#robotics Logs

Dec 24 2011

05:39 bobbens anybody know of anyone that has some sort of working SLAM implementation or the likes with roomba?
11:16 rue_bed bobbens, HI
11:26 bobbens hello
11:26 bobbens I see lots of masters thesis on slam with roombas
11:27 bobbens but no source code, and they all involved heavy hw hacking
11:27 bobbens generally mounting shit like kinects on the roomba, which is unacceptable
11:32 rue_bed zhanx, has made slam software iirc
11:32 rue_bed but it was deleted iirc
11:33 Tom_itx why would he do that?
11:33 rue_bed it wasn't him, anyhow its lost, been meaning to ask him to help me wiht a rewite
11:34 Tom_itx good morning
11:35 rue_bed morning
11:35 rue_bed was it slam or that whatchmacallit filter
11:35 Tom_itx kalman?
11:36 Tom_itx kahlman
11:36 Tom_itx ?
11:36 rue_bed yea
11:38 rue_bed 9:30 theres sleepin in late
11:38 bobbens particle is also pretty popular
11:38 bobbens the advantage of popular is it handles cases like global localization problem better
11:38 bobbens I'm just not really familiar with the roomba, it seems to have some short range ir sensors and basically relies on the contact sensor
11:38 bobbens it does look like it has a relative encoder on the idler
12:15 Tom_itx rue_house, avr has won again this year
12:16 bobbens won what?
12:16 Tom_itx avr: 140 robotics: 65
12:17 bobbens people like arduinos, what can I say?
12:30 Steffanx There's a competition..
12:30 Steffanx Tom_itx ?
12:34 Tom_itx once a year
12:35 bobbens winner takes all?
12:46 Thrawn Hi guys how is everyone this wonderful xmas eve?
12:48 Steffanx WONDERFUL
12:50 Thrawn Would you like to see my solar oven robot?
12:50 Thrawn That I've been working on?
12:50 Steffanx OFCOURSE
12:50 Steffanx camps
12:50 Steffanx ps
12:51 Thrawn This is the finished prototype: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAWLjqMiulo and this is the xmas update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY-DhRM_Vto
12:51 Thrawn It turns sunlight into hot water and burns logs and automatically tracks the sun
12:52 Thrawn I'm upgrading it with metal gears to make it wind proof
12:52 Steffanx Yay @ accent :P
13:00 Thrawn Do you like my project?
13:00 bobbens you need to improve your filming technique
13:01 Thrawn How?
13:02 bobbens better lighting, try to use a tripod or something
13:02 bobbens also get the entire set up in the picture at the same time
13:02 bobbens and try to do a bit more synthesis
13:02 Thrawn I'm in a tiny Scottish flat, there's hardly any room to move and I'm desperately trying to make a break
13:02 Thrawn like music?
13:03 bobbens synthesis as in be more brief, hilight main points, etc...
13:03 bobbens but it looks interesting
13:03 bobbens the question is, if you're in a scottish flat... how much sun do you get?
13:03 Thrawn Not a lot, but in November I melted a floppy disk and set fire to a damp fencing post with the dish
13:04 Thrawn So in a sunny country it'll be even better!
13:04 bobbens well I assume your objective is to produce power or some sort of heat source?
13:04 bobbens or you want to create some sort of solar death ray?
13:04 Thrawn Power no, materials processor
13:04 Steffanx Solar death ray ftw
13:05 Thrawn The thought of shooting down my girfriend's xmas present which is a parrot ar 4 rotor remote control drone with the solar reflector did appeal to me but then that wouldn't be in the spirit of Xmas now, would it?
13:05 bobbens you seen that egyptian solar sinter thingy?
13:06 bobbens http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/26/solar-sinter-solar-powered-3d-printer-turns-sand-into-glass-ren/
13:06 bobbens now that's fucking epic
13:06 Thrawn Shit nigger, this is the future
13:07 Thrawn The sun straight into a 3d printed glass
13:07 Thrawn Can the same be applied to aluminium?
13:07 bobbens the point of it being glass
13:07 Thrawn I was thinking superheating black painted clay molds with the solar reflector
13:07 bobbens is the fact that he just goes into the bloody desert
13:07 bobbens and has infinite sand
13:07 Thrawn HAHAHAHA, This guy is actually a ledgend
13:07 bobbens so essentially the only issue you have is wear and tear
13:08 bobbens of the machine
13:08 bobbens other than that you can produce stuff infinitely
13:08 bobbens for "free"
13:09 Thrawn As long as its made from glass
13:09 Thrawn I'd like to see it make microchips, then AMD are in real trouble
13:11 Thrawn That thing is amazing
13:12 bobbens he still puts the sand in by hand
13:12 bobbens automate that
13:12 bobbens and set up your own self-sustaining glass factory in the sahara
13:12 bobbens I assume the glass will be shittier because the finish is very course and no additives will make it frailer and such
13:12 bobbens but still
13:16 Thrawn You still need oil to transport the finished products back to cairo
13:16 Thrawn But Marcus Kayser sir, I take my hat off to you
13:16 bobbens not necessarily
13:17 bobbens theoretically you could make some glass train, do the production at high elevation
13:17 bobbens and let gravity roll it down
13:17 bobbens and the glass train doesn't have to come back
13:17 bobbens you can just make another
13:17 bobbens so theoretically you could sent stuff to some place not too far off just using gravity
13:17 bobbens the only "energy" would be lifting the sand onto the printing beds
13:17 Thrawn You're talking one huge ass mother fucking 3d printer
13:17 mscott that's what she said
13:17 bobbens which you could automate using solar panels
13:18 Thrawn Bowl ok
13:18 Thrawn wiggly glass thing ok
13:18 Thrawn But a train?
13:18 bobbens why not?
13:18 Thrawn Shiit, you'd need a 3d printer the size of a train depo
13:18 bobbens or it could be a small train
13:18 bobbens more like a wagon
13:18 bobbens like a cart
13:18 Thrawn The gears would be massive
13:18 Thrawn The chamber would be even bigger
13:19 bobbens it would just be 2 wheels, 2 axles and a bin
13:19 Thrawn The fresnel lens would be well the same size
13:19 Thrawn But it would take AGES
13:19 bobbens that would run on some crappy rails
13:19 bobbens you want to file it?
13:19 bobbens sure
13:19 bobbens print glass files!
13:19 bobbens will they work? dunno, but they're free
13:19 Thrawn Not unless you could augment parallel fresnel lenses to fuse bits of the same project simultaneously
13:19 bobbens glass _all_ the things
13:20 Thrawn And the transport costs? You'd need that thing that carried the Russian moon rocket to get it there
13:20 bobbens we're talking about a purely theoretical ridiculous scenario
13:20 bobbens but you could do other silly things
13:20 bobbens build yourself a glass house
13:20 Thrawn If you tried to engineer that in the desert you'd be hit by a dust storm before you'd finished
13:20 bobbens out of glass bricks
13:20 bobbens on the spot
13:20 bobbens to protect you from dust storms
13:20 Thrawn That's doable
13:21 Thrawn Might as well be giant glass lego bricks whilst your at it!
13:21 Thrawn Then they all click together
13:21 Thrawn Then what are you going to do for water?
13:21 bobbens glass rain collectors
13:22 bobbens that put it in glass vases
13:22 Thrawn It rains in the desert? How often?
13:22 bobbens that you store in your glass warehouse
13:22 Thrawn And what happens when the naughty arab children start throwing stones?
13:22 bobbens could collect humidity
13:22 bobbens glass spears/arrows
13:22 bobbens or glass throwing knives
13:23 Thrawn What if the naughty arab children who you've just killed with glass spear's parents come back with kaleshnikovs?
13:23 bobbens this is getting silly
13:24 Thrawn OK, its a great idea
13:24 Thrawn It could mean in the future deserts will flourish with life
13:24 bobbens unlikely
13:24 Thrawn And we'll have deserts of glass instead of deserts of sand thanks to more of Mr Kaysers inventions
13:24 Thrawn Where do you get a fresnel lens that big from?
13:25 bobbens jawas
13:26 Thrawn OK, I'm not on tattooine, can the same thing be done with giant sky dishes coated in mirrors?
13:26 bobbens probably trickier
13:27 bobbens because you have to be able to control in cartesian coordinates the focus point
13:27 Thrawn because the lens is beaming the lgiht down I'm beaming the light up and I'm fighting gravity
13:27 bobbens as long as you can focus lots of light on a point and control that point, you should be able to print
13:28 Thrawn The math dude I asked last night said if you mirror or lense that focal point I got on my dish the light will only scatter
13:28 bobbens I'd think a dish topology with mirrors wouldn't work as well
13:28 bobbens you'd need some other structure
13:28 bobbens probably more complex
13:28 bobbens yes
13:28 bobbens you can't move it
13:28 Thrawn OK, for 3d printing no, but for superheating molds, would it work?
13:28 Thrawn if the clay mold was painted oven black?
13:28 bobbens you'd have to do something like those solar collectors
13:29 bobbens the ones with a big central tower
13:29 bobbens and they all focus light on that
13:29 bobbens but instead of focusing up
13:29 bobbens focusing down
13:31 Thrawn I mean if the clay mold is suspended at the focal point of the dish, the dish always tracks the sun, the clay mold has a little ring on the top to pop more bean cans in won't it very very slowly reach 660degrees at which point the bean cans will melt?
13:32 Thrawn I was also thinking of putting old phone batteries in there too to make AL-LI light and strong
13:33 Thrawn would it work do you think?
14:12 rue_house I'm back
14:13 rue_house well aluminum melts at 660c or so
14:14 rue_house remember this: temperature is the result of the difference between engergy gained and energy lost
14:14 rue_house so, if you have enough insulation, you can obtain any termperature with even 1 watt of power
14:27 Thrawn OK is air a good insulator?
14:27 rue_house air is a mediocre insulator
14:27 rue_house hmm I'v spreadout my wallet
14:28 Thrawn Polystyrene is a good insulator but it won't handle aluminium baking temperature
14:28 rue_house I have discount cards, financial cards, identification cards, certification cards, informational cards, member cards, pass cards, and cards I use as templates at work...
14:29 Thrawn Why do you need so many cards?
14:29 rue_house Thrawn, use fiberglass
14:29 rue_house thats a good question
14:29 rue_house I have discount cards for clothees, food, and gas
14:29 rue_house I have 3 bank cards
14:30 rue_house 4 id cards
14:30 Thrawn Fibreclass won't burn?
14:30 rue_house 4 vertification cards
14:30 rue_house 2 pass cards
14:30 Thrawn Why do you need 3 banks? I only use 1
14:30 rue_house Thrawn, no, it'll melt at about 1000c
14:30 Thrawn Good enough for what I want it to do
14:31 rue_house I only use 2 banks, they have a debit and credit card I get
14:31 Thrawn Credit cards are the work of the devil
14:31 rue_house 2 of the member cards are for heath related stuff, the other is for the library
14:31 rue_house Thrawn, positivly
14:31 rue_house 3 cards with information that I keep on hand
14:35 Thrawn Yum I got some brandy butter xmas pudding
14:35 Thrawn yum yum
14:35 Thrawn I woke lexi up to try some and she yelled abuse at me
14:36 Thrawn Mmmm its good
14:36 Thrawn Nearly set the kitchen on fire though
14:38 Thrawn Know anything about arduino-->cards?
14:43 rue_house no
14:43 rue_house I'm an avr direct chap
14:44 rue_house I dont use any of these silly firmwares :)
20:03 e_bed stret
20:04 rue_bed didn't quiiiite makeit to sleep, grrr
20:05 rue_bed hmm
20:05 Tom_itx i'm starting to get inspired to add to my 'how to'
20:05 rue_bed I think I'd like to sit down and figure out hwo to make the peices of my life fit togethor better
20:06 Tom_itx not sure that is possible
20:06 rue_bed 'work' 'hobbies' (otherwise my time) and 'handouts' (all the junk I do for others)
20:06 rue_bed I suppose there is a 'choars' piece too, technically
20:07 rue_bed I need to make sure my life dosn't become a tape loop of servicing obligations
20:07 Tom_itx i'm thinking the 'handouts' have gotten out of hand for you lately
20:08 rue_bed I been keeping it down pretty good
20:08 rue_bed between work overinflating and the choars and the handouts, there's damn near nothing left
20:09 rue_bed handouts cost a lot tho
20:09 Tom_itx overinflating work pay more?
20:09 Tom_itx if not...
20:09 Tom_itx is the pay worth the sacrifice of 'hobby time' ?
20:10 Tom_itx lately the 'handouts' for me has been a dead end venture
20:10 rue_bed I suppose its like the handouts, if you turn them off, you lose some amount of sustainability on the rest
20:10 rue_bed hmmm
20:10 Tom_itx almost becoming an expected thing for me
20:10 rue_bed yea
20:10 Tom_itx i'm about to tell them all to kiss my ass
20:11 rue_bed you could tie them up with each other, tell them each other and say, cause your doing the other, you dont have time for theirs
20:11 rue_bed they might change their perspective and reroute around you
20:12 rue_bed I been doing a little of that
20:12 rue_bed I basically turn down any repair requests
20:13 rue_bed unless its something I'm really the only person who can deal with AND its a genuinly important request
20:13 rue_bed which come up
20:14 rue_bed hmm
20:14 Tom_itx there are professionals for nearly everything that could need repair
20:14 rue_bed not compitent ones
20:14 rue_bed not here
20:15 rue_bed we got a security monitor for the landfill, lcd with composite in
20:16 Tom_itx things come up like paying to have someone fix a washer, buying a part from the mfg for $250 or tearing into it twice to fix it myself. once to find out what bearing it needs and a second to do the fix. (had to be in service inbetween)
20:16 rue_bed within the 1 year warranty it died, the manuf had us mail it in for rma
20:16 Tom_itx $250 for a $5 bearing
20:16 Tom_itx i did however upgrade to SS bearings
20:16 rue_bed would you beieve they shipped the thing from BC to Ontario to have it repaired, and sent it back?
20:17 Tom_itx yup
20:17 rue_bed das crazy ya?
20:19 Tom_itx maybe they feel they know who they're dealing with there and have the training to do the repairs
20:19 Tom_itx even though others are capable
20:19 rue_bed I kinda wonder how much it cost them to send it that far for repair
20:19 rue_bed +repair, etc
20:20 Tom_itx it's probably a thing that seldom happens and they are willing to take the gamble on it
20:20 rue_bed I'm sure the repair cost somebody in the chain more than issueing a new one
20:20 Tom_itx no doubt
20:20 rue_bed and it took 2 months
20:20 Tom_itx the assembly line is set up for performance
20:21 rue_bed I have them set up with the monitor from a commodore computer
20:21 Tom_itx the reparir sector isn't
20:21 rue_bed one made somewhere in the 80's
20:28 Tom_itx a var declared outside main is global right?
20:28 Tom_itx volatile tells the compiler it may be updated by other means ie an interrupt right?
20:29 Tom_itx what about vars inside main with the volatile descriptor?
20:31 Tom_itx are vars declared inside main visible to fuctions called by main?
20:31 Tom_itx or from within main..
20:34 rue_house you cant have a volatile inside main beacuse it only exists in main
20:34 rue_house well, unless its modified externally via a pointer by an interrupt
21:02 Tom_itx so it's best to leave volatile outside main
21:16 hellllooo hi
21:16 tobbor Hello hellllooo
21:16 hellllooo hi
21:16 hellllooo i wanna make a robot that i can disguise as a human
21:16 hellllooo and makes a salary wage for me
21:17 hellllooo robots who i can pimp out to the workforce
21:17 hellllooo how can i do that
21:17 Tom_itx there would be no need for you then
21:17 hellllooo no
21:17 hellllooo i'd be the robot master
21:17 hellllooo i'll first start with labor jobs
21:18 hellllooo like construction
21:18 hellllooo and then i'd move up to more engaging jobs
21:19 hellllooo and eventually get to jobs like doctors and engineers
21:20 hellllooo and i'd command all the robots and get super rich
21:20 hellllooo off of them
21:20 hellllooo and then i'd design a bunch of super-hot robots that people try to breed with so that no more humans reproduce
21:20 hellllooo cause they're too busy with the super-hot robots
21:21 hellllooo and i'd be the ruler of the world
21:21 hellllooo muhahahahha
21:21 Kimlaroux hellllooo, why are you talking in the future? All of this already is reality in Japan
21:21 hellllooo there's robot doctors?
21:22 Tom_itx there are robotics that can do surgical procedures
21:22 Kimlaroux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_surgery
21:22 Kimlaroux damnit Tom_itx, you were faster than me on that one =P
21:23 Tom_itx you'd better find a different 'get rich' scheme
21:25 w0lfsp1d3r Motoko will own you :-)
21:26 w0lfsp1d3r better make a better barrier maze
22:03 Tom_itx rue_house
22:03 Tom_itx what are you up to?
22:03 rue_house chatting up kat
22:04 Tom_itx volatile int x; outside main
22:04 rue_house ok
22:04 Tom_itx i get 'x' undeclared first use inside the interrupt
22:04 Tom_itx any ideas?
22:04 Tom_itx int is ' x++;
22:04 rue_house not possable, show me src
22:05 Tom_itx it's untested so far but i'll post it
22:07 Tom_itx in garf
23:09 rue_shop whats 6min/rev in rads/sec
23:09 Tom_itx min as in degrees?
23:09 Tom_itx or time
23:10 rue_shop .017 rads/sec @ 24V
23:10 rue_shop hehe
23:10 Tom_itx rue
23:10 rue_shop thats slow..
23:10 rue_shop over a 4' lever arm..
23:10 Tom_itx wanna look at the pin change code?
23:10 Tom_itx i got the first one working
23:10 Tom_itx now i'm working on pin change int
23:10 rue_shop why did you use my pin change code?
23:10 Tom_itx i didn't
23:11 rue_shop hmm I need an arc length calculator
23:11 rue_shop dY over theta
23:11 rue_shop sohcahtoa
23:11 rue_shop I have ...
23:11 rue_shop I want opposite
23:11 rue_shop I know hypotenuse
23:11 rue_shop sin
23:12 rue_shop sin (opp/hyp)
23:12 rue_shop is theta
23:12 rue_shop so arcsin(theta) = opp/hyp
23:12 e_shop turns his head upside
23:13 rue_shop uh, so
23:13 Tom_itx http://www.mathwords.com/a/arc_circle.htm
23:13 rue_shop opp = hyp * arcsin(theta)
23:13 rue_shop so, whats the arcsin of uh
23:13 rue_shop degrees
23:14 rue_shop 1 rev every 6 min is 1 degree per second?
23:14 rue_shop no
23:14 rue_shop yes
23:14 rue_shop !??!?!
23:14 Kimlaroux opp = hyp * arcsin((theta*Pi)/180)
23:15 rue_shop 360 degrees / 6 * 60 sec
23:15 rue_shop huh, it is
23:15 rue_shop damn
23:15 rue_shop so, with an angle of 1 degree, on an arm 4 feet long
23:15 rue_shop whats arcsin of 1 degree
23:16 Tom_itx wanna look?
23:16 Tom_itx in garf
23:17 rue_shop I need to know the arcsin of 1 degree
23:17 rue_shop they F**** up the linux calculator
23:17 Kimlaroux Google
23:18 rue_shop f**** useless calculator
23:18 rue_shop what kinda stupid idiot
23:18 Kimlaroux or do I need to pull my TI v200?
23:19 rue_shop AUTHORS
23:19 rue_shop John Bradley, University of Pennsylvania
23:19 rue_shop Mark Rosenstein, MIT Project Athena
23:19 rue_shop Donna Converse, MIT X Consortium
23:19 rue_shop those are the stupid idiots responcable for this...
23:19 Kimlaroux when you ask what's arcsin of 1 deg, you mean sin(1)?
23:19 Tom_itx s
23:19 rue_shop no arcsin 1
23:19 rue_shop sin^-1 (1)
23:20 Kimlaroux well arcsin of a degree... you can't do that
23:20 Kimlaroux cause arcsin of 1 is 0 degree
23:20 rue_shop hmm
23:20 Kimlaroux arcsin gives you degree
23:20 rue_shop I'v got it backwards dont I
23:20 rue_shop ok, sin of 1 degree?
23:21 rue_shop I cant believe those idiots screwed up something as basic as a calcualtor
23:21 Tom_itx .02
23:21 Kimlaroux 0.017452406437
23:21 rue_shop FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFf
23:21 rue_shop ok
23:21 rue_shop Kimlaroux, .01745 is 1 degree in rads
23:22 rue_shop oh wait, its just close
23:22 rue_shop to about 5 places
23:22 rue_shop ok
23:22 Tom_itx 0.017452406437283512819418978516316
23:22 rue_shop so 4 feet * .01745
23:22 Kimlaroux well 1 degree is small
23:22 rue_shop better call it 48 inches
23:23 rue_shop .8 inches per second
23:23 rue_shop is that kinda fast swing speed for a 4' robot arm?
23:23 Kimlaroux I'd say no
23:24 Kimlaroux unless you have a nuclear reactor at the end of the arm
23:24 rue_shop well, maybe I better not 10:1 that rate :)
23:24 e_shop looks at the arm
23:24 rue_shop naaaa...
23:24 rue_shop Tom_itx, what are you up to now?
23:24 Kimlaroux in which case, the inertia would simply break the arm, given you have enough power
23:25 rue_shop its a timing motor on a large gearbox
23:25 Tom_itx rue i did the int0, now i wanna get pcint working
23:25 rue_shop I think about 10000:1
23:25 Tom_itx that's teh last file i pasted
23:25 rue_shop I'm not in there
23:25 rue_shop 2 mins
23:25 Tom_itx but it's not firing
23:25 Kimlaroux or you could use an accelerating algorithm for start and stop
23:26 rue_shop bang bang
23:28 Kimlaroux Oh btw, rue
23:28 Kimlaroux if you want the washer valves I have, I can give them to you if you pay the shipping