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Bruce Land is showing off the hard work of his students in his Cornell University ECE 4760 Designing with Microcontrollers class. I hope you have a long lunch hour since it will take you a long time to go through all 35 projects. I found this Mechanix Motorized Guitar Tuner real interesting. Nice thing about all of these projects is the great documentation. "The Mechanix is a motorized guitar tuner for a standard 6-string electric or acoustic fixed bridge guitar. Named in honor of Megadeth guitar legend Dave Mustaine, the Mechanix is a unique and innovative product which has numerous patent possibilities. Our project may not be the coolest or most unique, but it is certainly the most metal. Traditional handheld guitar tuners are passive; they tell the user whether the guitar string is in tune, sharp, or flat, but the actual adjustment of the tension in the string has to be done by the user. This requires a fair amount of dexterity from the user, particularly when fine tuning is required. Thus, to increase both the convenience and the precision of the tuning process, we designed an active, motorized guitar tuner. The Mechanix responds to the user plucking one of the strings by turning the tuning knob until the string has reached its Standard Tuning note." |
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Finding landmines is not an easy task. This Mongoose and Robot Landmine Detector combines electronic, mechanical and animal to help make detection a bit easier. Thrishantha Nanayakkara from the University of Moratuwa. Read more about the Mongoose and Robot Landmine Detector. (PDF) "To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time a human-robot-animal integrated system is tested for antipersonnel landmine detection. The proposed system tries to integrate distinct capabilities of three different systems to improve the effectiveness of landmine detection in a cluttered environment. The mongoose is found to be a rodent with extremely sensitive olfactory capabilities, dexterous navigation capabilities in a cluttered environment, and small enough to burrow through rubble. The lightweight legged robot (4kg) can move in a minefield without detonating landmines, carry a metal detector, and interact with the mongoose and the human. The remote human operator can analyze the behaviors of the animal-robot system and judge how best the system should move from a remote location. Therefore, the system achieves a fundamental objective of humanitarian landmine detection by improving the effectiveness and accelerating the detection process through removing the human operator from the minefield. The design gave much emphasis on reducing the need to have expensive sensors and sophisticated image processing systems in order to make it as cost effective and reliable as possible. Therefore, there were only a single sonar proximity sensor and two bumper switches attached to the front of the robot. However, further improvements are needed in the arbitration mechanism that optimizes the synergy among the human, robot, and the animal by improving the learning algorithms. The robot can learn from both the animal and the human though the teaching signals can be noisy. The animal can learn from both the human and the robot to navigate with the robot attached to it. The human can learn from the animal and the robot by observing the limitations of the animal-robot system. We are conducting further research on learning algorithms that suits this scenario. Commensurate efforts have to be taken to simplify the learning algorithms to suit commercially available embedded processors and to improve the processor network to accommodate the extra processing load. Furthermore we hope to automate the training process of mongooses based on the wealth of knowledge we have gathered through manual training. This will allow the trainers to run the training sessions round the clock. " Via: New Scientist
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I know, we have featured a few of these Guitar Hero robots here in the last while… But they are so interesting, this Slashbot Guitar Hero Robot by Texas A&M Electrical Engineering uses similar principals as Auto Guitar Hero did. The main difference is that Slashbot actually presses the keys as it plays. Video after the jump. "Slashbot is especially cool because it literally plays the guitar controller using mechanical actuators. The robot implements a National Instrument PXI box to digitize the composite video signal. Then, using NI LabVIEW, the luminance of specific pixels are monitored to detect "notes" on the screen. This information is then passed to the robotic actuators through a reconfigurable I/O FPGA in the NI PXI box. Currently, Slashbot is able to average very close to 100% accuracy in Expert mode. It is also possible for a human player to challenge the robot in multi-player mode. So far, the robot has always been more accurate! This system was created by four Texas A&M University undergrads: David Buckner, Mitchell Jefferis, Vinny LaPenna, and Michael Voth. The project was developed over the past three months for their Electrical Engineering Senior Design class."
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We have featured the Rubens Tube here before, it looks like building them and having fun has caught on. Have a look at this cool collection of Rubens Tube projects, the Wiimote controlled Rubens Tube is one of my favorites.
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The post about the Animated Tattoo yesterday was for April Fools as most people figured out however have a look at this Programmable Tattoo! If you are interested in a bit of a read have a look at the patent. "For under-the-skin implants, the thinner and more flexible the better. A "nano-skin" polymer film was recently shown by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). This flexible polymer infused with billions of carbon nanotubes is seen as making possible incredibly thin and flexible displays. Nanotubes are excellent electrical conductors and several research organizations are exploring their use in flexible screen displays. When suspended between the electrically charged grids the ink spheres can be made to display as either white, black or gray. Digital ink uses very low power and displays an image even when the power is turned off. Each sphere is about the diameter of a human hair and contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid."
Philips is working on something called SKIN:Tattoo, it looks very interesting! "Tattoos and physical mutilation are amongst the oldest forms of personal expression and identity. Subcultures have used tattoos as a form of self representation; a visual language communicating personality and status. Philips Design examined the growing trend of extreme body adornment like tattoos, piercing, implants and scarring. The Electronics Tattoo film expresses the visual power of sensitive technology applied to the human body. The film subtly leads the viewer through the simultaneous emotional and aesthetic transformations between two lovers."
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So you thought that driving a van was not cool? Think again, with this van when someone gives you a dirty look all you need to do is flip a switch to open the rear window and slide the two massive jet turbine exhaust ports out. Crank up the jet turbine and burn everything behind you! On the track it can do 1/8th mile in 7.65 seconds at 96 mph. Not bad for a vehicle that looks like the family van in the driveway. Krugtech will hopefully publish some of the construction details of the cool Jet Turbine Van build. Have a look at more videos and pictures after the jump. Chris sent in a page that has some mope pics of the van, the gallery can be found here.
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DARPA is working hard to advance prosthetics technology, the result will be a limb that is easier to control and have improved run time compared to current devices. "The four-year Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program will create a neurally controlled artificial limb that will restore full motor and sensory capability to upper extremity amputee patients. This revolutionary prosthesis will be controlled, feel, look and perform like the native limb. At the end of the fouryear program, the resulting prosthesis will be ready for human clinical trials. The goal of this program is to produce a prosthetic that will be able to function as well as a normal human arm. Key to this is a prosthetic that has: sensors for the ability to sense the position of the arm and hand relative to other parts of the body, touch, temperature and vibration; power that will allow at least 24 hours of normal use; mechanical components that will provide strength and environmental tolerance (heat, cold, water, humidity, dust, etc.; and durability to last at least 10 years with normal use. The intent is that the amputee will be able to tolerate the prosthesis without any problems for 18 hours/day of use. This revolutionary mechanical arm will have the properties of a biological limb."
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