robots.net blog for aplumb

6 Jan 2005

Thu, 6 Jan 2005 01:43:21 GMT

Check out the next round of Mark Tilden's Robosapien line of 'bots!

2 Sep 2004

Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:08:07 GMT

I dropped by Best Buy yesterday and picked up one of their cheapest Logitech optical mice (CDN$14.99+tax).

I opened it up today and sure enough, it's using an Agilent ADNS-2501 sensor. It's in a DIP package (yes, the pins along each side are offset by 0.05" as shown in the datasheet), has quadrature outputs, an SPI, and if you look on page 33-34 of the datasheet it can dump out the 16x16 pixel image it's "seeing".

In short, with the right optics you have a single, low-power chip that can see 2D motion and capture images to pass up the processing chain. Get two and you could have some very interesting stereoscopic motion control potential.

It's a hackcident just waiting to happen!

14 Aug 2004

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 18:42:50 GMT

My pack of ultracapacitors arrived yesterday. Now all I have to do is make time in between work and caring for a newborn to start work on my Sapien Autopsy to graft them in as a battery replacement power system...

16 Jul 2004

Fri, 16 Jul 2004 13:50:42 GMT

Jin, brilliant as always. I like how you wired the ADXL202E on DIP8 socket for test; I'm going to have to borrow that idea.

In other news, my two Robosapiens arrived, but not before the baby arrived, so deconstructing them will have to wait. I have a few ultracaps on order (thanks Steve), my goal being to replace the battery-based power system with caps in one of the Robosapiens and rigging up some solar trickle-charging to keep them topped up.

Ah yes, if you buy more than 100 ultracaps they only cost $22 each. No I didn't buy that many; I asked when quantity price-breaks kick in.

19 Jun 2004

Sat, 19 Jun 2004 01:56:33 GMT

Steve, thanks for the link to those 350F caps!

Any idea on the cost and who might carry them?

31 May 2004

Mon, 31 May 2004 17:03:43 GMT

Welcome to the site, Jin!

I know a lot of people around here are going to find what you've been up to (and sharing with ORE) most interesting.

26 May 2004

Wed, 26 May 2004 13:45:30 GMT

pcalnon, when you look at the datasheet for the ADXL203, the leads/contacts are the brass-coloured rectangles you can see on the middle picture, right next to the penny. They are all surface-mount devices, so not the easiest thing to work with.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend investing in one of the little Evaluation Boards. You can plug them into any old breadboard and start exploring what they do right away.

Hope this helps!

1 Apr 2004

Thu, 1 Apr 2004 03:34:10 GMT

Hey Steve, if getting the spybotics to drive in a straight line is proving challenging, consider equiping it with a MEMS rate gyro, interfaced via I2C out of a PSoC. The voltage delta out of the gyro is proportional to the turning rate and signed, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do some simple self-calibration and control.

I should have some more time this weekend to continue exploring the PSoC Mini Dev Kit.

30 Mar 2004

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:10:15 GMT

Well, I don't think I'm going to make tomorrow's deadline for the contest; a single weekend isn't enough. It's gotten me off to a good start though. It motivated me to power up the MEMS Accelerometer and Gyroscope Eval boards I picked up a while ago.

Ideas and plans are coming together...

25 Mar 2004

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 15:46:04 GMT

Almost completely out of the blue, I received a PSoC Mini Development Kit earlier this week for Cypress' PSoC International Design Contest.

...the deadline for submissions is midnight, March 31, 2004!

I'm going to hide out in the basement over the weekend and see what I can come up with. Fortunatetly there are lots of related resources available online:

Circuit Cellar Contest Application Notes - from the 2002 contest
Mr. Davbot's Musings: The I2C Interface - I2C as it applies to robotics
Philips I2C Site - the source
PSoC Invention Board (8C27443) A.K.A Mini-Development Kit - discussion about the board I was shipped

This is one cool family of chips! An interesting way to add reconfigurable, analog sensors and actuators to your 'bot.

[edited to add link to PSoCDevelopment site]