jenslabs | An open notebook

Time 2020-11-04 02:03:25

Web Name: jenslabs | An open notebook

WebSite: http://jenslabs.com

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A while back a friend asked me if I could build a custom toy for a little guy called Oscar. She said something in the lines of The little guy is crazy about knobs, button, switches and blinking lights. You know, the same stuff that you like. Of course I could not pass up an opportunity to lead a new requite towards the world of electronics so I accepted. Now it s finished and the Color mix master is born.OperationThe basic function is that the six RGB diodes on the top is controlled by the knobs, switches and buttons below. The color mix master has 5 modes which can be cycled between by pushing the buttons at the bottom.Mode 1In mode one the three switches works as a way to input a binary number. The LED that correspond to the number set by the switches is lit up correspondingly. The three knobs that are colored red, green and blue can be used to set the hue of the LED.Mode 2In mode two the three switches works as a way to input a binary number just as in mode one. But what is different in mode two is that the all LEDs up to the number that correspond to the number set by the switches are lit up. The three knobs can be used to set the hue of the LED.Mode 3In mode three the switches works just like in mode two but LED color is a fading rainbow and the knobs have no function.Mode 4In mode four the switches works just like in mode two. The LED color is a some random sparkles in different colors and the knobs have no function.Mode 5In mode five the switches works just like in mode two. The LED color is a dot moving back and fourth between left and right with a fading rainbow trail and the knobs have no function.HardwareThe case of the color mix master is an old router that I have spray painted red. It had plenty of room inside after ripping out the old circuitry. The LEDs are through hole APA106 LEDs and they function in all essence like the WS2812B that is sold by Adafruit under the name Neopixels. They have the nice ability that you can address each diode individually using only one output from the microcontroller. Each diode has a data in, data out, GND and 5V. The diodes are connected one after another where the output from one diode is the input for the next. To make the spacing between the LEDs match the holes I had drilled in the case I made a little jig with the same spacing between the holes as in the final case to use while soldering. The microcontroller is an Pro Mini, it has the same Processor as the Arduino, ATmega328P, but it doesn t have USB or a voltage regulator, this makes it bit cheaper but you have to take care of the usb communications and power control your self. To provide 5V power I used a standard LM7805 voltage regulator and a 9V battery. The LEDs shouldn t be powered from the microcontroller directly because they consume quite a lot of power and you would risk damaging your microcontroller. Instead you can run power to the LEDs directly from the LM7805 as long as you remember to connect the ground to the same rail as the microcontroller is using. If you would like to build a similar device based on my code any microcontoller that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE can be used just as long as it has at least 6 Digital IO pins and 3 analog input pins. SoftwareThe software is a real hack. It was done in haste to be ready for christmas and can be improved greatly. I had problems to get the debouncing library to work so every time I pressed the button it registered as two presses. There are also unused methods etc. but hey it works! The LEDs are controlled by the excellent fastled.io library. The code is available at my github: https://github.com/clarholm/Color-Mix-master I have always wanted to use an accelerometer in a project, so when my daughter Beatrice was born I knew exactly what to build; The Hypno-Jellyfish! The Hypno-Jellyfish is a jellyfish-shaped toy filled with RGB LEDs that changes color when you move it. So if you have just become a father, (or want to give someone else a very personal/strange gift), this is the project for you. Design requirementsWhen designing a toy for a baby you need to understand the intended users modus opperandi.1. If it fits in the mouth, it will go in the mouth.Has to be free of toxinsNo small parts that can be swallowedAll parts that can be touched by the user has to be waterproof2. If it can be pulled it will be pulled with as much force that can be achieved by a 0 year old.Needs to be built to handle some serious pulling.3. If it can be dropped on the floor it will be thrown on the floor repeatedly and you have to pick it up over and over again.Make it undroppable or very sturdy.4. Blinking lights are beautiful and will be stared at intently.We don t want the Hypno-Jellyfish to have to much hypno power and accedently cause epilepsy. According to wikipedia photosensitive epileptic seizures should not occur if the flicker rate is below 2-3 Hz.PartsStep 1To remove as much sensitive parts out of Beatrices reach as possible, I decided to go with a two part design. The first part contains the Arduino and the battery, this part will sit on top of the babygym and out of baby reach. The other part is the jellyfish, constructed from polymorph plastic, that contains the Neopixel ring and the accelerometer.To achieve a sturdy connection between the two parts that would hold for design requirement 2, I made use of some paracord where I replaced the center strands wires from an ethernet cable. I could only fit two wires in each paracord mantle, so to get the 6 connections I needed, I had to use three pieces of paracord with two wires in each mantle. I then braided the paracords to make one wire. This way all mechanical stress will be picked up by the paracord and the wires will hopefully stay soldered in place. Step 2 ElectronicsThe accelerometer (MPU6050) is connected to the Arduino Nano with five wires.MPU6050 ArduinoVCC 3.3VGND GNDSCL A5SDA A4INT D2The NeoPixel ring only needs VDD (PWR), GND and a DATA in. I chose to power the Neopixel ring from the 3.3V output on the Arduino. In a worst case scenario the Neopixel ring could draw to much power from the Arduino, but to save on the number of parts, and also number of wires, I decided to try it and it worked. Ideally I should have used a power regulator circuit to provide power to the Neopixel straight from the battery to avoid overloading the Arduino.Neopixel Ring  ArduinoPWR 3.3VGND GNDIN 100 ohm resistor D5  Step 3 Making the jellyfishThe jellyfish is made from Polymorph plastic which I bought of BLRTronics on ebay. Polymorph plastic is a really cool material. In room temperature it is hard and durable, but if you heat it to above 60 C it becomes translucent and soft, and can easily be molded by hand. It is non-toxic and is often used in medical implants. However it is not super easy to work with, and when it is soft it tends to stick to itself.My first approach was to mold body and tentacles from one pice of plastic. As I was almost finished I decided to heat up only the tentacles to give them a final twist. This was a bad decision and all the tentacles got tangled and stuck to each other so I was back to square one again. To avoid making the same misstake again, I decided to mold the tentacles and the bottom part of the body, (that houses the neopixel ring), as separate parts. I then heated the bottom part of the body and made little knobs with a pair of tweezers where I planned to attach the tentacles. Finally I attached the tentacles to the body by heating only the knobs on the body in some hot water and only the top of the tentacles to avoid a sticky tangly tentacle mess again. This method turned out to be much more successful. After successfully attaching all tentacles, I attached the Neopixel ring and accelerometer to the bottom part of the body with a small pice of polymorph plastic across the ring and accelerometer. The top part of the body was molded around the paracord to avoid any joints to the body. To make sure all mechanical stress is picked up by the paracord, and not the wires, I made a big knot inside the jellyfish that is to big to pass through the hole. Finally I joined the top and bottom part of the jellyfish with another piece of polymorph plastic that I had heated thoroughly so that it was rely sticky and acted as a glue. Step 4 CodeThe code is based on the i2cdevlib by Jeff Rowberg and Adafruits neopixel library. The basic concept is to read the position of the accelerometer every 300 ms and compare the result. If there is a big enough change between the current and last value it is considered as a  movement detected and the color changes. The code can be found at my github in the Hypno-Jellyfish repo.If you don t have any kids or know anyone who has and still want to build one, you can always claim you are going to use it for light painting. Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditGillaGilla Laddar... A positive thing with being on vacation is that you have more spare time than usual. A negative thing with being on vacation is that you are far away from your lab and tools. Luckily, creativity is not confined to any particular place and there is always something that you can use to build something. During one of my spare time moments, my eyes fell on an egg timer, and I remembered seeing someone using an egg timer to make a time lapse panning rig. This seemed like the perfect vacation project! Two plastic bottles, a board, a screw, a few minutes work and the time lapse rig was finished. Step 1, fitting the bottle on the egg timer.Use the string to find the circumference of the egg timer by wrapping it around the the egg timer and cutting it so the ends of the string meets. Now wrap the string around the neck of the bottle and mark the spot to cut, then cut the bottle s neck at the mark. You might have to use the scissors to trim the size a bit to make it fit snuggly on top of the egg timer. Step 2, cutout to fit the phone.Cut the bottom of the bottle. Place your phone on its long side in the center of the bottle, then mark the thickness of the phone. Next, use your phone to mark its breadth to know how far to cut. Once you have made the marks, use the scissors to cut the bottle to the right shape. Step 3, Setting up the shotLaunch the iMotion app and set the timer to take at least one picture every 2nd second. If you use less frequent shots the footage will be a bit choppy and not the fluid motion we want. On the 360 degrees shot at 1:09 in the video I set iMotion up to take one picture every third second and that turned out a little choppy. Wind up the egg timer and place the phone in the bottle, start the iMotion and wait.Step 4, Optional, the camera support board.I quickly realized that you often want to tilt the camera a bit, or that the wind knocked the camera over. To remedy this, I built a camera support. The camera support is just a piece of board with the bottom of a bottle screwed on to it. The bottle was cut to fit the bottom of the egg timer. This makes it more easy to place the rig on an uneven surface or to tilt it to take a shot at an angle.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditGillaGilla Laddar... In recent years, the number of robots and other kinds of self propelling machines has increased significantly. This new breed of machines resemble everything from humans, dogs and donkeys, to birds or insects. Perhaps I will have a robo butler in my lifetime after all!Petman (Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin)This anthropomorphic robot from Boston Dynamics is just as scary as it is impressive. Petmans intended application was to test out chemical protection suits.Boston Dynamics is a spinoff company from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was spun off in 1992. They are famous for having created a number of different robots between the size of a donkey to a small dog. Not much has been heard from the company since it was acquired by Google in December 2013. I can only go on to assume they are building something mind blowing.Wild CatThis dog sized robot from Boston Dynamics can move at a speed of about 16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. It was developed using funds from DARPAS M3 program.Magnetically Actuated Micro-RobotsThis is a completely different piece of technology, but just as impressive. Imagine what you could do with control over swarm of ants at your fingertips. Developed by SRI with funds from DARPA, these antlike robots are controlled by magnetic fields. SRI calls this technique Diamagnetic Micro Manipulation (DM3). The intended application is that they should be used within the manufacturing industries with such tasks as surface mounting of electronic components.This robot spider is more of a gadget then the high tech creations above but it is still pretty cool. Who wouldn t like to have a robo-spider!RobobeeDeveloped by Harvard University, this robot looks more like an insect then a thing made by man. It uses piezoelectric actuators to propel the wings.  Piezoelectric actuators are strips of ceramic that expand and contract when an electric current is applied. Possible applications would be:autonomously pollinating a field of cropssearch and rescue (e.g., in the aftermath of a natural disaster)hazardous environment explorationmilitary surveillancehigh resolution weather and climate mappingtraffic monitoringThe Robot DragonflyThe Robot Dragonfly from TechJect was successfully crowd funded via IndieGogo, the campaign ended December 31 2012. Judging from the updates on the IndeGoGo page, TechJect seem to struggle a lot with quality problems and has not yet delivered any products to their backers. If the Robot Dragonfly will be commercially available remains to be seen, but it is still one of the most beautiful flying robots I have seen.KAIST RaptorThis biped robot from the MSC (Mechatronics, Systems and Control) Lab at the South Korean university KAIST is a fast one, it can run at an impressive speed of 45 km/h (28 mph). This speed is achieved with the help of active tail stabilization. The active tail stabilization also makes it able to run right over obstacles up to 100 mm high. Just imagine a pack of these hunting you, not a very compelling thought?Out RunnerWith its very original design and with speeds reaching 72 km/h (45 mph) on thread mill and 40 km/h (25 mph) when running out doors, it is a real speedster. The makers of Out Runner, Robotics Unlimited, are currently running a Kickstarter campaign, but with only a few days to go and 90k USD short of their goal of 150k USD, I don t think they will go into production very soon.Nano Quad Rotor SwarmsThis video was shot at GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. The first time I saw it, I was struck by the feeling that I was watching a swarm of insects behaving in a very unsettling way. Next came the feeling of wow! The quad rotors are developed by KMel robotics, consisting of Alex Kushleyev and Daniel Mellinger who, not surprisingly, are graduates of the University of Pennsylvania.CheetaThis robot from MITs  Biomimetic Robotics Lab was built to show the efficiency of a new type of motor.Another robot from Boston Dynamics, this time it s a cute little fellow called RHex. To me, it looks like he is WALL·Es lovable cousin from the country.If you feel that there is a robot or a machine that I have missed make a comment with a link to it or send it via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. 0.000000 0.000000 Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditGillaGilla Laddar... Integritet och cookies: Den här webbplatsen använder cookies. Genom att fortsätta använda den här webbplatsen godkänner du deras användning. Om du vill veta mer, inklusive hur du kontrollerar cookies, se: Cookie-policy

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