Author Archives: peter

Generative Art & Pen Plotters

Posted on May 31, 2022 by peter

Just operating my 3D printer have become a bit boring, so I’m interested in other uses for the gantry. Attaching a pen to the gantry to make a simple pen plotter seems like a worthy project. The plotting area will … Continue reading →

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Firefly Robots

Posted on October 13, 2021 by peter

Some fireflies exhibit a remarkable behavior where their flashes can synchronize with one another. I am interested in seeing if I can reproduce this behavior in small tabletop robots. These robots may use lights and light sensors to reproduce the … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming, Projects, Robotics, Sculpture, Toys | Leave a comment

3D Printed, Snap Fit Enclosures

Posted on September 30, 2021 by peter

This week I brought my 3D printer out from the attic because I wanted to build some electronics enclosures. I’m fairly experienced with CAD and Fusion 360. However, my experience with building boxes is limited to laser cutting. This blog … Continue reading →

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Robocars Racing

Posted on January 21, 2020 by peter

The other day a commenter to this blog’s signature included a reference to Robocar racing. I had never heard of that before and learned about an amazing activity involving developing and racing self-driving RC-style, scale-model cars. Robocars is sort of … Continue reading →

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Finicky Fiducial Frenzy

Posted on October 20, 2019 by peter

The RomiPi system uses the OpenCV standard ArucoTag system for indoor localization. Below is a picture of the markers representing the positions of robots Star, Port and French, relative to the RomiPi Jiffy. Additionally, the image shows the stream of … Continue reading →

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Indoor Mobile-Robot Localization

Posted on July 26, 2019 by peter

The RomiPi project currently uses Aruco Tags for localization! While highly accurate, there are several limitations: cameras and vision are expensive, and visual obstructions limit use of cameras for certain carrying tasks. This pose will document various technologies and products … Continue reading →

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Introducing RomiPi: A ROS Package for the Pololu Romi

Posted on May 2, 2019 by peter

The Pololu Romi with 32u4 Control Board is a robust, low-cost (<$150), educational robotics platform that supports interfacing with the Raspberry Pi computing platform. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a robotics framework used throughout academics and industry which supports … Continue reading →

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Bluetooth Joystick (DS4) with ROS

Posted on April 27, 2019 by peter

ROS on a Raspberry Pi is great, but controlling your robot with an actual joystick-style controller is even better. Follows are my notes on connecting a Playstation Dual-Shock 4 (DS4) controller to ROS on Ubuntu with ds4drv. My robotics platform … Continue reading →

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Bigger Buttons for the Pololu Zumo!

Posted on January 25, 2019 by peter

The Pololu Zumo 32u4 is an excellent educational robotics platform, but its buttons proved difficult to manipulate for some of the students in my classes. I designed these bigger buttons as an add-on for the Zumo. My hope is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Projects, Robotics, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Playing with Airfoils: NASA Prandtl-D Model Design and Build Experience Report

Posted on December 29, 2018 by peter

This post is a summary of my experience designing a model airplane flying wing based on the NASA Prandtl experimental flying wing. I then built a very simplified version with the help of Paul Voss using his CNC foam wing … Continue reading →

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