Exploring Cistercian Numerals with Logo

I recently became aware of Cistercian numerals, a system for writing numbers up to 9999 which was developed in the middle ages by the Order of Cistercians. Personally, I think they have a pleasant geometric form which could be well suited to turtle graphics:

In this series of posts, I’ll walk through one way of teaching the Logo turtle to draw Cistercian numerals in ucblogo (Berkeley Logo). We’ll start with the numbers zero through four and then build up from there, eventually getting to the full range of numbers from 0 to 9999.

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Building ucblogo (Berkeley Logo) on the Raspberry Pi 400

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has made something rather special with the Raspberry Pi 400. It evokes nostalgia for the computers of the 80s; but, it does so thoughtfully. The nostalgia feels like the natural outcome of reexperiencing a fundamentally good design, a design which considers how the computer will fit into a home. Similarly, Logo presents a view of coding which considers how software will fit into people’s lives, rather than insisting people change in order to meet the requirements of software. I don’t see either of them as a walk down memory lane so much as complementary paths into a future where humans drive technology.

The following are my notes on using the two together – building and installing ucblogo (Berkeley Logo) on the Raspberry Pi 400. Hopefully, others will take this journey too.

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Generating Plotter Art From Berkeley Logo

While there is more to Logo than turtle graphics, I suspect drawing with turtles holds a special place in many of our hearts. With Berkeley Logo (ucblogo) under active development and available for modern operating systems (including OSX, Windows, and Linux), it feels like a natural fit for generating interesting shapes to plot on a modern plotter like the AxiDraw.

The Logo environment is designed to make it easy to jump in and get started drawing. In fact, something interesting to plot can be produced in a single line:

REPEAT 360 [ FD # RT 89 ]

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Generating Towns for Townscaper in Processing

I’ve been playing Oskar Stålberg’s Townscaper recently and enjoying seeing how the algorithms react to changes. While looking for information on how garden paths are calculated, I stumbled across Chris Love’s article on the Townscaper file format. Using that as a starting point, I decided to try building up town maps in processing using Perlin noise to determine height, color, and distance above waterline.

My first attempt iterated the map while incrementing a 1D vector in Perlin noise space to determine these attributes. This gave a nice wavy pattern; but, wasn’t quite what I was trying for.

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Building the fischertechnik EM1 – Beam Balance Scale

The fourth model in the EM1 kit is a beam balance scale with a switch mounted on the main upright. This was a nice build, with only few small surprises along the way. At rest, the vertical metal rod presses the switch in, breaking the circuit, and keeping the light turned off.

Front view of the fischertechnik EM1 model 4 - Beam Balance Scale

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Integrating a Voltmeter with fischertechnik

I took a detour on the road to powered speakers and remixed the cassette lid I previously designed in order to hold a panel mount voltmeter from Adafruit. I set out with a few goals:

Blend reasonably well with fischertechnik parts without requiring modifications to those parts.
Have two connectors each for positive and ground, so the module can be chained with other modules.
Use connectors that work as well as possible with fischertechnik plugs.

Voltmeter from Adafruit in 3d printed lid for fischertechnik cassette bottom

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Building the fischertechnik EM1 – Blinking Light Model

The third model in the EM1 kit was particularly cool to build as it is the first model where the electric circuit is controlled by a mechanical component. It starts with a wheel hub whose rotation is driven by a motor. The wings on the hub are used as a cam to cyclically push a lever down and then release it; it reminds me a bit of a trip-hammer .

fischertechnik motor driving worm gears which turn a wheel hub used as a cam

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Designing a Lid for the fishertechnik Cassette Bottom

I’m working on adding a small powered speaker to a fischertechnik model and decided the simplest first pass would be an insert for the standard cassette that many of the older sets shipped with. I’d like to not alter the original part, so ideally, this will be a simple press-fit part which works very similarly to the stock cover. The first goal was to get a simple flat lid working.

3D printed lid for fischertechnik cassette bottom

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Building the fischertechnik EM1 Model 2

Building the second model was a smoother process; I suspect a key reason was knowing from the start that a certain amount of improvisation was part of the process. I’m learning that, in the absence of specifics or mechanical constraints, I tend to err on the side of longer metal rods which gives some extra room for adjustment.

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Building the fischertechnik EM1 Model 1

Growing up, I spent many hours playing with both Lego sets and fischertechnik sets. In my memory, they were functionally equivalent – just with different connecting systems and with fischertechnik having a stronger emphasis on mechanics and gears. I recently acquired some fischertechnik from that era and was pleasantly surprised by one additional difference.

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