Multi proyectos 0046

Often the purpose of a photographic intervalometer is to reduce the resources required either to take the pictures or post-process them as similar images could be obtained by having the camera continuously take pictures as rapidly as possible. Using an intervalometer permits restricting the pictures taken to only those with the desired content. This reduces the requirements for resources such as power and storage media (e.g. film or memory card space).

It uses a really simple interface: you dial in the speed you want, referring to the blinking LEDs, and switch it into “go!” mode when you want it to start taking pictures.

He also has put up beautiful tutorials here. Can’t wait to see this one up! 

“As a visually impaired person, you don’t develop the same kind of kinaesthetic awareness — so we began with how you can rebuild body awareness and how you can actually have a feeling of where your limbs are in space, if you lost your sight, for instance,” said IDE student Benedict Copping.

Noting that the vast majority of sighted athletes use coaching demonstrations or video-analysis techniques to perfect complex motion skills, Copping’s team wanted to find a way for blind athletes to similarly benefit.

“If you’re visually impaired, because you can’t reflect on somebody else doing the motion, the coach moves the hand around, so what he’ll do is get the first position and press a button, store that, then [get a] second position, store that — so a combination of points together will build a picture. Then when you actually change movements, it will vibrate more and more until you get the correct position,” Copping said.

Theres a Nanode microcontroller (an Arduino clone with ENC28J60 ethernet), LCD screen from an old Dell laser printer, the stepper motor mechanism is out of a HP Deskjet 500 from the 90′s. The stepper is controlled via a ULN2003 and a 555 timer is used for the buzzer. Theres a pair of IP cameras (ones broke at the moment) and a server process which polls twitter and co-ordinates it all.

So how many more applications can you think of using the same concept? 

Here is a brief outline of the workshop:

Part 1
– General introduction to microcontrollers and embedded systems
– Basic eletrical concepts, use of breadboard for prototyping circuits.
– Arduino “Hello,world”: build a blinking LED circuit
– Controlling more than one LED
– Using Pulse width modulation to control LED brightness
– Interfacing a seven segment display
– Using the arduino digital inputs: interfacing a mechanical switch
– Using the analog inputs: sensing light using an LDR
– Potentiometer interfacing
– Reading temperature
– A quick introduction to the Python programming language
– Serial port interfacing (Python will be used to write PC-side code)

Part 2
- The second part of the workshop will be a demo. An Ez-Chronos sports watch which contains an accelerometer as well as a radio will be used to control an LED attached to the Arduino board.

Ford (and other automakers) envision future cars with high tech infotainment systems galore where car dashboards could have downloadable app’s just like todays smart phones and tablets. With the OpenXC platform Ford is creating a channel for open collaboration with 3rd party application developers, allowing them to use cars like the Ford Focus to prototype their gizmos.

If “your car is as easy to program as your smartphone,” it stands to reason that future cars could generate as much innovation and excitement as todays smartphones are generating.