jckham’s posterous

With everything, there's always a way. Just take a different approach. 

First Arduino mini-project

I just got my Arduino Mega and have been experimenting with it. Although really simple due to limited hardware, this is one of first mini-projects that I have successfully completed.

Essentially the program will boot and run the setup, increment the servo angle one degree from the initial angle position until it reaches 180 degrees. Once 180 degrees has been reached, it will tell the servo to go to zero degrees and run the incrementing loop again. While this loop runs, the green LED will shine until angles 45, 90, or 135 are hit at which the red LED will shine. Again, really simple.

Looking forward to finally being able to connect my mechanical knowledge with electrical and programming aspects!

Filed under  //   arduino   projects   video  

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Photo publication

Some of my photos for the IEEE SoutheastCon Hardware Competition in Atlanta, Georgia, back in March were used in an article recently published in the Spring/Summer 2009 Auburn Engineering Newsletter. The article turned out really well.

   
Click here to download:
Photo_publication.zip (335 KB)

Filed under  //   auburn   photography   photos   publication   robots  

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Waterfall of ideas

I don't know what it is about morning showers, but they seem to be the best time and place where thoughts and ideas seem to flow through me. The majority of my best design ideas for engineering related projects have actually propagated during my morning showers. Perhaps it's the fact that there's no distractions within the confinement of three white tub walls and nylon shower curtain, or that my mind isn't really thinking about anything and therefore is fresh.

Today's morning shower got me thinking about what if there were white board (dry-erase) wall surfaces inside of the bathtub so that I can jot down thoughts or draw diagrams as they come to me. The main concern I can think of is whether or not the water would just wash away the markings as I'm writing them. Not only that but how much water would I be wasting as I'm standing there immersed in a brilliant idea and not actually taking a bath -- this could be costly on the the water bill. I'm sure you could just purchase a dry-erase laminate and secure it to the bathtub wall in some fashion, but why not integrate it into the entire tub itself? This would be similar to a residential room that I've seen on a television show where the entire wall was a big white board from floor to ceiling.

The concept could also be fun for kids and getting them to enjoy taking baths. Sure this would contradict the idea of having a clean bathtub and add to the task of cleaning, but I'm an advocate for not limiting the minds of children and adults alike as they grow in a world of conforming to the traditional ways of learning about what is "correct". Sometimes all it takes is to do something out of the ordinary in order to see something in a new light.

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Talk about crossing the tracks...

According to this photo, the Gibraltar Airport may beat out the St. Maarten’s Princess Juliana airport for the craziest airport in the world. Just looking at this makes me wonder if there's any chance of developing a landing strip for land-to-air hybrid vehicles (i.e. flying cars) that would act as an off ramp for merging into street traffic. The opposite could be the done for land-to-air merging as well with an on ramp that served as the take-off strip. Oh the possibilities!

Filed under  //   aerial   photos   travel  

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Break time

I haven't gotten the chance to do any photography stuff in the past three to four months, and so having time to sneak out this past weekend was like rediscovering a lost hobby. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful day as well. Sure beats convoluted engineering theories and methods for calculating the gajillion aspects involved in lubricated bearings.

One thing I've learned from engineering courses is that you will never see things in life the same ever again, which is both good and bad if you think about it.

     
Click here to download:
Break_time.zip (2452 KB)

Filed under  //   photography   photos  

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Air Force visioning smaller, faster, deadlier UAVs

The Air Force has confidently announced that our UAV technology will soon be on a new level. In a nut shell, that dragonfly that you spot hovering around your garden right outside your window could soon be what the Air Force is calling a Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). These MAVs will be designed to mimic and be seen as something that belongs in the environment (i.e. birds and insects), and ultimately ignored. Also in their sights, a single pilot will be capable of simultaneously controlling up to twelve aircraft, a swarm of dragonfly-size MAVs, by 2030. Can you imagine yourself and eleven of your colleagues going into combat with 144 aerial vehicles? With improved munition capabilities AND other ground support from the other military branches, I'd say it could be a little overwhelming for the opposing side.

If this technology falls into the wrongs hands it could lead to some huge controversies and disputes if involved with privacy concerns. How much privacy do we really have now a days though? Phone line tapping, computer hacking, surveillance, and signal interceptance have been issues for the past decade already and the technology to aid them has only improved.

Being a fan of autonomous and UAV technology, I'm eager to see what this new generation of UAVs holds if they're describing current operations as "very Neanderthal."

Filed under  //   aerial   Air Force   MAV   technology   UAV  

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Wolfram|Alpha

Making the world's knowledge computable

Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.  You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.   Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing... more »

After watching the screencast and playing around with this myself, I'm very impressed at how powerful and useful this is. I'm not sure I would say it's a "Google killer", but it definitely makes things interesting. It's certainly got the potential to compete when it comes to searching and collecting data.

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This was me 10-15 years ago -_-

Filed under  //   video  

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Watching some flicks

I guess even the president makes time to just relax every so often.

Filed under  //   photos  

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Festo - Bionic Learning Network

The Bionic Tripod design is so simple , elegant and sexy that I'm speechless. I think I'm in love.

Here's a video describing more about Festo's Bionic projects. I want a personal vaulted auditorium sized room just so I can have a pack of the AirPenguins. Again...sexy.

Filed under  //   automation   bionic   engineering   mechatronics   video  

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