Blogs

The Dagu compound eye arrived, so I start making jumper cables... fiddly stuff.  I plug it all in... (and flip the readings, i had to install it upside down) and it works!

2 hours later I find in my code that I hadn't even turned the IR leds (yet it still worked)... so I turn the IR leds on instead of the on-board LED and .. LET THERE BE IR LIGHT!

       http://kasvaminisumo.blogspot.com/

Second static test firing of DoubleSShot rocket motor failed big (again). CATO of the rocket motor.

Well, do you remember what year you got your first computer and what the specs are?

I know, it was a ATARI130XE with 1.79MHz and 128kB RAM. running with a Datasette/tape cassette player to save and load programs. The OS was the Atari OS. You can find the details here: Atari 130XE

Due to recent  intense smd soldring work, my 25watt antex soldering iron was begining to show its limitations......

... so out with the old and in with a new Hakko 907 (compatible) soldering system.

Truth is i found the temperature controller first .... which was a godsend because the current stye of hakko enclosure did not "Grab" me.....

...... Creating my Custom Box is too awsome to even think about :-)

My system consits of :-

  Alright guys/gals, it has been a coons age since I posted anything even remotely useful of my own. I have managed to break that trend with this 'bitty blog, somewhat. I say somewhat, because, everyone and their brother has posted a how to about DIY PCBs. I will attempt to offer some bit of information that others have not, doubtful. :)

We are currently working on the new version of our BeagleBoard-xM based robot. The main reason for redesign was the lack of wheel encoders which prevent us from developing more sophisticated navigation algorithms. That is why we decide to use Dagu Rover tracked chassis. However, not all our electronic could be fit in to the chassis, hence the need for additional enclosure on top of it.

hello everybody! it's been a long time since i have updated ALAN, i've been busy for some events, and still am, but i have manage to fix some bugs.

i still haven't added his arms yet, and the battery died (must be a short, RIP), but i will buy a new one when i have time (and money).

so here are the updates:

CAUTION: what you are about to see can and will make you sick, i warned you about it, so prepair a bucket and a mop!

if you want to comment, don't comment here, comment on this link:

We did it again. This time our friend OddBot (Russel) visited Shanghai and we got the chance to meet again, even with his limited time in Shanghai.

So, who is "we"? That's MarkusB (Markus), Taweili (David) and me. You can see Russel, Markus and me on the following picture. David as a photographer is behind the cam (sorry about the quality but this is not David's fault but the cheapy Point-and-Shoot camera ;-)

 So today I got this link from my boss because he knows i'm into robotics as a hobby, I have seen flying robots before but this is scary when i think about the military implications. Carzy stuff. If you have seen it before forgive me but i figured i had to share

http://www.ted.com/talks/a_robot_that_flies_like_a_bird.html

Just browsing through LMR, I found that many people are interested in the concept of making swarm bots (the most prominent being Lumi and his team, Aaronsuper1 and warnew). After a short discussion with each of the 3 I mention via shoutbox, I decided that swarm bot is going to be my second project.

/*Update

I got my netbook and I am installing ubunta and ros

*/

The following are OPINIONS. Some may find these books harder or easier than I categorized them.

In other words, this is only a general guideline. (I have a lot of books and will add more here as I go back over them.)

This will be a note for my just started team project "Swarm Robots".

This project will take place in our hackerspace Shanghai "Xinchejian". it will be a team project where every member can join and contribute his/her skills, ideas etc.

In this blog I will ask questions and write down solutions, ideas, goals and everything else what is related to that project.

So far that's the initial idea:

With this post I would like to introduce to you my latest creation - the NerdCam1. You might wonder why to take the risk to self-develop a CMOS-camera module when there are plenty of other commercial modules available, with a wide price range, with different features, in small sizes. The point is, I personally did not find a commercial and affordable board camera module that fits all my needs for stereoscopic vision, where camera synchronization is a big issue among other aspects like a documented I2C-interface.

This "Fun" experimental robot idea has been haunting me for a while now......

First Test piece is "in the box" ... one of many.... (edit ....estimated 18)

...however the remaining Questions are :-

1. What is G up too   ?
2. What material is G using  ?
3. How will it be deployed   ?
4. Is it going to be worth all the work ?

different tips and shortcuts to program robots

It has begun. I have started work on the stand-alone 3D printer.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Picopter/

hi guys I found this on instructables and thought you guys would like it

you can make your own with EAGLE 

you can find the eagle files on the instructables

So i found this when i looked where members do live.
There is green colour in the logo!
Did you spot this before me? 

There have been several previous blogs and forums on LMR concerning different methods of robot navigation and room recognition. I have decided to make some IR beacons for experimenting with.

My theory is that if each room has at least 3 beacons spaced around it then the robot can not only triangulate it's position within the room but also determine what angle it is facing. Each beacon sends out a different identification code. This allows the robot to know which room it is in.

I need a camera like a CMUcam or a AVRcam for my robot. I was thinking about getting a CMUcam or AVRcam, but there hasn't been much activity lately by the makers of these cameras, so I'm a little hesitant. I want to be able to do onboard color tracking, blob detection, etc.. And I have an Arduino Mega and Duemilinove to use on my robot. Any help from the LMR society goes a long way, and I appreciate it. Thanks!

This is blog is written so that Birdmun and other people can help me find parts for and make my bot. The bot is going to be a multi phase development. The final objectives of the bot will be- navigate through a room full of junk while following a wall to find a can of coke, identify the object and bring it back to the start point.

The phases of development-

1) Make a bot that had 4 legs (ie quadped), and is able to navigate the room without hitting anything (obstacle avoider). Pretty much like the start here robot.

I'll be using this blog entry to kind of introduce myself, and gather/organize my thoughts and plan my way into making my first robot but also receive any advice that might be given to me.

(relevant) background:

informatics

path of interests (line of thinking) that led me here:

Introduction

Finally EL2ISA2 aka Artoo is back from his journey. Like in the vaste of the universe he was travelling thousands of lightyears kilometers/miles throught China: Following up the previous travel reports: Tatooine, here and here. Here are some of the pictures and comments of his adventure.

1. EL2ISA2 (Artoo) standing on the Great Wall of China:

I have been thinking for a while about how one might rate a robot for its level of complexity or sophistication, perhaps assigning it a number or code that classifies it based on its advancement.  If they can assign colors bands to resistors, there should be some way to rate a robot as well.

Hi, I'm a beginer in this kind of robotics so please hang with me if i ask stupid questions or don't know how to do simple things. This is a project I thought would be fun and a overall good challenge, so far all i have done is a prototype for the wing design. The wing should be able to fold in and fit next to the body. Ill post any updates in this blog and will start a project when i start making  the real robot, and not prototypes.

This robot will hopefully do the following: