Gareth's blog

Idea :-Damage control ...... take the control off the operator if it exceeds the design limits of the robot - robot makes necessary actions to get out of danger and only then hand control back to manual operator control.

Not bad for a single set of  fixed Infra Red sharps .... positioned to detect Cliff and Obstacles......tuning needed though.

In the second video it fails only because it was over-correcting the correction and exposing its back to the cliff ....... to solve this i programmed faster but shorter turn corrections.

Look what i found deep in my "Keller Vaults" ..... A (almost brand-new antique) -SummaSketch III tablet........ 

....ideal for making some vector plot graphics ....good time_ing on my behalf ..... makes life easy and me thinks that all you CNC/3D print persons would kill for one ........ as it can also spit out mm or inch scaled units .... slap a blue print robot plan onto the tablet and trace the data in....oh Yehhh...

However the propellers SetRamp servo command is causing a few headaches on how to scale the speed of the X compared to the Y axis .

Phosphour Blotch or hidden messages !!!!

Third pass ------ it just gets brighter and brighter.......

One stage further to understand how to control things with Maths......

What Series picture is (-:G.-) cooking up with his propeller mathematics .......?

Following on from my "Original" Phosphor screen UltraViolet laser experiments........

.... it struck me by varying the amount of time the laser hits the phosphor screen ......you can vary the brightness .aaanddd...

....create GreenScale images... below you can see the Green Swiss cross with "GreenScale" fading ....

JPGs and BMPs are a pinch away.........

If you have any ideas how i can strip the information out of a bmp/jpg..........fill in the empty boxs below......

"Smiley" ..... with Parallax Propellor.

Slap a UV laser onto a pan-tilt servo mechanism and blast a 50cm x 50cm sheet of florescent vinyl with it ........

Propeller chip picks up preformed Graphic data matrix from data table........

Introducing Miranda - implementation of "Halo" Laser scanner.

Consists of a Golden reflector/Wii camera attached to CTC's Mini Prop Undershield (PPPB) & Andrews M44D40+ propeller board.

Scotty ......"Captn....i canny noo contain the plasma leak.....were doooomed"

Kirk......"We need one of those new Halo things ......can you build a "mini" one Scotty ......in purple" ?....

Introducing my latest Robot "Brian" :-

Born             :-   Friday 23rd September 2011 @ 10:30 BST

Weight         :-   60 grammes

Dimensions  :-   2.5″ x 2.0″

Gender         :-  Hermaphrodite

    It is my first attempt at creating a cost effective "Swarm" bot ....

.... Brian is learning fast, though is only crawling at the "MoMo"

Mystery Autumn "Guess wot the Heck Gareth is doing now" project

Continued......... Video explains the details ....including the painstaking job of finding the right house wires....ekkk

Removed the "Elfish PC" as its needed on another project.........

..... Replaced with a super cool RBBB Propeller board M44D40 found on the parallax forum, for 20 dollars.

I choose this board because of its size and simplicity (it has to fit inside my RFID box) .

Continuation of Hacked Multipass RFID reader ......

Now updated with absolute decode of the 19 byte "Secret-Cypher" hex string to 10 digit readable numerical string....YAY

RFID reader hacking success.... 19 bytes of raw data .......

Question is  shall i go Arduino or Propeller ? .....or even Picaxe (just in its grasp)

Just wanted to share this........

 I bought a new RFID reader .......

It installed quite nicely all by its self  as a HID (Human Interface Device)

Now i was clueless "Wot2Do" with a RFID HID.... soo.....

.... yes ask the ShoutBox someone will point me in the right direction......

For the cost of 4 resistors and a $1.80 Bluetooth dongle - your Propeller chip can join the wireless environment.

....again the Propeller chip just bowls me over with its amazing capabilities.....

For more details of how to accomplish this....... zip over to Elizabeth Scotts site

EDIT :- Now confirmed working with 2$ dealextream Bluetooth Dongle.

I needed disparately a mini platform for development - the propeller can be easily set up to read ps2 keyboard/mouse and output a composite video signal, plus sound and if i play my cards right a usb bridge interface for my phone.

All i have basically done is sit the propeller usb board into an ic socket and soldered 2 IDE diskdrive sockets either side - allowing me to use the system like a breadboard for experimentation. On the back i have wired in sockets for mouse and keyboard.

My Wii-camera will just plug into the ide socket....... oh this is going to be soooo magic..

I could not resist making a clone of a JMEMantzel walker (NOT the spidertank mech) as featured in his video Here.

This is just a mock-up to understand and tune the walking mech.........before.....

shrinking it to half (or quarter) its size - controlled by central servo for turning..............

The Barcode input method i will be expanding as well.

Do you think a picaxe 08M is up to the job ?      (servo-motor-barcode)

Megan40 - UltraViolet Detectors ( IR is going out of fashion )

This is my latest FireFly codename Megan40 ...... because she sports 40MΩ feedback resistors

If you need detectors that are not affected by ambient light then i highly recommend using UltraViolet LEDs as detectors.

The detect circuitry is finished - next part is to shoehorn the picaxe 08 onto the back to control servo and UV glowtube.

Here is FireFly C10 detecting the UV glowing light off FireFly C224

C10 then synchronises and flashes in unison with C224

Second FireFly is in the Jar........ code named "No.10"

Disassembled Green version.

1 UV LED and 2 caps = 6 legs ....... one set of 3 is the positive and other set of 3 is the negative )-:so it can not cross its legs :-(

Glow PolyMorph Ultra-Violet LED body has a bit more "Organic-ness" to it now........

"Jar of FireFly"

Ok its a start before the summer comes - by then the jar.....or a bigger jar will be full of Anamatronic FireFlies.

The idea is that the jar just keeps them safe - then i can open it up take them out and deploy the fireflies onto a bush or tree etc-etc

They will be controlled by picaxe 08s (128byte brain) in theory 1 picaxe will control 3 Fireflies.

BlueSun organisation is loaming - "a something else" product - be sure to tune into the "wave".

Care to guess its purpose in life ............. ?

Urgent Search :- Need to find Serenity or Firefly  theme tune ..for picaxe - can any browncoats help out !!!!!

Gareth is Going Green (G³)........no suprises.........

At long last..... 

Just had last bits in to go a little "Solar Friendly" ...

.....First Etape "in the bag" :- my Main Compy is running "Green" off Solar power.....

.....(not sure for how long on one charge though, so far so good....)

.....2nd Etape - Solar lighting (not sure what or how yet)

Having built the Lassiter i wanted to make it mobile so that it could go for a spin..........(with a spin)

Being resourceful i raided the chassis off my Mr.Tidy (sorry OddBot but it has to be Hacked sooner or later)

Introducing the "Lassiter" , an inexpensive laser LIDAR Ranging Gadget (Wiimote/Propeller based)

I have been troubled for a while Re:- Laser experiment It required a Bluetoth connection to a pc for it to work.....

..... now i have removed this "MiddleMan", all can be done with a simple parallax propeller system ....YaY

What you see here is my first successful setup :-