New ways of seeing things..

Hi all, I am so excited about this. It may not be much to anybody else, but to me it is!

You all know how we only have the IR's or the Ultra sound to work with when we want to check distance? Yeah, if we have millions we can also get a camera or two, and laser range finders..

However, I wanted something cooler.

This is not that, I am sorry.

However, I am working on something cooler (I hope, but it may be far fetched), and when doing so, as a spin off I made this. 

And it is pretty wicked, I think.

The setup is simple, as simple as you can see it on the video; An LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) is hooked up with a 330 Ohm (or something) resistor, to the analogue input of a standard Picaxe 28 board with no extra modifications.

Also a speaker and a "white" (pale blue they are) LED are hooked up to the standard outputs, batteries, and that is it.

At first you may think that I have done nothing special.. LDR detecting light, or maby just pulsating light.. but then why don't you try to replicate it? I am going to be very surprised (and my day spoiled) if you can make something that works like this! ;)

I have made an LDR measure distance!

There you go, for less than half price of a Sharp IR range finder, and twice as fun, as you can actually see where the robot is focusing!

I am so excited to hear what you all think of this, and to hear if anyone can figure out how I did it, so I am not going to tell yet, but I will make a walkthrough, and am planning to make a robot (Start here-kind of project) that will not drive over the table's edge, and will navigate just by this.

..And while I am at it, I think I may have a look at giving that robot the ability to sense colors as well, so it can find say a red object amongst green on a black surface.. and then it can play ball :)

Because color detecting is also a spin off by this method! (Not on the setup on the video, and I have not tried it in real life yet, but I am pretty sure, and am going to prove it soon :)

And if not for color sensing, then for coolnes: Yes, the LED can be red as well (or any other color, possibly even IR, though I have not tried it yet) In fact it was red when I made the original test, but I swapped it to a "white" so you should not think it was the difference in color that did it. The flash light on the video has 3 LED's of same type & color..

How did I do this? Make me happy, throw me a theory, or try to duplicate :)

Thanks (I will tell later, but here is a chance to take me down first ;) Did I mention it is working in sunlight?