Assembly language code in notepad2 in foreground /* my assignment for my favourite course this semeser, read Micoprocessor Programming and Interfacing*/; and cute YUNA from final fantasy in background.... /* Animated characters are also really sexy, and this one's really a lot for us BITSian :P */ I love them both.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
My current favourite screenshot...
Assembly language code in notepad2 in foreground /* my assignment for my favourite course this semeser, read Micoprocessor Programming and Interfacing*/; and cute YUNA from final fantasy in background.... /* Animated characters are also really sexy, and this one's really a lot for us BITSian :P */ I love them both.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Baithe baithe kya kare???
'Principles of management'.... have test in another six and a half hour. Damn it, these test series...
Had MATLAB test yesterdy 1600 hrs, then this POM test today 0900 hrs. Loads of other components also waiting in for this week.. guss By the way.. its 0223 hrs at the moment.
Was really getting pissed off with the course... thought of writing a post.. dint get any nice idea...
Then just gen multicasted to all the hostel inmates (around 260 online at the moment) on the ip msgngr....
Had MATLAB test yesterdy 1600 hrs, then this POM test today 0900 hrs. Loads of other components also waiting in for this week.. guss By the way.. its 0223 hrs at the moment.
Was really getting pissed off with the course... thought of writing a post.. dint get any nice idea...
Then just gen multicasted to all the hostel inmates (around 260 online at the moment) on the ip msgngr....
Do you know what's the effect of varying magnetic field due to jupiter's satellite, Titan, on EM waves carrying voice signals in copper wires at depth 30.67856 m below sea level in south american nations??
And hey... I even got a few replies... which included 'lolz' by my school and now BITSian friend Shubhayan...being the shortest conversation...
But a few conversations on the topic did last a bit long..
one of them..
Me : Do you know what's the effect of varying magnetic field due to jupiter's satellite, Titan, on EM waves carrying voice signals in copper wires at depth 30.67856 m below sea level in south american nations??
Please help... its urgent.
Unknown1: they turn into worms and sharks eat them
Me : hey, they are not underwater, usage of sea level is just to specify the depth precisely
Another one
Me : Do you know what's the effect of varying magnetic field due to jupiter's satellite, Titan, on EM waves carrying voice signals in copper wires at depth 30.67856 m below sea level in south american nations??
Please help... its urgent.
Unknown2 : Please use wiki or google
Me: thanx... i got the result.. thanks anyways
Unknown2 : what is it???
Me : No effect... that varying field is perfectly shielded by the 30.67856m soil cover over it, in addition to the plastic cover over them
Unkown2 : k
These above two conversations are purely based on my memory, except for the query raised in the very first message... and my memory dint help me much in remmebering the names of the guys
the longest one being...
Me : Do you know what's the effect of varying magnetic field due to jupiter's satellite, Titan, on EM waves carrying voice signals in copper wires at depth 30.67856 m below sea level in south american
nations??
Please help... its urgent.
Sastry : It has effect on some people who go crazy and start asking such idiotic questions.......
Me : Can we find such people outside south america???
Sastry : yeah......u know who it is!!!!!!!!!
Me : O ya.. those who have no other work than to ask such ques....
and also... those who bother to answer them
Sastry : U are wrong.....those are the people who keep on sending multicasts.....
Me : really???
I guess u r right... this damn wiki is no longer reliable... i got the prev result from der only
Sastry : i guess u have only posted that!!!!
Me : i searched... i got the result... :)
Sastry : i was speaking of what could have happened before u searched.
Me : oh.. is it...lemme try some other link in that case...
coz i know..
seniors are always right...
juniors are always wrong...
:P
Sastry : I think u made a deliberate mistake in the use of smiley........
Me : :D
Sastry : Guess....u don't have a proper understanding of the three golden laws of BITS
Me : U are right.. :P
Sastry : well....do u mind coming to my room once so tha i can know what exactly is right.
Me : each and every statemnt given by you is totalling right :D
Sastry : in that case....good night!!!!
Me : sorry for bothering u so much... was really getting bored with POM :)
good night
Sastry : k
This text has not been editing, just formatted a bit. Thanks to google desktop scratch pad.
Yeah... there are lotsa other people like me... :D
By the way, this sastry guy seems to be a fourth yearite /* from his room number*/
Anyways... I guess now I should concentrate on managing my grades a lil' with 'Principles of management'
FIND OF THE DAY : Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
Hey, what pig are you talking about???
Saturday, April 07, 2007
MICROMOUSE
So, now lets just concentrate on the cynosure for us this techfest and this APOGEE.
MICRMOUSE : Micromouse is an event where small robot mice solve a 16x16 maze. It began in late 1970s, although there is some indication of events in 1950. Events are held worldwide, and are most popular in the UK, US, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. In India, the contest is being held in IIT-Bombay during its technical festival for past few years. Our MICROMOUSE
And this chart was prepared by me, though I like drawing and painting and stuff... but again, advertising is not my cup of tea.
We worked for whole of Feb and March to make our mouse move. The problem with the one which we took to Mumbai was that it was too heavy to lit itself, so, we decided to send it to VLCC for the weight los program. As a result, we got a new chasis, fabricated wih aluminium /* instead of cheed wood, which we used earlier */, at my room. Wings were fabricated with bakelite /* blank PCB board :P */. Also, we reduced the number of sensors to three on each side wing, from four. One of the biggest trouble, which stil doesnot have a satisfactory solution was the castor wheel. We couldnot find a light weight castor wheel. And finally what we put is a small trailing wheel, steered by a DC motor. Though we are not using proper steernig, we are just having on the spot turn. So, the steering wheel is either parallel or perpendicular to the two control wheels.
If I have to describe it, it is like, on the input side, we have eight IR sensors, two on the front wing, three on each side wing. The advantage of such positioning of sensor is that as the sensor are downward facing, they donot hae trouble with ambient light, as can be the case with many IR sensors. Apart from that, this design is easiest to work on :P. The two front sensor are to detect the front walls and to avoid head-on collision with a wall in case of some mishappening. The three sensors on each wing, the centre one helps to detect if there is a wall in a particular grid or not while the other two on each wing helps in maintaining a straight path while moving. That is the input part.
Now, for processing, we used Philips P89C51RD2 microcontroller, with 64K coding area and 2K RAM. Thoguh generally, people dont prefer Philips microcontroller, Atmel and PIC are the big names in the field, but we had to go for this one as we found programmer for this one only. A programmer is a hardware device which helps in gettng the code from the computer to the microcontroller.
On the output side, we had two stepper motor /* this pair we got from Lamington, Mumbai */ which are diretly attached to the two wheels. Stpper motors give better accuracy, though they take up more current as compared to geared DC motor, but stepper motors are fairly simple to use, and hey, this was our first hand in robotics, so we played safe by going with this one. Aprat from that, we had a DC motor aso to steer, which I had mentioned earlier.
The electronis included obviusosly the controller P89C51RD2. On the input side, we directly took the output of IR sensors to muC. These sensors ON2509, are proximity sensors, with a really short range of approx. 1 cm. They give high if they detect something. On the output side, we gave output to two L297, stepper motor controller, thourgh a buffer, and the to ULN2803, current amplifier, and then to the two stepper motors. Though we could had avoided L297, but t just made coding a little bit simpler. Also, we had DC motor connected through L298, which acts as a H-bridge, as we required bi-directional DC motor control, and a current amplifier as well. But he biggest rouble which is still there is, we are not able to run it on batreries, its getting too heavy with them, mayb we need better and lighter batteries, and that's the bigest drawback, being in pilani, lack of resources. Well, for electronics, me and gautam were there, supporterd by mr. L V Sumanth /* to be referred as Su here onwards */ for soldering.
Now for the algorithm we applied, we used Depth first search for exploring the maze and Breadth first search for finding the shortest path. I worked on the code just for interfacing, i mean I/O control. Rest, the algorithm part was taken care by karan bathla, the fourth member of the league.
And the mechnical design was completely handled by mr. Su. The mechnical part included chasis design and fabrication, which was done in my room only with aluminium :). And also, DC motor and small steering wheel was also his idea, when we gave up on castor. Though this mr. su is a comp sci student, his knowledge and understanding specially for automobiles is too good. A few pics of fabrication.
This wasnt the final circuitery, we resoldered it all.
And yeah.. the name.. we are stil lookig for a name for our mouse. When we went to mumbai, we called it 'Ram Bharose', and this new improved verison is called 'Mann Mauji', though not ofically. Still looking for some name.... suggestions are most welcome. And mayb if the name suggested by you is selected, you'll win a free lunch(box) from me :P.* So, our micromouse expert comittee :P /* in alphabetic order*/
Gautam Chaudhari
Karan bathla
L V Sumanth
Rishi Mathur
* Conditions apply. You need to apply for the contest through the prescribed form, which will be made available form a later date, which wil be intimated soon. I won't courier/parcel the gift. You'll have to collect that from me, and you'll have to notify me six working days in advance if you wish to claim your prize, after the contest results are declared FIND OF THE DAY : Why be difficult when you can be impossible
MICRMOUSE : Micromouse is an event where small robot mice solve a 16x16 maze. It began in late 1970s, although there is some indication of events in 1950. Events are held worldwide, and are most popular in the UK, US, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. In India, the contest is being held in IIT-Bombay during its technical festival for past few years. Our MICROMOUSE
And this chart was prepared by me, though I like drawing and painting and stuff... but again, advertising is not my cup of tea.
We worked for whole of Feb and March to make our mouse move. The problem with the one which we took to Mumbai was that it was too heavy to lit itself, so, we decided to send it to VLCC for the weight los program. As a result, we got a new chasis, fabricated wih aluminium /* instead of cheed wood, which we used earlier */, at my room. Wings were fabricated with bakelite /* blank PCB board :P */. Also, we reduced the number of sensors to three on each side wing, from four. One of the biggest trouble, which stil doesnot have a satisfactory solution was the castor wheel. We couldnot find a light weight castor wheel. And finally what we put is a small trailing wheel, steered by a DC motor. Though we are not using proper steernig, we are just having on the spot turn. So, the steering wheel is either parallel or perpendicular to the two control wheels.
If I have to describe it, it is like, on the input side, we have eight IR sensors, two on the front wing, three on each side wing. The advantage of such positioning of sensor is that as the sensor are downward facing, they donot hae trouble with ambient light, as can be the case with many IR sensors. Apart from that, this design is easiest to work on :P. The two front sensor are to detect the front walls and to avoid head-on collision with a wall in case of some mishappening. The three sensors on each wing, the centre one helps to detect if there is a wall in a particular grid or not while the other two on each wing helps in maintaining a straight path while moving. That is the input part.
Now, for processing, we used Philips P89C51RD2 microcontroller, with 64K coding area and 2K RAM. Thoguh generally, people dont prefer Philips microcontroller, Atmel and PIC are the big names in the field, but we had to go for this one as we found programmer for this one only. A programmer is a hardware device which helps in gettng the code from the computer to the microcontroller.
On the output side, we had two stepper motor /* this pair we got from Lamington, Mumbai */ which are diretly attached to the two wheels. Stpper motors give better accuracy, though they take up more current as compared to geared DC motor, but stepper motors are fairly simple to use, and hey, this was our first hand in robotics, so we played safe by going with this one. Aprat from that, we had a DC motor aso to steer, which I had mentioned earlier.
The electronis included obviusosly the controller P89C51RD2. On the input side, we directly took the output of IR sensors to muC. These sensors ON2509, are proximity sensors, with a really short range of approx. 1 cm. They give high if they detect something. On the output side, we gave output to two L297, stepper motor controller, thourgh a buffer, and the to ULN2803, current amplifier, and then to the two stepper motors. Though we could had avoided L297, but t just made coding a little bit simpler. Also, we had DC motor connected through L298, which acts as a H-bridge, as we required bi-directional DC motor control, and a current amplifier as well. But he biggest rouble which is still there is, we are not able to run it on batreries, its getting too heavy with them, mayb we need better and lighter batteries, and that's the bigest drawback, being in pilani, lack of resources. Well, for electronics, me and gautam were there, supporterd by mr. L V Sumanth /* to be referred as Su here onwards */ for soldering.
Now for the algorithm we applied, we used Depth first search for exploring the maze and Breadth first search for finding the shortest path. I worked on the code just for interfacing, i mean I/O control. Rest, the algorithm part was taken care by karan bathla, the fourth member of the league.
And the mechnical design was completely handled by mr. Su. The mechnical part included chasis design and fabrication, which was done in my room only with aluminium :). And also, DC motor and small steering wheel was also his idea, when we gave up on castor. Though this mr. su is a comp sci student, his knowledge and understanding specially for automobiles is too good. A few pics of fabrication.
This wasnt the final circuitery, we resoldered it all.
And yeah.. the name.. we are stil lookig for a name for our mouse. When we went to mumbai, we called it 'Ram Bharose', and this new improved verison is called 'Mann Mauji', though not ofically. Still looking for some name.... suggestions are most welcome. And mayb if the name suggested by you is selected, you'll win a free lunch(box) from me :P.* So, our micromouse expert comittee :P /* in alphabetic order*/
Gautam Chaudhari
Karan bathla
L V Sumanth
Rishi Mathur
* Conditions apply. You need to apply for the contest through the prescribed form, which will be made available form a later date, which wil be intimated soon. I won't courier/parcel the gift. You'll have to collect that from me, and you'll have to notify me six working days in advance if you wish to claim your prize, after the contest results are declared FIND OF THE DAY : Why be difficult when you can be impossible
APOGEE2K7
After the unforgettable experience @ techfest'07, there was this APOGEE2K7, our technical festival, which kept me busy.
APOGEE2K7, scheduled from 20-24th March'07, adn I guess am a bit too late to advertise for it :P.
So, my second APOGEE, this time I was supposed to bring up much more. I gave it my all, and thank you my lord for helping me live upto the expectations, we bagged second position in Projects in Automation category, and also, second in the event called Embedded Brains.
This one was a pretty nice experience, as I not only participated but had a say in organizational part as well :). Though got a setback, as one of the event which I initiated dint get good response, but never mind, I had a really nice experience in preparing for it, though in the end, I accept it was a miss. But hey, just have a look, this poster isn't that bad at all.
This is not the final one. I designed it, my idea, and the idea of hte event was like, thi swas upposed to be an instrument design event, wherein participants had to design and implement an instrument to achieve a given task, from a given set of components. And yeah, this had multiple solutions, some difficult, but advantageuos, some easy, but not too flexible. I did a lot of homework for this one from technical point, but I guess it lacked publicity, I need to improve in these non-technical skills, and that's the thing which I dun like. But I guess I'll have to manage that also. Yeah, this was a real big miss.
,br> And hey hey hey... I dint mention about what made me keep up to the expectations, I dint mention what helped me and the three others to get to the stage and get the certs...
It was MICROMOUSE, yeah the one which we prepared for IIT-B techfest. Though it was not functioncal when we took it to Mumbai, but after returning from there, we spent two more months, and made it move. More of it in the next post.
APOGEE2K7, scheduled from 20-24th March'07, adn I guess am a bit too late to advertise for it :P.
So, my second APOGEE, this time I was supposed to bring up much more. I gave it my all, and thank you my lord for helping me live upto the expectations, we bagged second position in Projects in Automation category, and also, second in the event called Embedded Brains.
This one was a pretty nice experience, as I not only participated but had a say in organizational part as well :). Though got a setback, as one of the event which I initiated dint get good response, but never mind, I had a really nice experience in preparing for it, though in the end, I accept it was a miss. But hey, just have a look, this poster isn't that bad at all.
This is not the final one. I designed it, my idea, and the idea of hte event was like, thi swas upposed to be an instrument design event, wherein participants had to design and implement an instrument to achieve a given task, from a given set of components. And yeah, this had multiple solutions, some difficult, but advantageuos, some easy, but not too flexible. I did a lot of homework for this one from technical point, but I guess it lacked publicity, I need to improve in these non-technical skills, and that's the thing which I dun like. But I guess I'll have to manage that also. Yeah, this was a real big miss.
,br> And hey hey hey... I dint mention about what made me keep up to the expectations, I dint mention what helped me and the three others to get to the stage and get the certs...
It was MICROMOUSE, yeah the one which we prepared for IIT-B techfest. Though it was not functioncal when we took it to Mumbai, but after returning from there, we spent two more months, and made it move. More of it in the next post.
Techfest '07 ++
Seems I am bit lazy these days... for blogging atleast.
Well, it actually is, most of the time I have so much to write but so little time, that I postpone the task. But fine, lets give a try, to cover up as much as I can in this one.
The last post had a mention of my visit to Techfest'07. Basically, once I had strated preparing for that, and got into robotics, I have really kept me busy in that.
In techfest'07, I participated in codemastroes, a complete event for a computer buff /* like me :P*/, which had it all, programming, algorithms, debugging, gaming and all. We dint fare well, stood 7th among the 20 finalists chosen before the fest throgh online elims. Though actually, we were pretty happy just to qualify, dint had much hopes before that. So, for that seventh position, got some goodies from google and Nvidia.
Another event, which was more important for me than this one, though I wasn't registered in it, but I spent over two months for that ( Nov'06 - Jan'07), it was Micormouse. Our very first experience in robotics, and that too with AI and all. From the very first day when we started working on it way back in Nov, we were not sure about even if we'll be able to qualify or not, but still, we tried our best. The result was not so good, we lacked a bit in mechnical part, the electroncs was fine, the code was fine, but we made a few wrong selections in motor and chasis and as a result our mosue was not ablt to move, though if you lift it in air, then one can see that motors were moving perfectly.
Never mind, this was our first experience in robotics, are we were glad to do this much on our own.
There were other civil people also with us on the trip. We dint got much prizes from campus, but had a really nice experience there, which we do value.
But hey, the trip is not yer over. After three days on campus, we went to Gautam's home. There were eigth of us. The next day was Essel World. Had loads and loads of fun there. But unfortunately forgot our digicam, so cant share those moments in visual with you. Bu that day was absolutely fabulous. And after Essel World, we went to Gorai beach, not a famous one in Mumbai, but thatwas adjacent to Essel world. And that was my first encounter with sea. Its so nice to see the sea.. its all over.. seems like this is the edge the world. Spent arounf an hour therem collected some broken sea shells and then returned back. While returning, we thought of going to Marine Drive, but a few of us were too tired, so ended our trip after beach only.
The next day, I went to Lamington road, paradise for electronics buffs, with gautam. Alas, we dint had much time that day, we planned to get lots of stuff from that place, but when the market was in full flow, we had to return back, train was scheduled for 1850 hrs and we had to reach home by 1500 hrs. We just managed to get a pair of stepper motors, really small one, and which do hold an important position these days. And a little of other stuff, for our seniors.
This marked the end of our week long trip to MUMBAI.. it rocks
Certainely a HIT
FIND OF THE DAY : The road to success is filled with free parking spots.
Well, it actually is, most of the time I have so much to write but so little time, that I postpone the task. But fine, lets give a try, to cover up as much as I can in this one.
The last post had a mention of my visit to Techfest'07. Basically, once I had strated preparing for that, and got into robotics, I have really kept me busy in that.
In techfest'07, I participated in codemastroes, a complete event for a computer buff /* like me :P*/, which had it all, programming, algorithms, debugging, gaming and all. We dint fare well, stood 7th among the 20 finalists chosen before the fest throgh online elims. Though actually, we were pretty happy just to qualify, dint had much hopes before that. So, for that seventh position, got some goodies from google and Nvidia.
Another event, which was more important for me than this one, though I wasn't registered in it, but I spent over two months for that ( Nov'06 - Jan'07), it was Micormouse. Our very first experience in robotics, and that too with AI and all. From the very first day when we started working on it way back in Nov, we were not sure about even if we'll be able to qualify or not, but still, we tried our best. The result was not so good, we lacked a bit in mechnical part, the electroncs was fine, the code was fine, but we made a few wrong selections in motor and chasis and as a result our mosue was not ablt to move, though if you lift it in air, then one can see that motors were moving perfectly.
Never mind, this was our first experience in robotics, are we were glad to do this much on our own.
There were other civil people also with us on the trip. We dint got much prizes from campus, but had a really nice experience there, which we do value.
But hey, the trip is not yer over. After three days on campus, we went to Gautam's home. There were eigth of us. The next day was Essel World. Had loads and loads of fun there. But unfortunately forgot our digicam, so cant share those moments in visual with you. Bu that day was absolutely fabulous. And after Essel World, we went to Gorai beach, not a famous one in Mumbai, but thatwas adjacent to Essel world. And that was my first encounter with sea. Its so nice to see the sea.. its all over.. seems like this is the edge the world. Spent arounf an hour therem collected some broken sea shells and then returned back. While returning, we thought of going to Marine Drive, but a few of us were too tired, so ended our trip after beach only.
The next day, I went to Lamington road, paradise for electronics buffs, with gautam. Alas, we dint had much time that day, we planned to get lots of stuff from that place, but when the market was in full flow, we had to return back, train was scheduled for 1850 hrs and we had to reach home by 1500 hrs. We just managed to get a pair of stepper motors, really small one, and which do hold an important position these days. And a little of other stuff, for our seniors.
This marked the end of our week long trip to MUMBAI.. it rocks
Certainely a HIT
FIND OF THE DAY : The road to success is filled with free parking spots.
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