Tag: Vids

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Project Progress: H-Bridge

I thought I could get away with utilizing the onboard 6V from my cannibalized motion platform…aka the orange thing…in order to power both the DC motors and my IOIO. My bluetooth connection was cutting out…indicating that I needed to introduce a separate power source for the board and for the motors.

My workaround didn’t pan out…time to rethink the build. Guess what I have on my desk:

ioio motor shield
yoink

Adafruit Motor Shield for the Arduino. Two good looking H-Bridges staring at me….that’ll do. I never thought I would find myself treating my Arduino gear as a scrapheap, but the day has come.

The H-Bridge will allow me to cross over (think of a capitol H) and provide bi-directional motion from the hardware level. 3.3V digital outputs…no more open drain needed (bonus.)

h bridge pins
h bridge pins

Anyhow, I ended up putting together a little test board…socket, some male pins, and eventually some wires for a more secure connection. Sucking some serious soldering fumes…

test board modified
custom mod

It looks sloppy, but here is the hardware in its entirety:

the setup
+1 great holder

Here is a quick video of my testing. I fired up my IOIOSeek program, which has two simple digital outputs triggered via buttons…

Early success? Yep. Except for the early part…this has been more work than I had assumed. More EE work…hoping the UI and hardware containment goes smoothly. Tune back in.

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Project Hardware Wrap Redux

So close…

vehicle debug
mid debug

I hit another snag with respect to my IOIO specs butting heads with actual power yield. An early success:

…followed by being unable to replicate via battery control, despite higher voltage. I might be running into a similar incident that I saw when putting together the PowerSwitch Tail project. I’ll get there…might have resisters coming out the ass, but I should be able to solve this issue with a creative open-drain setup as well. Tune in again…

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BOC Unboxing

It (still) never rains…

boc woot
crappy woot crap is bag of crappy

The second woot bag of crap is equally as crappy.

…as much as I like refurbished ethernet routers, I think BOC round two wins. Winning being on an inverted scale, whereas less crappy is awarded more points.

I can chop up USB Guard Dog for its infared sensor, and the small Swanson girl will play with the caped monkey. Win win for the win…

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Leaf Blower POV

Trees and leaves, man. Trees and leaves.

black yukon
leaf-y

Good thing I picked up a new Hitachi two-stroke leaf blower from Woot.

Video one: Droid meets concrete

Video two: Leaves meet street

I’ll fully admit that video one wins.

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IOIO PowerSwitch Project

I can finally report a conclusion of sorts on the IOIO / PowerSwitch Tail project. The ‘of sorts’ disclaimer is in regards to my Android App, which is pretty much a working beta. I have some issues with my onResume code, and want to put some polish on the UI. That said, I have released the code to the interwebs, so had better provide a write-up.

The setup is the same as I have been posting. Dual open drain pins with a 10K pull to 5V do the lifting…triggering of pins is handled via my IOIO board…Android app providing a UI to do the switching.

ioio-example-project
beta version: check.

I went ahead and published my app on the Android Market. It will pop for sure by searching for IOIO.

android market app
apptastic

Price: free ninety nine. Can’t beat that.

I also tossed this code up on GitHub. Go nuts.

github example
/swantron

Video time: see this in action.

Basically, between all of the shaky camera work, I download my app from the Android Market, connect via USB, and control the 120V relay via my Droid 2. I will shoot a better video once I clean up my code a bit.

Stay tuned. The README on GitHub and the app details section should have all of the connection information. I can provide any further details via email / comments / @swantron. Have fun with this one…

Link to android market
Link to project code at GitHub

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HTML to Python to Arduino to LCD

Last week found me standing tall upon my shell script soapbox, shouting command line praises to all who would listen.

Thou ought direct thine output aftways, to-wards thine USB port of thee. And that is well and righteous.

Well, that still is the case. My latest project has made it glaringly obvious that sometimes a little Python script will render a whole bunch of shell scripting moot. Namely, parsing HTML. Let’s see a picture…

outdoor hacking
bad lab mobile

Lunch hour project: parse the comments from swantron.com; feed said comments to an LCD screen.

I was horsing around with wget from a CLI a few days ago. I found myself trying to smash through the resultant file via pure regular expressions…which is incredibly clumsy. Well, as luck would have it, my go-to after my main go-to is Python, and this type of thing has been issue enough to warrant a library. BeautifulSoup. It acts to parse the HTML info into items, that can be smashed around as I see(med) fit.

My setup was simple: py script to snag my comments and write serial, Arduino sketch to drive a LCD and read/write serial. And a source of shade. And a WiFi signal to snag.

mobile mobile
bad lab mobile-mobile

Check, check, check, etc. Video time:

Pretty slick…hit the fold for the code, as promised, and a summary.
Continue reading “HTML to Python to Arduino to LCD”

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DIY Minority Report

Spoiler1: This is awesome.
Spoiler2: I’ve never seen Minority Report.

I do know that there is some sort of hands free interface, and that is what I have put together.

minority report
+1 dizzy

Long story short, I have extended upon my PING))) project to include some sweet touchless home automation. I have the ultrasonic sensor interfacing with my garage door and a lamp, utilizing a servo and a PowerSwitch Tail, respectively.

Hit the bump for an awesome video of this thing in action, and for my spippet.

Continue reading “DIY Minority Report”

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Wiitarded Concept

Lego Star Wars on Wii: Success
Lego Indiana Jones on Wii: Success
Lego Batman on Wii: Success
Lego Wiimote: Excuse me? Come again…

hmm
hmm

I’m confused as to why this product exists. That said, it does. That and that said, if you shell out $40, you can incorporate a working Wiimote into your Lego houses. For the loss.