a step closer to robots

well, I'm back.

"back with a 3d printer" kind of back.

took a week off earlier this month for a stay-cation, and during this time of peace, I decided it was the right time to get my hands on one.

behold, the Monoprice Select Mini.
thoughts so far:
- very inexpensive for today's standards (got it for $200)
- produces great prints
- very non-proprietary

this review convinced me in the end that this printer is the one.

by the way, the above picture shows the 3d printer with the "sample filament," which I soon realized was way, way too little to do anything.

I honestly didn't know what I should do with it at first, trying to find 3D models to print in the internet, until I stumbled into this.

an open-source, 3D-printable robot.

it's always been a dream of sorts for me to build a controllable hand.
it was my intention to build something like that during one of my college projects, but it ended up being something else (software) that is controlled (the glove controller remained).

now, this printable robot offered a printable hand (and forearm, and bicep, and shoulder, and head...).

at this point, I've actually already printed a lot of parts and am pretty well-into the process of building this.

I will elaborate my progress so far in the next post.

Comments

nodejs migration

Having been playing around with NodeJS recently, I (naturally?) started re-writing some of the OpenSesame code using Node last night. I think I've only worked on it around 2 hours so far, but I've already set up a basic client interface (a socket.io chat tutorial rip) with a server that the Raspberry Pi can connect to and receive requests to open the door. This is probably due to socket.io's socket management (socket.io is the WebSocket module for Node); for my first implementation, I had to manually write up a structure that managed sockets, but that is pretty much handled by socket.io. Also, the servo control logic is pretty much recycled (and the Raspberry Pi code is still Python), and I do remember spending some good time figuring that out. Cool neverthelss. I'll probably keep both versions around.

quick recollection on setting things up

If I can swear that the password is correct, then it's possible that I'm getting the ID wrong. Hadn't logged into the web server in a couple of months and was unable to SSH into it. After an hour or so, I ended up deleting the instance and recreating a clean instance (read: erasing everything). I then realized I'd been putting the wrong ID. apt-get install sudo apt-get install Anyways, some links I visited when setting things up (pretty much a dump of whatever I copy-pasted to notes) : Raspberry Pi http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/optimize-the-power-of-your-raspberry-pi-with-raspbian/ Logging http://docs.python.org/2/howto/logging-cookbook.html Tornado - Python webserver that supports Websocket http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2924991/what-popular-webservers-have-support-for-html5-websocket http://lowpowerlab.com/blog/2013/01/17/raspberrypi-websockets-with-python-tornado/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11695375/tornado-identify-tra...

alcohol sensor (and some patience)

Soldered the alcohol sensor into something that is connectable: I tried to connect this to the Arduino, as I had the appropriate circuitry, but I did not get any legitimate output from it. 5V going in, 5V coming out with no variations. Nothing seems to be awry in wiring, as the circuit seems to be grounded properly (and the 5V current is flowing). There are a couple of potential factors as to why I'm not seeing any results: - I'm using a 10k ohm resistor, while some guides (and the datasheet for the sensor) asks for 100-200k. However, there seems to be a good amount of people using 10k and getting at least some kind of result. A batch of 100k ohm resistors I ordered is on its way, so I guess I can try with them when they come. - This site claims that these sensors take 24-48 hours for its signals to be stable. It also tells me that I should not be powering the sensor directly from the Arduino, which I have been doing, out of concern that the power draw of ...

the quest for robots

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