The Mini-ness!!: Friday, January 19, 2007

So, today programming worked with a minature (VEX) robot with the camera mounted on top. The battery, robot controller, and radio was duct taped on since we didn't have any available velcro. Oh well...the power of making double-sided tape!

We messed with the default program (keeping an original copy elsewhere) and got the joystick to control the camera movement. The wheels turned in opposite directions with the same commands so we looked into making them go the same with some math.

Hmm... 255 is max forward. 127 is nothing. 0 is max backward. So! We used an unsigned character to offset that scale and have the directions reversed. Kind of hard when negative numbers don't work.... I don't think we've gotten it working yet, but...close. We got the direction reversed, but both of the wheels aren't in sync.

Then, I had to leave for the bus. Darn it all! Time flies in Robotics. I'm going to look into staying after later next week so more things can get done.

By the by, I knew I'm no mechanic! (Kidding!) I tried drilling a screw into a block of wood for...something or other and the wood split. I guess I pressed too hard, but the last time I had the drill, I pressed too lightly and it slipped. But...the wood split for other people too (several times at that), so maybe it's not just me. Meh.

-Roozu (write that in Katakana and you'll get my name)

Zee Kamehra wurks!: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Okay, so maybe I'm not the most meticulous blogger, but I'm going to try to be better from now on. I'm going to try--not promise. (And don't give me that Yoda quote either....) And yes, the title's supposed to be like that as opposed to "The Camera Works." I know how to spell. I just like mixing things up.

Today, programming's got the camera more or less working with LabView. Yeah! What took us a week or more last year got done in a day today. We also finished our green light (kudos to James for laying down the last pieces!) with duct tape and such.

Mr. Movellan brought us our own programming box! Yesss, no more stuff getting lost and other boxes pushing programming aside! :D It's big enough to fit all the pieces without taking all of the wires apart. (Hey, that takes time too, and the more time we have to work, the better.)

A few things I probably should put down here for possible future reference:
>To upload the parameters from file, the camera can't be taking in frames (i.e. searching)
>There is a 'run' command under one of the menus on top so it's not just in editing mode all the time

Hopefully it makes sense, but...better something than nothing? Lots of hope for this year (in programming, at least)!

Err, am I supposed to put my name after my posts? I mean, the posts ARE under my section thingy.... Oh well, just in case....

-Rose Cao