“The Canucks win in a shootout!”. Wait what? Did I hear that correctly?

Once again it seems Roberto Luongo has defied critics and actually won a shootout contest. Didn’t hurt that one of the shooters managed to miss the net by two feet or more to the right. He managed to stop four other shots (let one in) to win the game.

Its like Luongo is playing like his job depends on it. Might be. I’m sure he has spotted Cory Schneider when looking over his shoulder.

This season has been a bit of a let down after the failed attempt to win the prize last June. It really seems to be a “ho hum” year, almost certain to end in disappointment again.

But then again, maybe not! They keep winning (even when it takes extra time) and are destined to win the Northwest division yet again. They should be able to hold onto a decent shot to win the Western conference, maybe even the President’s Cup. The dream is still alive!

My Outdoor Robot project got some attention recently, now utilizing the ultrasonic sensors at the front to avoid obstacles. I’m still running it very slowly, so I can learn from watching it without having to run to catch it. I’ve implemented a subsumption architecture in the software that has a few simple behaviors:

1. Startup: waits for a button press, and only allows for one minute runtime.
2. Avoidance: using the front-facing ultrasonic sensors, turn away from obstacles. The turn is proportional to the distance to the obstacle.
3. Cruising: run straight ahead at the maximum (slow, at this point) speed.

In the videos below you can see this happening. There really isn’t a lot of “smarts” to the software, although it looks pretty good while running. Next up is to get the “remote stop” working then I’ll increase the speed. I also need to work on behaviors for when the robot gets itself into a corner e.g. backup and turn around.

Enjoy these videos for now!

Steve Jobs died today.

This was quite interesting news; neither unexpected nor expected. It just happened, exactly as you’d think it might.

I read an article that compared him to Edison and Einstein. This seemed quite appropriate. He will be remembered as an innovator who had dramatic impact on technology and business in ways no other single person has in a long time, or will have, at least for some time to come.

My life was changed by Apple Computer, Inc. in the early 1980s when I was exposed to the Apple IIe. This was not the first computer I ever used: I used a Commodore Pet at school, and my father had a Commodore CBM at the office. I dreamed of being able to have a Radio Shack TRS-80 for my very own. But the IIe was different in the sense that it opened my eyes. It wasn’t that the IIe was so innovative – I didn’t know much about electronics at the time so couldn’t appreciate the renowned design. The software wasn’t that different from what you might find in those other systems. In fact my first programming experience wasn’t for an Apple computer at all (I taught myself to write BASIC on a Commodore machine by reading programming magazines). The difference was that my mother ended up working at an Apple reseller, and so I got the chance to play with all sorts of machines I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I also worked in the repair department, which meant I had to learn a bit of electronics. In those days the most common repair was to replace a driver chip in the floppy disk drive controller board that would burn up (literally) when connected wrong – the connector could be attached in either orientation but only work correctly in one.

I was working at this store in 1993 when the Apple Lisa was launched. I spent as many hours as I could playing with that machine. I was totally amazed with the things that you could do with it. The technology was fantastic: double-sided high density floppy drives, graphics printers, and of course the bitmap display and mouse. The first hard drive I ever used, a magnificent 5 megabytes, was attached to this Lisa system. Amazing. The story behind the development of the system was also quite something, compelling in a way that I can’t quite describe. But there was more to come.

I was still working at that store in 1984 when the Macintosh was launched. My parents purchased one for me, a gift meant to be both inspiring and utilitarian. I played with that machine for hours and hours and hours. The story behind the creation of the Macintosh, by Steve Jobs and his team, was so fantastic and wonderful that I dreamed of doing those grand things and many other grand things in my life. This event, the launch of the Macintosh and its story of its creation and my eventual ownership of one, changed my life forever. The many things I learned in life about design and software and commitment and accountability can all be traced, to some degree or another, to this.

And because of this, I’m eternally gratefully to Steve Jobs and Apple.

My outdoor robot project is coming along nicely, but so far it has been completely blind. I needed to add some sort of sensors.

Eventually I’ll have all sorts of sensors, but I decided the first one should help avoid running into things. I opted to use three Parallax Ping))) ultrasonic sensors. I wanted to mount them at different angles, so I’d get a larger view of potential obstacles. This configuration is set up at 45 degree angles, but the design is flexible so I can replace the angled bracket with another, if it turns out this is not sufficient.

I machined the various parts from 3/8″ delrin (video of some machining operations) then fabricated some mounts for each sensor module from 3mm Sintra (expanded PVC) sheet. Turned out pretty well, I think!

I need to fabricate and program the electronics to drive these three sensors and send messages about object detection, but that will be a topic for another post.

My outdoor robot project has reached the stage where it can move under its own power, without tethering or remote control.

It doesn’t yet have any sensors, so its sort of blind, so I purposefully set it to go slowly around in a circle for 20 seconds or so. Didn’t want to have to chase it!

The next step is to mount some ultrasonic sensors and add some navigation code, and let it wander. Probably need to enable that remote kill switch I was experimenting with…