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Archive: Computers

November 20, 2009

PYMT, a multi-touch library for Python

Interested in building programs with fancy multi-touch interfaces? Speak Python? Well, in that case you might want to have a look at PYMT. Designed for rapid interface design, it looks like it would be fun to play around with. [via the space station]

November 17, 2009

SPARK Project #3, Post #1

For my third and final SPARK project, I'm going to continue building on lessons learned from Project 1 and Project 2. I've found Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 to be a powerful tool, but getting started is not a trivial process. Despite a sophisticated IDE, configuring and building running systems can be challenging, especially when the hardware isn't working as expected. So I'm going to continue where I left off with Project 2, and create the building blocks to control external devices using a serial interface.

A number of my projects have required wireless communications. I've tried many wireless systems, and one of my favorites is the XBee transceiver from Digi. They are easy to configure and use, and there is a wealth of example code to drive them from a wide variety of computing platforms. The high-power version can transmit over long distances, and at 250kbps, the data rate is excellent. I frequently use the devices as a simple wireless serial link, although they are very effective for point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-point communications.

Follow my exploration of Windows Embedded CE driving xBees on the Microsoft SPARK site!

November 15, 2009

Build: Chumby Guts kit

When I put together my Chumby Guts kit, I had to stop and scratch my head a few times because I didn't know how to orient a part or which screws to use. I filmed the second time around, to share with you how easy it comes together! Now all that's left is to build a plush enclosure for it. Keep an eye out for an upcoming CRAFT Video about that!

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

More:

In the Maker Shed:

Chumby Guts

November 12, 2009

Real imitates virtual - Windows/Mac calculators

Korean product design firm MintPass came up with these great concept designs for real calculators that imitate their software counterparts. [via Boing Boing]

November 8, 2009

Lisp Manga...

Pt 2272
Firs it was "The Manga Guide to Statistics" then it was "The Manga Guide to Electricity" ...and now, Lisp Manga.

Lisp (or LISP) is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older.

November 5, 2009

Nonexistent town in Google maps

Interesting article in the Telegraph about "Argleton," a town that appears in Google maps but does not, apparently, exist in the real world. The best theory I've heard is that the town is a "trap" intended to catch those who steal map data. [Thanks, Glen!]

November 2, 2009

$40K DARPA "find the balloons" social networking challenge

Starting on December 5, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will award $40,000 to the first registered team to correctly report the location of ten eight-foot-diameter red weather balloons distributed randomly across the continental United States. From the challenge website:

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.

Personally, I think 99 red balloons would've been better, for marketing purposes, than 10. I guess that would take way too long. [via Hack a Day]

October 22, 2009

Automatic image index-maker software

matt_mets_things_in_my_kitchen (Custom).jpg

Our own Matt Mets put me onto this program called Montage from the open-source ImageMagick suite. Shown above is Matt's image "Things in my kitchen," and here is the command line to Montage that produced it:

montage +frame +shadow +label -tile 10x8 -borderwidth 1 -background white -bordercolor white -geometry 200x133 *.jpg stuff.jpg

As you can see, Montage takes all the work out of combining a bunch of individual images into an array of images, dealing automatically with all the resizing, cropping, arranging, and/or labeling headaches automatically.

Below is my own experiment with the software, "A visual guide to necklines," which I made because I never have any idea how to describe women's clothes.

Montage arrayed the images, added drop shadows, and labeled them based on their file names automatically. The only real work involved was tracking down the images online and saving them as appropriately-named files, but it wouldn't be hard to write a script to do that, either. Then one could conceivably go from a typed list of nouns to a complete visual index of those nouns completely automatically.

October 21, 2009

Translating a digital volume into a physical volume

I love these physical expressions of digital data. Here, a computer trashcan filling up is reflected in an inflating balloon. Empty the trash, and the balloon deflates. Lots of other nice physical computing examples on this page.

Tangible Prototypes Lab

October 19, 2009

Train an army of children to recycle bottles for you

There's an odd synchronicity here with last week's post about the coin-scavenging-crow training machine. This time it's a whack-a-mole style video game that you play by dropping glass bottles into the slots when they light up. See it work around 0:40.

In a side note, Volkswagen's Fun Theory Award is now definitely on my radar. Besides this project, their competition to incentivize socially-useful behaviors by turning them into entertainment also produced the world's deepest rubbish bin and the subway staircase piano keyboard. [via Hack a Day]

Netbook tablet mod

Netbook hacker Rob928 created this excellent tablet mod by tearing apart his Dell Vostro A90 netbook, adding a Hoda Technology solderless touchscreen kit, and filling in the gaps with plastic epoxy. [via slashgear]

October 18, 2009

'Magnetic electricity' discovered

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'Magnetic electricity' discovered...

Researchers have discovered a magnetic equivalent to electricity: single magnetic charges that can behave and interact like electrical ones. The work is the first to make use of the magnetic monopoles that exist in special crystals known as spin ice. Writing in Nature journal, a team showed that monopoles gather to form a "magnetic current" like electricity. The phenomenon, dubbed "magnetricity", could be used in magnetic storage or in computing.

October 15, 2009

Using sonar to save power

Here's a neat idea: using the standard microphone and speakers that are built into most recent laptops, researchers from Northwestern and University of Michigan have developed a sonar system to detect when a user is near the computer. Why is this interesting? Well, the idea is that it can be used to turn your computer screen off as soon as you walk away, rather than waiting the typical 10 or 20 minutes for the screensaver to kick on. It's a pretty neat idea, especially since it doesn't require any extra components, however I wonder how much power the sonar system itself will draw.

[via slashdot]

October 14, 2009

SPARK Project #2, Post #5

Small and simple, the iCOP eBox is a fanless x86 computer with solid state storage.

I began my second SPARK project with plans to control my iRobot Create with an iCOP computer and Windows Embedded CE 6.0R2. There were many project design lessons reinforced by my first SPARK project, and I applied those to lessons my second SPARK project. Even though I was working with powerful tools, Windows Embedded CE and the SPARK kits are complex systems. It is important to start with very simple expectations, get the basic components to function, and then design in complex features. With this focus on simplicity, I set about writing Windows Embedded code for the Create. After tracking down the necessary documentation for the Create's programming interface, I started with a simple "Hello World" program, and documented the process here. My next step involved sending and receiving data over the iCOP computer's serial port. Very quickly, I found myself editing registry code to enable the serial port for application use. Why did I need to do that and what were the results? The answers to those questions require a discussion of several intermediate steps which bring clarity to the structure and design of a Windows Embedded CE application.

Read more about it in the full post here.

October 13, 2009

Homebrew CNC hot wire foam cutter

I keep trying to persuade anyone who will listen that CNC foam cutters are dramatically underrated machines. People look at them and say, "That's cool and all, but I don't want styrofoam parts." To which I reply, "If you have a styrofoam part, you can turn it into cast aluminum with an unbelievably simple garage process." What's more, styrofoam is ubiquitous, cheap, and so easy to cut that the Cartesian robot can be extremely lightweight and inexpensive, as for instance, this one submitted by reader Raul Aguaviva, which is hacked together from a coat hanger and junked scanner parts. Combine one of these with a Gingery-style charcoal foundry and you could conceivably produce a homebrew rapid prototyping system, capable of "printing" aluminum parts, for less than $50.

October 9, 2009

Software "auralization"

Finnish computer science doctoral candidate Cessu created a hack to make music from (dramatically slowed) bit-level operations in his CPU. A similar technique called "software visualization" is more commonly used to clarify the operation of complex algorithms for educational and analytical purposes, but Cessu seems to be the first person to try it with sound. [via Hack a Day]

RepRap Version II "Mendel" prints its first 3D parts

It looks like the latest version of the RepRap is a success! I am so close to starting a RepRap build. Anyone else thinking about making a RepRap, or RepStrap machine? Which version?

The newest RepRap, RepRap Version II "Mendel", will be released very shortly. Here is a video of it working. It is both bigger and smaller than RepRap Version I "Darwin": it can make bigger things, but the machine itself is physically much smaller. It is genuinely a desktop portable 3D printer - you can carry it in one hand. It's also a lot easier to put together than RepRap Version I "Darwin". All of Mendel's printed parts can be printed in Darwin, and, of course, in itself.

October 7, 2009

SPARK Project #2, Post #4

Providence, Rhode Island is home to many larger than life characters. One that has special meaning for me, and is arguably one of the most iconic characters, is New England Pest Control's giant blue mascot, Nibbles Woodaway. I've always found programming fun and interesting, but the true challenge for me is trying to figure out why a program doesn't work the way I want, and then figuring out how to fix it. I often find myself thinking about the exterminators at New England Pest Control celebrating their profession with a monster sized termite while I dive into the nooks of my programs to eliminate bugs that prevent proper execution (and eat into my sleep schedule!)

Last week, I set up my iCop SPARK hardware and got a simple "Hello World" program running. That process took some time, but wasn't too difficult. Of course, sending text to a console window is not very useful for controlling my iRobot Create. I need to add serial send and receive functionality to my code in order to control the robot. So this week I put together a simple program designed to send and receive characters over the serial port.

Read more about it in the full post here.

October 3, 2009

SPARC "urn" - Yes he's really in there

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Via CNET, Sam 3.14 writes -

What's to be done with their corporeal remains after a geek has left for that great data bank in the sky? For my recently departed brother (long illness, Don't Smoke!!!), I thought this nice SPARCstation would be a cool place to spend eternity. Yes, he's really in there (after cremation). I kept the floppy drive cover but for space reasons removed the floppy drive, hard drive, and most of the power supply. I left behind the motherboard and power switch and plugs to keep all openings covered. The case worked quite well at his memorial party. His friends and family were able to leave their final good-byes on post-it notes. Anyone who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot. (See the next photo. ) All notes will be sealed in plastic and placed within the case. There has been one complication. His daughters like the look of it so much they aren't now sure if they want to bury him. One more thing: the words on the plaque really do capture one of the last things he ever said. Of course as kids we watched the original show in its first run.

iUrns next?...

September 29, 2009

SPARK Project #2, Post #3

In my last post, I presented the beginnings of a plan to connect an iRobot Create to an iCop SPARK computer running Windows Embedded CE R2.0. Now it's time to dive in and get some code loaded onto the iCop machine, then see if I can talk to the Create using the commands listed in the Create Open Interface.

Before I get started with Windows Embedded, I want to verify that I can talk to the Create using a known-good source, my desktop computer. I think this is an important debug step. Even though I'd like my software to run properly the first time, the truth is that it may require debugging before it functions correctly. I can simplify this debug task and verify that the Create serial interface is working by connecting it to my development PC and reading the boot message after power-on:

Once I've done that, I'm confident that I can establish a connection between the Create and my PC or the iCop box with my Windows Embedded program, and I can be confident any communications problems are a result of my poorly written program!

I already have Visual Studio 2005 and Windows Embedded CE6.0 R2 installed on my development computer, so I'm almost ready to connect the iCop computer. There is one more step required to fully configure the development computer so that I can begin Windows Embedded development. The different SPARK boards have a variety of processors and peripherals and thus require a unique software library and configuration set to allow Visual Studio 2005 to generate compiled code appropriate for the given low-level hardware. This unique library and configuration set is called a "board support package" for the obvious reasons. Each SPARK board vendor supplies a board support package that can be downloaded and installed for a specific board.

Now I'm ready to create and install the operating system and my application onto my iCop board! I'll discuss that in the full post here.

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