http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275 A place to share, learn, and grow... en-US Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:12:34 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://forums.leaflabs.com/search.php http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275&page=2#post-2309 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:43:37 +0000 gbulmer 2309@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>poslathian - there is quite a lot of discussion about the difficulty of cracking kinect, and also whether most of the work is being done on the XBox anyway:<br /> <a href="http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/04/the-open-kinect-project-the-ok-prize-get-1000-bounty-for-kinect-for-xbox-360-open-source-drivers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/04/the-open-kinect-project-the-ok-prize-get-1000-bounty-for-kinect-for-xbox-360-open-source-drivers/</a></p> <p>the post "Comment by mark — November 5, 2010 @ 2:09 pm" sounded quite plausible.</p> <p>If most of the work is on the XBox, then we are waiting for Oak (or whatever I can do with a PSoc 5 :-) </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275&page=2#post-2293 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:41:02 +0000 poslathian 2293@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Im confident with the right material the piezo sensor triangulation scheme can be made to work. But it is always nice when fancy gadgets you couldnt make yourself are hackable. </p> <p>Anyone going after the $2k bounty for open source drivers for the kinect (offered by ladyada)?</p> <p>I remember paying 10 grand for one of those rangefinding cameras about 4 years ago, now theres almost an identical sensor baked into the kinect which is only $150! </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275&page=2#post-2291 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:44:08 +0000 soundcyst 2291@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>man, it's really a shame that amazon gobbled up touchco and hasn't done anything with the tech yet. their touchpads did all that sensing magic for you (they were basically one giant interpolating force sensing resistor)..</p> <p>hopefully we'll see them in the next kindle, and hopefully they'll be hackable. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275&page=2#post-2279 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:16:34 +0000 poslathian 2279@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>The problem was in the plate i was using, which was kind of a thin but hard cardboard thing (back of a large mirror) that was really rather resonant and had a hard rim. </p> <p>The signal, if you amplified it with a gain of about 1000, was clearly visible on the scope, but very difficult to actually filter in such a way as to extract the phase information. The reason its difficult is because you dont get one nice pulse, you get lets of pulses - reflections and resonances and so forth. You must extract the *first* pulse from both sensors to be consistent, which is hard to do, since its often super small. </p> <p>Its not an impossible problem, just the material I was using made everything quite difficult. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275&page=2#post-2238 Sun, 07 Nov 2010 14:40:13 +0000 gbulmer 2238@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>poslathian - what's the problem?</p> <p>The estimate was an upper bound of 5000m/second<br /> <a href="http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.html</a></p> <p>So 1cm =~ 0.2us</p> <p>A friend measures laser pulse times to much better than 100 picoseconds with a reasonably normal FPGA and PIC32, so I imagine Oak should be able to handle sound through a solid to 1cm. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2230 Sun, 07 Nov 2010 14:13:09 +0000 poslathian 2230@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Ive been REALLY wanting to build a synthesizer table that you can drum/tap and the response is location, velocity sensitive - with high position resolution (&lt; 1cm). </p> <p>This is harder to do that it sounds, Ive made some progress, but havnt gotten really good localization yet. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2188 Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:53:00 +0000 soundcyst 2188@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>or maybe make it into kindof a game to motivate them to get up and around the house.. leading with a carrot instead of a stick is definitely nice.</p> <p>the auto-visuals thing sounds really really cool, and i can sympathize with your aversion to too-much-software, but the truth is, software is everywhere, it's immensely cheaper to develop than hardware, and i'd wager you'll be writing some for a living when you graduate.</p> <p>also, i had a glance at your design project course layout.. if you haven't started 391 yet, you're probably getting ahead of yourself. there was a group of students who were absolutely 100% certain they were going to work together for a number of months going into our senior design class, and when we got to the first quarter and all of the projects were presented, they group split, because not everyone wanted to work on the same project. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2186 Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:35:49 +0000 gbulmer 2186@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>anotherDJ - I have spent a lot of my career inventing projects and writing 'executive overviews' that are attractive; so please don't read my post as a specification, or even a good idea. It is just something I've been vaguely thinking about.</p> <p>You will need to do some real research, preferably with professionals who know about this sort of stuff. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2177 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:09:50 +0000 anotherDJ 2177@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>sweet, thanks! didn't think of this issue this way... </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2175 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:52:42 +0000 gbulmer 2175@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>anotherDJ - have you folks got contacts with local health services?</p> <p>As the average age of the population of western countries increases, the cost of care increases, we are likley to need more and more technological assistance to help the elderly to have healthy and adequately supported lives.</p> <p>In the UK, old people become ill, and sometimes die, from hyperthermia. There are several factors, but I read a while ago, one tell-tale sign is people stop moving around their home.</p> <p>It would clearly be worth talking to folks who know about this sort of thing, and treat everything I say with some scepticism, as I am not a heath professional. </p> <p>Having said that, there may be a useful project which uses, maybe burglar alarm, technology to detect if people are moving around and active. A related set of observations may be able to detect if people are visiting their kitchen or bathroom medicine cabinet to take their meds, without being as intrusive as some devices I have seen.</p> <p>Maybe extend out a bit more, and measure energy use, and correlate that with room use, or temperature rises to detect that folks are keeping warm and fed, and not just leaving the living room TV and heating on when they go to bed.</p> <p>(In truth, I think there are much better ideas out there, but talking to experts with a simple idea may spark their creative juices to give you a 'real humb dinger' of an idea.) </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2174 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:33:12 +0000 anotherDJ 2174@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>StephenFromNYC - Your guesstimates are mostly accurate, when we i said we dont have summers, i meant as in we dont have time time off for summer.</p> <p>The website is <a href="http://eceprojects.uwaterloo.ca/" rel="nofollow">http://eceprojects.uwaterloo.ca/</a><br /> <a href="http://eceprojects.uwaterloo.ca/symposium.html" rel="nofollow">http://eceprojects.uwaterloo.ca/symposium.html</a></p> <p>I want to working in embedded(hw&amp;sw) robotics/medical area or in smartphones which is basically what i have been doing for the last 4 co-op terms between rim and qualcomm<br /> the other are into circuit level HW and SW and communication (wireless)</p> <p>the 60-80hours is about the amount of work one person has a week... i have 5 labs courses and one of them has 3 projects. so i'm not sure id im over or underestimated time i have outside of class. but I like working on projects so... i dont mind spending most of my free time working on something</p> <p>we do have access to the school labs as well as workshops and during co-op terms.. much better scopes and logic analyzers courtesy of where ever we are working :D</p> <p>asking for help specially for an idea is fine, i haven't seen anything in the docs that said no...</p> <p>the idea we went furthest with was the instruments for small bands to add lighting (thats more than just blinking with the beat) to there music. this would just control w/e lights they plugged in.</p> <p>the definition we had was " An automated light technician for bands that can control DMX and AC lighting; to Dim, chase, strobe in sync with music and have little control from the stage via 2 foot peddles." we felt that this project had too much of a focus on SW so we are trying to find a new ones. </p> <p>the other ones are idea's i've been hatching after we reconsidered and other things like biometrics in credit card security, ECG datalogger (for about a 3month time period currently no solutions for this specific case), something to alert nurses with status of oxygen, IV drip and other ICU stats wirelessly...<br /> just some idea's i've been milling around in my head. Anything more to make these idea's better?<br /> more idea's will come when we meet tonight...</p> <p>thanks alot everybody </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2173 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:48:38 +0000 StephenFromNYC 2173@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Greetings to everyone (and to the University of Waterloo students),</p> <p>A few more ideas.</p> <p>I think it is great that you are thinking about your senior year project before the end of your third year. How can the school prevent you from working on the project during the summer? Your teammates may have plans to be in different cities during the summer, but there is email. Remember, the members of this forum are from around the world. Also, I have found that my best solutions usually result from thinking about a problem for a long time. Long hikes and bicycle rides are great for creativity.</p> <p>What do the four of you want to do after graduation? How will your senior project help you after you graduate in June 2012? I think your interest in biomedical sensors is great and might even focus your interest(s) enough to help you get job offers after graduation. Yes, EE can be "applied" (which I am sure makes your parents happy).</p> <p>I assume you are in your third year of undergraduate (post-secondary school education) and that you are looking for ideas for a "senior thesis project". To help the Europeans, this means you and your classmates are approximately 21-22 years old. How am I doing with my guesstimates?</p> <p>Can you provide a link to your class web site (or web site for your "major"), where I assume a description of your 4th year project is listed? This might answer many of my questions.</p> <p>Can you give examples of specific project titles (not general topics) from previous years? I assume there are limitations besides the $400 cost of supplies. This will help provide information about the expected sophistication required.</p> <p>What instruments (eg. oscilloscopes, etc) can you use for testing?</p> <p>What projects have you excluded as being too simple? This might help us offer suggestions because we might be able to add ideas onto "excluded" projects. A valuable lesson is to never discard lists. All ideas might help you at a later time.</p> <p>Is the 60-80 hrs a week a "per person" amount of time or the time you described for the entire group (eg 15-20 hours per person per week)? This assumes a total of 4 students.</p> <p>And lastly, are you allowed to ask for online help or should you rely on information which is already on the internet (and answers to questions which are asked by people who are connected to your group).</p> <p>User forums are a great place to get help, but most people assume the person asking the questions is willing to spend a lot of time trying to solve the problem himself or herself.</p> <p>Stephen from NYC </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2166 Tue, 02 Nov 2010 22:18:05 +0000 anotherDJ 2166@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>gbulmer - thanks for the pointer, I'm afraid that none of us have any background with avionics/guidance that we are some what fear full of embarking on that project because pf not being able to finish it in time ( also might never make it back hear about ufo citing and be shot USAF. Swarm robotics is cool but haven't really found an area to apply to it to sort of creating a product.</p> <p>soundcyst - that sounds alot nicer, we have a few (like 3) of the company putting in requests as well but they are used up as backup plans. Yes I agree that </p> <p>we are mostly looking for problems to solve... but i haven't really gotten any problems from most people. most of the time they are looking for is just a simple computer program for there problem.</p> <p>somethings we were thinking about so you have an idea of what size kinda projects we shooting for:<br /> An instruments for small bands to add lighting (thats more than just blinking with the beat) to there music. this would just control w/e lights they plugged in.<br /> Something with biomedical sensors to help patients and researchers...(Do what... no idea yet, any ideas?)<br /> Interactive mannequin for high end stores...<br /> BottleCap/popCan recycling machine/incentive to similar to something that would fit with "the fun project by VW"</p> <p>thanks in advance for any ideas/problems/suggestions they are much appreciated </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2165 Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:42:03 +0000 gbulmer 2165@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>soundcyst - I agree with your comments, but would add that if they have to choose something that will be keep them going for 18 months, then choosing something which they are passionate about helps.</p> <p>As you say, none of this is about the technology choices. In a years time Maple will have been superseded and having it as the key motivation may be less than ideal.</p> <p>anotherDJ - Choosing something which in important to a group of other people that you want to work with, or respect, or ... can also be a good strategy. Getting feedback from real users can help a *lot*. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=275#post-2160 Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:51:02 +0000 soundcyst 2160@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>I feel like you're coming about this in the wrong way...</p> <p>I had to do a similar sort of thing to graduate as well, but the way they structured the course was that the groups were basically contract engineering companies that professors and outside businesses could "hire" to complete a project (in 10 weeks.. hah).</p> <p>One of the luxuries that bought us, as students, was that we had project ideas presented to us, and if we decided to tackle a project, it was (for the most part) well-specified.</p> <p>It also meant that we were considering projects and goals before we were considering technologies. By starting with "I want to accommodate this behavior, or provide this service," you can choose the technology best suited to the task (and consider things like cost, availability, environmental impact, etc). By starting with "I want to do something with the [Maple/Arduino/BeagleBoard/whatever]," you're limiting the scope of what you can accomplish before you even know what you're trying to do.</p> <p>That said, figuring out what to do is tough. Talk to people in your community, or local businesses, or teachers, to see if you can get some insight for ideas.</p> <p>~$400 isn't a lot either. Two Maples is 1/4 of your budget.. </p>