I’ve designed robot arms before, however, never tested them out.

Eventually, I’ll prototype this mockup and get use to the robot arm concept. Afterwards I’ll consider placing it on a robot platform and test some controls with it!

Gripper still needs to be designed.

Right after posting some refinements, another was made =P Added a resistor just before the op amp.

Really, all that was wrong was my indicative LED for the drive setting, dumb error, but I don’t want the indicator LED to rely on an amplified guitar signal for power…so in with the DPDT switch!

Also, you may have noticed I added a DPDT switch for the BOOST. I wanted an LED indicator for that as well. Though I didn’t really need the DPDT switch for it…a DPST switch would do just fine as well.

Here’s the resulting board:

This time, top layer tracing were required, a little out of laziness, a little out of necessity. I don’t know how much space I have to add jumpers scattered all over the board without messing with any of the current tracings. We shall see how that progresses…

I decided, however, that keeping diagrams on a whiteboard that is often used for other things is impractical. So from whiteboard, to digital camera, to…

Schematic v1

Huzzah for EagleCAD! Well, the initial schematic is completed, though I also decided to develop a PCB design so I may eventually print off the design and build the board myself, unless I would rather use a proto board.

Note that I limited the design to the bottom layer, and as a result, added an additional jumper for a single wire between LED1 and the DRIVE switch wire inputs. This is just to a) obliterate the requirement for a more tedious double layer PCB, and also to provide better tracing spacing (haha! a rhyme) so it’s more hobby friendly. Also note that I filled in the PCB ground tracings, less etchant to use, faster prep time, and also, less noisy circuitry as a result. Finally, despite EagleCAD’s fair autoroute feature, I ended up re-routing many traces as Eagle thinks 90% angles are acceptable on tracings. It did, however, allow me to generalize the spacing and area where I could trace.

*EDIT:

Comparison to Source (http://www.instructables.com/id/Distortion-For-Cheap/step4/The-Schematics/)

First a few notes: While I have seen a few other schematics that use similar designs, I felt like basing my variation of the pedal off this design to start with. For one, the amplifying section of the circuit (which I have modified to divide onto its own and become simply a “BOOST” circuit) is fairly standard among op amps, meaning I’d easily have other resources later on to draw from if needed. The clipping diodes in the “DRIVE” portion of the circuit were also of simple principle, simply clipping the amplitude of the waves, causing the distorted effect.

Changes I made: Well, for one thing, I wanted to try and design something that would perform in a similar way to a Fender HotRod Deluxe amplifier in terms of channel switching. If I wanted to bluntly kick in the pedal, all I have to do is hit one button. However, to change from just a volume boost to a driven sound, a second switch would be added (similar to the Drive/More Drive switch on the HotRod’s pedal). In terms of the circuit, this was straightforward; create a complete bypass switch for BOOST, sending the input signal directly to the output, without passing through additional circuitry. For DRIVE, I did something similar, where there was a bypass switch, it only prevented the op-amp signal from continuing through the drive circuitry, and was instead sent straight to out. When activated, distorted signals would be produced and sent to the output.

In terms of the actual circuitry: Across the battery terminals, a .1uF capacitor was added in order to reduce some electrical noise generated by battery, and to filter it as it progresses towards the IC. The value of R1 was heightened a little, to just lower the boost a little and to become more practical in the circuit, and R2 became a potentiometer to control levels of the BOOST. As for the potentiometer added in the drive, I felt like experimenting with the shaping of the clipped electric waves, dancing between the LED and the Schottkey diodes. LED was added to the drive switch to determine if it would be bypassed or not.

Well, as always, there’s things that needed ironing out.
Lets start this little article series (if it persists) on sound.

ALSA is nice. It works…most of the time…not exactly in the case of this laptop. Sound wouldn’t output in any form. Fair enough. Lets fix it then!

After some Googling to find an appropriate solution, I stumbled across this

It details very well all the steps required in order to properly setup all necessary drivers. I found difficulty accessing the areas for root file creation, and the downloading for the packages is simplified by clicking directly on the links, and then placing them all in an installation folder of your choice, however, apart from that, installing the files is a straight-forwards task.

Do enjoy!

So here’s an update:
CNRG for 2011 has sadly been officially cancelled. It is still hopefully going to continue next year, and the local Ottawa Robotics Enthusiasts will be hosting more robot competitions in the future.

SpikEEE is still underway, however, as hinted above, progess is slow thanks life and school. I’m trying to redo the code base, using the brand fancy new WebbotLib 2 including the Project Designer and Gait Designer. I feel a little slow catching on, however, I’ll look more in depth later. Perhaps I’ll even make an article!

Other side projects:
-More software development in Java and C
-Designing and creation of a distorsion pedal for a guitar
-”Old School” gaming (Old School being a subjective term…varies per person) This involves collection of games, and the repair of an NES which now I’m guessing the power supply crapped out. A replacement is in the works…
-MORE LINUX

Keep it classy, keep building!

As the title states, the first ever CNRG regionals are going to be in Ottawa, June 11, 2011!

The competition will be hosted by the Ottawa Robotics Enthusiasts, a robotics club that normally meets on a monthly basis at a local college. From the resource website, the competition will be held in the Arts Court “Library” and will feature 4 events; mini sumo, line following, line racing, and maze solving.

While the total list of events may not seem as spectacular as the main CNRG competition, it is stated that this competition is more of a warm-up event to the National Games held annually in Toronto.
This competition is also going to be geared towards the beginner roboticist, with the developing SumoORE kits available at the ORE meetings locally.

For more information of the competition and the club, visit www.ottawarobotics.org .

Happy Building!

Though what is not quite so fantastic, is how some users are taking advantage of said service. The use of the Internet to digitally distribute copyrighted media has always been one of intense debate of legality and ethics. How did some companies solve this? Well, some companies sue their customers…others use copy protection and DRM, or Digital Rights Management…Google if you wish to learn more.

Now, I’m no expert on this subject, but here are my views:

I know a few people who don’t like the concept of being unable to use the media that they bought from, for example, iTunes, which only allows you use it on Apple devices or compatible products. That is, of course, unless you wish to pay an additional sum of money to have rights to use it freely.
Well. To this, I’ll state, “You get what you pay for.”

See, here’s the thing. If there’s so many people who hate the iTunes store and its policy on DRM, then why are there still so many people who use it? Well, for one thing, some people just don’t care. So long as it works, they’re fine with it. The other group of people either accept the fact and still purchase it, or they choose the get the premium purchase, paying the extra price.

I don’t feel like there’s any problem with having copy protection on digital media. Of course, I’m always open to the concept of open source. I very much enjoy artists and authors who release media for free, or partially for free, while maintaining a reasonable expectation of support in return. Such examples could be Nine Inch Nails, who releases a large percentage of tracks for their songs to be compiled by the user, or will sometimes release some songs or complete albums online for free. One author I’m aware of who releases digital copies of all his works for free is Cory Doctorow. In doing so, he advertises for is novels, and also encourages readers to then purchase the book in real life, or encourages users to give back, for example, by allowing user compiled editions of the novels in different file formats for different media.

Personally, I feel like this is the ideal situation. This is one of the things I enjoy so much of the Linux and the open source community. The main problem with the methods presented above though, is dishonesty. We can’t always trust the user to in return give back to the community. Until we get to can achieve a standard as such, DRM and other methods of copy protection are some of the best alternatives to prevent theft of digital property.

There’s my little blurb on DRM and copy protection. It may not be the most correct, I already disclaimed my lack of expertise, though these are my views on the matter.