PF 2013 !

I want to wish you all a great year full of joy and happiness !

From my perspective year 2012 was really good, I feel like I moved to a next level with my skills and everything. I build my best project yet - Bracerbot, which is still not finished, but I am really happy that I was able to bring my ideas to real world. Good news is that for Christmas I got tablet with the pen ! At first I thought I wouldn't be able to fully use it since I'm not an artist, but then I sketched some things and here you can see some things that come out. So I will maybe create new category called concepts for things that I have in mind, but I can't really realize them.

So what's next in 2013 ? Well I hope a lot more projects that you will like (I will probably start with that Biped on picture).

Merry Christmas

I want to wish you all Merry Christmas !

XBees have arrived !

Hi there ! Reason I was inactive for some time is that I was still setting up at a new flat.

 

I am also waiting for some things I've ordered from e-bay. But big news, Christmas have come earlier this year, as I've ordered 2 xbee modules from local store and I already have them ! I spent some time with setting them up, but eventually I was able to send data between them. I'm quiet happy that I've acquired them, and I'm looking forward to use them in some future projects. There is one problem though, I bought ones without antennas (not even surface mount ones), they have only u.fl connectors, so I need to buy some, because range now is only about half meter. I hope I'll be able to finish my next project before Christmas, but it all depends on whether things I've orders arrive soon enough.

First steps with Raspberry Pi

Hi there ! I've been inactive for few weeks because we have moved to a new flat. It's in the same city, but my PC was disassembled for few days and I'm still putting together my workplace.

In spite of that, I've been playing with Raspberry Pi and this awesome Bluetooth keyboard, that has already arrived, and a I have to tell that it's amazing ! No problem with pairing, charges really fast, can be connected to virtually anything, has amazing function keys, USB Bluetooth dongle can be stored in it and it has laser pointer and back-lighted keys ! I have to say it's one of the most useful things I ever bought. Raspberry Pi itself is amazing as-well, I wasn't expecting it to be fast, actually I've expected it to be slow as hell. At first I used Occidentalis from Adafruit as OS, but it turned out that there are some issues with the kernel and the new model of Pi that has 512 MB RAM, so I downloaded newest Wheezy, which is basically debian. I myself prefer Ubuntu, but on a piece of hardware like that, you don't wan't to waste any of your processing power. First thing I did was that I've overclocked ARM 11 processor from 700 MHZ to 950 MHZ and with 450 (usable) MB or RAM this device has quicker response than I've imagined, of course if you're installing something via terminal, it takes a lot of time. Second thing I did was that I've used a small script to automatically bind that Bluetooth keyboard to Raspberry, because it's not wireless, but bluetooth keyboard so you have to connect it manually. This script allows me to work with this keyboard immediately, with no need of wired keyboard or mouse. After that was done, I wanted to play with some GPIOs, but there was a problem, ribbon cable. I only had 40 pin one, and Pi uses 26 pin. So long story short, I've 'adjusted' cable with some pliers for metal and hot glue.

After that I downloaded Geany, which is really lightweight IDE for various languages. Then you need to download RPi.GPIO library via terminal and you're good to go. This was first time when I saw python, I have to say I like this language, it's easy, simple, portable yet have lot of possibilities. So if you're considering buying Raspberry Pi, I recommend you to, because for that amount of money it's an amazing piece of hardware and it's really fun to play with and you can definitely expect some projects that will use it.

Raspberry Pi

Hi ! First of all I would like to thank all of you, because I've recently hit 50,000 views on youtube ! It makes me proud and motivates me to do more and better stuff.

Next important thing is that my Raspberry Pi has finally arrived ! (it took 75 days) Original one that I've ordered got lost, so they had to send new one, on the other hand it's probably even better, because they've send me new model B with 512 MB RAM. I've already bought HDMI cable, Acrylic case and SD card. I want to make my raspberry fully portable, so expect some mods in near future, for that reason I've ordered this mini bluetooth keyboard with mouse pad from ebay. It's small, portable, wireless and uses only one USB port.

Bracerbot Beta UI

Hi there ! I'm back with another update. 

This time I finally focused on sending data from bracerbot to PC via Bluetooth. At the same time I've written small application in Processing that acquires the data and displays them on the screen using controlP5 library, which is great. This application also allow you to control robot. So in next week or so I will finally program gait and make this application look kinda better. Also notice that light sensor is showing 1023 because its not yet soldered to the board.

Bracerbot Beta [update]

Hi ! First of all I want to thank all of you for 15,000 views ! and I just want to show this quick update.

Finally he's walking ! Still need to work on it though. I've also spay-painted legs to black I think it looks much better. I'm still wondering whether I should keep is as it is or create some case for batteries from acrylic. Well gait is currently priority, but I also want to start with data acquisition. Then I want to make Processing app with full movement control and then perhaps I will try to make Android app in eclipse.