Beemo

Ok bitches,

If anyone has been reading this, I wonder why..

The current girlfriend has a giant ladyboner for adventure time and while I only get a slight chub from the show, I’ve been looking for something to work on – origionally it was going to be arduino based and was going to be a mame controller board thing, but then the idea came along and the current plan is to build a BMO – from Adventure Time. I think it should be a fairly simple project. Ultimately, it’s just chucking a few bits together and putting it in a box.

BOM:
CPU – Raspberry Pi(Type B)
Power – AC laptop power supply(12V), 12V alarm battery(2.4Ah, maybe more, depending on size), regulator(5V – to convert to pi input – could be 3.3 but I don’t want to mod the Pi board and remove the onboard 5-3.3V regulator)
Storage – SD card, SD card extender cable(so that the pi can be orientated however it needs to be and the sd slot can come out of beemos front.
External Interfaces – USB hub(min 2 port, network extender cable to feed from pi out of beemos front)
Input – keyboard/mouse or mini keyboard/trackpad combo but probably touch digitizing the screen(hopefully)
Display – 7″ TFT panel (to digitize later for touch capability)
Audio – 2 x 6mm speakers, audio extension cable, switcher(to switch from speaker to headphone)
Indications – low batt/charging/other
Housing – To be 3d printed out of PLA (only issue is colour – difficult to find a turquoise PLA – probably use black at first and will change later.)

Today, I go and try to source some parts. Future posts will keep the loop open.

3d Scanning

3d printing is cool. Possbily because it potentially means that I would almost never find myself in a situation where I currently often find myself:  needing a widget: A little plastic button thingy to replace the one that fell out of my door buzzer, a pan-tilt bracket for a laser/camera mount, a doorstop, little connect bits that are all but impossible to manufacture by hand to accurate tolerances out of wood. The plan is to build one by the end of June 2013 – a Prusa Mendel. It should cost roughly 6k in ZAR – ish.

Last week, I had a bit of time and cruised the net for a bit and was enlightened to the (somewhat obvious, now) prospect of photocopying things. But not just pieces of paper – actual stuff. I’m not quite sure what use that has for me in the real world, but it’s just cool so I want to do it. First stage in this process is to get a 3d model of the thing you want to copy so you can print it. I spent a while reading about options and found some rad stuff. First prize goes here:

proFORMA – http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~qp202/my_papers/BMVC09/BMVC09.pdf

This dude uses just a webcam and makes scans in full color. Unfortunately, it’s as though this guy dropped off the planet after 2009 because there’s nothing that I can find after that date. Either he got bored and went to do something else or he got bought out by a large corporation because his tech was so cool and cheap that they realised that they would lose a too much money by seeing it become mainstream.

After a touch more digging I found this: www.david-laserscanner.com They offer their software(with limited functionality) for free, which is cool for me, because I’m not so excited that I’d actually spend the 450euro for the laser version or the 1000euro for the structured light version. All you need for the to make a scanner with this software is a pc to run it, a 90 degree corner with calibration sheets(just print them – they’re included in the install),

 

a webcam and a line laser. I ordered some line laser modules from www.dx.com because they were cheap but since they come from china, they will likely take forever to arrive so I caved and bought a laser spirit level(justifiable because I like tools and I don’t have one of these – also, I found it second hand at cash converters.

I happen to own have the exact model webcam that they use with their laser scanner kit which I took as a sign that this was part of my destiny.

 

You can check out the DAVID website for more but here’s my rig with a bird thing posing for the laser.

 

It was ridiculously easy to do the scanning but monotonous, boring and lame. You have to wave the laser up and down to paint the bird enough to get a decent scan. You could sit there waving the laser for half an hour and still get nowhere – you have to move the laser SUPER slowly for aaaages to capture a decent point cloud.  But yeah, REALLY easy though. DAVID exports to .obj which seems to be a fairly standard file format. I used blender to open it. The scanning process picked up a few artifacts here and there but they were fairly few and far between and were easily cleaned up.

Here is the first scan ever, rendered in blender:

Not bad I don’t think.

The idea is to do this a bunch of times from several angles  and then use a 3d image processing tool to mesh the views together and then woop-de-do, you have a glorious scan of your crappy bird ornament.

I took a couple more scans with the intention to mesh them together. That… is the difficult part of the process. I sat for over an hour trying to align surfaces in blender but couldn’t come right. I put this down to my lack of blender experience and decided to use microstation – a tool I have Much more experience with since I use it almost every day at work. Equally frustrating as while attempts to align the views were marginally more successful, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to break the meshes into their vertices and faces. I could have just used blender to clean and them microstation to align but truth be told, which I was able to get closer to a decent alignment, I was waaaaaay off from something that would be ok. After chatting to a friend for a bit, he suggested I try using meshlab. My skills there are rubbish and I still have no 3d model to show for my efforts.

I have officially given up on using the david software for my 3d scanner.

This doesn’t mean that I have given up on the scanner, but it does mean that it will take a while before the excitement and motivation to possess one stirs within. That said, when I do get the itch, I’ll still be going the cheap way – webcam + laser:

http://www.makerscanner.com/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Lets-cook-3D-scanner-based-on-Arduino-and-Proces/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-3d-scanner/

http://www.instructables.com/id/3-D-Laser-Scanner/

Fitness – moving in the right direction

So I’ve been learning shaolin kung-fu at the chinese martial arts and health centre.

When I started, there was a large focus on physical strenth and fitness. These days, however, not so much. There is so much technique to learn that there just isn’t enough time to take 20 minutes out of the hour long class to whack out some pushups. Unfortunately, in order to properly execute these techniques requires a body that is strong, fit and flexible. Thus, the need for some kind of supplemental training.

It was late 2011 that I decided to do what everyone does when they want to get a bit stronger and fitter. I joined a gym. Hitting the gym, I did what most people do – a bunch of cardio to get fit and a bunch of pushups and situps for strength. Things seem to be going pretty well. I’ve never been a huge fan of the machines and I’m not sure why, but I have always been curious about the corner where all the dumbells and barbells are. After reading this post:

http://archive.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie/

I am compelled to pay a visit to that corner.

Paleo Eating

Ok, So I’ve been eating Paleo for about 9 months now and

I’ve never been a total fatass but just over a year ago, I was getting ready for a grading and realised that I needed to do something. At 92kg and 25.3% body fat, I had clearly let myself go a bit. Fast forward a bit and I’m good now. Last measurements were 78kg 16.3% body fat. Those measurements were roughly 2.5 months ago. Still feeling good. This dude writes an entertaining article:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110422192353/http://www.adultswim.com/blog/interviews/celeb-nerdy-tucker-max.html

 

 

Excellent

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside

Musings on the cube

Perhaps the cube isn’t just my cubicle.

Maybe the cube is in my head. Stuck in the same box, doing the same things every day. Thinking the same way and making no real advances in terms of getting out.

So If I’m gonna leave this cube, all of this has to change.

I don’t think it will be easy to leave. perhaps I will get out and come back in from time to time. Right now though, I am not a happy bunny inside this cube.

I want to feel differently.

I want to feel free.

I want to feel happy.

I want to feel fulfilled.

I want to feel ok when I look in the mirror and see my reflection – to think good things instead of nothing.

The Cube

I had to stand on one of my colleagues desks to be able to fit the whole cube into this shot

The cube is depressing. It sucks the will to live. the will to be someone better. The will to DO something.

 

This is my cube

There are many like it, but this one is MINE(at the moment).

My cube is my prison. It is my life.

I must leave it as I must attain new life

My cube without me can get a new minion. Without my cube, I can be something else

I must leave my cube

I must get out of the cube because it is trying to kill me

I must leave it before my soul leaves me. I will…

My cube and myself know that what counts in life is not the hours spent in front of the box

the documents we compile or the recoveries we make

We know it is the life outside that counts. I will leave

My cube is not human as I am, because it is the chains that bind

Not out of comfort but out of fear

I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its entrance and exit

I will discover how to leave it behind

I will follow my direction, as soon as I find it

We will part ways. We will…

Before this computer I swear this

My cube and I are two different ways of life

I am the master and it is the enemy

I am the saviour of my own life

So it be until there is no cube for me.

What is leaving the cube

It was origionally going to be escaping the cube but that was already taken and I realise that perhaps I don’t need to escape. I need to leave. Escaping would be running from something. Leaving is a choice. I have made my choice and this is going to be my journey.