While we will be traveling and seeing the sites as we go along I expect to have some down time.  While there is a ton of boat maintenance that needs to be done, with weather delays I’ll need something to occupy my time.  (There is only so much internet to be able to surf).

So projects and activities that I’ll be doing:

Amateur Radio – I’ve been a ham radio operator for a number of years.  I was pretty active when I got my license.  I talked most days on my ride to and from work.  In 2005 my car got broken into and the radio got stolen.  I didn’t replace it and was off the air.  Recently I got a new radio and an antenna to make a new portable setup.  I’m in the process of now assembling all the parts to get it all to work together, but not take up a lot of space.

Electronic kits – I’ve been hoarding some electronic kits to assemble.  They range from a Nixie tube clock to accessories for the Raspberry Pi.  I got some really cool art boards to work on so I won’t damage the table top in the salon.   I have a pretty big stock of components to take, all in all about 20 days worth of kits to assemble.

Arduino kits – I also picked up a few Arduino + electronic kits to work with.  So I’ll be able to do some combination microcontroller and electronics projects.  At one point back in the 80′s I was pretty good with 8051 chips, but thats a set of skills that has gone away.  So I’m hoping that when I start some of the unused brain cells will come back to life.

Robots – I’m taking my VEX-IQ kit with me.  I have the Super kit and the additional builder kit.   So I should be able to practice my build assembly skills.  The bonus is that the VEX-IQ kit has lots of pre-made parts so I won’t need to have the mess of cutting parts.  There is also a CAD program that I want to learn, so this will give me practice on designing something and then assembling it.

Computer Languages – I’m bringing a Raspberry Pi to play with.  One of my goals is to become proficient in both Scratch and Python.  I’ve got a pair of Scratch books and I was a backer of a Introduction to Python book.  So I expect to be able to have good examples to work with.  The only problem will be trying to get access to the TV to be able to use it as a monitor.  I can always use VNC to connect in from my laptop.

Board games — Susan has a stack of games, but I’ll let her post on that.

So all in all, I have about 75 days worth of stuff to work on.  So it’s doubtful that I’ll be going “I’m bored!”  But I don’t want to blow our weather karma, since that many rainy days will make it a very wet trip.