TryEngineering.org for both students & parents / IEEE

TryEngineering.org is an introductory website to engineering field by IEEE. If you are curious about what is engineering, how is engineering career, it is a good start. It also includes some educational resources for engineers.

By the way, IEEE is celebrating 125th anniversary! Check out the 125th anniversary website below.

Link
IEEE's 125th Anniversary
Try Engineering.org
IEEE

Gyroscopes VS Accelerometers.

Accelerometer is now very famous because it exits in most of the smartphones like iPhone, Android and Palm Pre. Recently, I got a RC mini-helicopter with built-in gyroscope to detect the rotational movement, it makes me interested in the differences between the two sensors. After some Googling, I found a good video tutorial that compare the two sensors. The InvenSense, whom made the Wii MotionPlus, using Gyroscopes and Accelerometers to capture precise human hand movement. The comparison video goes here:


My cheap RC mini-helicopter:

The single-axis gyroscope inside the helicopter:


It is used to detect if the helicopter rotates left or right unintentionally while the main blade is rotating. The MCU inside the helicopter would try to control another motor to rotate another blade to counter the rotation if necessary based on the gyroscope reading.

Here is my video showing the balancing control of the helicopter:


Furthermore, there are some articles worth to read:

• accelerometer and gyro, difference


• Gyrobot - a balancing robotic platform


• FAQ: What's the difference between a gyro and an accelerometer? Do I need both?


• InvenSense

ARDUWAY - Segway-like lego bot with Arduino Brain.

ADRUWAY is a segway-like, self balancing two wheels bot, which used a gyroscope to detect the tilt angle motion. Let's check out the cool video here:

Link:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1221664564/0#0

Re-Design internet router.

Internet router is a device exists in most people's house nowadays. Goldsmiths' folks decided to re-design this home device into a beautiful and functional device that can place in your home nicely. Please check out the video:



The last design is called "Jelly Fish", it is quite pretty.


Link:
http://futurerouters.com/

Motors control with MCU.

Guys from Nerdkits.com, presents "Motors and Microcontrollers 101". The tutorial covers some basic idea of motors:


Check out the complete tutorial here:
http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/motors_and_microcontrollers_101/

Getting Started with BeagleBoard, with Angstrom distribution

Beagleboard is very small but powerful, with the nice integrated Anstrom distribution, you can turn this little board to a desktop like environment! I followed the beginner guide "HowToGetAngStromRunning" and successfully make it works within 30 minutes!

The good things are that all the drivers are pre-built, so whatever I plugged a USB ethernet, or a USB mouse or keyboard, all works like a charm.

Let's check out some screenshots:



1. Firefox running, I copied my Chinese TTF from my Desktop Linux to it, so it can display Chinese as well.


2. WORD processor & Game.



3. Native ARM development, with the GNU toolchains built-in the distribution, you can work in a complete ARM development environment.

Link:
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard

BeagleBoard from Digi-Key.

I received the beagleboard from digi-key. Beagleboard is a low-cost TI ARM development board, featuring ARM Cortex A8, only $149 US. I haven't play it yet, Let's put some unbox photos here first:


1. Very small, but powerful!


2. With SD card slot, USB OTG, USB host, HDMI and audio!


3. a small box with cute beagle sticker.