JunkPOV

For his Embedded Programming (RBT211) project this semester Ryan Carmain built a POV display using junk from around our hardware lab - principally the motor assembly of a Draganflyer (yes, those are propellers):

Video and source code after the break.

ArcAttack: Ride the Lightning

I've always been fascinated by Tesla Coils. The operating principle is so elegant - you set up one circuit (your power supply) that oscillates at some high frequency, and you set up another circuit that uses the earth to resonate with your power circuit. Energy is transferred and converted from current to voltage, and the end result is man-made lightning - an incredible display of light and sound.

Newer versions of the Tesla coil allow the control of the resonant frequency.  Have you ever noticed the sound that a flourescent light makes?  That kind of "buzz" ? You're hearing the frequency of the power that is coming into your house (around 60Hz).  When you control the resonant frequency of the Tesla, you control the tone that it generates, and thus the Singing Tesla Coil is born.  This is not lightning set to music - the sound is generated by the spark itself.

The band ArcAttack has integrated a pair of singing Tesla coils into their repertoire, with epic results:

Human Tetris

Cornell Students Adam Papamarcos and Kerran Flanagan have built an awesome set of small games using micro-controller based video processing. The details of the build (excellently documented - my students should take note) are provided at the Cornell Project Website, and more videos detailing how the system works are available at Engadget.

RBT337 Final Project: Augmented Reality Pong

Dan Willinger is back with his final project for RBT337 - Digital Vision and Sensor Processing.  Using OpenCV, Dan implemented an augmented reality Pong clone that tracks the size and location of two white objects (pens in the demo video) that act as the paddles in the game.  Also, the length of the white object can change the size of the paddle.

The Facade Printer

Automated Paintball Turret = Large Scale Printer. 

This is a project I've wanted to build for years - my own concept was to construct a system powerful enough to paint a graphic on the side of a dorm at my Alma Mater from across campus.

UAT Educational Robot Platform

This is a motor test of the UAT Educational Robot Platform, developed as a class project by Dan Willinger and Stephen Harper. The robot will be used as a learning platform for advanced sensor interfacing and mobile autonomous system development at the University of Advancing Technology.  This is one of the two robots that Dan and Stephen built, each costing about $1200.



Here are specs for the robot:

• Mini-ITX Motherboard with Atom 230 CPU (1.6Ghz)
• 2GB RAM
• 8GB Solid-State Storage (Compact Flash)
• Firewire
• WiFi
• PicoPSU DC-DC 150W Power Converter
• Track Chassis Kit
• Lithium-Ion Battery (25.9v, 6.4Ah)
• Phidget Motor Control Board
• Phidget USB Interface Board
• Running Ubuntu Server Edition (9.10)
• Custom Clear Lexan Chassis

Spinning RGB LED Ball

Unlike it’s predecessor this one has three axes. It was very challenging to build, with a total of 9 slip-contacts, not including the motors. I made it from scrap I had laying around and it took about a week to build. I use standard DC-motors controlled with pulse width modulation, the LEDs are controlled with a modified bike light with adjustable frequency.

More pictures via HackedGadgets

Natural Motion for CG Characters

New algorithms from NaturalMotion allow digital characters to dynamically and realistically respond to changes in their environment.  What is most interesting about this work is that the methods that they use are not hard-coded - rather than completely and painstakingly modeling the motion of walking characters by hand, they use a mixture of physics modeling and evolutionary algorithms to allow the system to 'learn' how to react to the environment.  This enables the characters first to learn about walking, then dynamically adapt to perturbations like pushes and hits from objects and other characters.  This results in very robust and realistic motion.

Bots Behaving Badly

Have you ever wanted to meet a Mythbuster in real life? Have you ever wanted to see behind the scenes of a ComBots event, and see how some of the world’s most badass robots are built? Now’s your chance to do both of those things at once! Enter the RoboGames 2010 Bots Behaving Badly Contest! Take a video, take a picture, or make a photoshop of a robot behaving badly, and submit it to YouTube, or Flickr. Get everyone you can to check it out, because the submission with the most views wins!!

How To Enter:

- Take a video or a picture, or make a photoshop of a robot behaving badly
- Upload it to YouTube or Flickr, with the tag “BadBots2010″ (IF YOU DON’T, YOU WONT BE ENTERED)
- Every submission MUST link prominently to RoboGames.net, and somehow be related to Bots Behaving Badly (this is at the judges’ discretion)
- Share your entry- send it to friends, post it on digg etc etc etc
- The entry with the most views wins!

Prizes:
1st Place: 2 tickets to RoboGames 2010, 2 passes to the RoboGames Builder’s Party on Friday, April 23, a RoboGames Goodie Bag, and access to the pit at RoboGames (where contestants build their robots) with a meet-and-greet with Mythbusters’ Grant Imahara

2nd Place: 2 tickets to RoboGames 2010, 2 passes to the RoboGames Builder’s Party on Friday, April 23, 2 RoboGames T-Shirts, and 2 packs of RoboGames Trading Cards

3rd Place: 2 tickets to RoboGames 2010, a RoboGames T-Shirt and a pack of RoboGames Trading Cards

Judges Award: 1 ticket to RoboGames and a RoboGames T-Shirt

Deadline: 4/22/2010 at 11:59pm

Can’t make it to RoboGames? No problem! Alternatives to tickets will be also available to winners!

All rules subject to change without notice

The Fine Print:
· Participants agree to abide by all rules and decisions set by RoboGames.
· RoboGames reserves the right to reject an entry for any reason.
· Should a winner be unable to attend RoboGames 2010, RoboGames will determine an appropriate substitute of approximately equal value.
· RoboGames reserves the right to modify or cancel the contest at any time, at its sole discretion.
· By submitting your entry and entering this contest, you grant RoboGames royalty-free rights to publish, reproduce, or otherwise distribute your work commercially or by any other means.
· Governing Law: All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of the official rules, or the rights of entrants, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with, the substance laws of the State of California and any applicable laws and regulations of the United States.
· You must be over the age of 18.

ViBe Background Extraction

Researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium have made a breakthrough in machine vision.  Background extraction is the separation of a "normal" background image from more interesting "new" pixels such as moving objects.

This new algorithm is very high performance and computationally efficient.  Unfortunately, it's completely patented, but a demo video and a paper describing the method are linked below.





O. Barnich and M. Van Droogenbroeck. ViBe: a powerful random technique to estimate the background in video sequences. In International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2009), pages 945-948, April 2009. Available as a IEEE publication or on the University site.

Inventor and 3D Printing Demo

Here's a time-lapse video I made demonstrating the Autodesk Inventor interface and 3D printing.  The model I'm making is a simple robot hand finger tip.  The total time, from conception to physical model, is about an hour.

Made by Robot Hands

A small stack of factory robot videos from the Singularity Hub.  My favorite is the extremely awesome FANUC robot with a ridiculous array of tools: