Robot kits, Indiana Jones, and Alan Wake 2.

Robotics 101

Taking a stroll round the charity shop after leaving off a donation is always a risky prospect. If you’re unlucky, you end up walking away with more than you arrived with. Knee and elbow pads. A pair of WiFi plugs. And a robotic arm kit from Maplin. It was hard to resist at £3.50, although there was no guarantee of it being complete.

One of the cool things about having a child is the chance to experience some things you missed out on the first time round. You’ve also got the chance to see those experiences through another (less jaded) pair of eyes. One of those kits that always appealed to me was the robotic arm. I’m not quite sure why I never asked for one, although I did have a LEGO Mindstorms Star Wars kit that was immensely fun, if a bit limited in what it could do.

This was my chance to see what I missed. Luckily for us, the previous owners had got as far as punching out the bits for the first step before giving up completely. All of the parts were present and correct, although the sane thing to do would’ve been to check it all before starting but where’s the fun in that? It’s a tad fiddly for a four year old but I did have some assistance slotting gears into place. The instructions were clear but it didn’t stop me from flipping a few crucial parts, requiring prompt corrective action.

Batteries? Not included, of course. Not only that, but the mother of all “batteries not included” scenarios. This thing takes four D batteries. Remember those? I’d forgive you if you’d forgotten the painful days of chunky C and massive D batteries given they have been almost entirely replaced by the use of AA/AAA or proprietary lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.

Batteries sourced, I plugged the arm into my laptop to see if the required drivers would install. Nope. I then sourced the original software and drivers and tried again. Further nope. Then what followed was a desperate root around as I pulled out old laptops from fifteen years ago to see if anything was compatible. The only thing that worked was an old Packard Bell laptop with Windows 7 installed. It was incredibly sluggish but I got the drivers installed and the software working. To a point. The “wrist” of the arm moved up and down, and the light turned on, but none of the other functionality worked. I wiped and re-installed the PC, but that led to it failing to install the drivers correctly.

Welcome to the years of PC past, where hours were consumed in search of compatible drivers and finicky solutions for annoying problems. There is a third party utility for controlling the arm but that doesn’t come with its own drivers so was a bit of a dead end. The next possible approach is to use a Raspberry Pi to control it, something I was trying to avoid for the sake of simplicity but I don’t have much choice at this point if it is going to work. The delights of old technology…

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

The Great Circle came to a dramatic conclusion during the week, which was worthy of the build up. I thoroughly enjoyed the latest Indiana Jones game and have recommended it before. Following the completion of the main quest, you are able to go back and explore all of the previous maps which is a nice touch. I dislike when games stop dead at the end of the main questline and you have to reload an earlier save with the spectre of the final quest hanging over you. It’s included on Game Pass so check it out.

Alan Wake 2

We have just started playing Alan Wake 2, the sequel to Remedy’s 2010 action-adventure-horror classic. A thirteen year gap is considerable in the sequel landscape, but this sequel feels worth the wait. The game takes place thirteen years after the first iteration, and opens with you playing Saga Anderson, an FBI agent investigating a potential serial killer operating in the Pacific Northwest. The creepy forest setting is eerily familiar for anybody who has played the first game, although the investigation mechanics are all new and implemented well. You periodically go into Saga’s “Mind Place” instead of simply opening a menu. This is a room with a noticeboard you use to lay out clues from the investigation and a desk where psychological profiling takes place alongside other activities.

We have only scratched the surface but are looking forward to exploring more of the world of Bright Falls.