New Arduino project

I found myself a new Arduino project - an automated car!

Well how to go about this. My best approach was to get a cheap RC toy car from the local toy store, not a real RC car from a hobby store, but one of those really cheap ones. I will probably scrap the electronics any way. So I found my self the proud owner of 4×4 wheel cool truck, with rubber wheels large enough to driver both outdoor and over my doorsteps.

Next was to get the Truck disassembled and find out if any of the electronics could be reused. When opened I could see from the layout of the components that it was build around an H-Bridge with four transistors for the motor control. This means that it can only control the direction of the motor (Forward / Backwards) and not the speed – not ideal.

Also the wheel turning was based on the same Principe with only all the way to the left or all the way to the right (a small motor with gearing controlled this).

So OUT WITH THE CRAPPY ELECTRONICS!

Then how to control it with the Arduino?

Well one way is to use servos and power controls (acts like servos) and the Servo lib.

And I accidentally had this lying from an old helicopter I crashed some years ago – newer throw anything away right!

So this adds up the all these peaces in the below picture.

• We have the disassembled truck with body and covers etc.
• We have a couple of mini servos from the old chopper
• And the speed regulator from the same servo
• A Charger (not shown) and a battery pack
• AND off course not to forget the Arduino Duomille board

That’s all for tonight, I will continue with the assembling this weekend if I get the time.

AND naturally keep you posted!

The Challenge 2008 – Win some nice prizes

With this somewhat of an outdated title, I would like to inform all of you about the Microsoft game competition running this month. The competition utilizes the Messenger API, to write simple games to be played from within Messenger. You can write your own game in flash, Silverlight or pure html, and via JavaScript communicate with your Messenger client to make it a multiplayer game.

 

I have been chosen by Microsoft to be one of the judges – bribes are not accepted – but I encourage all to participate in the game development tournament this month. 

 

Read all about it at www.thechallenge2008.dk 

 

I think I will make a little game of my own, but naturally I can not participate in the tournament. I will keep you posted about the progress.

Back from Mauritius

So we are back from Mauritius. What a great 14 days. It was a bit hard to get on any wifi so the blog has not been updated frequently as promished but here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Breakfaste at the Blacksteer

Third day at Mauritius. We have been keit surfing the last two days but today there is zero wind, so we are going to explorer the island a bit.
Mauritius is wonderfull, a very warm mix of indian and african people, beautifull nature and nice beaches with white sand, coralriefs and crowdes of little fish at the rief. The local bier is the phoenix and its not too bad either.
Monday we are going on a shark dive with Ruvan and a dive instructor – exiting.
Tonight we have a bbq planed at the kite place together our german instructor Ninja. Strange name for a girl, but hey my name means different in german so…

Now at Mauritius

Now at Mauritius.

Microsoft pushes for Silverlight on G1 and iPhone

Microsoft pushes for Silverlight on G1 and iPhone: “Microsoft reportedly wants to push Silverlight onto the iPhone, PC World reports.

(Via Macworld.)

Turn off your phone

…and they did. Or anyway they turned it on silent mode. But now I constantly get buged with the sweet humm of the iPhones buzzing on the table in the conference room. Today I spent all day at a management seminar, and had the pleasure of siting next to Soren Kenner, if you dont know him picture a really buzy guy, with the natural consequence of a red hot glowing phone.
Anyhow today was no different, his and other phones constantly buzzed on the table. Thats ok but why the hell dont they do anything about it? I know! You dont want the other guy to know you dont want to speak with him right now, so it will be better to leave him in tbe beleive that you did not hear the phone.

So here it is… Normal phones will terminate the call if you hit the hang-up button or the power off button. But not the iPhone! It will just turn off the vibration but let the call continue untill it rings out. Thats smart thinking by Apple! You did react on the call but you made it clear that you for some reason cant answer right now. You can continue your work, the people arround you wont get bothered, and the guy in the other end wont know you didnt want to talk to him.
I love my iPhone!

So in the future please use this nice small feature.

- sent from some bar through my iPhone

Google Street view is coming to your iPhone

Macrumors has looked at the upcoming iPhone Software 2.2., and according to them the controversial Google service Google Street View is on its way to the iPhone.

In addition to the Google Street View the new software update is expected to have support for “background push”, as an alternative to background processes. Also it is expected to have a feature where the user can turn off the built-automatic spell checker, a feature more than 20,000 irritated users has requested.

Look out for the 2.2 firmware in iTunes soon.

Spore

Try out the new iPhone Spore game from EA games. Its really a time ribber, I’m at level 19 now. So when its raining in Copenhagen you can always play Spore from the couch.

Pocket projector – I want one

The American company 3M has made a mini-projector that can blast a picture at 50” 4:3 format picture.
The size is very pocket compatible, only 11 x 5 x 2 centimetre, and 152 grams. At a price of only 2800 DKK, I want one! – Don’t know for what thou!

Read about it (in danish)

MPro110