Other cool projects keep piling up in my notebook and hopefully I will also start working on them.

Upcoming events are the Kinetica Art Fair in London where I will be helping out with the University of Lincoln’s Interactive Design Stand.

Must keep an eye out for this guy:

Being surrouded by so many geeks has never been so cool! It truly was a very interesting convention, getting to meet people from other universities and seeing some of their projects.

3D printers and Arduino and the Raspberry Pi where the topic of many conversations, and I got to do other really cool thins like playing about with QBO and meeting other nerds with 3D printers.

Hopefully I will keep in touch with some of the people I met there, it will be very helpfull for my research.

http://madebyfrutos.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/ir-tracker/

http://beopenfuture.com/news/be-open-news/endless-interruptions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEtUJmp05w

And this is a must see , terrestrial insect biobots….

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/09/meet-the-roachbot-the-cyborg-cockroach-you-can-actually-remote-control/

Found a few things on TED that are worth spreading.

On design, product design. Making beautifull thins that make the world a better place.

I hoped I would have a first draft to publish but I’t still doesn’t look ready.

Here are some interesting videos for this week though!

Interesting video on 3D printing at MIT, they call it the new printing press revolution.

Relational Aesthetics

The book that can’t wait

Design is GREAT Britain

I have been working on designing a custom PCB for my next build, but it has turned out to be harder than I thought. I’m still workin on the design and I think I should do a few more tests before I start making custom PCBs.

I’ve also started to pick up on a paper I have to write on Picasso. I will be working on that next week so I don’t think I’ll be producing practical work anytime soon.

I’ve gathered some interesting videos this week I would like to share.

I find this first video very familiar to the feeling I have had up until now with my own research. I find what keeps my project alive and keeps me keen is the low pressure of having a relatively long time to experiment and I the time I have had to be contemplative, open, and playfull. Curiosity for it’s own sake. (Min 7:11)

The rest of these videos just sumarize and catalogue what I have found interesting and inspirational during the course of the week.

Quote: Objects have a charm and natural interactivity missing in most current digital technology. We now have the possibility of fashioning our own physical objects with interesting new ‘networked’ properties. Putting the Extra into Ordinari things.

After meeting with tutors last week I feel I am right on track, it’s just a case of working on a structure for the written work and on a space for the instalation.

I will be working on perfecting the code for the vehicle’s behavior and on the light sources. I already have a few ideas on how to build structures.

Part of the interest of this project is about life, death, emotions and behaviours. It is what Braitenberg bases hes theories on.  I found this talk that really connects extremelly well with my project.

I have built a first Braitenberg Vehicle and it has turned out to have mixed emotions!
It is still a very early test but I’ve managed to build the first simple Braitenberg vehicle. I have made it as small as I’ve been able to, but for future builds I will have to make some structural changes.
Other problems I have with this one are I think I wired a diode the wrong way around. Next models might be just a bit bigger to make it easier for me to build.
Another issue that is very important to solve is the wheels, I will need to find the best way to make wheels. At the moment I have just used a bit of plastic to fit around the axis of the motor.

This first Vehicle has the following components:

-          1 ATTiny85 chip

-          2 motors

-          2 diodes

-          4 resistors

-          2 LDR sensors

-          1 paper clip

-          1 fuse holder

-          1 LiPo battery

For the next build, I need to add some sort of connector to make reprogramming easier so I don’t have to take the chip out every time I need to upload a new sketch.
Programing it has been a bit of a nightmare. I started off with a very complicated code that calibrated the LDRs and operated the motors at different speeds but nothing seemed to work. Then I began to simply everything to an extreme just to make sure the hardware worked, and I found out it worked perfectly (except for the diode being the wrong way around).
With this project I am constantly finding that simple is best, and somehow it is becoming one of the conclusions I’m finding. Keep things simple! This is the code I have used for this first test:

int LDR_L = 2;     //Left Sensor Pin

int L_data = 0;    //Left data storage

int LDR_R = 3;     //Right Sensor Pin

int R_data = 0;    //Right data storage

int t=0;           //Threshold

int M_L = 0;

int M_R = 1;

void setup() {

}

void loop() {

  L_data = analogRead(2);

  R_data = analogRead(3);

  t = L_data-R_data;

  if (t<0){t=t*-1;}

  if (t<=20){

    analogWrite(M_L,0);

    analogWrite(M_R,0);

  } else {

      if (L_data>R_data){

        analogWrite(M_R,250);

        }else{

          analogWrite(M_L,50);  //I am using 50 and not 250

                                //because one of my motors is

                                //spinning faster(hardware problem)

        }

  }

 // delay(100);

}

Overall, I am happy to see I can do it, and I can take it forward. I find the ATTiny chip has so much potential I have to find more uses for it!

I am proud to say this week has been a productive one! I’ve had great success at programming the ATTiny85 chip using the Arduino Uno as an ISP programmer. It was pretty straight forward using the HLT tutorial.
I tested a few other cores and software versions but what seemed to work best for me was Arduino v.022, with the Arduino Uno. I’m the kind of guy that thinks if it works, keep going, and although other versions might have more options, this one works fine for what I need. Especially for this project where the idea is to use minimum resources, as for example using the ATTiny85 chip as opposed to a full Arduino.

The ATTiny85 chip has a total of 8 pins, and out of them you can only use a total of 6 for I/O signals: 2 as digital outputs PWM and 3 as analog inputs. It might seem limited but it is just enough. By having fewer resources you tend to be much more creative and squeeze more ideas out. The easy option would obviously be getting a bigger chip! But that means more cost, size issues, etc.

After having to set the wires up a few times, I decided to make an easy uploading shield (v.01) that way, I just have to place the ATTiny85 Chip on the shield and run the program. This really makes things quicker because I don’t have to be fiddling around with cables and connections, it’s plug and upload.

I have managed to test several codes on the ATTiny85 apart from blinking an LED like fading it, reading potentiometer input, blinking two LEDs… everything works like on a normal Arduino.

I really think it has a lot of potential, because it is cheap and small, you can run it on a 3V button battery! I will be trying other side projects with the ATTiny.

Next week I will be drawing up the circuit for a first Vehicle, the basic elements needed and getting them all together. Need to solve some issues running the DC motor with the Arduino. At the moment I know I will need some transistors, diodes and a bit of theory!

12►