No problems with the polyester caps, just price. 
Thanks spacejunk, they were cheap as just lying around 
Hi Folks,
Seems to be a weekly post same reasons as last time for lack of progress.
Rear Ultrasonic is now fully working, but a bit noisy … Mainly due to rats nest of wiring, but once everything is together will do a better wiring harness.
CMUcam is now operational and was taking it’s first pictures yesterday. The two servos from the pan tilt are not yet connected so will add them soon.
I know … Not a lot of progress, but still having fun
Coming next :
Got the webcam turning up ( hopefully this week ) so can mount and tie that in.
Also got a new OEM of XP and a USB DVD so can convert the Eee to XP, then I can start integrating it into the system.
Justhaving so much fun
All the best.
Richard
Hi Folks,
Slowly getting there
New pic :
I’ve loaded the Asus EEE 701 with Windows XP and have started to integrate it with the bot. In the picture you can see the two live feeds, the one on the left is from the Webcam and the other is from the CMUcam ( a bit dark at the moment ).
The EEE happens to have three USB ports, two are used for the above cameras and the third is an i2c interface that connects to the OOPic controller.
I have decided not to add the extra parts just yet ( Electronic compass, keyboard, LCD display ), instead I am concentrating on getting all the current parts talking to each other.
Once programmed the EEE will sit just under the top deck ( as seen in the first photo I posted here ).
Wiring is a bit of a rats nest at the moment, but once it is all working I can build a proper wiring harness … Possibly with one connection bus through all the decks to neaten it up.
I know progress is a bit slow, but I’m happy so far
All the best.
Richard
Well met sir,
This project looks to be happening in a very methodical and well planned mannor. Are you going to use this as a telepresence from work/pub?
Welcome to the addiction…
My own project(s) take a rediculous amount of time (marriage and full time work and some extra schooling) and recently a fair chunk of my recources. Your speed and seeming efficiancy are an inspiration.
Thanks MYKL
Telepresence was one of the functions I will be working on. My ideal for the end project would be able for it to connect to the net when in a WiFi hotspot, in this mode the operator can control it from anywhere and interact with people as well as command the robot. Then it will be able to move from one hotspot to another automonously whne it can not connect.
As I say it is my first robot and I have probably set my sights a bit high, but so far so good
All the best.
Richard
Very cool! So when Starbucks has a station for Coffee and charging your Eco-Ride on every corner you and your hotspotbots can take over the world!
There is absolutly nothing wrong with aiming high…
Lol, more like to be in a pub than Starbucks … Actually in a pub now and using their free internet connection.
Also, here in Brighton, we have a group ( I used to be involved with ) called piertopier.net that provide free WiFi access at several sites especially down the seafront so could be fun to let it lose to roam up and down there
I always tend to aim a bit high, best way of learning
All the best.
Richard
Let the product of your imagineering loose the the pub and post the video.
It sounds like you live in a wonderland. I’d love to see what the inside of an authentic pub looks like. And drink a pint for me!
The beer we have here (USA) is mostly dead…
There a very few exceptions, VERY FEW.
Canadian Beer is pretty good, I don’t see a difference between it and American though…
I like all beer Unfortunately on the soft stuff at the moment as looking after the pub for a couple of friends … Never mind will make up for it tomorrow
Once I have the streaming sorted might bring it down here as a few of the locals have expressed an interest … Will just have to water / dog proof it first
Hi Folks,
Been a while since I did an update so here we go
Progress slow but steady, mainly because I am teaching myself all this as I go along
The webcam now streams to the net and is displayed on a page ( trikky2.com/live/ ), at the moment the image is updated ever 5 seconds whilst I test it out … This will be decreased once I get going properly. Also if the image you see does not change it means it is off line and just showing the last image. In the end this will probably stream at once a second and be for everyone to view, the actual operator will have access to the full video at a decent frame rate as well as audio.
My original idea was to use the i2c interface on the OOPic to connect to the Asus EEE, however I have now changed that and am using the Serial port. Have written my first code for the computer (C# .NET ) and the OOPic ( VB ) and they are quite happy talking to each other … So far have only done basic things like streaming the readings from the ultrasonic sensors through the OOPic to the Eee also sending information back to the OOPic.
I have wired in an i2c connection which I will probably leave exposed on the rear of the bot, so will be able to test out new sensors, displays etc easily.
I’ve hooked up the two servos on the pan / tilt to the CMUcam 3 and have started to re-write the standard colour tracking software so the camera will now turn towards the object to keep it in the middle of the view.
What I might do is take the output from the CMUcam and send that to the OOPic which can then control the servos … this will give me more flexibilty for later programming.
Although the Eee only has 4Gb even after installing XP home ( along with the .NET framework and quite a lot of other bits of software ) I still have around 2Gb of free space which is going to be available purely for my programming.
That’s about it for now. My pub day today so will probably come back with lots more ideas
All the best.
Richard
Hi Again Folks 
Got a little more work done since the last update.
Now hardware is pretty much hooked up for the first attempt, I’ve been concentrating on the coding.
I wrote a small program ( but took me a while as had to learn most of it ) which communcates back and forth between the 701 and the OOPic. Was written in C# and here are two screen shots :
In the first you see the main tab of the program. The feed is live from the Orbit Webcam at about 10 frames a second.
The top button is used to set collision detection on or off, if on then you can not move Wire forward or back if anythng is in the way within the set distance.
The direction buttons move him in that direction for as long as they are depressed ( … Until they get happy ?? ).
The front and rear sonar readings are shown.
The speed can be set from 0 ( pretty pointless as does nothng ) to 100 … which is full speed ahead captain.
Connect and disconnect are just used to connect to and disconnect from Wire ( Duh )
The second image shows the settings, the COM port refers to the port the OOPic is connected to.
Have not yet played with Baud rates, just using 9600 at the moment. Will try higher later when I get time.
Collision Distance is a percentage where 0 represents the closest and 100 represents the furthest the Ultrasonics operate between.
Not really spent a lot of time on this as it will not be used in the final project but it did show communications between the 701 and OOPic through the serial com port are fine in both directions and working at the same time. It has also let me start on the protocol between the two processors, at the moment set to two bytes. The first is the command ( eg forward, turn left … From the 701 or frontsonar from the OOPic ) and the second is the value.
The actual program that will be runnng does not have an interface like this as the 701 will be doing the work itself without human interaction, however it is roughly how I see the web interface looking for remote users.
By the way still having fun … Although my brain seems to have fried, anyone know how to reboot it?
Also started looking at GPS so Wire knows where it is, problem is that in the big bad world ( Where I want it to eventually live ) this is ideal … But testing in the flat I would do better with just wheel encoders … Any ideas on that ?
All the best.
Richard
That is an amazing program! I don’t think anyone on the forums has done that with their OOPIC. Very cool.
Many thanks Joe.
However after reading your response maybe I should clarify things a bit more
One thing I have noticed on the OOPic mail list is that every now and again ( actually quite frequently as only joined it a while back ) is the question of machine vision or processing images from a webcam.
The OOPic can not process images as it just does not have the power, hence my using the 701 and the processor in the CMUcam.
This program comunicates with the OOPic on the serial port just using the two byte protocol I said about earlier … The Camera feed is direct from the Webcam.
All I did was to combine the two into one program which will run on the 701. So the images do not go through the OOPic. They are fed directly to the 701 which can then in turn decide how to treat them and send simple instructions to the OOPic.
Sorry if that seems obvious to you Joe ( as I do respect your opinions after reading most of this forum ) but thought I might point it out before people start asking me about image processing for the OOPic
I’m still a newbie at this so just finding my way.
All the best.
Richard
PS
Got the nasty feeling my bank account might take a hit as read here about all the bots with legs and sounds fun
Not at all, the important thing is you found a way around this. I knew the OOPic didn’t have the capabilities of image proccessing, but thought you had added another board to do the job. My mistake in not asking further.
I wouldn’t say it was obvious, it didn’t occur to me - too early in the morning here. I just like how you integrated the video from the 701 into the program controlling WIRE. A lot of the programs I have seen all have the video feed in another window which seems funny to me. This looks more proffessional. The controls look pretty simple to control which is another thing I like. Is there any delay time in image or controls? Is the bot tethered or is it using a virtual port (wireless ect)?
Forgive the reply as in pub
I have used the ASUS Eee 701 for ‘higher level’ programming … It is basically a ultra portable that fits in Wire, so in effect it is another board or ‘layer’ so you were right. If you look at the first photo I posted on this thread you will see the 701 just below the top deck.
The video from a Logitech Orbit Webcam feeds directly into the 701 as does the seral interface from the OOPic. The program I wrote basically takes both feeds and combines them.
There is a delay, but that is pretty much down to the processing power of the 701. At the moment is pretty much instantaneous … From the program the dely in video feed is around than 250ms. The delay from sending a command from the 701 to it being executed is slightly less. But as far as the OOPic goes have not raised the baud rate above 9600 yet
When I ran this it was sort of tethered
Because the program was a user interaction one, the 701 had to be out of it’s normal placement ( see the earlier mages ), but was connected by just the wires it will use when in place so it gave a good indication. Also there was no power needed from outside the ‘loop’.
Because the program was drawing windows it should work even better when doing its own thing as it does not have to fire events driven by a ‘human’ driver.
Hope that helps
All the best.
Richard.
PS
It is great to get feedback as so new to this … I JUST WANT TO LEARN
Ahh, yes I see now. 8)
Wow, no noticable delay, sounds good!
good luck with the rest of the project
Trikky, would you mind sharing your C# code you used for this? I’m curious to check it out, likewise if you could email me your visual studio project files on this @ [email protected] I would greatly appreciate it.
I’m looking at creating a custom interface myself and am just learning Visual C#.
Tyberius, just sent you an e-mail … The video handling was through another source ( will look it up if anyone interested ) but the rest of the code was mine.
All the best.
Richard
PS
I’m not worthy … Looked at your projects before, way beyond me