Gabriel (gsandaya) wrote an excellent piece about batteries. Which ones to lick and why. Reading the reactions made me realize how fundamental a power source is for all our work. Made me wonder even if perhaps we need a third component wiki about batteries, or more generally, about power sources?
Visions
Seeing machines have been hot the past weeks. As in "machines that see". And then interpret what they are seeing. RoboRealm is a program written for these tasks. Steven from RoboRealm contributed a walkthrough about obstacle avoidance on LMR. And GroG wrote about his home grown project. His program focuses on object detection and on ranging. The user interface overlays all kinds of telemetry over the original image. Terminator style. Way cool.
“Show Your Face on LMR” Club
The SYFLC has a new member: the aforementioned Steven from RoboRealm. Welcome Steven.
Complexity
As robot builders grow, so does the complexity of their designs. The brains of a bot will have to grow as well, to keep up with the increase in complexity. Some LMR bots are fitted with more powerful computers. Others just get more. Multiple micro controllers on one machine will need some way of communicating with each other. Serial talk between Picaxes has been described here. Keeping complex code manageable is described here. Both very helpful walk throughs by Mintvelt.
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Cooperation</h4> <p>Mintvelt was actually planning on further researching his smooth <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/2959">object tracker</a>, but when he noticed that <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/2948#comment-10478">someone else</a> was already going to work on that, <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/2959#comment-11171">he changed his plans</a> and researched the serial comms instead. Now that was impressive to me. Not so much Mintvelt's change of priorities, but the apparent ability of our community to self-organize. How efficient! Enough to make a grown bank manager cry.</p> </td> <td>
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Imperfection</h4> <p>Two of our members ran into a <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/3805">buggy firmware</a> version for the Picaxe 28x1. If you suspect there might be something wrong with yours, check the link.</p> </td> <td>
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Birthday</h4> <p>LMR is almost one year old. <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/3802">Frits noticed this the other day</a>. His forum post was quickly hijacked by the many stories about how people became an LMR'er. uhh. LetsaMakaRoboter. uhh. Robot Making Letser. You know, hooked.</p> <p>A different milestone went by unnoticed: the user numbers are now well beyond 2008! Not that this means so much, considering the vast amount of user numbers (between <a href="/letsmakerobots/user/1857">1857</a> and <a href="/letsmakerobots/user/2042">2942</a>) that got wasted on fakes. Probably them spambots again! I hate those bots <b>8-(</b>.</p> </td> <td>
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Encoders</h4> <p>Encoders are also a hot techno topic on LMR lately. Anachrocomputer <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/3815">posted about his work</a> in his blog. Kankatee is <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/3842">learning a lot</a> about them in the forum. And ndupont <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/2961">notes</a> they are a part in his nameless bot.</p> </td> <td>
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Contributions</h4> <p>I hope that John (Anachrocomputer) will find the opportunity to <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/add/robot-tip">write a walk through</a> about his quadrature wheel encoders. When he will complete them. This community thrives on home grown science like that. </p> <p>Not everyone on LMR knows exactly where to write what. Just as not every new robot builder knows about all the robotic basics. As a help to them, LMR will soon feature two new guides. One FAQ about the Firstly Asked Questions about building your first robot. And another one about where to publicize your results. Keep your eyes peeled.</p> </td> <td>
<p style="text-align: center"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td><h4>Final thoughts</h4> <p><a href="http://www.playauditorium.com/">Stop wasting my time Z</a>!</p> </td> <td style="text-align: right"><code>LickMoreRechargeables!</code></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <hr /> <p>The previous "Pulse" was <a href="/letsmakerobots/node/3457">2008w47</a>. All Pulses are <a href="/letsmakerobots/taxonomy/term/1886">tagged as "thepulse"</a>. Feed your RSS muncher with <a href="/letsmakerobots/taxonomy/term/1886/feed">this</a>.</p>
Another great post, thanks, 1069. I like that even when work keeps me busy for a week and I can’t keep up with LMR, your posts are always there to help me catch up on what I missed.
