My Monster Shooting Range, featuring a number of robotic Halloween props, some fabricated from scratch (12' black hairy spider alert!), some bought from a store and made to move with a nifty $15 mechanism I came up with. All trigger automatically with light and sound, and you have to kill each monster using a laser tag gun that I hacked the targets for... The system runs off the new BeagleBone Black which for my money knocks the socks off RPi or Arduino. I am using relays to trigger the Try Me features on the props, DC motors, AC lights and sound, and the whole thing is wired with stranded CAT5. That's a lot of soldering! And I finished it with 15 hours to go before the kids start showing up... More video at http://youtube.com/user/psyclopz
The track 'S2 Translation' on the Shamen album Axis Mutatis was *exactly* this, being music generated from the DNA sequence of the S2 protein. Very odd track, strangely hypnotic and ethereal but a little annoying after a while. Pretty visible prior art if you ask me (though IANAL). More about the track here. Not surprisingly, the S2 protein is the receptor for serotonin...
I had mused on this topic also. I was very disappointed in the HSW article, as it totally ignored the hardest part of building a lightsabre - namely, how to prevent the beam from continuing outwards as light is wont to do.
I was envisioning a high-power laser, also with a thin, stiff telescoping rod up the middle of the beam. On the end of the rod would be a nano-scale mirror made of some perfectly reflective material, each nano-element of which was programmed to update its angle at a very high frequency, continually compensating for the inevitable shifts in position of the end of the rod during combat. The laser light would be reflected back down to a similar nano-mirror array at the bottom, and so on. In this way, the light could be reflected back and forth, concentrating itself more and more and creating the familiar light blade. The trick is in being able to detect the motion of the end of the blade relative to the handle and update all the nano-mirrors fast enough to keep the reflected beam going.
I have been using the Datahand for about 3 years now (so much for 'new' keyboards!) and while I do love it (it has saved my wrists from steadily increasing pain, and it's great security for my desktop cos no-one else can use it:) it is starting to make parts of my hands ache - our hands aren't really evolved for outwards forces, something that the Datahand employs. The mouse is a bit primitive too, kind of like a cursor-key mouse.
I recently found the Orbitouch keyboard which looks like a giant leap forward - basically a pair of paddles that can move to one of 8 'compass points', giving you 256 key combinations, plus a mouse built into the right paddle. I haven't got to try one out yet but I think it looks like the right step away from the finger-wiggling which we're really not designed for...
Has anyone tried the Orbitouch? I'd be interested in hearing some feedback.
Does anyone remember the CyberSurfer chair, or have any contact info for it? I recall it from a couple of years back, but I lost the link and it doesn't come up on searches anymore.... It looks a little like a cross between a lazyboy and a motorbike, a recliner with the pc between your legs and a fold-down monitor support. All you'd have to do is mount a Datahand on each arm, and you'd be sorted!
- nick.
I found a great programming tool for the Mindstorms system - RCX Command Center. It is a simple C-like programming language (actually, the language is 'Not Quite C') that will teach the basic concepts of variables, subroutines & functions, loops, etc. It's not as powerful as LegOS, but is easier to learn and much more convenient (one-touch compile, download and run), and comes with a programming tutorial. I think that learning to program by controlling lego robots would be a fun, challenging and rewarding process that your kids will love!
dialectizer was my Universal Translator anyway....
on
Dialectizer Shut Down
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· Score: 1
I gave my scripts for The Universal Translator to the Rinkworks guy a couple of years ago for him to use in return for a credit. Well, he dropped the credit, passed it off as his own, and started selling advertising on the pages, so I for one am not too sad that he's been bhut down. The Universal Translator remains available, free and unhindered by advertising...... I have also added several new languages, including h@kK3r and Cockney rhyming slang. Suggestions for new filters always welcome! cheers, nick.
Slashdot Mirror
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RHq0U91YQk
My Monster Shooting Range, featuring a number of robotic Halloween props, some fabricated from scratch (12' black hairy spider alert!), some bought from a store and made to move with a nifty $15 mechanism I came up with. All trigger automatically with light and sound, and you have to kill each monster using a laser tag gun that I hacked the targets for... The system runs off the new BeagleBone Black which for my money knocks the socks off RPi or Arduino. I am using relays to trigger the Try Me features on the props, DC motors, AC lights and sound, and the whole thing is wired with stranded CAT5. That's a lot of soldering! And I finished it with 15 hours to go before the kids start showing up... More video at http://youtube.com/user/psyclopz
The track 'S2 Translation' on the Shamen album Axis Mutatis was *exactly* this, being music generated from the DNA sequence of the S2 protein. Very odd track, strangely hypnotic and ethereal but a little annoying after a while. Pretty visible prior art if you ask me (though IANAL). More about the track here. Not surprisingly, the S2 protein is the receptor for serotonin...
I found video of the V2 walker (today's demo was the V3) here:a rallel/WL-16rr/movie/stair_c.mpg
a rallel/WL-16rr/index.htm
a rallel/WS-1&1R/index.html
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/p
Hmmm, the rider looks a little nervous...
The video is from the university page at:
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/p
They are also working on a reactive foot for walking on uneven surfaces:
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/p
Very promising stuff. Hopefully the multiple linear actuators will make it somewhat fault tolerant. Now where's my Gundam?
I had mused on this topic also. I was very disappointed in the HSW article, as it totally ignored the hardest part of building a lightsabre - namely, how to prevent the beam from continuing outwards as light is wont to do.
:)
I was envisioning a high-power laser, also with a thin, stiff telescoping rod up the middle of the beam. On the end of the rod would be a nano-scale mirror made of some perfectly reflective material, each nano-element of which was programmed to update its angle at a very high frequency, continually compensating for the inevitable shifts in position of the end of the rod during combat. The laser light would be reflected back down to a similar nano-mirror array at the bottom, and so on. In this way, the light could be reflected back and forth, concentrating itself more and more and creating the familiar light blade. The trick is in being able to detect the motion of the end of the blade relative to the handle and update all the nano-mirrors fast enough to keep the reflected beam going.
Maybe one day I'll get around to building it
... that there is way too much money being spent on research of seemingly pointless and random subjects...
I recently found the Orbitouch keyboard which looks like a giant leap forward - basically a pair of paddles that can move to one of 8 'compass points', giving you 256 key combinations, plus a mouse built into the right paddle. I haven't got to try one out yet but I think it looks like the right step away from the finger-wiggling which we're really not designed for...
Has anyone tried the Orbitouch? I'd be interested in hearing some feedback.
Does anyone remember the CyberSurfer chair, or have any contact info for it? I recall it from a couple of years back, but I lost the link and it doesn't come up on searches anymore.... It looks a little like a cross between a lazyboy and a motorbike, a recliner with the pc between your legs and a fold-down monitor support. All you'd have to do is mount a Datahand on each arm, and you'd be sorted! - nick.
I found a great programming tool for the Mindstorms system - RCX Command Center. It is a simple C-like programming language (actually, the language is 'Not Quite C') that will teach the basic concepts of variables, subroutines & functions, loops, etc. It's not as powerful as LegOS, but is easier to learn and much more convenient (one-touch compile, download and run), and comes with a programming tutorial.
I think that learning to program by controlling lego robots would be a fun, challenging and rewarding process that your kids will love!
I gave my scripts for The Universal Translator to the Rinkworks guy a couple of years ago for him to use in return for a credit. Well, he dropped the credit, passed it off as his own, and started selling advertising on the pages, so I for one am not too sad that he's been bhut down. The Universal Translator remains available, free and unhindered by advertising...... I have also added several new languages, including h@kK3r and Cockney rhyming slang. Suggestions for new filters always welcome! cheers, nick.