A fun DIY Science Museum Exhibit

LED Lab Coat 2.0.1, Video and Source

Posted in Software Libraries by Bill
12 Jan 2010

Here is a video of the LED Lab Coat with the better PWM code. If you are interested in how I programed 8 channels of software PWM, here is the source available for download.

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S.A.G.A.R.’s Motor Controller Source Released

Posted in Software Libraries by Bill
9 Jan 2010

Alright, alright. After the messages and people asking, I have decided to post my Motor-controller code. Please before you make fun, realize I am not a programmer. The code works, and I think it is a decent couple hundred of lines. Let me know what you think!!! Don’t forget to link to my site if you use/post it.

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S.A.G.A.R.’s Smart Motor Controller

Posted in Projects by Bill
1 Jan 2010

Part 2 of my documenting of my robot project focuses on the just completed “Smart Motor Controller”. I call it a smart controller because, unlike other motor controllers on the market, mine utilizes feedback from the motors to precisely set wheel speeds and report back how far the robot has traveled.The brain of the controller is an Arduino Pro mini, pictured in this post. The actually driver H-bridge  is a Ardumoto from SparkFun.

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S.A.G.A.R. Semi-Autonomous Gps Assisted Rover

Posted in Projects by Bill
29 Dec 2009

Well, I finally have gotten around to posting about my current project, Sagar! (The name might be changed if i come up with a better one) Basically, in an effort to better understand the technology I use at my job in the Navy, I am building a robot from scratch. My hope is in the end to have a robot that can be driven remotely, or drive itself with the aid of a GPS and inertial navigation system as well as avoid obstacles and reroute around them. I want it to be able to ‘record’ a route while being driven remotely, then be able to ‘replay’ the path without any assistance.

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LED Lab Coat 2.0 Video

Posted in Uncategorized by Bill
1 Dec 2009

A bad video of the new Lab Coat. I rewrote the PWM code after this and the fades are more smooth. Better video coming soon.

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Xbox Mod

Posted in Projects by Bill
1 Dec 2009

XboxJust before I went to college I was given an Xbox as a gift and was finally introduced to the world of Halo. However, I was quickly bored with the game and didn’t have much use for the Xbox, until I found out about the new phenomenon of Xbox moding.

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Projector ATX Power Supply for Frankenjector!

Posted in Projects by Bill
1 Dec 2009

power

For a while in college I had an aging Ask Proxima projector I used in my living room. I got it for a steal on ebay because it had a broken lens. I was able to correct the lens problem and it worked beautifully for a year. Then suddenly, it refused to stay on.

I don’t like throwing things away, so when I got some free time, I decided to take a look at it. What I discovered by process of elimination was that the power supply for the onboard electronics had gone bad. There was no way to order a new one as this was a 10 year old projector. So I decided on something different.

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LED Flower

Posted in Projects by Bill
1 Dec 2009

flower

The LED flower is about the closest I have been to being and artist. One day I just had the motivation to build something artistic. I took a wire hanger and bent it into a shape of a self-standing flower. Cut up a milk jug to make the leaves and petals and glued a LED to each piece of plastic. I built a circuit on protoboard and installed it as the center of the flower. The circuit I designed uses a photodiode to turn a transistor on or off so that the LEDs are only on when the room is dark. The whole flower runs off two AAs but I soon hope to add a wall transformer to it.

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Senior Design Robot Video

Posted in Projects by Bill
1 Dec 2009

Here is the video of my Senior Design Robot. It would have won the 2009 IEEE SouthEast Con if it went, as it beats the robot that did win during every practice run.

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LED Lab Coat

Posted in Projects by Bill
30 Nov 2009

coat

One year before Halloween I decided I wanted to construct an unique costume. I decided I would take a lab coat costume, and add a bunch of LEDs to it. Of course it had to be flashy as well, to make it stand out even more.

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