Slax OS and DSL

Today, Loriann, Shoniece, and Jasmine, helped with a couple of installations of Slax and DSL on a couple of our machines.  Then ... they discovered the Linux games on the Slax OS and it was all over.  They found a game that similar to Tron meets Racquetball.  Hours of enjoyment!
On a side note, the girls brought over the machines from our old Tech Club room.  In the future, we will put these to good use, but for now... they shall collect Smith Hall dust.  No Tech Club next week.  Meetings.  -- TTFN

Programmable Logic Circuit

This was our first (and probably last) attempt at implementing our programmable logic circuit memory storage.  I think our fingers aren't small enough, steady enough, or nerdy enough to solder all those wee bits!

A Programmable Circuit

The above schematic is one for a POV Display system that works on the same principle as a Dot-Matrix printer.  You can program in graphic columns (or rows) of 8 bits each and then scroll through all of the memory.  If you move the device fast enough, you should be able to see the programmed image.  If the output LEDs were inkjets, the device would "print" the image.

KTechLab - Building a Working Memory Circuit

Today, the goal was to test out a new (to us) circuit board design app for Linux called ktechlab.  We came up with a preliminary memory circuit (just to see if we could) so in the future, we could implement it into our bot.  KTechLab was a good tool, but the Documentation is slim, and the website is down, so it was a bit of trial-and-error until we got our simulation working.  But it does indeed work.  We can store 2 bits in any of the 16 locations... that's a whopping 32 bits of memory!

Arduino UNO

Here are the Designs for an LCD Shield for an Arduino UNO.
Ingredients: 

• 10k Potentiometer
• Radio Shack Perf-Board
• An RT-204-1 (ver 2.0) 20x4 LCD
• Some salvaged Ribbon Cable from an old DVD player
• Some single strand wire & rosin core solder

We breadboarded it last week, and now it's time to solder it all together!

 The "}" is the ribbon cable which breaks out into 6 wires to connect to the Arduino UNO Board.

Uno Uno Uno Uno

The UNO came in this week, and we were tinkering around with it, making sure the darned thing actually works!  and... indeed it does.  Now, we need to figure out how to implement it into our Robot!

Programmable Logic Circuits

Today we researched Programmable Logic Circuits, and specifically how to store data using an 8 bit bus.  (We also ordered our Arduino Uno!)

Well, they were wrong then... weren't they?!

So-- we finally have created the monster.  The 1st Aggie-bot was born today, October 19th, 2010 at 4:06pm.  Since it's still young, we haven't yet given it a name (or even a gender), and it is completely immobile.

The original design was modified slightly during construction to rectify a minor glitch in the purchased parts... the push-button switches we got default to "open", so the whole remote controller was reversed... up was on... and down was off.

We spent the better half of the meeting trying to manufacture wheels that were light enough for the Hi-speed servos to spin and propel the Aggie-bot... all to no avail.  So we came up with a new design that involves a rubber band drive chain for each servo, and we'll most likely use much larger wheels in the back (making the Aggie-bot Rear-wheel drive).

That's all for now!

Still in Pieces

Well--- today we discovered that we needed a new bread-board for the chassis, so it looks like we'll be building NEXT week.

The Beasty's in Pieces

All the pieces are spread out, and we're inventorying for the build next week.

The Birth of imagiNation

Hello, and Welcome back to yet another year of the Aggie Tech Club.  This afternoon, amidst the pouring rain, we brainstormed and designed our first project of the year... a remote controlled robot!

Here are the sketches and an early computerized design:

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Tearing it up once again

Today Owen, Shoniece, and Jasmine took apart various electronic gadgets searching for parts to build with.
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Owen installed a bootable Ubuntu v9 onto a thumb-drive for college use.
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The girls worked on making videos using MPEG technology.

Tearin it up.

Today, Rob and Owen took apart several electrical gadgets trying to understand how they worked.

Batteries Not Included

Today we began to make a Battery Pack out of Nickels, Pennies, and H2O.  We tested it on a LED (light emitting diode), and discovered that the Water was not much of an electrolyte.  Next time we'll add salt.

We also discussed some of the ways to help the seniors use Linux when they get to college.  One way would be to create a bootable jump drive.

The Open Source DVD Player and Cities of Tech Club

Jasmine and Shoneice discovered the beauty of Cities made of Motherboards while Owen continued to configure a machine to serve as an Open Source DVD Player using Slitaz (a 30MB Linux Based O.S.).  We did have several visitors today as well!  Must be getting close to graduation!

Tech Club Cancelled due to Rain

It's strange because in Spain, the rain stays mainly in the plains, but on the North Shore, it stays mainly in peoples basements!

Tie Day Extravaganza!

Jasmine, Shoniece and Brian evaluated several online methods of tying a tie.  One of the best resources we found was : Tie-A-Tie.net

Owen Tears apart the NEC

While discussing a bit of Gravitational Physics, Owen was able to dismantle an old (1992) NEC Desktop. We discovered that it's processor (an Intel i486 SL) was the first processor specifically designed for a laptop computer. I think in the future, we will try to put its LCD keyboard display to good use using HackADay.com as a reference. We'll need to look up how to control it.

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Also, we burned a Ubuntu Boot CD for his computer at home.

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The Finality of the Laptop Destruction

2 Things. Owen finally salvaged bits and pieces of that high-end laptop. After learning a bit about integrated Circuits... Also we uncovered a hidden mini-wireless card! Treasure at last!

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Nathan successfully installed his first Native Windows app on his linux box. And spent the remainder of the meeting blogging away.

Stop Motion Animation & Slax

Today we welcomed Julie to the club. She created a stop motion video of a Barking Dog using Linux, a web cam, and a Chalk Board. She plans on making instructional videos in this style.

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Nathan worked on his Slax distribution.