Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category

Manned electric multicopter

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Quadcopters are very popular these days, but one can also increase number of motors to a multicopter.

One can also make it big, like these Germans did. Simple, yet amazing.

Solar panels for the future

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

A new way of harvesting sun energy has been developed and is was presented at Ted a few days ago. This amazing technology is transparent which means you can generate energy from the windows of your house! You can even cover an entire electric car with this stuff.

Head on over to TED.com and watch the presentation

Student “company”

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

To receive an additional 10 points I’m taking a “course” directly translated to: student company. This subject is as close to a real company as you get in Norway where the ultimate goal is to earn 140,000 NOK (~$25,000). Our company; MiAu-SB specializes in GSM communication. We are currently working on three projects for external customers. Will be giving details on this when they are finished.

Bachelor project

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

I’m currently finishing my Automation bachelor degree collecting the last 30 points. 20 of these points are achieved by one last project, main project.

Me and three other students are doing a project for Repant ASA, by making a vending machine.

You can get details and information on our website, setup and maintained by myself; http://www.hovedprosjekt.com/

16-bit Arithmetic Logic Unit inside a game

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Since this is both computer and electronics related I will post this youtube link containg a video game with custom made ALU by using game pieces.

After having ALU and how computers are built bottom up as last terms curriculum, I can imagine the energy required to make this setup. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGkkyKZVzug

iPhone little rover control

Friday, September 10th, 2010
I just finished programming my little rover. It was build a few days ago, nothing special. It uses Tamiya gearbox and some Tamiya tracks. The frame is custom made from Align T-rex 600ESP frames which I had crashed recently. A little wooden plate was added on top for stiffness.
An Arduino with WiFi shield is used to control the motors. Actually, controlling two transistors controlling the motor. It`s powered by two 1,5v batteries right now, but will probably be LiPolyed in the feature.

Download code here: http://vegard.hammerseth.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=72

Check you this youtube demo


Image gallery
Home made tracked robot

School project – track counter

Friday, August 27th, 2010

This article will have an overview of our school project (term 3/6). We were only two persons completing the project and I did all the coding. Our goal with this project was to make a simple, cheap and easy implantable tracking system.

After setting our goal on making a track counter (later called TC) we did our research on google searching for similar projects. We did not find much information about this and had to do some research before pursuing our goal. We faced a difficult question about IrDA. since we were planning to use infrared technology. Would the sensor be able to detect IR moving very fast? thinking back on FY1 (physics) we knew IR is running on a very high frequency and the experience with TV-remotes made us certain our choice of technology.

This year we had to expand knowledge we had been or would be learning into our project. This means Java and Verilog. We also focused on making a accurate budget since it was one of our goals.

The idea
Each object in a shortened circuit has an uncovered module which runs on a unique frequency. This frequency is sent to an IR diode on the module making the diode to blink at a given rate.

At finishing line we have an IR sensor connected to an PLD-card sending the info to a computer. The computer runs a TC-application written in Java with a SWING GUI.

Track counter rapport it`s in Norwegian, use a translator to get it to English or contact me and I will translate it for you.

Video

Tech and photographing

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Rube Goldberg Machine version

Unbelievable plane build and it`s movie

Sound technology, listen to nearby planes pretty cool idea

Snowplow

youtube speed

Photographing cotton

Miniature New York

Food landscape

Make it smaller and become bigger

Marion on Arduino

Laser scissors

Analog and Digital TV Signal Generation

Bristlebot – clean your home

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Check out this simple little robot which does nothing else than sweeping the ground beneath: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/bristlebot

Why not make a larger version and make it clean your crypt?

Computer and Arduino controlled car (1:18)

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

So I decided to make something with RC-servos using the Arduino board and the sensor shield which I recently purchased.

I went ahead figuring out how to send arrow signals from my computer to Arduino using USB interface.

Using void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); } on Arduino and screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600 on my computer, I managed to send commands back and forth. I hooked up the standard servo library and write some code before I mounted the Arduino board on my mini rock crawler. I now had a computer controlled car. Because of Arduino`s simple interface I had it all up and running around an hour. Check the small video and code below.

You can view and or use the code as you like below. (Sorry about the indention, WordPress messes it up).

//
// LIBRARY
//
#include <Servo.h>

//
// OBJ
//
Servo servo1;
Servo servo2;

// VARS
int readByte;
int servo1Angle = 90; //default servo angle
int servo2Angle = 90;

int minPulse = 700; // minimum servo position
int maxPulse = 2300; // maximum servo position

void setup()
{
servo1.attach(2, minPulse, maxPulse); //connect servo
servo2.attach(3, minPulse, maxPulse);

Serial.begin(9600); // start serial
Serial.println(“Ready\n”);
}

void loop()
{
if (Serial.available() > 1) // procced when two bytes is avaiable
{
readByte; = Serial.read(); //read first byte
if (readByte; == 91)
{
readByte; = Serial.read(); //read second byte to determine arrow type
if (readByte; == 65 && servo1Angle <= 180) //UP
{
servo1Angle += 5;
}
else if(readByte; == 66 && servo1Angle >= 0) //DOWN
{
servo1Angle -= 5;
}
else if(readByte; == 67 && servo2Angle <= 180) //RIGHT
{
servo2Angle += 5;
}
else if(readByte; == 68 && servo2Angle >= 0) //LEFT
{
servo2Angle -= 5;
}

}
}
// set servo positions
servo1.write(servo1Angle);
servo2.write(servo2Angle);
delay(15);
}