Tag Archives: arduino

GIRC Screen-Flash Communications

Posted on March 20, 2012 by engineerzero

Worst demo ever, but these days I only have two hands. Here I needed three: one for holding the set-up, one for holding the camera, and one for clicking the mouse. Notice the status bar, also that there is a … Continue reading →

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GIRC Demo

Posted on February 20, 2012 by engineerzero

On Saturday I made a brief presentation of GIRC at the monthly meeting of the Seattle Robotics Society. I demonstrated drawing the course and running it, as seen in the video above. Where to now? I want to program with … Continue reading →

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GIRC Robot Calibration Run

Posted on February 18, 2012 by engineerzero

It’s Calibration Run Time here at GIRC Central. First we run GIRC and load in a path file of a square, fifty centimeters on a side, like so: We click Transfer and program the robot, then set it down on … Continue reading →

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Servo Chatter

Posted on February 15, 2012 by engineerzero

When I initialize my robot, the starboard (right-hand) servo chatters at the neutral position. As you can see from the video, for some reason this affects only the starboard servo and not the port (left-hand) servo. I think the reason … Continue reading →

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Arduino reading screen flashes

Posted on February 13, 2012 by engineerzero

I’ve upgraded the hardware to include two LEDs in addition to the phototransistor. Based on the reading of the screen flashes, the LEDs flash according to the key shown. Here’s a video of the system in action: This is at … Continue reading →

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Arduino Phototransistor Signal Protocol

Posted on February 7, 2012 by engineerzero

I’ve designed a signal protocol for the Arduino to convert phototransistor readings from the laptop screen into bytes of data. Here’s what I came up with today: In the illustration, the white boxes in the black strip are light pulses … Continue reading →

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Arduino reads screen flashes with phototransistor

Posted on January 29, 2012 by engineerzero

This is the first test of the communication system as described in the previous entry. The flashes are one millisecond, followed by a one second delay. The serial monitor informs me that the microcontroller is able to count them. Here’s … Continue reading →

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Computer/Arduino Communication Via Phototransistor

Posted on January 29, 2012 by engineerzero

Here’s the basic idea: I’ll send commands to the Arduino by flashing a rectangle on the screen and having a phototransistor on the Arduino read the light level. The above photo shows the test bed set-up. This is very similar … Continue reading →

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Casters for a Small Robot

Posted on January 17, 2012 by engineerzero

Poor little cheapbot is undergoing surgery this week. The purpose is to change the caster wheel, but in the end the whole chassis will be replaced. Because I’m trying to build my ‘cheapbot’ robot out of readily available parts, I … Continue reading →

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GIRC test drive on blocks

Posted on January 13, 2012 by engineerzero

GIRC (Graphical Interface for Robotic Control) is a ‘sketch’ written in Processing that enables user to draw a path file, save and reload, and transfer control codes to an Arduino-brained robot. The magnitudes of the turns and distances haven’t been … Continue reading →

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