Posted January 9, 2015 by Chris

"Another common question is can I use the Raspberry Pi for data acquisition on its own?
Raspberry Pi Gertboard. The short answer is yes, but for digital signals only and only at relatively slow speeds. If you are serious about data acquisition, especially analog or mixed signal work, you’ll need a peripheral device to plug into Raspberry Pi to provide the necessary I/O."

Posted January 8, 2015 by Chris

"While sitting in my chair today, I got bored with whatever else I was doing, so I stopped and decided to set up a secondary Raspberry Pi to see just how easy it is to get the PiFace Control and Display up and running, and start analyzing infrared remote codes with it."

Posted January 7, 2015 by Chris

"Robots capable of flight in cramped and cluttered environments have many advantages over their ground-based counterparts, but most current systems suffer from the same fundamental problem: any contact with obstacles have catastrophic, mission-ending results. What if instead of avoiding collisions, a flying robot became robust to them, and could even take advantage of contact with its environment?"

Posted January 6, 2015 by Chris

"Here is a tested Arduino project that uses 3 sensor probes as water level indicator with 3 leds and one LCD display + a simple controller that turns on a motor when the water has reached the desired level. You can use only the leds if you want, the lcd is optional."

Posted January 5, 2015 by Chris

"The Automatypewriter is a typewriter that can type by itself. It can also detect what’s being typed on it. It can be used to send text to and/or receive text from a computer via USB. It was designed as a platform for playing interactive fiction games, in particular to play custom software being developed for it by Jim Munroe."

Posted January 3, 2015 by Chris

"In 2009, I was challenged by [govt agency] via GTRI to develop an Unmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which is piloted by a smartphone. In particular, only the sensors on the phone may be used and the flight controller must run on the smartphone. Custom electronics were allowed to interface the phone to the airframe (PHY) but those electronics could sense or control."

Posted January 1, 2015 by Chris

Happy New Year 2015!

Posted December 31, 2014 by Chris

"Fireworks are dangerous so I want to make this all as safe as I can. I think the best way to do this is to devise an SOP that can guide the design of devices and of the code. You could use this approach of using a standard or safe operating procedure to guide the design of many types of devices."

Posted December 30, 2014 by Chris

"The new box has two new distance sensors, with differing ranges. One transmits very fine values between about 2 inches and 10 inches, the other larger values between about 4 and 18 inches. Staggering the ranges like this allows for a whole new world of control for the user, such as tilting the hand from front to back, using two hands with complete independence, etc."

Posted December 29, 2014 by Chris

"My project is a randomized bouncing light Christmas tree used to decorate for the Christmas season. This LED Christmas tree utilizes a 12 by 16 LED matrix mounted on a metal frame."