Lots of stuff going on

Posted August 22, 2007 by Ash 4 Comments »

Image embedding is now REALLY enabled! :)

Sorry about that. I thought I had enabled all of the 500,000 options required to get Drupal to do anything but I still managed to miss the major one of actually enabling the upload button for users. :)

You should now be able to upload new image files from your computer by clicking the little icon on the normal image upload dialog. Please let me know if it is still broken.

In other news…

  • I have enabled profile pics in posts and comments to try to foster more of a community feel in here – Hey works for Facebook :)
  • Kym has been working on Prolog/MBasic based planner and buying kits like it’s going out of style :) – Those kits both looks like really interesting platforms to work with! (I need a robot dog :)
  • I have added Murray’s site to the syndication list so this site will be updated whenever he publishes updates on his Quadruped project.
  • I discovered you can buy the gear motos I was looking for at Jaycar – They have a new ‘mechatronics’ section, cool!
  • I ordered a new Arduino Diecimila from Little Bird Electronics (based in Adelaide I think) which shipped this morning – It’s a great little open source hardware/software AVR board that is perfect for prototyping stuff
  • I also bought a Dremel! – So now all I need is stuff to cut/polish/sand/destroy with it. :)

Also the site has been running a bit slow today for some reason. Dreamhost… Low price and also low speed DB servers apparently :(

4 Comments

  • On 08.22.07 Anonymous said:

    Ah, Dremel. I will have to be picking one of those up. :)
    As to robot dogs — I managed to get the Joinmax kit unpacked and 1/2-built. At least the legs. For $330 USD not too bad. But the bad news is the onboard controller is just a motor controller and RS232 port. At least the protocol is pretty simple — just send down series of 3 bytes of 0xff MOTOR-NUMBER (i.e. 0..0xf) POSITION (i.e. 0..0xff).
    The thing has 15 df incl 2 for head and 1 for tail. All the servos are simply bolted end-to-end to make the legs. And it comes as a bit of a Chinese box puzzle to pack it into the shipping container. Many of the parts are clipped together as they will be when completed — except you have to pull them all apart to put the innards in.
    I’ve also looked at the I-Cybie that still seems to be around. Seems a bit roomier inside but also in the 400-500 usd range.
    And then there’s stuff like to Aibo (various versions). Discontinued a couple of years back at Sony, but every day there seem to be at least 2 on Ebay for $2000 USD (original price, of course, nearer $5000 USD).
    I also came across about 500 refs to the Genibo made by Dasatech (at http://www.dasatech.co.kr). While there were lots of reviews in 2006, there seem to be no sellers. And the links on the company web page seem mostly broken.

  • On 08.22.07 kymhorsell said:

    Hi ash. Don’t mean to be an old woman, but it seems the attached videos don’t handle mpeg. I’ve attached a couple to one blog post but they don’t even appear in the entry.

    -kym

  • On 08.23.07 ash said:

    Don’t despair, I recently heard that a new Aibo is in the works. Specifically this one is meant to integrate with the Playstation 3 – whatever that means!

    Actually imagine the power of the PS3 connected to an Aibo. That could be pretty cool. :)

    I can imagine your house is going to be crawling with autonomous devices once you get half these kits working hehe :)

     

     

  • On 08.23.07 Anonymous said:

    The living room is already chockers with just the toy robot’s toys. :)