assets based on their post.
This blog, including pictures and text, is copyright to Brian McEvoy.
Crafting a macro
I needed the third day for macro programming. Once again, I needed to change my approach and assume that commands would be lost, and the program had to bounce back. I could tolerate a repeated word or if the voice went silent instead of reading, so long as it self-corrected within five cycles. I got there. The macro should run flawlessly on a fast machine, but it ran at reduced capacity on my low-power computer.
What I have to work with
Even though I put in a lot of work, I decided to venture away from the pseudo-random macro&spreadsheet approach. I already had some solid building blocks, like the word list and voice synthesizer, but the necessary macro was a flimsy card house. I weighed out my other options.
Considerable list
I decided to start looking at a music player to shuffle audio clips from the word list. I didn't need a macro to read the list in order, but the resulting file was over one-hundred minutes long. With 6,800 words, that was shy of one second per word, on average.
Thousands of seconds of words
With how much this project has leveraged macro programming, I assumed I would need to program a new one to break up all the words trapped in a single stream. Perhaps this was a common task because Audacity had the function built-in. It took its sweet time getting through the list, though. Exporting all the words to a file did require a macro. I looked at making one inside Audacity, but I had to fall back on AutoHotkey to press the right buttons. This time, each one-second clip took seven seconds to export.
6,800 clips in Audacity
I had all my words saved into unique files. My macro duplicated some words, which means those words should come up more often. It wasn't worth the time to look for duplicates. I started the treacherous road of streaming a window on my RasPi to YouTube, which may be the toughest part of the whole project. I hoped it would be as arbitrary as sharing my desktop inside a video chat, but that was not the case.
Audacious screenshot
The rest of the summary posts have been arranged by date.
First time here?
Completed projects from year 1
Completed projects from year 2
Completed projects from year 3
Completed projects from year 4
Completed projects from year 5
Completed projects from year 6
Completed projects from year 7
Disclaimer for http://24hourengineer.blogspot.com and 24HourEngineer.com
This disclaimer must be intact and whole. This disclaimer must be included if a project is distributed.
All information on this blog, or linked by this blog, is not to be taken as advice or solicitation. Anyone attempting to replicate, in whole or in part, is responsible for the outcome and procedure. Any loss of functionality, money, property, or similar, is the responsibility of those involved in the replication.
All digital communication regarding the email address 24hourengineer@gmail.com becomes the intellectual property of Brian McEvoy. Any information contained within these messages may be distributed or retained at the discretion of Brian McEvoy. Any email sent to this address, or any email account owned by Brian McEvoy, cannot be used to claim property or assets.
Comments to the blog may be utilized or erased at the discretion of the owner. No one posting may claim property or assets based on their post.
This blog, including pictures and text, is copyright to Brian McEvoy.
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