Here Comes Dat Engineering Blog

Trust me, I'm an engineer!

[rex-vandalorum-deactivated20180]

A political system

Where you should be more worried about the goings on in City Hall than Congress.

[circuittech-blog]

We really engineered our drivebase... This took about 1.5 hours to do! Having an awesome programming backend and solid robot base ROCKS!

[circuittech-blog]

(Works in 2.x and 3.x, using Tkinter to display)

Enjoy!

[circuittech-blog]

Upcoming preview of a game I'm making: TranCyst.

It's a JRPG in pixel art style. When everything is done, it _should_ be cross-platform. Should.

It's a puzzle/hack and slash game. No battle sequences.

You will be able to individually control players. Yeah. That's right- no parties. (Maybe. I might add in a way to make your group come together and move as one later on. But its needed for the game to play.)

I'm looking for help on this! I need/want:

1. Plot help! I'm going for a system shock/underground/dystopian future type feel.

2. GRAPHICS HELP! I need sprites and maps and such for this. Duh. Going for MOTHER 3 Style graphics.

3. Music/Sounds! Maybe. I could do without them. But would be a nice touch.

I'll credit you and such, heartily! Like, your name would go before mine.

[circuittech-blog]

I finished!

[circuittech-blog]

Marshmallow gun control system is coming along!

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The basic maths behind my arm. It uses this to plot points in its "A-Z" plane rather than some arbitary arcs. To produce lines, it iterates through a number of points along a vector, simulating a line (Though you can't tell the difference, as each point is 1/6" apart.).

[circuittech-blog]

So I kinda just... threw this together in a few hours.

Its gonna be a pretty awesome fair project when I'm all finished.

Ill post up a diagram/thing with all the maths behind this... because there is really a lot more than meets the eye here.

[how-can-you-really-deactivated2]

In a strafing kilough drivetrain, for omni wheels are arranged in a pattern similar to this, with 90 degrees between each wheel. With 90 degrees between each wheel, all wheels lie perpendicular to the “turning circle” of the robot. It seems that the same principal would apply with standard FRC robot wheels, to a lesser extent. A very small alignment change may be detrimental to the forward-backwards motion of the robot, but would aid in turning.

[circuittech-blog]

This would be very detrimental. Especially to low speed movement.

[circuittech-blog]

Fancy Pancy Driverstation

So, on MetalCow we made a fancy pancy driverstation. I uploaded a pic, and the electrical skematic of the light.

NOTE: Our light was soldered backwards after some issues and we didn't feel like physically fixing it, so thats why the code is different than you might expect.

Here's the code once everything is setup:

#include <Servo.h>

Servo lights;

const int sensorPin = A0;

void setup(){

  Serial.begin(9600);

  lights.attach(13);

}

int i;

bool up;

int prog;

void loop(){

  if(analogRead(sensorPin)<256){

  if(i<=-50)

    up=true;

  else if(i>=90)

    up=false;

  if(up)

    i++;

  else

    i--;

  lights.write(i);

  delay(6);

  }else if(analogRead(sensorPin)<512){

    if(i<=-50)

    up=true;

  else if(i>=90)

    up=false;

  if(up)

    i++;

  else

    i--;

  lights.write(i);

  delay(2);

  }else if(analogRead(sensorPin)<750){

    lights.write(90);

    delay(5);

    lights.write(0);

    delay(5);

  }else{

    lights.write(70);

  }

     }

[circuittech-blog]

Controlling FRC motor controllers (Victors, Jaguars, Spikes) with an arduino!

Well I was doing some thinking, and knowing that IFI Spike Relays run off a very simple signal, I thought, why not control them with an Arduino?

So I did, and went on to control all the stuff.

(Note: I'm not going to tell you how to wire power to everything... you should be smart enough to make this happen. Arduinos, Jags, Vics, and Spikes all run happily off of 9v batteries though. All of them also work off the FRC batteries wonderfully.)

1. Relays

Plug one signal pin right into a digital pin on the Arduino, and another to another port, and put a wire from the ground on the board to the relay's ground. (The ground pin is the one closest to the center of the spike, the signal pins are the other two.) Then paste this function into your arduino code:

void RunRelay(int pin1, int pin2, int dir){

  if(dir==1){

    digitalWrite(pin1,HIGH);

    digitalWrite(pin2,LOW);

  }else if(dir==-1){

    digitalWrite(pin2,HIGH);

    digitalWrite(pin1,LOW);

  }else if(dir==2){

    digitalWrite(pin1,HIGH);

    digitalWrite(pin2,HIGH);

  }else{

    digitalWrite(pin1,LOW);

    digitalWrite(pin2,LOW); 

  }

}

It works like a charm. Setup the pins you are running the relay off of to output values. Pass the two pins the spike is hooked up to, and the direction (-1 for reverse, 0 for off, 1 for Forward, 2 for both poles on) to the function RunRelay and you're good to go.

2. Jaguars/Talons

If you don't already know, motor controllers use a servo-style PWM signal. So, obviously, you would make code that treats them as servos. It works.

<code>

#include <Servo.h>

Servo jag;

const int jagpin=8;

void setup(){

  pinMode(jagpin, OUTPUT);

  jag.attach(jagpin);

}

void loop(){

  jag.write(0);

  delay(500);

  jag.write(90);

  delay(500);

  jag.write(180);

  delay(500);

}

</code>

Change jagpin to whatever you want, provided it is a PWM capable port. Hook up the signal wire (outermost pin on the PWM port on the Jag or victor) to said port, and the ground (innermost on the Jag or Victor) to the Arduino's ground. (Like in the photo) You do not need power for Victors and Jaguars, though you can hook it up anyways. (It doesn't change anything, only servos need power) You can write values anywhere from 0 to 180, and this gives you the full range of power on both controllers.

Have fun with being able to control lots of current off a Arduino with fancy equipment!