Thursday, April 23, 2009

ASIMO - New Artificial Intelligence Demostration.

ASIMO again?

OK, I admit that I am very addicted to this dream work by HONDA. But the new ASIMO (Baby version) is really amazing, we are not talking about walking and running anymore. It is learning! ASIMO can now identify 100+ objects, and also can learn and judge the similarity of different objects. That's truly awesome. Check it out:

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Cute 10x10 LED Matrix / SHARP LT5003D

Recently, some people ask me where to find the cute 10x10 led matrix showing in my AVR LED egg project.

Photos:

You can see how small it is when compares to the normal 8x8 LED Matrix.


So where did I get it? I bought it from Tokyo, Japan. More precisely, it is Akihabara. Most of the people go there to buy anime, comic or electronic goods. But there are some shops selling electronic parts or even robot parts. Everytime, I go to Tokyo, I will go there to buy some interesting components which seems to be selling only in Japan. Between, the 10x10 Led matrix is SHARP LT5003D if you want to find it.

Photos:




People are busy finding components or parts!

Next time when you are in Tokyo, remember to go there to have a look! May be you can find some good stuffs for your next DIY project!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE - Documentary series by HONDA.

Honda presents a documentary series about their product developments which is worth to have a look if you love engineering:)



Link:
Dream the impossible - Honda

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Line Following robot in a mouse.

Got some old malfunction mouse? Let's make it as a line-following robot!



Link:
Mouse-Bot

Tiny Robot Kit Avaliable. (aka AVRKitCAR)

The Phenonstream is selling a tiny robot kit for $85, includes everything from motor, MCU, wheels, and building plates.


it looks quite solid to me. The SD card slot is actually an I2C interface to the Atmel AVRtiny84 host MCU, I am not sure how to program the AVRtiny84 with this SD card like PCB on your PC or Mac easily, may be more tutorials needed to be presented on its website. But anyway, if you are a hardcore engineer, you can just buy this kit and get the ISP pins out of it and program it yourself with your Atmel ISP programmer. Have fun!

Check out the kit:
http://www.phenostream.com/products/KIT_01.aspx

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Monday, April 6, 2009

Honda Welcome Plaza @ Tokyo (ASIMO Demostration).



Honda is one of the most admired company in the world, the company slogan is "The Power of Dreams" inspired by Honda's founder: Soichiro Honda. One of the most noticeable research by Honda is the robot: ASIMO (Advanced Step Innovative Mobility), it is nearly a public icon of the company. I went to tokyo last week, and visited the Honda Welcome Plaza which featuring ASIMO demo. I am very happy to see this masterpiece of engineering. Walking like a human, can run, talk, dance, even movement of arm is prefect. It is definely cool.

More photos:






Besides ASIMO, there are motorcyles, cars and also the HondaJet(model only). If you love Honda products, you should really go there to have look when you go to Tokyo.

Links:
Honda Welcome Plaza
Inside Honda's Brain

Sunday, April 5, 2009

LED Driving without resistor.


Tinkerlog just posted an in-depth study on what situration that the current-limiting resistor can be omitted when driving a led. If you want to save PCB space or just lazy like me, not going to add a current-limiting resistor between your MCU output and LED, you should defintely to have a look on his study!

Link:
http://tinkerlog.com/2009/04/05/driving-an-led-with-or-without-a-resistor/