Photo album: DC Robotfest 2010
Here is the photo album from the DC Robotfest last weekend. Enjoy!
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Tag: hacking
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Misadventures in microcontrollers.
I've spent my free time over the past couple of days hacking away on my current project-slash-obsession and thus I've been doing a lot of reading up on microcontrollers, or at least the basics of them. Knowing nothing about them as a technology or about sound synthesis for that matter, I find myself having to start from first principles, which are never as easy as they seem to grasp no matter how much experience you have under your belt. I'm trying to design a synthesizer coming at it as a code jockey as well as a musician (or one-time musician …
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You're probably wondering where I've been lately.
By and large, work has been, well, work. Lots of hours at the office, lots of hours stuck in traffic sweating like Kevin Mitnick during a traffic stop. When I haven't been logging time behind a console, I've either been trying to get my head back into Python coding (try as I might, I just don't understand GUI programming in general or PyGTK in particular), reading data sheets, reading up on the Arduino microcontroller, or pulling a Tesla while pondering the best way to build my latest obsession, a laser synthtar.
You see, it all started at HacDC a couple …
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Arduino cross-development kit on Gentoo.
While I’m sitting here hacking around, here’s the exact command that I needed to run to get the Arduino development kit to install properly on Windbringer:
It should be noted that I’m using Layman to manage my overlays, which is why I had to specify the environment variable on the command line.
I discovered that GCC v4.1.2 didn't support the Atmega328, which is what my Arduino Duemilanove is based upon, so I had to upgrade GCC to the latest stable release for Gentoo. To generate code for the Atmega328, you need v4.2.2 or …
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OCZ NIA hacking, now with Python!
Disclaimer the first: I don't know a whole lot about USB or device drivers. Those of you who do will no doubt point and laugh.
Disclaimer the second: Where applicable, I've given credit for and linked to the work of others. I've independently discovered a few things that others have already figured out, so one or two things may not be attributed. In that case, please let me know and I'll put a reference where applicable.
Over the past few weeks I've been playing with my OCZ NIA on and off. My first attempt at getting anything out of it …Read more...
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OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator notes and roll-up post.
While reading the files in
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/usb/I got it in my head to see if anyone else had spent any time reverse engineering the OCZ NIA, or at least had figured out how to get output from it. I spent some time a couple of days ago playing with it on Windbringer (running Gentoo Linux and all I was able to determine in the short time I worked on it was that it successfully registers itself with the Linux kernel's USB subsystem as an USB Human Interface Device (heh). After collecting some information I put the …Read more...
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The OCZ NIA and Linux.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I recieved as a Yule gift an OCZ NIA, a hardware device aimed at gamers which acts as one part EEG and one part biofeedback monitor. The idea behind it, in short, is that the user trains eirself using the included software to generate specific patterns of electrical activity in the brain and facial muscles that the drivers use to trigger certain system events. There's just one thing: there are no Linux drivers.
For the record, I'm using Windbringer as my testbed, running Gentoo Linux 2008.0 and …
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RepRap build-a-thon photo album.
I've finally gotten around to putting the pictures from the RepRap build-a-thon online. If you want more information, I also have a writeup here.
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The RepRap build-a-thon in review.
The weekend of the RepRap build-a-thon at HacDC started off simply: Lyssa and I went to dinner at Konami. We haven't been out for sushi for a number of months, due to my getting sick there in 2007. However, the food is still good and we enjoyed ourselves. I was unusually popular that night; my cellphone kept ringing every few minutes for various and sundry reasons. After dinner I dropped Lyssa off at home, loaded my gear into the trunk of my car, and headed to Hasufin's to pick him up because we were off to HacDC to help set …
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'tis the season once again...
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, sapient lifeforms of all ages: welcome to the holiday season. I just wish that it didn't involve so much road rage in the DC metroplex, let alone being greeted with an upraised middle finger rather than a wave of good cheer. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but wasn't this traditionally the time of year to be good to one another (if no other time) and practice random acts of senseless kindness, especially during a season that seems to be blowing through like a nor'easter this time 'round. I think I've had a chance to blink …
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