detroit maker's faire

This year I had the pleasure of going to the Detroit Maker's Faire at the Henry Ford Museum with Saline Singularity - Team 5066, Ann Arbor District winners. This was my first time at a Makers Faire, and I think this one was the place to be.

FIRST Robotics arranged for local teams to do mock competitions all day for the visitors. The playing field was set up. This years theme was "SteamWorks".

We originally set up on the outside of the big tent. They made us take down our shade tent so the spectators could get a better view of the field.

The object of the game was to collect gears and fuel for your steam powered ship. The 2 ships are pictured here. Once you collect enough steam, you fly away with the ship by having your robot climb the attached rope.

We made the wise decision to move inside the tent so we were out of the sun for the rest of the day. The Saline Singularity club members attended to the robots every need and got it ready for a day of mock competitions.

The team next to us rallied for a group photo and I grabbed a shot. I wish I had also got a shot of their team number. I have no idea what team this is, but the kids were very nice. Professional graciousness.

Burke and Holly showed up so we wondered around a bit. I grabbed some photos. This guy was very cool!

There was a driving one man band.

A lot of pedal driven spectacles.

A remote controlled fake dude in a wheel car who spun around and around.

Teeny tiny bikes

Big bikes

And specialty bikes.

Tons of exhibits and fun things to do.

Makers and designers of all types. Some of the coolest fabric art.

This was a part of a sound contest they were having. Lots of different exhibits doing some cool things with sound. Thought this was cool - breakfast sounds. Loved the display. Breakfast of champions!

Lots of people walking through the vendor craft booths.

A robotic horse. Quite possibly nothing cooler.

Even saw a UFO who was very friendly.

One of the FIRST teams brought this, which was awesome. A robotic garage can - took the garage out for you. lol!

It was a perfect day for the Maker's Faire and a great way to expose the FIRST Robotic program to many, many spectators. The crowds were lined up outside the tent all day. Our kids had fun doing mock competitions all day and really got the crowd going.

I'm super proud of our club and I'm glad to be one of the mentors.

this.woman in tech

I remember when the first Apple PC entered into my workplace. I really don't remember which model it was, but there it sat on Julie's desk in all it's glory. "When are you going to use it, Julie?", I asked. "I'm too busy to play with that thing." she replied. She didn't mind that I tinkered with it, but she soon was forced to begin using it - and I slowly relinquished the metal piece of beauty.

A few years later, I finally received a computer of my own in the workplace.  The IBM PC was set up for me and I couldn't be happier. It was so easy, bending the software into my bidding. The excitement was unsurpassed when I received my first IBM 386 with actual hard drives.

I've been through almost 30 years in tech. From the personal computers, to networks, to building amazing software.

The tech world has changed so much in the last 30 years. I'm not sure what happened to the women over the years - I can't say for sure. I do remember a time when other women joined me on the technical teams I played a part in. Now they are few.

I do chuckle when I walk into a big box store with my husband, looking for a new hardware gadget, and have the young men walk up and address my husband about our technical needs. He just points his finger at me. "She's the one you need to address", he'll say. How I love seeing the confusion in their eyes. Women don't do tech, right?

One thing is for sure - the tech world is a man's world. I do hope not for long. Things move fast, and you have to keep up. It's not for the faint of heart. It's a constant battle to stay ahead of the new evolving technology.

I've spent so long being overlooked, the single female at conferences, tech meetups, companies - it almost doesn't faze me. Almost. I have to admit - it still stings when they reach across you to talk tech to the men on opposite sides of me.

I've always loved the challenge - both with tech and the men in it. Some men have been very supportive and some have not. One thing is for sure - I had to work twice as hard for less money and respect, but I became fierce. I'm thankful to those who made me second guess my competence - I only stepped up my game.

Now, this.woman, with no college degree and almost 30 years of technical fierceness has recently become Director of Software Development for a small start up company. The potential is huge and the challenge has been accepted.

I love mentoring young software developers. I love creating cutting edge software and networks. I love that my fight has not been for nothing. I love there is more fight in me even now as a woman of grandchildren.

I am a maker. I love my life.

grandson rant - laney turns 14!

The fourth in a long line of Robert Lane Mucke's, I've always called him Laney. His parents call him Boo or Pie or sometimes even Bobby. I actually think he might prefer Robert.

His dad and grand dad are Bobby, so I stick with Laney.

When he was little I called him Laney Bug. His father was never happy about that and when the kids started calling him Lady Bug .... I figured it was time to phase that nickname out. Look how beautiful they are.

Sweet, smart, mischievous, rambunctious, and sports minded.

Now he's 14. Always a momma and daddy's boy. Never far from home.

Although never a hugger. Even gave his mom a fat lip while struggling to be released from her hug when he was young.

Loves his grand dad extra special and the feeling is mutual. They love hunting and spend a lot of time together. 

Loves baseball, basketball, bowling, video games, and all forms of technology.

Was never a picky eater, always tried new things.

Forever wanted a little brother or sister - finally after 11 years, he got his wish.

For his birthday this year, he wanted to spend it with us.

Both him and William came over and set up the basement for playing video games.

We went to the mall, did some shopping, had dinner and went to the driving range for a bucket of balls.

And when I asked him to pose for some pictures, he did without argument. He's even sporting the shirt he and I made together during one of his weekends here. I love that he still likes coming over and doing projects with me. I love that we share the appreciation of technology together. I love this guy and I love the man he's starting to become.

Happy birthday Laney! I'm so blessed to have you in my life.

wpf, prism, inotifydataerrorinfo and fluent validation

Time for a technical post. Recently my team began work on a new product and the architecture that was selected was WPF, Prism with Unity. Yea I know ..... but we went with WPF because of the intensiveness of the graphics we need to use. The design patterns we choose was Prism with Unity and MVVM. The following samples were taken from efforts to collect data needed to create a connection string for a Maria DB.

As we began looking at a validation implementation, we looked at Fluent Validation. After tinkering around, it seemed very well like by the community and seemed like a great way to manage validation rules.

We started constructing our base class. We created our own ValidatableBindableBase class which which inherits from Prism's BindableBase and INotifyDataErrorInfo. With the INotifyDataErrorInfo, we're implementing the interface with a dictionary, adding and removing items to the dictionary when the DataErrorsChangedEventArgs fires.

So this is the model in which our classes will be built upon. Nothing special, just defining our properties in our model. Notice the model also inherits from our base class - ValidatableBindableBase.

Using Fluent Validation, we created our validation rules based on our model. Fluent Validation makes it incredibly easy to construct rulesets using lambda expressions. Just pass in the entity type to the AbstractValidator base class.


Here I'm showing the view (a partial view of our view) which demonstrates the controls. We are using DevExpress controls here. The controls bind to the viewmodel properties and uses the ValidatesOnNotifyDataErrors attribute set to True. Now the control subscribes to the error raised in the changed DataErrorsChangedEventArgs.

Lastly, the viewmodel. During the construction of the viewmodel, the Save delegate is registered. When the user clicks the save button, the validation is fired. What a joy it was to see the validation fields light up.


It took a little while to get it constructed just right, but I really like this implementation.

rain barrel 2.0

This year I was ready to begin my rain barrels 2.0. My goal is to have full pressure spray from my rain barrels, powered by solar. Well .... let's start by cleaning them up. 

I pulled them from under the deck (where they are stored for the winter) and cleaned them out really good.

I got them for $45 from my local water treatment plan several years ago. They work great, except the pressure is not enough to get water through them. I ended up using water pails to move water to my garden. Not much fun or efficient.

I didn't use them last year and of course, no rain most of the summer. Not jinxing this summer, bring them out.

I went off to the nearest big box store and purchased about 3 of these.

Couple of coats and a few days later .... all done.

Next, I purchased a highly recommended water pump from Amazon. It is the cutest, little portable guy. It is electric .... so this year, I'll plug it in. Next year though ...... solar power!

We plugged in the hose and turned on the pump. And TA-DA, pull pressure!

Nice solid pressure directly from the rain barrels.

Now ... I have the coolest rain barrels that provide full pressure to a garden hose. Look out garden, full organic rain water - all for you.

papa's hat

Between our vacation to Frankfort last year and the recent trip to Myrtle Beach, I've been very inspired by the beach. When we returned from Frankfort, I added white linen window treatments and made new slip covers for the furniture .... the color of the ocean.

Now it was time to think about new art. 

This was a picture I took of Matthew at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. He was intimidated by the ocean waves and wouldn't go near the water, but he had fun with the sun, sand and water from the bucket.

After I got back from the Myrtle Beach trip, I finished this almost done painting for the art portion of my beach theme for the living room.

Then I began my second painting, inspired by this picture of Matthew.

I printed off the picture on this great little photo printer.

OK, it's a little blurry, but it's a Canon Selphy CP900. I absolutely love this thing! It's wireless and uses a heat to transfer the ink to the paper, so no more ink drying out before you can use it. The color is amazing and the photos turn out spectacular. I printed out the photo so I can use it as reference during the painting process.

I transferred the photo to this little projector I bought Holly a few years ago for her birthday. She never uses it and I snatched it up for painting. It's great for projecting photos onto my canvases. There's more about this product during my blog post here.

I wait until night so the picture is very clear without the sunlight washing parts of it out. I adjust the projector so it fills the canvas. Using my pencil, I draw the outline.

The next morning I got set on blocking in the canvas with mostly neutral colors. I used a piece of masking tape to paint the distinction between the water and sand and then blended it a bit.

The sand and water, I went ahead and used the right color values.

The body and buckets I used light, medium and dark neutral tones just to get the color values in place. I let it set for about a week before I could find time to return to it.

Bringing out my arsenal of supplies, I got to work.

And finished up with the right color values.

I really love how well it came out. It'll have a prime spot in my living room. What I really appreciated about this painting is just how well it came together. Quick too. There was less time thinking about values and composition. Within a week, and I'm done. Sometimes when I paint, I'm not always sure when I'm done. I agonize and criticize over the composition and my skills. This time .... I knew I was done.

The memory of this moment brings me happiness.