This is the End June 22, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in General.1 comment so far
Alright, so I suppose I’ve made a decision about this blog. In the beginning I set out to make this a journal of my final year of college, and to discuss all the experiences I would go through there. I think I’ve accomplished that goal, and during the year I did my best to update regularly and talk about everything that was going on. However, I don’t really feel like it’s something I need to continue doing now that I’ve finished what I set out to do. I’ve tried the generic “blog” thing a few times and it’s never really worked out until this one where I actually had a topic and a goal laid out for me to talk about. If I did continue blogging here, it would basically become all about my daily life and all that stuff that every other blog on the internet already talks about, and that’s just not what I want to turn this into.
So I guess what I’m saying is, now that my senior year is over, so is the blog. It will remain here, and I still may visit every now and then to post an update or link or something, but I wouldn’t plan on regular updates from here on out. I like that it’s a self-contained unit that I can archive for posterity and occasionally return to when I want to remind myself of what I had to go through to get where I am today. It has served it’s purpose well. So, thanks to all of you who have for some reason followed my misadventures. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll pick it up again.
For now though, if you’re absolutely addicted to following my mundane life, I will still be making updates on Twitter and Facebook, which you can check out at the following links:
Still Alive June 13, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in General.3 comments
No, I’m not dead, just been busy working and stuff. And no, still don’t know if I’m going to keep updating. It just hasn’t been much of a concern for me lately. I promise I will make a decision soon either way. Oh, and by the way, I did end up getting a Palm Pre… and it’s great! My initial reaction, like all geeks, was to pick it apart immediately and judge what areas in which it fell short. However, for the last few days, I’ve just been using it normally and I’ve come to really appreciate what a fantastic phone it actually is. Very intuitive and elegant, very iPhone like in a lot of ways (yes, that’s a compliment), but packed with features that set it apart as well. Now I just need to buy the Touchstone charger for it.
Here’s a screenshot of my phone’s “desktop”, or whatever the Pre’s equivalent is called:
Yes, it’s a Portal theme, because that game is really swell. Notice how I also worked it into the title of this post? I’m clever like that, har har. And here’s a picture I took with the phone on my way into work today of the STL Tower outside our station:
Not too shabby, eh? I look forward to taking full advantage of the functionality of this puppy. It’s wonderful having a smartphone again!
The Pre and Me May 24, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in Engineering, Fun, Science.2 comments
I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with this blog yet. To be perfectly honest, I’ve barely thought about it. Don’t rush me okay! In the meantime however, I am now going to tell you why the Palm Pre will be so awesome and why I want one so bad.
Before I do that, let me give you some history involving Palm, Inc and myself. Back in the heyday of my computer nerding, around the mid-nineties, a little device came along called the Palm Pilot. I was just getting into high-school at the time, so I really didn’t understand the implications of these devices everyone kept calling PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants), but I did know one thing: they were really cool looking. As I learned more about them, I began to understand why everyone raved and ranted over how great they were, and even though I wouldn’t own one for years to come, I was always infatuated with what they represented. This was mobile computing in its purest form. No frills, only the basics, you only got what you absolutely need, but you always had it with you at any time. You could whip it out and get what you needed from it – be that a contact, a memo, or a calender reminder – in the time it takes me to finish this sentence. You didn’t need to open up some behemoth laptop, you didn’t need to carry around physical address books and post-its with you, you didn’t even need a keyboard. Oh yeah, did I mention that you input into the device using a stylus that would recognize your handwritten characters and convert them into type? This was like magic to me, and I knew these things would change the way people operated in a very fundamental way.
Fast forward a few years, and I decide that it’s time to finally get one. Knowing how much my Dad could use one, I also decided to get one for him at the same time. So I got a Palm IIIc and my Dad got a Handspring Visor (made by former Palm founders, ran on Palm software). Even though these devices were archaic by today’s standards, we both just about used them to death. By this point, there were also tons of different user-made applications free to download and install onto your Palm, so mine was stuffed full of programs, both useful and useless. No, the iPhone is not the first PDA or Phone to do apps, believe it or not. Palm was in that game years before the iPhone was a twinkle in Apple’s eye. Anyway, over time, we both moved on to better things. My mom soon became hooked, and she and my dad were sporting twin Palm V’s for years. I bought my wife Jennifer a Palm Zire 71 a few years ago, which was one of the first mobile devices either of us had owned with a built in camera. For Christmas in 2005, Jennifer got me my first Smartphone, which was a Palm Treo 650, which to date is probably still the best phone I’ve ever had. Last year, my wife bought her first Smartphone, the Palm Centro.
The point of all this is, I’ve always been a fan of Palm, and have had quite a bit of experience in the past with their products.
Palm was not without it’s problems though. The operating system on the Treo phone I mentioned, though it had been updated, was still the same basic OS Palm had been using since it’s first devices in the mid-nineties. While other companies were staying up with the times, Palm seemed content to stick with a relic in terms of software. Now, it’s still a decent OS despite it’s age, and it’s a classic for a reason. On my wife’s phone, for example, it does pretty much everything she needs it to do, and she’s quite happy with it. However, she’s (thankfully) not a complete dork like me and doesn’t demand the cutting edge of what technology has to offer. I only wish I had that same quality, as it would have saved me quite a bit of money over the years. But I don’t, and that means that, for me, the classic Palm OS just couldn’t do it for me anymore. I needed more. I’d heard great things about the iPhone, but I was not with AT&T and decided that maybe I could find satisfaction somewhere else. Eventually I settled on a Windows Mobile phone, the HTC Touch.
We all make mistakes.
Needless to say, it didn’t work out well. My dad got one around the same time, and neither of us are still using the phone. Mine broke, and he just couldn’t stand his anymore. Finally, earlier this year, I resigned myself to eventually just leaving Sprint and getting an iPhone like everyone else. After all the iPhone was a pretty good phone, right? It had a great user interface, iTunes support, lots of good apps, and an excellent web browser. Sure, you couldn’t multitask with it, but you couldn’t really do that with many other non-WM phones either. Okay, it had no physical keyboard, kind of stinks but whatever. No removable battery, no Cut&Paste, no MMS, more expensive Data plan… okay, I could go on for a while here, but it really is a good phone! Right? I guess it will have to do.
Then, in one press conference back in January, Palm did it. They finally made me exited for a phone again.
Look upon it, and be glad.
The Palm Pre was introduced, and the people rejoiced. Palm did what no one ever expected… they became relevant again! I for one, along with my other Palm fans around the world, couldn’t have asked for anything more awesome than this. Now, on first glance, you might think that it’s just another slider/touch phone. Big deal right? You couldn’t be more wrong. The Pre is built around Palm’s new and long overdue operating system, “WebOS”, and is a true paradigm shift both for Palm and for phones in general. The idea is, what if you could combine the sleek user interface of the iPhone or Android G1 with the functionality of something like Windows Mobile? WebOS has apparently nailed that sweet spot between the two, and the result is truly something special. Why is it so great? Let me tell you.
- Multitasking – Probably the single thing that will set the Pre apart from everyone else. Sure, this isn’t the first phone that does multitasking. Windows Mobile has had that functionality for years, and even the iPhone has some limited multitasking (very limited… okay just music basically). However, the Pre is the first phone to do it right. It uses a “card” system that emulates a deck of cards on the phone, with each card representing an open application. If you open a new application, it’s added to your deck, and you can flick between cards in your deck at will. As long as these cards are in your deck, they remain open and fully functional. If you’re sending an email and need to look up some info to include, you simply flick over to the open web browser card, look it up, and flick back and finish your email. These apps don’t “sort of” run in the background, they remain completely open and functional until closed. Which, speaking of, is done by tossing the card away with a quick flick up the screen. This entire system looks great in motion, and apparently works really well to boot. Everyone who has used a Pre so far has raved about this feature.
- Web Browser – Yes, we all know that Mobile Safari is the king of mobile internet. However, the Pre browser could give it a run for its money. It is at least as smooth and functional as Safari, with multitouch panning/zooming/etc and all the bells and whistles. On top of this, this functionality is greatly enhanced with the discussed multitasking abilities, as you don’t have to quit your browsing session every time something else comes up. Plus, though it won’t be supported at launch, this browser will support flash in a few months with an update. Yeah.
- Synergy – One feature Palm has done well for years is threaded messaging, meaning that text messages between two parties appear in order on one screen as an entire conversation. This is in contrast to the standard method of keeping all sent messages in one folder, all received messages in another, etc. Threaded messaging is more natural to read and just plain makes sense. Palm has taken this concept and taken it to a whole new level. Now, not only do conversations stay together, but all of your messaging, chats, and contacts from all the different programs you use them in work together seamlessly on the Pre. By this I mean, WebOS is smart enough to know that the Joe Everyman in your phone contact list is the same Joe Everyman in your Facebook application and your email contacts, and if it does miss one, you can link them together manually. This means that person has one identity on your phone, all the way through Calenders and Appointments, Memos, Outlook, and everything else. It also means that conversations you have with this person – whether they be Text, AIM, Facebook, Google Chat, or any other program – show up in a single threaded conversation in one place on the phone. Fantastic!
- Physical Keyboard – Let’s face it, if you truly prefer a software/touch keyboard over a physical one, you’ve either forgotten how great they are from using your iPhone too much or you’ve simply never used one. Physical keyboards are always better. This is objective fact, there is no argument here. Thankfully, Palm has realized this and included one with the Pre. It’s in a sleek slide-out form factor, so the coolness of the phone isn’t overshadowed by a big keyboard on the bottom of it like the Treo phones were. It’s there when you need it, and gone when you don’t. It’s not exactly a new concept, but one which Apple apparently has yet to understand. I’m glad Palm didn’t make the same mistake.
- Fast Hardware – You can’t run all these applications simultaneously if you don’t have power under the hood, and this phone has it. 600 MHz ARM CUP, 256 MB RAM, 3G EVDO Rev A and WiFi, etc etc. All you need to know is that, even for a smartphone, it’s fast.
- Wireless Charging – One of the coolest features of this phone isn’t even really a feature of the phone itself, but rather (one of) its methods of charging. Though you can still use the traditional method of plugging it into a USB port to charge it, Palm is also releasing an accessory called the Touchstone. It’s a little puck shaped device that you set your phone on top of, and the magnets in the Touchstone align with the special matte battery cover required for it, and the phone is charged via magnetic induction. I could go into the details of what that is, but does it matter? The important thing here is that, potentially, you can go the entire life of this phone without ever plugging it into anything! Now tell me that’s not sweet.
There are many other reasons I could go into for why this Phone is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it would take me all day and my fingers are getting tired. To help sum up everything, allow me to just post a couple of videos of the Pre in action so you can see for yourself why it will change everything.
I think now you see why I want one so badly. I will pay a steep price, but I think it will be worth it. Palm hasn’t let me down yet, and I think this time they’ll exceed everyone’s expectations.
Fin May 20, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in General, School.2 comments
It’s all over. My college career as an undergraduate is officially finished. Many have asked if it has sunk in yet that I’m done, and each time I have to honestly answer, “No, not really.” I’ve been doing this for what feels like forever, and I’ve gotten so used to being almost done that I don’t know how it feels to actually be done. Over the years, it’s been, “Okay, a whole year down, I’m making progress”…”Hey alright, half-way done”…”Just three semesters left, you can do this Justin”…”One year left, that’s it!”…”Only one semester left, I can taste it”… honestly, my entire college career has felt like I’ve simply been pushing toward that next milestone. Now, at least in terms of education, there are no more milestones. I’m there.
Of course, we all know that isn’t really true, is it? No one ever really gets to a point in life where they can say “There, I’ve made it, now I can relax.” We simply weren’t made that way. There is always something else to strive for and believe in, some other goal to set for yourself. It’s what keeps us all going, and what makes the world keep functioning. So maybe the reason I don’t really feel “done” is that I know I’m never truly done. Do I know everything there is to know about Electrical Engineering? The answer is obviously no, and so I must continue learning. And not just in electrical engineering, but in all aspects of life. How do I expand my educational horizon? What can I do to make myself a better father and husband? What else can I do to further my spiritual growth? There are always new goals to achieve. So in that sense, graduation hasn’t sunk in yet, and it probably never will. It’s simply another goal I’ve reached, and now it’s time to start setting some new ones. I will never be done, and I don’t think I’d want it any other way.
Graduation
In other news, the question presents itself: What do I do with this blog now? The answer is, I haven’t decided yet. I initially wanted it to simply be a journal of my senior year, and to some degree I have accomplished that, so part of me wants to stop here and leave it as is. However, another part of me sees the usefulness of having a space where I can share some of my thoughts and interests, regardless of whether it relates to Electrical Engineering or not. So we’ll see. There’s no hurry, but I’ll probably just mull it over for a few days and then make a decision. See you then!
The Sum of its Parts May 9, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in Engineering, School.add a comment
I made a video for the faculty presentation and open house showing some of the development of the robot over the last several months. And here it is, enjoy!
Non Sum Qualis Eram May 1, 2009
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The year is truly winding down, and I have very little left to do before graduation. I’ve been exempted from one final because I’m so awesome (har har), so that means all I have left in terms of my grades is one other take-home final and our project presentations to the faculty. Both of those should go fairly smoothly, and I’m not expecting any surprises in either case. So basically, I’m just coasting for the next week and then I’ll essentially be finished. It feels strange, I’ve been a student for so long, I’m not really sure how to act without having to worry about schoolwork all the time, or at the very least the knowledge of another semester looming ahead of me. It’ll be like a totally different life in some ways.
In a good way though. I can’t wait to spend more time with my family and get into my “real” career. It’s so close now I can taste it. And it tastes like a delicious burrito.
And Now for Something Different April 22, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in Engineering, Fun.1 comment so far
I’ve talked so much about the robot and school stuff for the last few months, I’ve barely used this blog for anything else. So, with that in mind, I decided to write up a quick post about something out of left field… home improvement! More specifically, woodworking. As everyone knows by this point, we are moving to Houston this summer where I will start working at BP and Jennifer will start working for a school in Houston. This means we have to sell our house at some point, and that in turn means lots of home improvement projects to maximize the value of the house when we go to sell it. Though I haven’t talked about it much, we’ve done several home improvements over the last several months such as new paint, new carpet, fixtures, work outside, and bathroom renovation among others. I won’t go into all the details because it would take too long, but I did want to talk about one specific aspect that some might find interesting.
In one of our bathrooms, we had to completely remove the old cabinet in order to replace the sink and everything, and so we had a decision of how we were going to replace it. We’d been going back and forth about what kind of cabinets we should buy, how much we should spend, etc. Then for some reason I will never know, I uttered the six dumbest words I’ve ever spoken:
“What if I just build it?”
I knew it was a mistake as soon as it came out of my mouth, but by then the damage had been done. Build a cabinet? Seriously? I knew nothing of woodworking, especially something as complicated as a bathroom cabinet! However, my wife has much more confidence in my abilities than I do (one of the many reasons why I love her), and so there was no turning back. Truthfully, assuming I could actually do it, it wasn’t a bad idea. We’d save a ton of money, customize it exactly how we wanted, and leave something in the house that should help increase the value. It’s just the whole “building it” part that had me worried.
And so, like a good little engineer, I approached it in a systematic way in order to assure as much success as possible. First, I turned to the internet and devoured everything I could about woodworking, specifically cabinet-building. After a few days of research and brainstorming, I felt that I was ready to begin drawing up some plans. I thankfully had a template to work from, which was the original cabinet we took out of the bathroom since we knew we wanted something similar. Based on those dimensions and some other ideas, I sketched it out on a piece of paper and then created a more detailed 3D model in Google SketchUp. Here were the final plans as they stood before I began building.
Looking at these plans, the obvious question is, “Why is it separated like that?” To which I would answer, “You ask too many questions!” But seriously, the issue was that we wanted the cabinet to go from floor to ceiling at an ambitious 96″ tall. As one solid cabinet, this would be extremely difficult to get into place and mount to the wall, if not impossible. Therefore, my solution was to split it up into two 48″ cabinets so that they could be easily moved into place, and then mount them together as one solid, single cabinet in the bathroom. This actually turned out to be a pretty good idea if I say so myself.
Now that plans were drawn up with dimensions and everything, it was time to stop theorizing and start building, which happens to be the part I was personally dreading. Thankfully, I have a Dad who is a genius at pretty much everything and also has every single tool known to mankind, so he became an invaluable resource. After showing the plans to him and talking with him about it, he felt pretty confident that we could build it, which certainly boosted my optimism. Finally, about three weeks or so ago, we went to Lowe’s and bought all the supplies we would need, and we started the part I was dreading the most… actually building the thing.
Surprisingly, things went quite well. Between the two of us we worked though any problems we had, and ended up doing a pretty good job. My Dad even had a router so that we could route out the 45-degree angle around the doors, which made me quite happy. The only big issue we ran across was that I didn’t measure the space correctly for the laundry hamper at the bottom of the cabinet so that there was no room for the fold-out door above it to throw laundry into. Luckily, Jennifer and I talked about it and came up with a redesign that didn’t involve us totally rebuilding the bottom cabinet. Instead, we left an open shelf in the middle for knick-knacks or whatever, and simply left the bottom as a large double-doored shelf where one could place a laundry hamper or a trash can or whatever.
The main problem was that, once we finished building the cabinet, I was thick into the final stretch of building the robot, so I had no more time to do anything else. We took it home and Jennifer stained it, but as far as I knew, that’s where it would stay until after the competition. Imagine my surprise when I get home from Lubbock to find my daughter jumping out of this:
While I was gone, my Dad and brothers came over and installed the cabinet! Not only that, but all of them worked together to completely finish the entire bathroom renovation in one weekend. I was blown away by their hard work, and I’m extremely thankful to have a wife that’s willing to make surprises like this happen for me. She made my day!
So yeah, it turned out really great. Here are some other views of the top and bottom sections of the cabinet in more detail:
I’m really happy with how it turned out. So there you go, my first major woodworking project in the flesh. It was surprisingly more fun than I thought it would be, and eventually I wouldn’t mind doing more projects like this. Of course, I will need to get more and better tools for it than what I have now, but hey, maybe soon we’ll have the means to do just that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little detour from my normal posts, and I hope it inspires someone else to try something new!
In Victory and Defeat April 20, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in General.add a comment
We’re back from the Conference, and mostly back to our normal routines. So I guess the question is, how did it go? That’s a tough question to answer, so I’ll give you the bad first and then the good.
First the bad – the robotics competition. To say the least, things didn’t go so well. To preface the competition, first I have to say that the week leading up to it was probably the most problem-riddled week we’ve had this entire year. Just about everything that could go wrong in the days leading up to the conference did. I won’t go into too many details, but I will say that so many things went wrong that we had to ditch the trailer idea altogether and completely scrap our strategy for picking up the blocks. Of course, this made our design kind of stupid because the whole reason we had this big six d.o.f. arm was to have the dexterity to lift a block and place it into a specific place in the trailer, so in the new design it actually became more of a hindrance than a boon. Add on top of this that Caleb’s laptop, on which all of our code was stored, died the afternoon before we planned on leaving for Lubbock. Luckily I had made a backup of what we had the day before, but everything we worked on Tuesday night and all day Wednesday was lost. Basically, things didn’t go well.
When we finally did get to Lubbock, we scrambled to do the best with what we had, and gave it our best effort. We spent most of the day Friday sitting in the exhibit hall at a table coding and practicing, trying to squeeze as much as we could out of our new ad-hoc design. Finally, late Friday night, they shut the lights out on us and we decided that what we had would have to do. Now, I wasn’t at the competition on Saturday because I had to attend the Student Paper competition (more on that in a moment), so I’m going off of what was relayed to me from my teammates. Apparently for our first run, we were actually somewhat presentable. The robot approached the first two corners and almost lifted the blocks to get them back to the center, and then attempted the second two corners without much success. This doesn’t sound like much, but was a surprisingly robust run compared to many of the robots there. Lots of people were having issues. After this they had some technical issues with the arm, and so the second run didn’t go as well. We didn’t do well enough to get us into the finals, but I still feel we did respectably and I’ll keep my head high. We might not have accomplished what we set out to accomplish, but I’m proud of my teammates and all of the work that we all put into this thing through the year.
Now for the good. As I said earlier and as I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, my paper was also submitted to the Region 5 Student Paper competition, along with another classmate. We were competing with 10 other student papers from schools all over the state and country, so there was some stiff competition. The written section of the competition (the paper itself) had already been submitted and graded by the judges by the time we arrived in Lubbock, and we actually got our scores and comments from them back before anyone presented. On Saturday we had the Oral Presentation section of the competition, where we present the key ideas of our papers to the same judges in a speech and powerpoint presentation. They ordered us by lot, and I somehow drew first, so I had nothing to compare myself to going into my presentation. Looking back on it, this probably a good thing, because if I’d seen some of the other presentations before I gave mine I likely would have been extremely intimidated. Mine went well, but most of the other students had really spectacular presentations. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much, and had already picked the three winners in my mind (myself not among them) by the end of the day.
It came as a huge shock to me that night when, at the banquet, they called my name as one of the three winners of the competition. And when I say I was shocked, I’m not exaggerating. I was blown away that the judges apparently found my paper and presentation good enough to be considered one of the top three there. After what I’d seen from the other students, it was hard to believe that they picked me, but there I stood. I ended up taking second place, which I was more than happy with. The guy that won first place had a truly incredible presentation and certainly deserved it, so I was happy for him and glad I was given the opportunity to be in such company.
In the end, it was a long weekend of frustration and disappointment, but at the same time a fun weekend of fellowship and triumph. The two sides went hand in hand, much like college, and much like life. It was a fitting end to our college careers, and today it feels like a page has been turned. We aren’t entirely done yet, but for the most part all that’s left is walk across the stage. That day will come soon enough.
And now, some pictures!
This Is It April 13, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in Engineering, School.add a comment
Unless I can get internet access sometime this weekend, this will probably be my last post before the competition. So the question is, did we pull it off? The honest answer is, I don’t really know yet. We certainly are unable at this point to run the course consistently, but we’re getting there, and we still have two days before we leave, so who knows. We might make it and we might not. I will say this though. No matter what happens, we have left nothing on the table in the process of building this thing. Every ounce of effort that we could have given, we gave, and that much at least I can take pride in no matter what happens. All that’s left to say at this point is that whatever happens happens, and either way I will be proud of our team.
One other aspect I haven’t talked about much in a while is the Region 5 Student Paper contest, which takes place the same weekend (and at the same time actually) as the Robotics competition. Since my paper was one of those that advanced past the Area contest, I will be competing at the Region level and will actually have to miss the Robotics competition. Because it’s a competition for written technical papers, one might be wondering what exactly what we’d be doing at the conference itself. The answer is, there is an oral presentation component to the contest just like we had to do when we first presented them to the class and Dr. Myler. So basically, I’ll be cooped up in a room for several hours listening to speech after speech, and at some point I’ll give one of my own. You can probably sense my waning enthusiasm.
Despite that, I still know it’s an honor to be competing at this level, so I’ve worked hard on revamping my powerpoint slides and my presentation to make it as interesting and succinct as possible, because I really do want to do well. Plus, who knows? Maybe some of the other presentations will actually be interesting and I may learn something, so perhaps it won’t be all bad. All I know is that the robotics team will be giving it their best shot at winning, so I will do the same.
Wish us luck!
Getting Close Now April 8, 2009
Posted by justinpaulwalters in Engineering, School, Science.1 comment so far
Slowly but surely, I think things are coming together. We were having issues with drive distances for a while, and it was really becoming a headache for us. As our battery would discharge, the distances and angle of turns would also change, meaning we could never get a consistent run after only a few trials. The battery would only need to discharge a couple hundred mV before everything would be totally different, which messed up our mapping program. Something had to change.
Eventually we formulated a plan to regulate the voltage down to 7.2V (the rated voltage for our motors), but there were a few catches. For one, most regulators require an input voltage at least 1.5V above whatever you’re trying to step down to, which would mean we’d need a battery of at least 9V. We didn’t have a 9V battery that could supply the current we needed, and didn’t have the money left in our budget to get one. Two, speaking of current, most regulators that can output 7.2V can only handle a couple of Amps at most, and our motors pull at least that much each during normal operation.
They were big problems for sure, but we’re engineers right? HAH. Okay, we did actually solve the issues, but certainly not after burning up a few components. We solved the first problem by putting two of our 7.2V batteries in series. This not only solves the issue of inputting enough voltage to step down to the rated voltage correctly, but also gives us double the mAh to work with. The second problem was a little more tricky. We did find a voltage regulator that could handle up to 5A and could step down voltages anywhere from 1.2V to 32V (the LM338T, made by National Semiconductor), and we even found them at our local electronics store. Sweet! Only, once we put together the circuit for regulation and started testing it out, it wigged out on us. We eventually figured out that, yes, it can handle the current that we were putting through it, but not without massive heat build-up. We tried various heat sinks that got larger and larger, and things began to improve. Finally, we decided to throw caution to the wind and attach the biggest heat-sink we could, which ended up being about 20-times larger than the chip itself. It looked absolutely ridiculous, but it worked! Finally, we had regulated voltage and could begin mapping out the course.
In the meantime, we also got in our new rangefinder which we planned on using to detect the boxes on the course, and which we also promptly fried while soldering it. Yeah, we’ve had some bad luck lately. However, we managed to aquire a different kind of rangefinder (Sharp IR Rangefinder) which actually works better and is more accurate than the sonar rangefinder we were planning on using, so things mostly worked out there. Overall, we basically have all of the pieces to make this thing happen now. We have the color sensing working with code, we have good regulated driving conditions with functions ready to use so we can map, the arm is working well with a new and improved gripper, and the rangefinder program is almost finished. Now, it’s just a matter of putting it all together and mapping out the course for every possible combination we might run into at the competition. I expect to have some late nights, but I have high spirits and am hopeful that we might just be able to do this.
One week left before we leave for the competition. One week. It’ll be an interesting one.
