Lots of fun open source stuff, but I had a lot of fun working on a survey taking m&m dispenser. The goal was to encourage students to answer survey questions that would help the faculty get a better idea of what the students found most valuable (different things they wanted to learn, classes they found useless, etc.). So me and another student built this :) Its a node server running on an Intel Galileo, which served up an admin and survey interface using React. When a student answered a survey question, a servo would turn a gear, which interfaced with a rack and pinion that had two little pits in it. When it would slide under the jar, two m&ms would fill the pits, then the rack and pinion would push them out. Then we had a webcam hooked up to the end of it that would compare the colors of the m&ms to see if they were the same. If they were the same, the student would get more m&ms. The gear pieces were 3D printed.

We could never get the webcam stuff to work right with the Galileo because OpenCV (the computer vision library we were using to interact with the webcam) could not be built/compiled on such a specific version of Linux. Later, I was able to do it with a RaspberryPi, but never got it reintegrated.

*The Fearless Leader*

I get a call to check up on a robot that has been exceeding weight limits at certain points of its movement (Crashing). As I get to the pendant (robo-game controller thingy I like to call it) and look over the alerts and warnings I notice some oil around the main power box of the Robot.... Nothing around this has oil.. so I start looking around and it turns out that the issue wasn’t a crash at all! It was an oily shorted out wire that kept sparking mad heavy when that servo was called on.. causing a large servo failure that required a full restart of the power box. I called our fearless leader and showed him only to find out that there was a motor leaking oil from the electrical end... My fearless leader runs both the Maintenance and Robotics department. When the motor was eventually fixed we overheard the technicians say that our fearless leader knew about this a week ago and decided to leave it that way.... with oil... coming out of an electrical cable..... *sigh* well Anyway after all the wires were fixed and motors changed. He comes up to me and says that he can’t believe that I didn’t call maintenance and fill a report on negligence of technicians for failing preventative maintenance....

I lost my cool a little, firstly that’s not my job, I’m literally one of the lowest ranking here. I called my next in command to figure out what I should do. Secondly the technicians told me that you told them to leave it like that! So if this place caught on fire this would have been on you!

Later I found out that he was trying to fire a technician and wanted me to do the dirty work.. I’m not going to be the reason another man loses the means for him to feed his family. The technician is a pretty cool and fair guy too!

Our fearless leader was a forklift driver and has no experience in robotics or maintenance... I don’t know how this happens or even why but all I know is this man is running both departments to the ground and management loves him.....

Not entirely dev related, but...

I'm getting tired of (electrical, mechanical) engineers complaining about HW limitations like "oh this board only has 12 KB of flash memory" or "I can't make this thing move smoother because my CPU is only 16 MHz" Bitch, you can spend $500 on 3 servo motors, but you can't afford to pay extra $5 to get a board with better specs to control them?

Blue Robotics

This company makes underwater thrusters for submarine applications. With their first thruster they made it easy to make a homemade submarine. The motor was powerful, the thruster just worked. They even had a promotional where they created an automated surfboard that made it from hawaii to somewhere in california with one of their thrusters pushing it there the entire way. It was a great product.

Then they created the next version. This was the same thruster, but it had an ESC(Electronic Speed Controller) sealed in an aluminum puck on top of the motor. This ESC could be controlled by servo controls, or by plugging it into an i2c bus. You could pull different stats off of the motor over i2c it sounded great. So my robotics team trusted this company and bought 8 motors at $220 - $250 bucks each. We lightly tested them since we had not even finished the robot yet. One week before the competition our robot got completely put together and we did our first few tests.

Long story short, Us and 22 other teams did roughly the same thing. We bought these motors expecting them to work, but instead the potted aluminum ESCs were found defective. Water somehow got into the completely resin sealed aluminum puck and destroyed the ESC. We didn't qualify that year due to trusting a competition sponsor to deliver a good product. I will admit that it was our fault for not testing them before going to the competition. Lessons were learned and an inherent distrust of every product I come across was developed.

That moment you ordered a "starter set" for arduino just for the cables, servo and sensors, buy an arduino uno because it wasn't listed in the set description and now you have two...

Never thought it would be so cheap (25€ for the set apparently including a arduino uno)

How to spend more time writing docs then code?
15m = doc
1m = code

<code>
/* Motor DC + Mosfet IRF520 + Servo
Materials:
IRF520 (Mosfet) + Dc motor + Batery (3V min)
diode (1N4007?)
Changed Tip122 for IRF520: Tip122 has less resistance and produces more heat

Hardware:
ARDUINO = A(port , 5V , GND)
MOSFET = M(A[port] , + , GND)
MOTOR = MOTOR(+ , -)
BATERIA = BAT(+ , -)
DIODO = D(sinal_1 , sinal_2)

MOSFET
M(port) = A(port)
M(+) = D(sinal_1) AND MOTOR(+)
M(GND) = A(GND)

D(sinal_2) = B(+) AND MOTOR(-)

ARDUINO
A(port) = M(port)
5V = null
A(GND) = M(GND) AND BAT(-)

*/

#define motorPIN 8 // A(port)
int loopy = 0; // Loop variable to limit de program

void setup()
{
// Initialize the motor pin as an output:
pinMode(motorPIN, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() // 1 loop == 100ms
{
if (loopy < 10) // Turns motor ON for 1 second
{
digitalWrite(motorPIN, HIGH);
}
else // Turns motor OFF
{
digitalWrite(motorPIN, LOW);
}
}

</code>

If anyone has read any of my posts before you may know, they're usually of a certain... Shall we say, dark, nature?

Well this possibly represents one of the darkest things I've imagined (with regards to technology and programming) I've had.

I was asked if I want to be buried or cremated when I die and they seem so... Pedestrian and I thought long and hard about what would be a fitting way to honour my life and what to do with my remains and it came to me...

I want my flesh to be only partially treated with formaldehyde so chunks of me rot away and others don't.

I want my skeletal structure to be replace with titanium rods with actuators and servo motors where my joints would have been with an internal gyroscope to assist with balance and my corpse will be installed with some sort of IOT controller board with on board wifi.

The companion smart phone app will allow my partially rotting cybernetic zombie corpse to be driven around by a bored grave yard grounds keeper while kids are doing LSD pretending they're all that.

Make them really believe the apocalypse has begun and the dead have risen.

I could be a whole thing for future corpse disposal too.

"Smart corpses, for the loved one who will be more intelligent in death than they were in life."

Although that's probably a bit too harsh...

Does anyone know of a way to have multiple servo motors run simultaneously (Arduino)

To quote Tom Servo: EEEEND!

One day I decided I wanted to build robots.
And not kidding the reason I wanted to build them was because I wanted someone interesting to talk to and stil not kidding I even fantasized about a robot girlfriend... Lame I know I think I was a lonely little guy back then, though even after 7 years or so it doesn't feel as though it's that long ago. Maybe because things didn't change that much. Which is worrying but it's not the topic so I will pass on that future-past worries bullcrapper. After learning how robots worked and what made them function so things gradually led up to me being more interested in machine learning applications and software. I learned Arduino at first, I think I still have some messy circuits and old arduinos around. I only finished one robot though and it couldn't even support it's own weight. The servo motors were taking too many amps that heated up the little arduino even with a fan attached. Provably I should have made use of mechanics for robots books and calculated things first. But even though it couldn't walk properly I still felt success and I loved it like my own kid (me taking it apart was questionable but believe me). After that I focused more on writing code than using my hands to make things which was a pain in the ass if I might add.
After learning arduino and making that failed project of mine. I then picked up C++ wrote hello world program usual things a starter would do. It was the language I wrote my first game which I finished and this time it worked. But I never released it which was partly because I didn't want to spend a hundred bucks on a license for the engine and I also knew that it was a shit game. If I were to describe; lines in different colors come from the top you need to hit the lines with the same colored columns to break them. The columns changed their height and location on random. The lines sped up and gap between them decreased. Now that I think about it it wasn't half bad. But the code was written in game maker studio's version of C so I have no way to salvage it.
But I learned a lot of things from that project and that was the goal, so I would call it a win. I don't remember but after sometime I switched to python. And I'm glad I did, it's fun to code in which was the main reason I coded in the first place. Fun.
Life happens and time passes,

Now I'm waiting to enter college exams in a few months after hopefully passing them. My goal is to get into computer engineering which will be extremely challenging because it's the highest point department in the university I'm aiming at. But hey if the challenge is great the reward is greater right ? To be honest I'm still not sure about my career path. Too many choices. So I will just let my own road called <millions of similarly random events that are actually caused by deterministic reactions, to affect you and your surroundings leading up to a future which only the Laplace's demon can forsee> guide me. Wish me luck.

When the servo jitter gets real

Not sure how, but I broke my servo (TowerPro SG-5010)...

Luckily my uni had a few smaller ones for 2€ laying around, my project would've failed without that

What are the parts of the CNC Wire Bending Machine?

A CNC wire bending machine is a complex piece of equipment used to bend the wire into various shapes and configurations with precision. It consists of several key parts and operates based on the instructions provided by a computer program. Here are the main parts of a CNC wire-bending machine and an overview of how it works:

1. Wire Feeding Mechanism:

This part of the machine is responsible for feeding the wire from a coil or spool into the bending area.

Wire feeding mechanisms can include rollers, pulleys, or servo-driven motors that control the wire's movement.

2. Straightening Unit:

- Before bending, the wire may pass through a straightening unit, which ensures that the wire is free from kinks and bends.

- This step helps produce precise bends by starting with a straight wire.

3. Bending Head and Tooling:

- The bending head contains the tools and dies needed to shape the wire.

- Tooling includes various components such as clamps, rollers, and mandrels that hold and shape the wire according to the desired design.

4. Guide Rollers and Pulleys:

- These components help guide the wire through the bending process, ensuring it follows the correct path and angles.

5. Control Panel or Interface:

- CNC wire bending machines are typically equipped with a control panel or computer interface.

- Operators input the design specifications, such as bend angles, lengths, and shapes, through this interface.

6. Computer Control System:

- The heart of the CNC wire bending machine is its computer control system.

- It interprets the design specifications and converts them into precise movements and commands for the machine.

- CNC software programs are used to create and store the bending instructions.

7. Servo Motors and Actuators:

- These components are responsible for moving the bending head, tooling, and other parts of the machine with high precision.

- Servo motors and actuators receive commands from the control system to carry out specific movements.

8. Sensors and Feedback Mechanisms:

- Sensors placed throughout the machine monitor various parameters, such as wire position, tension, and tooling alignment.

- Feedback from these sensors allows the machine to make real-time adjustments, ensuring accuracy and quality in the final product.