Introduce yourself!

[MichMich]

Because I’m very curious who is building the MagicMirror, I thought it would be fun to introduce ourselves. Most of you will probably know me by know, but a little bit more personal info can’t hurt … ;)

I’m Michael Teeuw, 34 years old. Engaged with a beautiful flight attendant, father of the 8 month old future-maker; Enzo. And a self employed business owner.

I love tinkering with electronics (Arduino, ESP8266, Raspberry Pi, Etc …), enjoy 3D-printing on my Lulzbot Mini, do a lot of development (iOS Swift, C++, JavaScript, PHP) and enjoy good designs.

My best known project is the MagicMirror, currently working on an Automatic Curtain project and previously finished the PowerSuit. Besides from my maker projects, I’ve got a few Apps in the Apple App Store.

Although this isn’t my best picture, it’s probably the most fitting image to post on the MagicMirror forum … 😂

You can find me on my blog, GitHub, Twitter and Instagram and YouTube.

Nice to meet you all! :)

[paviro]

Good idea! Nice to get to know the people behind the GitHub comments a bit. Will add mine as soon as I finished the housing of my mirror :smile:

EDIT: Just noticed this is not in the show your mirror category, so I don’t actually have to finish my mirror for it :D Will add mine in a second :)

[KirAsh4]

While new to the project, I have been following it for a while. I just recently decided to build my own. It’s still sitting on my desk at home because I’m also doing a lot of remodeling in the house, so I haven’t quite decided where it’s going to go yet, nor have I gotten the two-way mirror for it yet. Having to decide on a final size is a bit of a challenge when you’re still moving things around and clearing walls only to put something on them, etc., etc. But, that doesn’t mean I’m not having fun working on it and contributing to the code when/where I can.

I’m nearing 45, an IT Director by trade, and a maker as hobby. I work a lot with micro controllers and custom build mainly LED based electronics. When I’m not doing that I’m either doing CAD drawings that end up on my 3D printer, or to be cut on my laser cutter and assembled. And when I’m not doing ANY of those (really, what’s wrong with me?), I’m out hiking and enjoying nature.

I’ll have to remember to come back and post the final product when I’m finally done with it.

[MichMich]

@KirAsh4 Nice! What 3D-printer and Laser Cutter (jealous!) do you have?

[paviro]

My name is Paul-Vincent Roll, I’m from Germany and currently 19 years old (doing my finals in school at the moment). I also happen to run a small business, which I try to maintain besides going to school. Mine is about videos though and not the kind of things we are doing here (can never really decide what I enjoy more… :sweat_smile:).

I love coding and building stuff but in most cases my coding work is sadly pretty much hacked together, still have to learn a lot of basic stuff but I will with time :slight_smile: I am currently planning to write an adventure game with a friend of mine, we’ll see how that goes.

Besides the “raw-computer” stuff I absolutely love (already said I can’t decide which one I enjoy more so it’s fine I use the same term again :smile:) crafting images and capturing moments with my camera, be it in video or still form.

You can find me on my blog, GitHub, Twitter, 500px, Vimeo and Instagram.

[KirAsh4]

@MichMich

An Ultimaker 2, and a 40W laser cutter, one of the many Chinese clones you find on eBay. Though it’s been heavily modified by me (adjustable bed, air assist, better optics, etc., etc.)

I forgot to mention earlier: the bits and pieces of Dutch that come out of me are because I grew up on an island that is part of the Dutch colony, so the first 20-odd years of my life, I also spoke Dutch daily … then I moved to the US and it all went downhill from there.

[MichMich]

@KirAsh4 interesting. Will take a look on ebay.

[nhubbard]

Hi! My name is Nicholas Hubbard. I’m currently 14 years old, I love to program and I am an active contributor to Magic Mirror. I have written my own modules, and I actually gave my mom a Magic Mirror for her birthday.

I love the Raspberry Pi (I’m begging for my mom to allow me to use the multiple Amazon gift cards I have to buy a model 3) and I have done several “home” movies (e.g. vacations), worked on multiple projects before and love computers in general.

P.S. The favorite activity of my friends when we were three years old was Little People. I unwound and rewound cords.

[MichMich]

@nhubbard 14 years? 😱I’m feeling old! 😂Where are you from?

[feuerball]

Hi! Im Marvin Rühl :) I’m 23 Years old and studying my Master in Electronical Engineering @ TU-Dortmund. I started with this project in the last year, getting some rPI skills for work later.

With MMMv2 this project becomes more huge than i thought, so im trying my best giving good input for it :)

[clebo99]

Sure…I’m Chris and I live in Baltimore, MD (if you haven’t been to Baltimore, please visit. It’s a great city…nothing like “The Wire”). I’m always interested in new technologies and projects. I haven’t had a good one in a while but this Magic Mirror project resonated with me and I’m really enjoying learning this and Node.JS. I’m sure I’ll be asking a lot of NOOB questions but that is my learning process. A few years ago I started asking NOOB questions on Experts Exchange and I was able to create a really powerful monitoring system using Microsoft Virtual Earth and NetIQ using .NET and VScript. So I know I can learn…I just need motivation and for me to ask the right questions.

[Knox]

Good Morning, my name is Steve Knox and I live in Calgary, AB (Canada). I am a Mechanical Engineer, but I’ve always had a softspot for some light coding and electronics. I’ve recently started playing with raspberrypi’s and now have two. A pi2 as a media server running plex, and a pi3 running octoprint for my Boxzy. http://www.boxzy.com/. I own my own side business creating custom cufflinks which is just getting off the ground (still need to sit down and create a website) but I do have a few promising leads for larger orders.
“Spare” time has been a bit of a challenge between owning a small business, having a full time job and with two little ones running around but luckily my work is pretty flexible. It lets me learn all sorts of new things, for example we have a large walk around VR lab that connects to our architectural design software we develop. Lay out your office > walk through your space in VR and update it on the fly. The Magic mirror project is something I’m going to dive in and learn in the next few weeks/months, I’d like to create one for my wife, and we’re going to make one for work. Maybe show traffic alerts and weather, nothing too complicated. ;)

[KirAsh4]

@paviro, stop breaking things! Your video link above is broken.

[knewmoovmnt]

Hi all,
I’m Mike out of SA, TX . Signed up because I am going to start to build my 1st mirror. A reason why I joined, I’m having trouble finding a mirror that will work for this project. There are a lot of 1 way 2 way mirrors on the Web and I was honestly looking for someone to link a good source to pick one up. Any feedback would be very appreciated. I don’t have the dimensions yet, so a vendor who can sell varying dimensions would be nice.

Thanks,
Mike

[yutarochan]

Hey guys! My name is Yuya and I just finished my Freshman year at the University of Penn State studying Computer Science, and also interning at the Almaden Research Center in IBM this summer.

I was just looking for another side project to contribute to and found this to be very cool looking and interesting. I’ve got several colleagues here at IBM also working on IoT and learned a lot from just sitting next to them working on these things. My main interests primarily lie in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Human Computer Interaction and Affective Computing… so hopefully I can contribute some pretty neat modules. If you guys have any interesting ideas dealing with machine learning, computer vision and such, feel free to let me know!

[paviro]

@yutarochan it would be amazing if you could help improve (or help rewrite :D ) my MMM-Facial-Recognition module using machine learning!

[mikmonken]

I’m Mike 36 from England, I follow instructions (sometimes successfully) that’s about it for me.

I first started dabbling with an RPI when I wanted to create a fermentation chamber for homebrewing beer, so I built a diy brewpi cracked open a fridge and hey presto it worked.

Next I made my first arduino shield so I could declutter my wiring and this was my first venture into soldering (and soldering a pfet at that)

I consider myself enthusiastic at making fun useful items, and persevering to get things to work.

My enthusiasm far out weights my capability I have no coding knowledge but I somehow manage to fumble about and get what I’m looking for as you’ll probably see from my posts.

My current challenge is trying to get my $9 CHIP to see my arduino over USB but that’s for a different forum.

Anyway loving this project I’m trying to use a 37inch that’s colour is broken and clad it relatively inexpensively with a two way mirror.

[byoung2010]

Hi everybody,

I’m Brandon (24) from Los Angeles, California. My experience and knowledge with coding — and raspberry pi in general — is very similar to that of @mikmonken above. I can follow instructions fairly well, but I know nothing about coding. I am very eager to learn coding, but have very little time to devote to it due to work, school, and a wife who likes to monopolize my time. ;D I’m amazed with the work that you all have done with the Magic Mirror project and I hope I can help contribute to it someday.

My first rpi project I undertook was the retropie. I easily figured out the software side of that, but then again all I had to do was follow simple instructions. I still haven’t started the hardware portion — I’m saving that for a later project when I can devote more time to it.

The second rpi project I undertook was installing an ambilight kit behind my wall mounted TV through Lightberry. This was slightly more difficult, but still only required me to follow instructions (I love the effect the abmilight gives while watching TV by the way).

I have now started the software portion of the Magic Mirror. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew with different projects, especially considering my lack of even basic knowledge when it comes to coding. However, I have really enjoyed the project thus far and I am learning a ton through this project. I currently have the Magic Mirror running fairly smoothly through my desktop monitor. After I finish adding all the cool modules you guys have created, I’ll start to build the actual mirror itself. The end goal is for this to be a Christmas present for my wife. Who knows, I might make a couple more for the rest of my family too. Thank you to all of you who have contributed to this project. I look forward to learning from all of you.

[kapsolas]

Hi,

I’m in the US and been looking to play with a magic mirror for some time! Excited to have found this group!

[dmcinnes]

Hello!

I’m Doug, 41, I’m in Portland, OR in the US. I am a software engineer for work and I dabble in a lot of things, but mostly electronics and game development.

I originally found MichMich’s awesome mirror project a couple of years ago, and made one for myself. Though I got discouraged after corrupting two different SD cards and dropped it for other projects. Was excited to see the new MagicMirror² project and this great forum!

During my original work had rebuilt some of the mirror code, and even hacked together facial recognition using RaspiCam (my mirror has a Rasberry Pi Camera sneaked up behind the glass at the top).
https://github.com/dmcinnes/MirrorMirror
https://github.com/dmcinnes/mirrormirror-camcv
It’s nowhere near as nice as easy to set up as paviro’s facial recognition module!

I recently posted a module I ported from my old mirror code, Forecast-IO weather:
https://github.com/dmcinnes/MMM-forecast-io

I’ll post pictures of my mirror once I get it all working again :)