Do you want to develop for the Android OS but are weak on programming skills? Try App Inventor.
From: http://ytai-mer.blogspot.com/2011/04/meet-ioio-io-for-android.html
By: Ytai
I’m very excited to announce the launch of a new product I’ve been working on for the past months!
IOIO (pronounced: yo-yo) is a product which lets you connect electronic circuits to an Android device and control them from an Android application.
It is comprised of a small (2.7×1.2″ = 7x3cm) PCB that connects to an Android device with a USB cable and a software library (Java .jar file) that you use in your Android app which handles all communications with the board.
No firmware programming is required – only Android application authoring with a very simple API (see examples below) for controlling the pins on the board. No modification of the Android device is required – you avoid the complication of modification and the voiding of warranty.
IOIO is available for backorder online from SparkFun on this page.
The first few boards will ship within a couple of weeks. Around that time, the entire software and hardware are going to be 100% open-source with a permissive license.
Main features:
Example Code:
Just to give you a hint of how simple it would be to write apps using IOIO, here is a small snippet from an app, which controls a single servo motor (on pin 12) and reads a single potentiometer (on pin 40). Exception handling and proper closing have been omitted for clarity.
ioio.waitForConnect();
AnalogInput input = ioio.openAnalogInput(40);
PwmOutput pwmOutput = ioio.openPwmOutput(12, 100); // 100Hz
while (true) {
float reading = input.read();
pwmOutput.setPulseWidth(1000 + Math.round(1000 * reading));
sleep(10);
}
Example Projects
The Retroid
The Retroid is a retro-designed alarm clock hacked to be controlled by an Android phone.
Once connected, the phone’s alarm, incoming call and incoming text message notifications appear as different ring and LED patterns on the clock.
Thanks to the amazing The Gifts Project folks for hacking this wonderful project over one weekend!
The Visual Charger
The Visual Charger is another take on a cool docking station for your phone. It charges your phone while presenting charge level percentage (0-9 or “F” for full) on a large 7-segment LED display. It also uses the dot on the display to signal for pending notifications (e.g. missed calls, unread text messages, etc.).
This project has been done by Misha Seltzer who is also taking a crucial part in IOIO development.
Wall Printer
The Wall Printer is inspired by old-school pin printers. It has 7 markers in a row, each individually controlled by a servo such that it can go up (not paint) or down (paint). When you manually slide it over a wall, the servo motions are carefully timed to produce text messages. These can include manually entered text, SMS messages, GPS coordinates and more.
The project is not yet complete, and the video above just demonstrates a simple pattern from an early experiment. I’ll post an update once there is progress.
This project has been done by my wonderful friend Liat Segal.
Why?
Android phones are powerful mobile computers having internet connectivity and a rich variety of built-in sensors (camera, GPS, IMU, touch screen). They are also very easy to write applications for, thanks to the great work done by the Android SDK developers. For many applications, all they are really missing is connectivity to external peripherals. This is exactly where IOIO fits in: it enriches the inherent capabilities of the Android device with the ability to communicate with external circuits.
From a study of existing solutions, they all suffered from one or more of the below:
IOIO does not suffer from any of the above. Its cost (~$50 from SparkFun) is competitive with existing solutions, dead-simple to use, ~3ms one-way latency, ~300KB/sec throughput, works with stock OS, small in size.
Credits
I would like to thank Google for supporting this project with people’s 20%-time. This project would never have come to life without their help.
Mostly I would like to thank Ryan Hickman, Arshan Poursohi and Misha Seltzer.
All the rest of the guys from Google that contributed to this project with coding, organization of the hackathon event, and providing critical feedback early in the process. You all know who you are 🙂
Aaron Weiss from SparkFun helped a lot with the hardware and taught me how PCB design is done in the real world.
My dear friends who took on the task of being the first adopters and built fantastic first IOIO projects and last but not least, my beloved wife and kids who were patient and supportive of their tired dad.
By HOLLY RAMER (AP)
CONCORD, N.H. April 8, 2011, 03:53 am ET
Can a robot pitch a tent? If so, a Boy Scout who builds one might be able to earn two merit badges at once.
The Boy Scouts of America, which offers more than 120 badges ranging from archery to wilderness survival, next week will unveil a robotics merit badge meant to promote science, technology, engineering and math, fields collectively known as STEM. In doing so, the 101-year-old Texas-based organization is trying to remain relevant and better reflect boys’ interests, said Matt Myers, who oversees the Boy Scouts’ STEM initiative.
Badges have been dropped over the years — blacksmithing and beekeeping for example — and replaced with new versions more in line with skills boys need to succeed, he said.
“Last century, camping was an essential survival skill. Sometimes, you might have had to live outside in the 1900s to survive. We view STEM as an essential survival skill in the 21st century,” he said Thursday. “We’re just trying to keep relevant with what kids need to learn.”
Officials expect at least 10,000 of the nation’s 2.7 million Boy Scouts to earn the new badge in the next year, compared with the roughly 500,000 who earn the most popular badge — first aid — each year.
Those earning the badge will be required to design and build a robot while learning about robot movement, sensors and programming.
The Boy Scouts have added four new badges in the last five years; the most recent was the Inventing badge introduced last June. Developing the robotics badge requirements took 14 months and involved help from more than 150 scouts, their leaders and industry professionals. Ken Berry, who led the effort, said the badge is a bit overdue given that hundreds of thousands of children and teens already are participating in robotics competitions around the country.
“We’re promoting stretching of the mind like athletics promotes stretching of the body,” said Berry, assistant director of the Science and Engineering Education Center at the University of Texas at Dallas.
The beauty of robotics is that it combines engineering, math and computer science in a fun format that even young Scouts can master, Berry said.
“There’s a low floor and a high ceiling with regard to robotics,” he said. “It’s very easy to get into, and you can go a long, long way.”
Berry, an Eagle Scout himself, said he would have loved the chance to earn a robotics badge as a teen. Now 49, he remembers learning about radios and electronics as a Boy Scout, but there wasn’t much opportunity for hands-on building.
“One of the biggest problems we have for high school kids and Boy Scouts included, is that there aren’t a lot of opportunities to tinker and experience what it’s like to be an engineer, so when they get to the college level, students are often ill prepared to do an engineering degree,” he said.
NASA, which allowed its Mars rover to be depicted on the badge, also agreed to take 100 patches into space on the Endeavour shuttle mission. Those badges will be distributed through an online contest.
“I think it would be cool,” said Kyle Vachon, 11, of Auburn, N.H., who has earned badges in first aid and carpentry and is working on a badge in personal management.
Ten-year-old Josh Cerniglia of Atkinson, N.H., was also enthusiastic, since he has attended a robotics summer camp and enjoyed working on a build-your-own circuit kit.
“It’s a bit strange because most of (the badges) have to do with camping, and robotics doesn’t have to do a lot with camping,” he said. “But I think as soon as I’m finished with fishing, I’ll try to go for it.”
The new badge will be formally announced Tuesday and unveiled Saturday in Boston during one of more than 75 events being held around the country to mark National Robotics Week. The Boston event is sponsored by iRobot Corp., one of the companies that helped develop the badge requirements.
From: PopSci (3/28/2011)
Quadrocopters are already accomplished piano players and Kinect-assisted navigators. Now they are playing tennis.
ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena hosted a quadrocopter tennis match, involving a human-robot volley, a doubles match and an impressive robot-to-robot juggling act. The robots were outfitted with tennis rackets, allowing them to fly toward the ball and return a human’s serve. Watch it below.
Mark Müller, Sergei Lupashin and Raffaello D’Andrea conducted this experiment, part of ETH Zurich’s ongoing project examining adaptive high-performance maneuvers. The team was also responsible for teaching a quadrocopter to play a Christmas carol last year.
The quadrocopters are apparently pretty competitive — notice how they dive for the ball even when it’s out of reach.
Sorry I haven’t update the blog in Soooooooo long, but it has been a busy time. First SouthEastCon (see previous post) and then I worked the Smoky Mountain Regional (SMR) First Robotics Competition last week!
At the SMR all six of the Memphis City School teams were their along with some 41 other teams. The RoboWolves (Team 3227) were in 25th Place at the end of the qualifying rounds and were the top placed Memphis team. They also went away with the “Judges Award”.
I have put a lot more info and images on http://memphisfirstteams.org/, so check it out.
The second annual National Robotics Week will be April 9-17, 2011.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the inaugural National Robotics Week in 2010! We celebrated with over 50 affiliated events in 21 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. Over 46,000 people participated, including over 24,000 K-12 students.
The purpose of National Robotics Week is to:
* Celebrate the US as a leader in robotics technology development
* Educate the public about how robotics technology impacts society, both now and in the future
* Advocate for increased funding for robotics technology research and development
* Inspire students of all ages to pursue careers in robotics and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math-related fields
Why is robotics important?
* Robotics technology is a growing industry which creates high-tech jobs in the US
* Robotics technologies are helping to improve healthcare, national defense, homeland security, energy, manufacturing, logistics, transportation, agriculture, education, consumer goods, and many other sectors
* Robotics provides an exciting, hands-on way for students to learn Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Read more at http://www.nationalroboticsweek.org/
Each year in the South East Region (Region 3) the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE for short) host its annual conference SoutheastCON. One of the most popular events is the Student Hardware (Robotics) Competition.
This years scenario is search and rescue after a disaster (very timely don’t you think).
The conference this year is in Nashville, TN.
I know teams from the University of Memphis and Christen Bothers University are planing to field a robot for this event (I an the adviser for the UofM team).
In the mean time, here is a video I shot recently when they were testing their bot to see if it will be able to go over the obstacles……
I will be posting pics and news about the event….so stay tuned.
Just added two more robots to my collection. Last year I got a Hexbug for my E-Day Demonstrations and yesterday I was in RadioShack and saw these and just had to pick them up!
The one on the left is a Spider and is remote control. The other is the Ant it uses the antennas on the front a wire loop on the back to sense an obstacle and change direction (and boy is it fast). Should make for some fun demo’s for next years E-Day!
ROS (Robot Operating System) provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more.
http://www.microsoft.com/robotics/
The Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 (Microsoft RDS) is a Windows®-based environment for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. All previous editions of Microsoft RDS 2008 R2 (Express, Standard and Academic) have been combined into one new version, RDS 2008 R3 and can be downloaded at no charge.
From the Robotics Summit Virtual Conference March 10, 2011
Web Links
First one is a great How to Build a Robot Tutorial from RoboShop.
HannoWare (12blocks – graphical programming, robots and other engineering and educational technology)
http://www.modk.it/ makes Arduino programming a little easier
Also wanted to mention there are general NXT forums at http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/mindboards and http://thenxtstep.com/smf/
Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach
http://www.learntodiscover.org/
Willow Garage Robotics
Scratch Programming Environment MIT’s basic drag and drop programming language (great for beginner programmers)
http://www.youtube.com/user/trossenrobotics
Freescale
Freescale Mobile Robotics Site
RobotSEE Freescale side project that is a simple robot programming language. Also see TowerGeeks for more on this project. Also check out the IMX53QSB Single board Computer.
Still looking for more info on:
The low-cost Freescale Robot ( FreeBot ) is a 4 Degrees Of Freedom walking robot with touch sensors, and a 3-axis accelerometer. The robot is a sensor programming training assistant, used in hands-on classes around the world. The robot is upgradeable with a low-cost embedded Linux computer converting it into a Linux/Android programming and Computer Vision training platform.
The video says it will be available on the Freescale website on April 4, 2011 for $199, but I can’t find it yet……..
Vgo Robot
Cogmation
Cogmation Robotics Simulation Software. See video generated below:
PS they are working with USFirst to develop there simulation software!
Open Robotics Platform
CoroWare Open Robotics Platform
BeeBot
BeeBot programmable robot for small children.
Hamburger making NXT Robot
Building Robots for Fun and Learning
Don’t worry if you missed this one, you can watch most of the presentations on the web, you can also mark your calendar for future events….just go to the link below:
