s1axter posted on Thu. March 6th 2008 at 10:13 AM PST
Yesterday the the Trossen Robotics Team dropped us a tip letting us know their fourth project contest came to a conclusion on February 29th. Trossen Robotics contest is a general technology project contest showcasing cool projects dealing with "robotics, automation, art, RFID, DIY, mods, inventions, and anything else demonstrating some form of technological creativity". In the submitted tip they say "We run this contest to help promote and encourage innovation and ingenuity.", (sounds just like what we here at GI strive for!)
Projects are scored on "Wow" factor, Ingenuity, Creativity, and Presentation (graphics, videos, documentation, explanation, etc.) and submissions are open to anyone who has something to enter. While the fourth contest ended last month, you are in luck, they are running another one right now that ends in May 2008. Over $800 in prizes were given out last contest, and there will probably more for this one, so make something cool and submit!
I took a look at some of the projects entered in the fourth contest and I really liked the servo based Johnny-5. Reading the specs the thing runs Windows XP on a Pico-ITX board @ 1GHZ! Not exactly what I whould have done but it is still cool. Check it out
chip posted on Mon. March 3rd 2008 at 09:52 PM PST
Congratulations to Max, the winner of our February Comment contest! The winning comment is his response to Doomerz's Google Summer of Code '08 post. Max won a $25 gift certificate to SparkFun Electronics.
doomerz posted on Tue. February 26th 2008 at 03:32 AM PST
Google has announced its summer of code '08 event.
From the FAQ: The Google Summer of Code is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects.
...
In order to participate in the program, you must be a student. Google defines a student as an individual enrolled in or accepted into an accredited institution including (but not necessarily limited to) colleges, universities, masters programs, PhD programs and undergraduate programs. You should be prepared, upon request, to provide Google with transcripts or other documentation from your accredited institution as proof of enrollment or admission status. Computer Science does not need to be your field of study in order to participate in the program.
s1axter posted on Mon. February 25th 2008 at 11:03 AM PST
Embedded.com has an interesting article on the perceived obsolescence of assembly by some professions. I've spoken with a number of programmers and engineers, and almost every one, with the exception of low level computer engineers, says 'Nobody programs in assembly anymore'. This might be true for desktop applications, server applications, or web service engineers, however nothing is further from the truth for embedded engineers. I've always believed that to understand how something works, you need to know how it is implemented. This article shares this thought and asserts that any good embedded engineer needs to understand computer architecture and thus assembly. That or you are going to be stuck with this:
"If a Java-only developer ever pondered CPU design, can you imagine the horribly-complex room-full of logic he'd envision? 'Here's the circuit that implements a formatted print instruction.'"
What do you do and when was the last time you programmed some assembly?
s1axter posted on Fri. February 22nd 2008 at 03:52 PM PST
Dean Kamen's company, Deka Research (creators of the Segway), has been working for the past two years on a prosthetic modular arm to help amputees. The arm weighs in around 50 7.5 lbs and has an impressively wide range of motion. From the IEEE Spectrum article:
"The arm has motor control fine enough for test subjects to pluck chocolate-covered coffee beans one by one, pick up a power drill, unlock a door, and shake a hand. Six preconfigured grip settings make this possible, with names like chuck grip, key grip, and power grip. The different grips are shortcuts for the main operations humans perform daily."
This is really cool but I don't know about the foot controls, what happens when the guy walks?
doomerz posted on Fri. February 22nd 2008 at 09:50 AM PST
Nvidia has revealed its latest creation: The GeForce 9600 GT GPU! They are claiming that it is an increase of 116% over its predecessor and for under $199. This comes at the perfect time for me since I am in the market for a new graphics card.
From the Article:
The new GeForce 9600 GT GPU shows an improved performance-per-watt ratio compared to its predecessor as well as improved compression efficiency. In addition to 64 stream processors-each individually clocked at a blazing-fast 1625 MHz-and a 256-bit memory interface running at 900 MHz, the GeForce 9600 GT GPU is designed for the new PCIe 2.0 bus standard and features backwards compatibility with the original PCIe standard.
Trossen Robotics and Johnny-5!
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
Yesterday the the Trossen Robotics Team dropped us a tip letting us know their fourth project contest came to a conclusion on February 29th. Trossen Robotics contest is a general technology project contest showcasing cool projects dealing with "robotics, automation, art, RFID, DIY, mods, inventions, and anything else demonstrating some form of technological creativity". In the submitted tip they say "We run this contest to help promote and encourage innovation and ingenuity.", (sounds just like what we here at GI strive for!)
Congratulations to Max, the winner of our February Comment contest! The winning comment is his response to Doomerz's 
Well today is the last day for the comment contest. Keep those comments coming, remember you can enter more than once.
Check out these two tutorials on how to build a simple CPLD dev board and an introduction to 
Google has announced its summer of code '08 event. 
Dean Kamen's company, 
Nvidia has revealed its latest creation: The GeForce 9600 GT GPU! They are claiming that it is an increase of 116% over its predecessor and for under $199. This comes at the perfect time for me since I am in the market for a new graphics card. 
