New Toys – Project Updates

I have been working on a few projects recently. Two of them involve having custom PCBs made. I'm currently waiting for them to arrive. In order to prototype and test the circuits, I had to order a bunch of parts, so I took advantage of the buying spree to get myself some better tools.
My favourite so far is my new Agilent U1251A Multimeter. After seeing the great review of the U1253A (which is just the OLED display version of this one, instead of LCD) on the EEVBlog, I found one for a decent price and decided to get it.

Agilent U1251A

Another purchase was a vaccum base vice that can hold small-ish circuit boards. Since I'm going to be doing some surface mount soldering for my intervalometer project, I wanted to make sure I had something better than my helping hands to hold the boards.

New Vice

I plan on doing full write ups of both of these projects once I finish, but here are a few details.
The first one is an intervalometer for my Canon camera which will use an Attiny13 microcontroller and a small CR2032 battery. It will have a configurable time interval and is only 1x1 inches.

Intervalometer PCB

The second one is a simple breakout board for my MBED microcontroller. I plan on using a few of these to permanently attach sets of sensors and other peripherals, while still being able to swap the main MBED board around. It's not the most exiting PCB, but I'm trying out different services to see which one I like better. I ordered the intervalometer board through BatchPCB and the mbed one from DorkbotPDX. I will also do a write-up about those when I get them.

Mbed Breakout PCB

One of my projects requires multiple temperature sensors. I ordered a bunch and tested one earlier. I cut up some phone wires and connected it there so I could put it out the window without exposing the whole board. It seems to be within 1 degree of the actual temperature, which is more than enough for what I'll need.

MCP9701 Thermistor

Hip MRI!

A few months ago, I found out that my school offers a diving class. I enrolled and was having fun for a few weeks until I messed up an entry off the 3m board and hurt myself. I didn't notice initially, but the next day my hip was hurting a lot.

I went to the doctor, got some x-rays, and began physical therapy. There was no bone damage, so they figured it would sort itself out with the therapy.

After a few months, some of the pain went away, but some still remains. (The injury happened in January!) The doctor recommended that I get an MRI Arthrogram. It's like any other MRI, except they put a contrast solution so they can see the soft tissue better (or something like that.) The catch is that they have to inject this contrast solution, with a huge needle.

I asked the imaging people (who were all really nice!) if I could have the images, so I'll use them here to explain. Here's a quick video someone else made about the contrast placement.

Now here is how mine went:

As usual the first step deals with your clothes. They only let you keep your socks on, along with those stylish hospital gowns. I then lay on a bed with a cool portable x-ray machine above. The first take an x-ray to make sure everything is aligned.

This is the first X-Ray.

A few minutes after they tied down my foot so the leg position wouldn't change, the doctor arrived. They applied some of that yellow antiseptic stuff and let it dry and proceeded to stick me with a smaller needle to apply the anesthetic. It didn't really hurt much, I was expecting a burning sensation for a minute or so, but it was really quick. Now that my hip was all drugged up, they brought out the big one.

You can see the size of the needle here.

That needle needs to be long enough to reach the hip joint and wide enough to let the fluid through in a timely fashion. This step didn't quite hurt, but it sure felt strange. I could feel that they were pressing down, but couldn't quite pinpoint the source of discomfort. Once they started injecting the solution, I could feel it filling up.

Here's another X-Ray with the colors inverted.

The injecting part was really quick. I think they said it was only about 12cc's of solution. They then removed the needle and cleaned me up. After that was done, I went over to the MRI machine and spent ~45 minutes laying motionless. I kept drifting in and out of sleep, which is quite fun. Waking up inside an MRI machine working is quite something.

One of many slices from the MRI.

After that was done, I got my CD with all the images and headed home. The whole experience was not bad at all. I was slightly worried after reading other peoples reactions, but fortunately they did not apply.

Slow Motion Roller Derby

I recently purchased a Casio EX-FH100 digital camera. Unlike most other point-and-shoots, this one can do high-speed video. It ranges from regular 720p HD video at 30fps to high-speed 120 fps(640 x 480), 240fps (448 x 336), 420fps (224 x 168), 1000fps (224 x 64). The resolution on the fastest two is pretty bad, but it's still fun to mess around with.

After testing the camera on myself jumping around (pretty lame), I decided to try it out at the ROC City Roller Derby bout at RIT. Here are some high-speed clips:

NOTE: I have over 100 of these, if you want to have them and use them, let me know! I don't have the skill or time to make a decent video using several of the clips.
For some reason, YouTube will only embed videos at 360p. Make sure you click on 480p to improve the quality. Enjoy!

This first video shows when Lethal Lorelei fell, injuring her ankle. (120fps)

Goldie Fox whips Hy DeMonic forward.(120fps)

Asa Clubs falls and calls off the jam after tripping.(120fps)

Gwar slips (240fps).

Toxin Dioxin and Thea Pocalypse race ahead. (120fps)

Toxin Dioxin is hit by Goldie Fox and calls off the jam.

Jammers off the start line. (120fps)

No skating in this one... Throwing t-shirts at the crowd. (120fps)

This last one is a mix of 30fps and 120fps. The girls did an extra jam after the bout finished, but this time with Thea Pocalypse wearing a camera on her helmet.

Please correct me if I screwed up anyone's name!

I also took some photos during the event, but since I was recording with the little camera, I didn't get too many. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apg88/sets/72157626237482515/

Projects Update

I’ve decided to actually write about what I’ve been up to in the past few years. Today, I’m going to start with a project from the summer of 2006. I decided to go to DEFCON and take part in the defconbots competition. The main goal of the competition was to build a device that shot targets using autonomous control only. You can see the competition page here and the results. Unfortunately, I didn’t start working on it until two or three weeks before.
Here’s a brief description of how it happened. Since I was right out of high school, my budget was extremely limited. I decided to get a webcam mount with two servos and a USB servo controller, along with a really cheap BB gun.

One of three BB guns.

USB Servo Controller

After receiving the gun, I took it apart to figure out how it worked. It was basically a DC motor with some gears pulling back a spring that loaded, then fired, the BBs

Firing Mechanism

The Guts

Instead of buying a webcam, I took one from my dad and (after some modifications) mounted it in front of the gun.

Cannibalized Webcam

Gun with Mount and Webcam

At the time, my knowledge of programming was limited to PHP and VisualBasic. I figured out how to talk to the webcam and servo controller using VB and proceeded to write my aiming program. I had no idea about any image processing algorithms or anything like that, so I had to make it very simple. The targets were lit by infrared LED’s, and by using a filter in front of the webcam, I was able to isolate IR light from everything else. My high tech filter consisted of some developed film. After going through the filter, infrared light showed up as white pixels, while everything else was red or black. This allowed me to “find” IR light by counting white pixels in the image. I divided the image into a grid and counted how many white pixels were in each section. After figuring out which square had the most white pixels, I would move the gun in that direction. Once the most white pixels were in the center of the image, the gun would fire until the lights disappeared.

Fancy IR Filter and Laptop with Aiming Program

I tried a few different methods for firing the gun, but ended up going with the simplest. I connected another servo and glued a temporary switch to it. All I needed to do to fire was move that servo so it would push the button and close the circuit driving the DC motor in the gun.

Firing Servo

The gun was not designed to hold too many BBs, so I added a parmesan cheese container to hold more. After everything (almost) worked, I packed it in a box and flew to Vegas. The TSA people were rather intrigued when they searched my luggage, but let me through after a few minutes.
The actual competition was a lot of fun. I came in 5th place (out of 6), but had a lot of fun doing it. Some of the competition consisted of university senior design projects with awesome equipment, so I really had no chance. Here are some photos from the competition. These last two photos were not taken by me. I can’t find who took the second one, so if it’s you, let me know so I can give appropriate credit!

During Competition 1

During Competition 2

Oh, I also added an “about me” page over here.

Not-so-Quick Update

I still haven’t written about my Svalbard trip. Thankfully, I took some notes while I was there, so I will not forget the important details by the time I do write it.

Stockholm
My last week in Finland was great. I worked more than usual in order to have my final presentation on Wednesday August 25th. The next day I left Tampere and went to Turku to catch an overnight cruise to Stockholm with several friends. I had never been on a cruise before, so that was a nice experience. The next day we walked around Stockholm, had some delicious breakfast, and visited some museums. That afternoon, my friends returned to Finland, and I stayed in Stockholm for another night.
Photos from Stockholm.



London
I left Stockholm on my way to Belfast on Saturday August 28th. My flight had a layover in London before arriving to Belfast. Unfortunately the airplane from Stockholm was late arriving and had technical problems, so my first flight was delayed. When I did arrive to London, it was too late, so I British Airways got me a hotel room and some meal tickets until the next flight Sunday morning.

Belfast
I arrived to Belfast in the morning and two friends picked me up at the airport. We then had a traditional Irish fry-up for breakfast at my friend’s house. It was his birthday, so the nice breakfast was part of the celebration. We later took a bus tour around Belfast, where I learned quite a lot about the history. We stopped along the way at some Indian music festival and ended up in a milkshake place. I think there were over 100 different shakes, so we each ordered one. They were delicious! Later that night we went to an open air concert of some cover band for another band I don’t remember the name of. I do remember that Niamh Kavanagh, the Eurovision 1993 winner from Ireland, was singing. Even though I knew none of the songs, I enjoyed the music. The next morning I took a bus to Dublin.
Photos from Belfast.



Dublin
Another friend picked me up at the bus station in Dublin. We walked around the city for a bit but eventually ended up at the movie theatre watching Toy Story 3. Later on we went south to Dún Laoghaire and walked around there for a while.

Cambridge
I took the Swift ferry from Dublin to Holyhead in the morning of the 31st. I then took the train to London, where I got on another train to Cambridge. That night I ended up at the Cambridge Skeptics in the Pub meeting at the Maypole where I was able to meet Rebecca Watson after her presentation. The next morning, my friend arrived to Cambridge from further north. We walked around Cambridge for most of the day. I learned about all the colleges and visited the Botanical Gardens, which were really nice.

Trip Home
On Thursday September 2nd, I took a train from Cambridge to London and then the tube to the airport. I waited for several hours at the airport before flying to NYC. I spent the night in NYC before flying home to Rochester the next morning.

Quick Update!

I am writing this in an internet cafe in Oslo...

Svalbard was amazing! I will probably write quite a bit about it when I return and have some time. I also have hundreds of photos to upload, which will also take some time.
Some quick things: I did not see any polar bears :-/ Two kayakers did in June, when one was dragged out of their tent by the bear! I did see lots of other animals though.
I arrived to Oslo yesterday morning and will be taking a train to Stockholm Sunday morning. I will then fly to Tampere from there.

Running out of internet time... so here are two pictures to start.

Utö Weekend

Near the cottage.

Saturday August 7th
My day started at 3:50am when I woke up. I had set my alarm to 4:00am, but I woke up before it anyway. The reason I woke up so early is that I live in Tampere, but had to catch a ferry in Turku at 10:00am. The only train from Tampere to Turku that was available left Tampere around 5:55am. In order to take that train, I had to take a bus to get to the train station. As you might imagine, buses don’t run every 20 minutes in the early morning, so I had two options: one at 4:37am or one at 5:15am. I chose to take the earlier one to be safe. If I chose to take the later one, and managed to miss it (or if the bus was delayed), I would have missed the ferry (which only runs twice a week!)

The first ferry.

I managed to take a nap on the train and arrived to Turku around 7:50am. I found a hotel and went inside to have breakfast. I only had a bowl of cereal around 4, so I was getting hungry again. Around 9:30am I met with the rest of the group next to the ferry. We were a total of six people. The seventh had a bit too much fun the night before and didn’t make it on time. We didn’t find out until late in the afternoon, so some people were worried, but in the end everything was ok.

The island.

The ferry took about 5 hours to reach Utö, making only one stop in another island on the way. We first went to the cottage where we would stay to drop off our things. The cottage was on one side of the island next to one of two military controlled areas. The island used to be occupied by the military, but now everything seems to be monitored and operated remotely. We walked around the island for a while and learned about it. During 2009, there were 35 people living in Utö year round. This number grows in the summer, but it is still a small island. There is one store/post office and one café. There is also a hotel, but I didn’t go inside. The rest consists of small houses around the island, and some military installations in certain areas.

The cottage with security system (At no extra charge!)

Later in the day, we went to a tour of the light house. The lady giving the tour explained about the history of the island, the lighthouse, and a bunch of other things I don’t quite remember. After that, we cooked some food and had a great traditional Finnish dinner. Later on, some friends of one of the organizers that were working on the island came over and hung out.

Sunday August 8th
Since there were thousands of mosquitoes and other bugs around, we had to close the doors overnight. I woke up around 7:30am to some horrible heat. I eventually went outside to listen to music and read. When one of the others woke up, we walked around the island and took pictures while the rest woke up. We later had breakfast and cleaned the cottage before walking around the island again. Eventually it started raining, so we ran back to the cottage. It didn’t last very long though.

Old military watch tower.

Around 2:30pm, we took another ferry home. The one we arrived in had left earlier in the day. The second one was free, but made several stops and finished in the placed the original ferry had stopped. We then waited for a bus to arrive (by ferry) and got on to return to Turku. It was the first time I was on a bus that itself took a ferry. The bus was a bit late, so the driver went extra fast, which resulted in a very bumpy ride. Eventually we arrived to Turku after 9:00pm, where we all went our separate ways.

Monday August 9th
There were no trains or buses back to Tampere that night, so I stayed in a hostel. I woke up at 5:50 in the morning to pack up and have breakfast, before walking to the train station. Unfortunately there was a very large group of tourists that also wanted to have breakfast at 6am, so it took a while. The train left at 7:00am and I arrived to the train station at 6:50am. There was a small line at the ticket counter, but it didn’t seem to be moving, so I tried the ticket machine outside. Unfortunately it only seemed to work in Finnish or Swedish, so I had to ask someone for help. I managed to catch the train and arrived to Tampere around 8:50am. I then took a bus straight to work.

More photos from the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apg88/sets/72157624562727287/

Island website: http://www.uto.fi