Ho! Ho! Ho! Here's hoping that we all find some fun robot stuff under our trees this year.
Under the leadership of Louisiana Tech professor, Dr. Ben Choi, student leader, Okoye Chuka and with the help of Dr. David Hall; Louisiana Tech is getting its Robotics Club up and running again. The attached image is a flyer for the upcoming meeting. They are including others, like me, who are outside the university, but interested in robotics. I really hope this becomes an ongoing group. It will be great to have some others locally to learn from and talk to.
Just a quick post to say that work is seriously impinging on my play time. I only get a bit of time here and there, but I am making a plan...
Just wanted to show some pics of a homemade RCA Audio/Video Connection I made to use with my PEKit. I used info from OBC's Propeller Cookbook and the pdf for the RCA to Breadboard Adapter. The RCA board was one I scavengeed from an old VCR and I made a set of pins to stand in up in the far left ground bus. Video is tied (through resistors) to the standard pins - 12, 13 and 14. Audio is tied (through capicitors and resistors) to pins 10 and 11.
I have assembled the Propeller Education Kit Platform. I went through the Set-up Lab and tested all the wiring and function. I have been playing with some Spin coding and hardware set-ups. I built a simple RCA video and audio output and tested both (Thanks to The Propeller Cookbook and pdf and sample code for the RCA to breadboard adaptor).
Well, I finally made the leap up to the Parallax Propeller. The Propeller chip is fantastic step forward in microcontrollers. Its eight processors (cogs) can operate simultaneously, either independently or cooperatively, sharing common resources through a central hub. The eight 32-bit processors (COGs) allow real simultaneous multi-processing! The chip is the result of eight years of work and was designed at the transistor level. The Propeller chip is programmed in both a high-level language, called Spin™, and low-level (assembly) language. With the set of pre-built Parallax “objects” for video, mice, keyboards, RF, LCDs, stepper motors and sensors, a Propeller application is a matter of high-level integration. The Propeller Chip represents the first custom all-silicon product designed by Parallax.
I also bought the Propeller Manual. The Propeller Manual contains detailed Propeller chip architecture information, along with complete syntax and reference guides for both Spin and Propeller Assembly languages.
can do will be a slow process, but there is a lot of help avaliable on the Parallax Forums and at the Propeller Object Exchange. This exchange includes other users solutions to common programming problems which are shared freely on the web. I've already had several folks offer to help me learn or share their code with me. That's one of the reasons I enjoy this so much!
I found this logo on Chuck's Robotics Notebook. It is an online journal by Chuch McManis, who is the president of the Home Brew Robotics Club of Silicon Valley. He explains how he designed it on the introduction page. It really captures what I enjoy about robotics. Robotics is a combination of electronics, programming, and mechanics - creativity will real world constraints.
Well, I broke down and bought a small Wall-E action figure for my workspace desk. It is very detailed. I will probably get a robotic Wall-E at some point or maybe even try to build one like my friend 4mem8 over at Robocommunity.com. Take a look at his thread on the construction of his Wall-E with tons of detail here. Can't wait for the movie, although it comes out while I am away at camp!
Solarbotics Compact L298 Motor Driver allows control of 6 to 24 volt motors, with up to 4 amps of drive current. It comes in kit form. I assembled the unit and have attached photos of the test set-up and a video so you can see it in operation (the photo of the driver by itself is from the Solarbotic's site). Four LEDs indicate motor direction. The driver uses eight Shottkey diodes to shunt back EMF generated by the motors.
This is actually more of an experiment to see about uploading video. I built this 555 Flashing Circuit a while back. It was a little project to play with bread-boarding. The frequency of the flashing LED is controlled by a potentiometer. In the video, I say I designed it, but I actually just built it. The circuit came from Electronics for Dummies and a schematic is shown to the right.
On May 9, 2008, I attended the Louisiana Tech Robot Championship. It was hosted by the Computer Science Department in the College of Engineering at Tech. The focus was on programming, but the hardware was well done too. Most were hacks of toys or pre-built robots. One of the simplest and best was a hacked toy truck, which used simple logic chips instead of
programming. 
Yesterday was Louisiana Tech's Freshman Design Expo. Thirty-two teams presented some very interesting projects. Some were wacky, some things that are already being done,and some were very original and very impressive. I was asked to be a guest judge by Dr. David Hall and it was a great pleasure to help.
Today is my birthday! The big 5 - 0. I am hoping to be a successful late bloomer in the world of amateur robotics or a least have fun trying.
My son's designs and posts were coming so quickly that we decided to make him his own blog. He named it The Great Internet, Notes of a boy and his Dad who both love the Internet. You can visit it here.
According to this thread on the Parallax Forums the new Parallax Digiencabulator is almost completed. No pictures were posted, but there was this exciting picture of the mounting bracket. Looks pretty interesting!
I got this Hummer H2 with Mattracks on sale after Christmas. It was only $60. I wanted the Mattracks, which I have now found out that I can order by themselves from Radio Shack (two sets are about $60). I now have three pair.
I had to post this mini Lego Wall-E that I found while I was surfing the web. I don't know if we have all the parts to make it, but my son would obviously love it. See it here on flickr.
Now my son is designing robots like crazy with his Lego parts. Here are his two latest. The first is the Four-legged Walker (the name is self-explanatory).
I picked up a couple of new books this weekend while on a trip. They're intended to be funny, but educational. Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D. wrote How to Survive a Robot Uprising while working on his doctorate, and How to Build a Robot Army after earning his Ph.D. from at the Robitic's Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. Wilson says on his website, "I wear a tie and glasses to look very smart and intimidate people who visit my website."
current robotic reasearch with the sci-fi fears about the rapid developing technology. Be sure to check out the e-cards. The books are a lot of fun and filled with great information about the current state of robotics. You can find them here at Amazon.
I was playing around the other night with a custom header for this blog. I made this, but I couldn't get all the kinks worked out. Still - it was cool enough to post. I made it from a picture of Parallax's 2x16 Serial LCD. I erased the original text and added the new text in Microsoft PhotoDraw.
RoboGames is the world's largest open robot competition (even the Guinness Book of World Records says so!) The best minds from around the world to compete in over 70 different events. It will be held this year at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Combat robots, walking humanoids, soccer bots, sumo bots, and even androids that do kung-fu. Some robots are autonomous, some are remote controlled - they're all cool! Check it out here.
I just added this image as the new wallpaper on my computer. This is from Walt Disney's upcoming movie titled WALL-E. It is a Pixar film. The Internet Movie Database has this information about WALL-E which is scheduled to be out in June 27, 2008. This movie should be fun for me, my wife and kids (especially me)! See the trailer here.
here. Check out his beautiful craftsmanship shown in the pictures and read the discussion. It would still be fun to make one!
Not to be out done, my daughter had to design her own robot in response to my son's design posted here. Notice the tank tread locomotion and the two grippers on the body. Another excellent design.
I was surfing some robotics' sites the other day and found a great link to Robot Portraits. Ben Rollman is an artist in Austin, Texas who does some very interesting work. Ben takes photos of people and transforms them into robots (see his U.S. presidents) . I had to have one of these for my blog! Check out some more of Ben's work here on flickr.com. After an e-mail or two with some attached photos - Ben went to work and made the drawing above - complete with the Episcopal Church's shield.
two everyday. I am going to try to work on some new projects to learn some specific things - like the Understanding Signals Course from Parallax (which involves learning to use their USB Oscilloscope).
I'm reading a very interesting book called Leonardo's Lost Robots by Mark Elling Rosheim.
Rosheim attended the University of Minnesota, studying mechanical engineering. He has developed robotic technologies for NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy, and is the founder and president of Ross-Hime Designs, Inc., a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based mechanical design company. He holds over 20 patents in robot technology, and has published and lectured extensively around the world on the topic of robot technology and history.
In the preface, he describes how in 1965, he received a Lost in Space Remco Toy Robot. When its arms didn't move by themselves, he declared to his Dad, "But it's a Robot. They're supposed to move on their own." His quest to build such a robot and to understand the mechanical principles of human motion and dexterity led him to investigate the anatomical and mechanical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Utilizing a new approach, he began to reconnect the tell-tale fragments into a cohesive whole. Rosheim's website http://www.anthrobot.com/ is worth a look too.
I assembled another one of my Christmas presents today. It's the Solarbotics, Herbie the Mousebot. Originally invented by Randy Sargent, Herbie was built from spare parts as an entry for a robot competition. Herbie is such an elegant, clever design using very few parts, it's been featured in as a construction project in "Junkbot, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels", "Absolute Beginner's Guide to Robots" and "MAKE" Magazine. When I connected the battery after assembly, nothing happened. I began to look the little bot over and disovered that I forgot to solder the tabs to the 9-volt battery hook-up. Oops! Two quick solder connections and everything worked perfectly.
My son loves to put things in his mouth, especially remote controls. This is obviously not good for electronic devices. His T.V. remote has been broken for a while. Today, I took it apart and did a little testing and troubleshooting. Current was getting to the Infra-red LED. Upon a closer look, the leads were rusty and one was rusted into.
