Updates

(1) Raspberry Pi case & Kodi

      (1a) Make shift case

Once day I went to school to watch Star Wars, and only brought my RPi with me. So I transported it in this case (originally a case for cards). Used tissue to keep it from moving around. Decided to get a proper case. 

      (1b) Perm case

I have decided that one of my Pis will seat permanently beside my monitor. This case will hold it. I will use it to watch movies and also host PiHole (an ad blocking tech that I recently learnt about, will post more when I implement it). I pasted the heat sinks (not necessary but for the "cool" factor), and it has a fan too.

       (1c) Failed travel/holding case

This is a second case I bought, it was really cheap, just under $3. Was planning to use this for a travel case (to hold my second pi when moving around) but after I got it I realized you can only securely close it by using screws. Not suitable for the purpose I intended it for; will sell it off. 

        (1d) Kodi

Tried out all the players I wrote about in my previous post, I like Kodi the best. However I also like playing videos using the terminal command in Rasbian. Here I was powering the Pi using an external charger.

(2) SUMOBOT!

      

A friend who visited Silicon Valley got this for free and passed it to me. After I got it, I went to search Youtube and watch some videos about Sumbot competitions. Basically who of them are placed in a circle, and they are supposed to push the other out. How exciting! The board however is BASIC Stamp, which is coded in STAMP, which I don't really like (I find writing code for the Arduino a faster and more intuitive process).

And just my luck, a few days later I was walking by the school of EEE (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) , and saw a poster for a Sumbot competition! The registration deadline was over but I called the number and managed to weasel my way in (they needed a few people to top up one or two teams). Most people in the competition are from EEE or REP (Renaissance Engineering Programme). I'm the only one from Mech. Good news is that we will be using the Arduino Uno! It is supposed to be fully autonomous. What I was not expecting, however, was that we were supposed to build the whole bot ourselves (I was under the impression everyone would start off from the same base and do modifications. I could use the one my friend gave me, but in the spirit of fairness I shall build one as well. Sure this will take longer, but would probably be fun. Will dedicate a post to it after the competition ends. 

(3) Google Cardboard

 
Finally bought it. Virtual Reality for those who virtually have no money (Copyright pending). Lol jk.

It was really fun to assemble. 

Unfortunately this one did not come with the NFC tag to launch the app (I bought a really cheap one from China, as usual). I tried it on, and for some reason Google apps (the samples and Youtube) seems to not be in focus. However third party games are working perfectly. I would have to try and rectify this problem when I have the time, because I really wish to use this for Youtube videos as well. Games can keep you occupied for only so long. 

(3) Misc

      (3a) Repaired the washing Machine

So my washing machine was not working, it kept beeping after drawing water. I spent an hour fiddling at the back and searching online for solutions. Needless to say, the washing machine hackers community is pretty much non existent. However the few forums that did exist, were pretty helpful in informing me of common problems, which helped me narrow down the problem.

Finally I decided to open the control panel. The circuit board is protected from water using some very thick wax like substance. I realized there was a catch under the lid, which was empty. Realizing it was probably used to hold a sensor which indicated if the lid was open or closed, I went to Google again and realized it was a case of a missing <strike>sensor</strike> magnet. After unsuccessfully trying to find a strong magnet around the house, I asked my mom and she said she found one in the wash. It turned out to be the one which had fell off (not sure why I didn't think of where it went earlier, guess the excitement of finding a replacement got the better of me). I fixed it on the inside of the control panel this time, instead of under the lid, so now the machine can run without having the lid down (not a very useful feature, I admit, but at least the magnet won't be going anywhere anymore).

      (3b) Purchases

Bought a 2.5" HD case, so now I won't have to switch around. 

I didn't buy this, but it was a gift from the friend who visited Silicon Valley and got it from Facebook's gift shop. Facebook HQ. Who knows, maybe MZ had glanced at it before? Haha. 

      (3c) Autonomous Car

I have a project to do this semester, which should be about sensors and one of the themes given is future mobility. I have decided to expand upon my internship knowledge and build an almost fully autonomous car. And by car I mean I am going to use the chassis of a big but cheap RC car. Now this is a difficult project, so I hope I would be able to complete it in time. Will dedicate a post to it once I am done. 

Absence and updates

It has been a long time since my last post and the reason for that is because I was involved in a start up! We taught computational thinking and I was the main Python instructor. Along the way I learned bootstrap and actually set up our website. A few pages are still not done. You can check it out here: www.thekrono.com.


So last week I met up with a friend to help him get his proximity sensor up and running with Arduino. Then I realized how much I missed working with Arduino. My own FYP is purely software(more on that in another post), so sadly I wont get to play with hardware.

I've decided to hold some Arduino workshops for Open Source Society, since so many people seem to need to learn Arduino. I will start on Sunday (trial class with friends) and then hold the first proper one on Thursday. I will be calling this series 'Tinkering Thursdays : Arduino 101'.

Meanwhile I have been eyeing a NFC card reader shied that works with Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
It is called 'PN532 NFC/RFID Controller Shield for Arduino'. I am wondering if I should get the original (will cost me 50-70) or a third party one from DX.com (will cost me 30). Will give an update on it once I have bought it and tried it out.

2 Wheel Self Balancing Robot - Robot body

So there are three general components to this project:

1) Electronics hardware

2) Robot body

3) PID

4) Code  (other than PID)

I will be making more posts going into details about topics (1) (3) and (4).

For this post I will speak about the easiest part, part (2).

So by this point I had tested everything individually. Had to put it together then start tuning the PID. 

Got a battery holder from Sim Lim tower that could hold up to 8 * AA batteries. Thats a grand total of 12 possible Volts. 

I used solder to complete the circuit, since I was using less than the maximum number of batteries. 

Had ran out of wire so I just used jumper cable everywhere.

 Because I refused to pay $30 for the robot body kit, I had to improvise and build a body from things I had lying around. The major contributors were foam, zip ties and blue-tack. 

The final product.

This made me realize how much resources are at our disposal all around us; we just need to use our creativity. That's the reason why I classified this process as a major section of the project, although it was done in just a few hours. Currently I took this apart so that I could savage the foam and Arduino for other purposes, but I think over the summer I will revive it with a better body. Will take a video then and upload it.

Arduino based webcam face tracker

So for this project I used processing, openCV, Arduino and an old webcam.

The Arduino code is from Adafruit and the processing code is written by me and (soon to be) hosted on my Github. For the code, skip to the end. 

 

I decided to used my (10+ years?) old webcam.

 

The base was very heavy so I decided to remove it. Then I decided to open it up as I was curious to how its inside looked. 

 

This is how it looked like on the inside. The round black rubber thing makes sure light is tunneled though to the lens and does not get in from angles. 

 

As the rubber cover was in place due to pressure, and the pressure was removed, I tired to fashion another cover out of things on my table. What worked in the end was foam (as usual). 

Managed to get the code working with an external camera device.

 

While I had a servo(on the left), I wanted to make it work on two axis so I purchased another one and also a First Person View(FPV) cradle.

 

 

Honestly the cradle was hard to put together as it did not come with instructions and I had to figure out how to assemble it on my own. And to make matters worse, I was not provided with the correct arm size(the white thing). Cutting its length was fine but the width was very troublesome.  

 And tad-da! The final product! 

I took a video demo of it. One video of the webcam face tracker in motion and another screen recording. However the screen recording was not captured properly. Hence I cannot upload those videos. 

About the code:

So initially I took two files from Adafruit. One was for the Arduino and the other was for processing. 

While the Arduino code worked well, the processing one was broken. It was based on a library that could not be found anywhere on the net. 

I then took a look at some of the openCV examples. Based off the examples, I managed to put together some code that did the trick. I will be uploading it on Github soon and will update this post with the link.

Arduino Initiation Ceremony

My younger brother has to work with arudino for a school project. Over the weekend I went though the basic tutorials with him.

This pictured captured his "hello world" moment, blinking led. 

LED Cube - ini

Project Initialization: LED Cube (3by3)

So I decided to make a LEDCube.
 A simple 3by3 one to begin with. 

(1) Didn't have a prototyping board so I compromised.
Poked holes at what I hope is equal distances. 

(2) First row soldered.

(3) All soldered. 

(4) This was definitely the hardest part.
 Soldering them one on top of the other.

At this point I realized I did not have enough resistors. I had overestimated my supply. Anyway I have ordered a bunch of stuff from DX, awaiting the delivery now. 

Testing the voltage/current reader

Was trying to find a way to find out my Pi's IP address without connecting it to a monitor(failed for today) so I took out the current/voltage reader. The current shows only .3A so I'm not sure how accurate it is. Later I will plug my phone in and compare the values with an app on my phone. The voltage hovers slightly above 5v. 

The color is slightly different. Have not tested any code yet.

Arrival of my Arduino Clone

Came home today to see my items had arrive! I will test them another day and upload the results.

I can see not everything is aligned proper.

The breadboards are much smaller than I anticipated.
The bottom part has double-sided tape attached.

The increasing power of the tablet

I finally started using my bluetooth keyboard and it really increases my productivity on the tablet, at least when working at my desk. I also tried using a mouse using my OTG adaptor but I think I prefer the touch input. I tried looking for games which had the option of using the keyboard as input but I was unable to find any. 

I did find an Arduino IDE! It can not only compile the code but also send it to your Arduino using OTG! Unfortunately my Uno is at home so I could not test he last part but I did download the code and tested compiling on it.

This is the app name and publisher

The app

Can you spot the error(s)?

The compiler sure did!

There was also an option to purchase this.
Basically it helps you "autocomplete", like ecplise.
 If I use this app for my arduino coding I might get it.

So this basically means that I no longer have to lug my Mac around just for my Arduino. I can simply carry my NotePro now! =D