Jonathan Oxer
[Blog]
>> Much nicer RX-8 video
Thu, Apr 23rd 11:44am 2009 >> Geek My Ride
Now this is how it *should* be done! Flame and his brother Bob have been working on getting a Geek My Ride TV show together for channel 31, and Bob just uploaded a little clip put together from footage collected during some test filming we did recently: Or for people picking this up via syndication, the direct link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInbHSFFG5k Bob, you're a champion.
Now this is how it *should* be done! Flame and his brother Bob have been working on getting a Geek My Ride TV show together for channel 31, and Bob just uploaded a little clip put together from footage collected during some test filming we did recently: Or for people picking this up via syndication, the direct link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInbHSFFG5k Bob, you're a champion.
>> Rocket flight data recorder
Mon, Apr 20th 11:02pm 2009 >> LunarNumbat
With too many things going on at the moment it's nice sometimes when one project fulfills multiple requirements. Lunar Numbat is about playing around with rockets. Practical Arduino is about playing around with Arduino. Put them together and you get:
Which is (obviously!) an Arduino-based rocket flight recorder.
The bottom board is an Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz from Sparkfun. Sitting on top of it is a 433MHz transmitter module from Jaycar, and the circular PCB to the right is a Lilypad 3-axis accelerometer breakout board. To give some sense of scale the entire assembly is about the same dimensions as a 9V battery, so it's very small and light. You're looking at it lying on its "back": the plan is that it will mount vertically in the nosecone of the class-C rocket that Marco provided so that we can log accelerometer data from a launch. When fitted into the rocket the round accelerometer board sits flat in the bottom of the nosecone so the Z-axis reading will align perfectly with the direction of flight.
I have a 5Hz GPS module in-transit from Sparkfun at the moment too, so if that arrives in time I'll up the ante and try to get the system transmitting x/y/z force plus lat/lon/altitude every 200ms. If everything works out well we may even get a nice flight track from the location points.
With too many things going on at the moment it's nice sometimes when one project fulfills multiple requirements. Lunar Numbat is about playing around with rockets. Practical Arduino is about playing around with Arduino. Put them together and you get:
Which is (obviously!) an Arduino-based rocket flight recorder.
The bottom board is an Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz from Sparkfun. Sitting on top of it is a 433MHz transmitter module from Jaycar, and the circular PCB to the right is a Lilypad 3-axis accelerometer breakout board. To give some sense of scale the entire assembly is about the same dimensions as a 9V battery, so it's very small and light. You're looking at it lying on its "back": the plan is that it will mount vertically in the nosecone of the class-C rocket that Marco provided so that we can log accelerometer data from a launch. When fitted into the rocket the round accelerometer board sits flat in the bottom of the nosecone so the Z-axis reading will align perfectly with the direction of flight.
I have a 5Hz GPS module in-transit from Sparkfun at the moment too, so if that arrives in time I'll up the ante and try to get the system transmitting x/y/z force plus lat/lon/altitude every 200ms. If everything works out well we may even get a nice flight track from the location points.>> Rocket-Powered Easter Bunny
Mon, Apr 13th 10:26pm 2009 >> LunarNumbat
My family and I spent the Easter long weekend at the in-laws place in Stawell. I happened to have a little hobby rocket with me (supplied by Marco Ostini so Andy and I could do some preliminary avionics testing for Lunar Numbat) and while sitting on the veranda munching on Easter eggs it suddenly seemed like a good idea to combine the two. The result: Or view directly at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iZQ0Iex1J0 At least now I know we can put 27 grams of extra mass in the nosecone when it comes to sticking an Arduino in there with an accelerometer.
My family and I spent the Easter long weekend at the in-laws place in Stawell. I happened to have a little hobby rocket with me (supplied by Marco Ostini so Andy and I could do some preliminary avionics testing for Lunar Numbat) and while sitting on the veranda munching on Easter eggs it suddenly seemed like a good idea to combine the two. The result: Or view directly at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iZQ0Iex1J0 At least now I know we can put 27 grams of extra mass in the nosecone when it comes to sticking an Arduino in there with an accelerometer.
>> OpenCV for the MythTV win!
Wed, Apr 8th 8:35pm 2009 >> Tech Toys
At the MythTV Miniconf at LCA2009 this year I did a brief talk about my lame attempts to build a presence-awareness system for MythTV: I want my TV to know when I'm watching it, and if I walk out of the room it should pause until I walk back in. And if I walk into a different room with a TV in it, the program I was watching in the first room should follow me and resume playing from the place it paused itself. Another example of my general "the best UI is no UI" philosophy. I want the world to automatically do the right thing around me in reaction to whatever I'm doing, I don't want to have to control things manually. So anyway, my proof-of-concept used an IR beacon and worked but was kinda sucky. During the talk I said I'd prefer to be running face recognition but hadn't got that far yet, and Bob Edwards piped up with the suggestion that I should look at OpenCV. Well, Bob was right. OpenCV is teh awesome! This is the result of running the facedetect example using the camera in my laptop under the worst possible conditions: low light, side-illumination, and reflective glasses. The red circle is facedetect's overlay showing where it believes it has found a face:
Even in those bad conditions it managed to track my face quite accurately as I moved around. Neat!
Now to hook this up as an input to my mythpresence code and conceal a camera in the top of the TV bezel...
At the MythTV Miniconf at LCA2009 this year I did a brief talk about my lame attempts to build a presence-awareness system for MythTV: I want my TV to know when I'm watching it, and if I walk out of the room it should pause until I walk back in. And if I walk into a different room with a TV in it, the program I was watching in the first room should follow me and resume playing from the place it paused itself. Another example of my general "the best UI is no UI" philosophy. I want the world to automatically do the right thing around me in reaction to whatever I'm doing, I don't want to have to control things manually. So anyway, my proof-of-concept used an IR beacon and worked but was kinda sucky. During the talk I said I'd prefer to be running face recognition but hadn't got that far yet, and Bob Edwards piped up with the suggestion that I should look at OpenCV. Well, Bob was right. OpenCV is teh awesome! This is the result of running the facedetect example using the camera in my laptop under the worst possible conditions: low light, side-illumination, and reflective glasses. The red circle is facedetect's overlay showing where it believes it has found a face:
Even in those bad conditions it managed to track my face quite accurately as I moved around. Neat!
Now to hook this up as an input to my mythpresence code and conceal a camera in the top of the TV bezel...>> Needed: site for a rocket launch
Sat, Apr 4th 9:54am 2009 >> LunarNumbat
Do you know of anyone with a large property near Melbourne's East who wouldn't mind a couple of model rockets being fired up into the sky? By "large property" I don't just mean a big backyard: I'm talking more like 20+ acres. Andy Gelme and I need somewhere to launch a class-C rocket so we can test an Arduino-based avionics / telemetry system we're working on for Lunar Numbat. If you know somewhere suitable please drop me an email or give me a call on 04 3851 6600.
Do you know of anyone with a large property near Melbourne's East who wouldn't mind a couple of model rockets being fired up into the sky? By "large property" I don't just mean a big backyard: I'm talking more like 20+ acres. Andy Gelme and I need somewhere to launch a class-C rocket so we can test an Arduino-based avionics / telemetry system we're working on for Lunar Numbat. If you know somewhere suitable please drop me an email or give me a call on 04 3851 6600.
>> RoboWars - in Melbourne?
Fri, Apr 3rd 8:49am 2009 >> Tech Toys
I can't believe I haven't heard of this before! How on Earth have I missed it? Robots smashing each other up, right here in Melbourne! Article (with video) on the Ausrobotics site: Robowars 6 is on this weekend in Oakleigh, Vic! (Although not *this* weekend, unfortunately, it's an old story) RoboWars site
I can't believe I haven't heard of this before! How on Earth have I missed it? Robots smashing each other up, right here in Melbourne! Article (with video) on the Ausrobotics site: Robowars 6 is on this weekend in Oakleigh, Vic! (Although not *this* weekend, unfortunately, it's an old story) RoboWars site
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