Sincere thanks to all who contributed to this project. This effort would not have been possible without Sphero’s generous donation and technical staff support. Thanks also to my colleagues and teaching assistants in the Furman Physics department, the Lab Kit recipients, and—most of all—my students in Physics 111 during the pandemic.
I have been spending considerable time this summer looking at the sensor board of the Sphero Mini as a tool for doing at home physics labs. A first cut is shown in my YouTube video “At Home Physics Labs with Sphero Sensor Board”
A team of Furman students, faculty and staff has been selected as one the the three finalists for the 2014 AUVSI Drone Prize. The prize was created by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International to encourage enthusiasts and non-profit organizations to demonstrate beneficial applications for hobby-level Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS), commonly known as “drones.” The Furman team will be traveling to Bend, Oregon on August 22, 23 & 24 to participate in a series of competitions that will determine the overall winner of the prize.
Here’s a video summary of the autonomous missions flown with the DJI iPad Ground Station:
We’ve been working with Mike Winiski and his students in their GIS studies:
So here it is the middle of March 2014 and I find myself running at least six months behind in keeping this website current. The biggest Furman Physics STEM news of these last six months has been the acquisition of two quadcopter drones by the Physics Department. In September 2013 we purchased a DJI Phantom version 1.1.1 with a GoPro Hero3+ camera mounted on a Zenmuse H3 D2 gyrostabilized gimbal. Just a few weeks ago we added a Phantom 2 which much greater flight times; we are awaiting delivery of a FLIR Tau 2 – 336 infrared camera to be used with the Phantom 2.
Why this activity?
• Teaching enrichment/enhancement in lecture/laboratory settings
• Student research projects in Physics
• Research collaboration with Earth and Environmental Sciences Dept. (and other departments)
• Recruiting tool for Physics Dept.
• Public Relations tool for Furman University
Here’s a public relations type video that we posted back in November 2013:
On March 26, 2013 Furman hosted a workshop “Introduction to Microcontrollers.” This half-day introduction to Atmel microcontrollers was conducted by Mr. Bob Martin, who is the manager of the MCU Central Applications group at Atmel Corporation, San Jose, California. Atmel is a leading manufacturer of semiconductors and microcontrollers for consumer, communications, computer networking, industrial, medical, automotive, aerospace and military markets. The workshop was attended by faculty, staff and students from departments of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science. Approximately 40 participants gained hands-on experience with state-of-the-art microcontroller programming and applications, as taught by an industry leader in the field. The workshop was organized by Prof. John Conrad of the Furman Physics Department.
The purpose of the workshop was to introduce members of the Furman community to current industrial practices in embedded systems technology. Embedded systems are involved in almost every facet of modern life. Cell phones, pagers, answering machines, microwave ovens, televisions, VCRs, CD/DVD players, video game consoles, GPS devices, network routers, fax machines, cameras, music synthesizers, planes, spacecraft, boats, and cars all contain embedded processors. Late model cars may contain as many as 65 embedded microprocessors, controlling such tasks as antilock braking, climate control, engine control, audio system control, airbag deployment, etc. Logic analyzers and digital storage oscilloscopes utilize embedded processors to support real-time operation. The tremendous number of applications for embedded computing has given rise to high demand for scientists and engineers with experience in designing and implementing embedded systems. The Atmel Workshop on Microcontrollers gave students, faculty and staff hands-on experience and opportunities for experimentation in this exciting field.
We are still waiting for the official press release announcement of the contest results from Atmel–they promise it will be online “very soon!” In the meantime, I’m getting lots of questions along the lines of “What were the rules of the contest?…What was Aldo supposed to do?…”
Here’s the answer regarding the playing field task:
The task protocol that Atmel established for the competition was designed to emulate a warehouse inventory robot. Four balls–two ping pong balls and two golf balls–are lined up on an array of pedestals. The order of the four balls is random, and at the outset is unknown by the robot. The robot is required to navigate autonomously (following an optical sensor) to the first pedestal position where it stops (another optical sensor), picks up the ball, and determines whether the ball is a ping pong ball or a golf ball (using a load cell sensor to weigh the ball). The robot then navigates a somewhat tortuous path to drop the ping pong balls in one receptacle bin, and the golf balls in a different bin. The robot then returns to the second pedestal, etc. and repeats this procedure until all four balls are retrieved, sorted, transported in delivered. Again, this entire procedure is done autonomously by the robot.
The students put on a quick reprise of the Maker Faire performance for a photoshoot this afternoon. The Furman photographer was shooting only stills, but I shot a brief amateur video clip:
Today’s the day! The competition starts at noon today. The last time I heard from the team was shortly before midnight. They’re doing some last minute fine tuning. At midnight, they called and said they were stuck with one final problem: the golf balls were being taken to the correct bins, but not the ping pong balls. They were stumped. I told them they were sleep deprived, and that they should hit the sack and solve it this morning.
8am
I still haven’t heard from them. I suspect they stayed up all night. It’s just like talking to your own kids. You tell them to do something. They say “yeah, yeah” and then they completely ignore you. For the last week or so, every time I have told them not to pull an all-nighter, they have ignored me, stayed up insanely late, and then made incredible progress. Sigh.
9am
Amazing. They stayed up until around 3am, and got the final bug (there’s always one more bug) fixed.
11am T minus one hour
The team is sending me raw cel phone video clips; the quality isn’t great, but it’s timely! Here’s a clip they just sent:
Here’s the quote from the text that accompanied the above video: “There is this little kid that is super intrigued by our robot. Ha Ha!”
1pm
They just finished their run for Round One. The cel phone connection was less than ideal, but it sounds as if they did very well. Their time to pick up and deposit the four balls was the best, but they had to give a nudge or two to Aldo during the run, so they’ll lose some points for that. Instead of the formal oral presentation that they had been told they were going to have to do, there was an oral Q&A session with the panel of judges (which I assume are all Atmel staff?). The team thought they did well on those questions. I’m betting they did very well; Furman students are excellent communicators, and the team knows their stuff.
Round Two starts soon.
5pm They won Second Place!
Just got a phone call and texts from the team; they won SECOND PLACE! Chaotic phone connection, but here’s their verbatim text:
“After a long couple of days and a lot of hard work, our teamwork has paid off! We are proud to say that we won second place! We were able to meet some awesome people, both from other teams and from Atmel, and this trip has been an amazing experience!”
— Furman Robotics Team
… and all I can say, is
“Well done, team!”
— Prof. John R. Conrad
Second Prize Winners at the 2012 Atmel Robotics Contest: Kristina Pardo, Andrea Fant, Haris Kahn, and Evdokiya Kostadinova.
They made it! Of course the flight was delayed, and it was raining, and there were puddles of water on the floor inside the tent where the competition will be, but they made it. Here are some pictures that the team has been sending me:
Aldo meets Moustache Man:
Text message from from the team on Friday, 6pm: "By the way, here is a picture of Aldo with someone at the Maker Faire."
Andrea dons a USB bracelet:
Text message from from the team on Friday, 8pm: "Andrea keeps forgetting to plug in the USB when we want to make changes to the code, so we had to tape it to her hand."
When Life Gives You Lemons,…
… make lemonade, right? Make robots? Nope, make a mustache and goo, goo, goggly eyes to put on the robot! About a week ago, one of the last remaining problems the team had to face was spurious RF noise from the motor brushes playing havoc with the microprocessor and making the robot claw arm go nuts. The arm was jiggling so much that the balls were flying out of the scoop, even when Aldo was standing still. I think this happened either very late one night, or in the wee hours of the early morning. The problem was a potential showstopper, and they were running out of time. Could have been a pretty devastating low point. But did they despair? Nope. First they first made lemonade out of lemons by adding the mustache and goggly eyes. Then they fixed the problem the next day. Here’s a video (thanks to my son Jeff for the editing and original score soundtrack):
