This is Spike.

Spike was found crawling around our courtyard.  Actually, she was crawling up the glass door, getting away from our cats.

After a bit of research, it turns out that Spike is a pretty neat grasshopper. She is a Red-Eyed Devil, fairly common for this area. Thank you to Dr. Chris Sansone with Texas A&M Entomology for identification and links.

Here are a couple more shots to see her coloring a bit better, and get an idea of size.  The hand is my 10 year old daughter’s.

You can actually see her breathing!

About 5" from head to tip of ovipositor.

Anyhow, the best part, and most unique thing about this grasshopper?  She’s carnivorous!

Nom nom nom..

Tasty

Delicious!

/**
 * Pins:
 * Hardware SPI:
 * MISO -> 12
 * MOSI -> 11
 * SCK -> 13
 *
 * Configurable:
 * CE -> 8
 * CSN -> 7
 */

#include 
#include 
#include 

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println( "Starting wireless..." );

  // Setup
  Mirf.init();
  Mirf.setRADDR((byte *)"clie1");
  Mirf.payload = sizeof(unsigned long);
  Mirf.config();

  // Read and print RF_SETUP
  byte rf_setup = 0;
  Mirf.readRegister( RF_SETUP, &rf_setup, sizeof(rf_setup) );
  Serial.print( "rf_setup = " );
  Serial.println( rf_setup, BIN );

  Serial.println( "Wireless initialized!" );
}

void loop() {}

When I ran this code on my board, it printed:

Starting wireless...
rf_setup = 1111
Wireless initialized!

So that’s 00001111 for the value of RF_SETUP. Breaking it down, high bit to low bit, using the datasheet:

0 – No continuous carrier wave
0 – Reserved – must be 0
0 – RF_DR_LOW is 0
0 – No PLL lock signal
1 – RF_DR_HIGH is 1, and according to chart, 01 = 2 Mbps
1 – High bit RF_PWR is 1
1 – Low bit RF_PWR is 1, according to chart, 11 = 0 dBm output power
1 – Not used/obsolete

You can download the library and bundled examples ( including this one ) from the Software page. Cheers!

A friend recommended I look into Git, and I did.  I looked at the website, read the tutorial, and simply could not figure out why I should switch my Source Code Management system.  It felt like change for the sake of change, and I am not a fan of that idea.

Enter: Hg Init – The Mercurial Tutorial.  Here was a very well written tutorial and explanation as to why you should make the move to Mercurial ( which is very similar to Git ).  Give it a read, you’ll see what I mean.  I know I’ll be switching soon.

View from Sandia Peak, Albuquerque, NM -- © 2010, Nathan Isburgh

Love the owls