Andy Lee hacking an RC car.

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RC chassis under carriage.

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Andy's.

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Lab Mascot

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Android has a conversation with Arduino over Bluetooth

Here's a video exhibiting 2-way communication between an Android phone and an Arduino microcontroller.

Setup is as follows:

• Arduino --> Android:
  Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor is hooked up to Arduino with code providing logic for MotionBegan and MotionEnded events. These events are forwarded to an Android device and trigger a background color change for a view area to cyan upon MotionBegan and and black upon MotionEnded.
  
  
• Android --> Arduino:
  ON / OFF button in Android app triggers event passed to Arduino that toggles the state of a red LED.

Code for the inter-device communication was made possible by a slightly modified version of the awesome Amarino library by Bonifaz Kaufmann. Most of the PIR logic code was drawn from the example here. The complete source for this and our other projects is located at our GitHub repo.

Coming soon: GroundStation Computer <--> Android <--> Arduino

Mostly assembled plane.

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Status update pictures of the plane assembly.

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80" wingspan plane.

PhiNR purchased a small plane today that has characteristics that will make it easy to robotify. We are hoping to use this as a test platform for low altitude high resolution push broom photography.

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Sketches from last night's informal UI meeting.

Here are some sketches we put together at last night's user interface meeting. One is a heads up display for our rover, and the other is a concept design for our copter balloon.

Hyperspectral imaging of a redwood forest floor.

It looks like our blimp bot might be used to mount a hyperspectral imaging device being developed by a group at Stanford University. The device needs to be something like 70 meters or so off the forest floor in order to collect the required data. The low density gas/multi fan lift system might be appropriate for this purpose. Here are some new pictures of our ever developing lab space.

Oil, Satellites and Raman Spectroscopy.

Oil

David Lehrberg has succeeded in supplementing our activities with a bio diesel conversion system that turns used fry oil into fuel for a car with the appropriate engine. Mega Bites, the cafe here on base has agreed to supply our group with their used oil.

Satellites

Our group has agreed to support the NEO (Near earth object) android hack satellite group we are going to share OpenLab space with. We will help them design, program and fly a satellite mission using a hacked android handset.

Raman Spectroscopy

We are working with Dr's Bin Chen and Chris Mckay, and a local company named Crystal Research Inc. on a phase II SBIR proposal to mount a microtized Raman Spectrometer to a rover.

Here are some links in case that last was incomprehensible:

http://www.sbir.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McKay_(planetary_scientist)

http://www.eocrystal.com/

J.R. filming Michael Lamberty IR enabling a webcam.

J.R. Alfano set up a small film studio in our lab today to film Michael Lamberty giving a tutorial on removing an IR filter on a webcam.

Andy Lee's tree analogy.

Andy diagrammed some basic structures we are going to use for the robots.

Andy: The underlying idea of the analogy is that if you cut off part of a tree then the corresponding root or branches die off too. Conversely if a tree grows more branches it needs more roots. If there are more sensors then there will be more user interaction and feedback in the experience.

up and running

Today Geoff and Andy got the R running around the grounds. The "brains" were loaded into an arduino which was wired into the R's drive train. Sorry about the video being sideways. I don't have any video editing software just yet.

Hacking Up the Senseta Robotics Platform

The R has been hack for the sake of wiring into an open platform. Geoff, LT and I spent friday afternoon setting up an arduino with code and libraries to control the motors on the robot. We reached the point where we were able to control the R's drive system.

The old, and closed, system and micro controller

Chopping it up, Open source here we come!

SUCCESS!

First balloon design drawings.

Dave Lehrberg drew up some diagrams of the proposed balloon design.

Near vis IR capable camera

Mike Lamberty successfully removed the filter that prevents near visible spectrum infrared light from getting to the charge couple device in a webcam. Hoping to film Mike for a tutorial soon!

First class today.

Andy Lee led our first class today along with some assistance from Matt Everingham. He went over some of the basics of robotics for the group. Hopefully we'll have some footage worth posting up soon.

SHDH Lightening Talk: Open Robotics

Here is a link to Andy's presentation at SHDH 38

White board photo 1

Setting up our robot lab.

Pictures of our shared space.


Hunter Soper, LT Leske, Andy Lee, Michael Lamberty. I badged and walked in Andy, Dave, TZ, and Hunter today. We rearranged the space pretty extensively. Not that anything is permanent. Our space is pretty well suited to our pursuits. Finally some pictures.

Workspace and Materials quest update.

We have a huge space to work in. Warehouse style. High ceilings, large windows composed of many small panes.

Possible access to a cache of VEX robotics parts has also been set aside as development material.

We are cleaning up and organizing the space today.

Golden!

Things are coming along nicely.

We have some lab space and some equipment.

We have a prestigious scientist to partner with.

I'll try to get into writing meaningful update posts weekly if not daily.

Telepresence technology is less brown.

A robot system that gives the user the sensation of being in the location the robot is in would reduce the need to travel. Replacing telephones for the purpose of meetings and even tourism. Imagine taking a gondola ride for 60 EU in Venice by inhabiting a robot already there for that purpose.

Grandma can visit her grandkids, boards of directors can attend meetings from across the globe, scientists can collaborate. And all with some small fraction of the energy and time cost associated with old world physical travel paradigms (flying, driving etc).

Moving mass around is very costly. Moving a consciousness? Considerably less so. If the capabilities of the occupied machine are sufficient it will be a cheaper, safer, "less brown" alternative to standard travel techniques.

The key is going to be making this technology ubiquitous. All those dead land line phones need to be replaced with telepresences.

Why an open platform?

There are lots of common robots which only need to be designed and developed once and then they can go into mass production. There are loads more rovers, uav's, and submersibles which could be used in the arts or sciences which would help us expand the sphere of our knowledge. A greater goal of this project is to create a space where one can come to learn about how to create projects to achieve goals with the aid of a smart mobile machine.

Tools we like.

Android: the open source handset. Open and hackable.
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html

Processing: an awesome open source tool built by Ben Fry to prototype applications quickly and easily. It's built on wiring.
http://processing.org/

Arduino: A great prototyping environment for programming avr microcontrolers. If you don't know about these it's time to stop hiding in that cave you've been in.
http://www.arduino.cc/

Modkit : A visual programming environment for arduino
http://www.modk.it/

Amarino: a new tool for interfacing between arduinos and android handsets
http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/

What is an open robot?

   Today many robots are starting to become common in our everyday lives. In many homes across the country one could find machines some would call robots which clean floors wash our clothes and dishes. Most  new cars have more computers than the average house. It's not uncommon to carry computers in form of laptops or smart phones with us when we walk out the door to stay connected in this connected age. We send robots to other planets to explore for longer than we could hope to live on such a planet. Unmanned vehicles go deep into the ocean to drill for oil and sometimes to try to fix the plumbing when something goes afoul. Tele-robotic planes are already flown unmanned from locations all over the world.

Increasingly it is our belief that we should all have access to develop these machines. There will be a system for open development and collaboration of how should these machines be built and work together in the best ways possible.

The open robot platform is now in development. Many of the pieces are already here. It is being built with open source tools and can be developed, hacked, altered, improved. Open Robot is our attempt to build and synthesis a nervous system which could be useful to any machine that moves through and intelligently interacts with it's environment.

Open Robot.