Day 1: Introduction


Hey! I'm Steve Breen and this is my dog, Lilly.:

Steve & Lilly

(Lilly is a 10 year old Great Pyrenees.)

Return to my home page.

Here I am with my wife, Sally:

Sally & Steve

(Picture taken at Carhenge on the outskirts of nowhere Nebraska.)


We live in Nashua, New Hampshire which is about 40 miles from room #102 at the Science Center. I'm 58 years old, and started taking classes at the Extension School 5 years ago. I am an accepted student at Harvard Extension School, and hope to receive an ALB degree on May 27,2021! My pursuit of a college education began in 1980, the year I graduated from Nashua High School. I majored in chemistry at Saint Anselm College, and transfered to Northeastern University after two years. This first attempt at an education slowly fizzled out...

Then life, and a severe lack of money happened! I opened a small home renovation business so that I could eat, and started a family. All great things, but not completing a college degree left a void, and an itch that needed to be scratched. My business evolved over the last 35 years into an industrial equipment service operation. I mainly troubleshoot production line equipment at manurfacturing facilities around New Endland (I'm basically a "master of the obvious" as my wife would say).

This is my son, Joe:

Joe

( Joe getting an MBA at Boston University, 2019.)


After our son Joe's college graduation in 2015 I decided to follow the wise words found in a fortune cookie given to me by my wife. The scrap of paper inside said: "It's never too late to be the person you might have been." So, here I am!! (I think she rigged the cookie.)


This summer, I had initially planned on taking a class to fulfill a moral reasoning requirement for graduation. However!, when I came across Digital Fab in the course catalog, I quickly changed plans!!


If you're not sick of hearing Steve talk about Steve yet go to:

Random Stuff Steve Likes!



Proposed Final Project: iPhone Controlled Hotdog Cooker

Here is a demo of the old school hotdog cooker made from two nails and an extension cord.

This could include the following:


  • Using a solid state relay to control the 120vac to the nails/hotdog.
  • Pulsing the input signal to the SSR with some sort of programmable digital device to control the cooking of the weenie.
  • Having an acrylic cover automatically close the cooking chamber before ac voltage is applied to the dog. Possibly using a stepper motor??
  • Using Bluetooth or WiFi to control the cooker with an iPhone app.
  • 3D printing the base of the cooker.
  • Monitoring the hotdog temperature.



This is the mother of all hotdog vending machines,which is located at Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

Hotdog Vending Machine!

See this machine in action in the video below!!