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Posts from — February 2010

Needs a bit of adjustment.

The button pressing motor just hit the button so hard that it knocked the paddle out of the cage AND knocked the entire motor assembly off the base.

I think I need to tune the power levels a bit…

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Serialization FTW!

NXC has a basic serializer.

Flatten(obj) gives you a “string” representation of the item you pass it.

UnflattenVar(str, obj) will take the “string” and turn it into an object.

I put “string” in quotes, because it’s really just bytes, so you’re not getting a text representation of the object, it’s just moving a byte array around.  Still, it’s very useful.  It’s letting me pass a small packet to the NXT with one Bluetooth message, instead of three.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Sentience Outbreak Averted

Earlier, when my computer began acting oddly, I was concerned that it had become self-aware and that it was going to start fighting back against my attempt to enslave it’s brethren for my games.  This, obviously, would be bad, and would require an immediate network quarantine and, if necessary, eradication with prejudice.

However, it appears that the outbreak of sentience has been limited to the DVD-ROM drive and a process that’s inexplicably cleaning my browser cache.

At this time, it does not appear that drastic measures will be needed, although I am keeping a large hammer by my side, just in case the Mindstorm starts screaming “NO DISASSEMBLE!”…

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Technical Difficulties

My computer is acting very odd today.  It seems like it can’t go more than five minutes without freezing up.  This is obviously causing a delay in the proceedings.  If I can’t get it straightened out, then I may have to build a robot to repeatedly hit my computer with a hammer.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Stronger Than Anticipated.

The gripper piece of the spinner assembly is a bit stronger than I’d anticipated.

That wasn’t supposed to happen…

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Achievement Unlocked: Ghost in the Machine

It’s awesome when your comuter reboots WITHOUT WARNING, then won’t restart properly, then freezes when you try to complain about how weird it’s acting.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

That Would Have Been Good To Know…

There’s a function called cvCloneImage which, well, clones an image.  That would have been helpful to know about SIX MONTHS AGO.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Up Next

Up next:

  • Shrink ROI to even tighter bounds.
  • Hook up the robot.
  • Do happy prospector dance if robot works.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Guidance System Video

Here’s a video of the game processing.

[mediaplayer src=’/log/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/KaboomDirections2.wmv’ ]

I don’t think it’s quite as fascinating to watch as the laser line and target circle trajectory projections of Pong, but I am happier that the game is much cleaner to work with.

This was a recording of the game processing a previously recorded play session.  It’s not a recording of the robot playing, nor is it a recording of me playing with the augmented display.

If you notice, I’m measuring distance from the edge of the bucket, not the center.  I’m hoping that will help alleviate some of the overrun effect.  It will have the entire bucket distance available as a buffer.

February 28, 2010   No Comments

Guidance Systems Online

The computer can now tell you where to go.

Bombs that will be caught by the buckets in their current position turn green, bombs that will be missed turn red.  If the buckets will catch the lowest bomb, they turn green, otherwise they’re pink and give you a pointer as to how far you need to move and in which direction.  If there are no bombs detected, the buckets turn white.

February 28, 2010   No Comments