Big congratulations to everyone at Parallax (particularly Andy, Ken and Steph) for completing the PropScope book: “Understanding Signals with the PropScope”. This 350+ page book starts with the basics but through detailed tutorials and exercises takes users all the way to advanced electronic topics like amplifiers, filters and communication protocols.

The 350 page text demonstrates how to use the PropScope as a voltmeter, oscilloscope, function generator, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, while introducing common circuits. The kit also includes electronic components for building breadboard circuits on your own Board of Education or BASIC Stamp HomeWork Board (boards sold separately). Designed for beginners as part of our Stamps in Class program, it is a useful reference for any PropScope owner as well.

Like other Parallax education resources it’s available as a free PDF here:

http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Do…cope-1.0.0.pdf

Or as a real book here:
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microc…st,ProductName

Or, as a package deal which includes the PropScope and parts referenced in the book
http://www.parallax.com/tabid/144/Pr…0/Default.aspx

Today I’m delivering a keynote address on the Robotics Summit on “Robots and Education- Bridging the gap.

Jeff used 12Blocks to built a fun little device that uses text-to-speech, an ADC, and an audio amplifier to keeps your plants healthy.
Plant Whisperer

Several months ago I approached my daughter’s primary school with 12Blocks and several TBot’s to inquire if they were interested in fielding several RoboCup Jr teams.  Although the school had never worked with robots before, the deputy principal was enthusiastic and quickly rounded up a dozen excited kids.  6 weeks before the Regional competition I introduced  the 3 teams to Propeller-powered TBot’s and the 12Blocks programming language.  The kids loved programming with blocks and quickly wrote impressive programs that excercised all parts of the robot- sound activation, complex dance moves, synchronizing moves to music, flashing rgb led’s and driving servos- all at the same time using multiple cogs.  We did well at Regionals- with two teams qualifying for Nationals- to be held in Christchurch, our home town.  Sadly, the 7.1 earthquake hit the same day as the event- causing it to be moved to Wellington.  Flights to Wellington were quite a bit more expensive than normal due to a Bon Jovi concert- but we managed to raise more than $3000 by busking with robots in front of shopping malls, organizing a dress-like-a-robot day at school, holding a raffle, and putting on a movie fundraiser.  The kids and TBot’s made it into several local newspapers.  This Sunday I escorted 7 wonderful kids and 3 TBot’s to Wellington.  Kids from all over New Zealand had made their way to the competition- most of them quite a bit older and more experienced than our two teams.  12Blocks allowed our 6, 7 and 8 year olds to compete at a similar level to what teenagers were doing.  Our dance robots performed exactly as they were meant to- putting on an exciting display of a Moa being hunted by a Moa Hunter- with flashing LED’s and wings and spears activated by servos. After seeing the other entries we thought we had a good chance at winning the competition- but being a subjective event- it was up to the judges to decide.  In the end we didn’t win, losing to an exciting James Bont them, a Karate robot, and two trains doing the Locomotion.  Nevertheless, the dance team learned a lot from the competition and will be back stronger next year.Our rescue team had a roller coaster day.  At first glance we were excited to see that regulation tiles were set up in good lighting- meaning our robot should perform well.  However, when the kids tried out the robot it kept turning in place, instead of solving the maze.  We quickly diagnosed that one of the sensors we had added to the robot platform had been damaged in the flight up.  Thanks to the helpful event organizers we managed to find a make-shift soldering iron to make temporary repairs to the damage.  In the first heat the robot successfully navigated through the maze and pushed the can out- well all but a millimeter of the can so we didn’t get full points.  The robot’s performance declined after the first run- and we were forced to withdraw after the third heat when the damaged sensor was beyond repair.  Although the rescue team was disappointed, they realized that the rescue event at the national level was very competitive- we’ll need to work hard for next year.All in all we had a great day and the kids (and parents) had a wonderful, very educational time.

ViewPort and the Propeller are being used in lots of cool projects- check this one out:

Background:
MagnetDrives AG is a company based in Zug, Switzerland that specializes in developing electrical motors and sensors for applications ranging from 60 mNm to 100 kNm. Recently, the company was tasked to develop and produce a resolver system for an 8 Megawatt synchronous motor. Put simply, they were asked to build a device which could accurately measure the angle of the motor’s shaft. This measurement is important to control and optimize the motor’s performance.

Problem:
MagnetDrives was asked to build an exotic measurement system in only 8 weeks.

Solution:
MagnetDrives chose proven off-the-shelf software and hardware to reduce development time of the resolver and qualification system. Pickup coils mounted on the perimeter of the 60cm diameter resolver detect the mechanical angle of the motor’s shaft. Theses signals are fed to a custom PCB that features a Tamagawa chip whose output is read by a Parallax Propeller microcontroller. The Propeller runs code to process the resolver signal and also compares it with a reference Renishaw measurement system in order to qualify the resolver signals. ViewPort is used to display the microcontroller’s results in real time using a familiar Digital Oscilloscope interface. ViewPort was also used to adjust calibration parameters on the fly and to export data to Matlab and Excel for later analysis.

Parallax Forum thread on Mandelbrot

Parallax Forum thread on Fractals

We’ve been busy showing of TBot at the 3 conferences held across America.  From the comments on this thread, it looks like we’re on to something!

“this might be a breathrough product, which will be good for the entire community, from simple customers, to start up vendors, and the professionals who have been around forever.”

More info on TBot is here: OneRobot.org

I have been using the Standard version of ViewPort for a while now and love it. I find that debugging the Prop is one of the harder things to do and it sure makes it easier.

I’m headed around the world to give a dozen presentations about my projects to various clubs, companies and schools.  Here’s a link to photos and videos from my first talk- given to the Robotic Society of Southern  California- just an hour after flying in from New Zealand!
Presentation to Robotic Society of Southern California

Curtis has developed a tool that helps archaeologists and detectives to read impressions made into metals like coins or guns even when they’ve been sanded of.

Here is his interview with a local tv station.

Here some more details:
I got a great deal of help from the forum members and I feel the project should be in the public domain. I enjoy learning about electronics and love Parallax products. My field of expertise is Archaeology, but I love Physics also. My final eddy current analyzer probe included a hall effect sensor. I will be showing this technology to law enforcement and other government agencies and will be offering my services free of charge in the near future. I will insure that I plug Parallax and ViewPort as well. I ordered and got a surface mount version of all the supplies needed to build my instrument in a smaller footprint.

Landing gently on the moon is a good application of a fuzzy logic controller. ViewPort, the premier debugging environment for the Parallax Propeller (a multicore microcontroller), includes an object that implements a fuzzy logic engine which is controlled graphically from within ViewPort. Watch the video to learn about the physics simulation and fuzzy logic controller included in ViewPort’s lunar lander tutorial.

Chris built a CNC controller using the Propeller and ViewPort. Here’s what he has to say about ViewPort:

Having at first stumbled with debugging on the propeller, I read about ViewPort on the forums. It looked promising and the entry-level price couldn’t be beat so I purchased it. After using it for about 6 months now I can say without hesitation, I could not imagine programming without it! There are a couple of features that really make this an outstanding debugging tool for me.
First is the electrical interface, it allows you to communicate with the propeller using the same USB connection as the Spin Tool software uses for downloading program. No cable switching, no extra pins required.

Second is the oscilloscope display. Watching digital values (variable contents) works in most debugging sessions, however, being able to display those variables on the scope allows you to quickly see trends in the data that are hard to follow just watching numbers. This feature has proven to be paramount in helping to “see” what is going on inside the propeller while debugging the motion control software I write. For example, working with acceleration and deceleration, you need to be sure your ramps are smooth and consistent. Watching numbers change every millisecond is impossible! Watching the plotted line on the scope shows me the velocity changes and because the time base of the scope is adjustable, I can see a substantial amount of data all at once. Most importantly, even though I am analyzing a large amount of data, the plotted line makes interpretation of that data instantaneous!

Third is the Logic State Analyzer display. As with the scope display, it allows you to see visually a graphic representation of data that you can interpret much more easily than a series of numbers. I use this to monitor pin states (I/O), and see the relationship in the timing of those states that is very critical for motion control. I also use the LSA for watching Bits of variables. Being able to easily monitor bits within variables a programmer is more likely to utilize the bits instead of wasting a whole long or byte on a simple “ON – OFF” state.

Good job Chris!

Here are more ViewPort success stories”

The September/October issue of “Robot” contains a well researched review about ViewPort- tagline: “A deluxe Propeller debugger in a sophisticated development environment”.

Here’s the review

Here some extracts:

The new ViewPort Development Studio from Parallax delivers an industrial-strength debugger combined with a Spin editor and a large set of powerful data-analysis views.  As a full-time software engineer working with Microsoft Visual Studio, I have been spoiled by sophisticated commercial development tools.  For me, ViewPort delivers the same power to my hobby as I have when I’m working at the office.  That isn’t saying that using ViewPort is like being at work; ViewPort is a lot more fun.

…

Most important, you can set breakpoints and single step your Spin program from this view.  This window is software engineer’s nirvana.

…

Let me assure you that, with very little effort, you’ll be able to make immediate use of ViewPort’s basic debugging feature.  To help you learn, ViewPort includes a great manual and many source-code samples and tutorials to help you master each capability.

Thank you Steve!  Past issues of Robot are available online at: http://botmag.com

I’m very excited about my new project- 12Blocks!

Here’s an early screenshot:

12Blocks consists of:

• a top row of main actions
• a library of “blocks” on the left, organized into 10 categories
• the “program” sheet where you snap together blocks to create your program
• and the output pane where you can view the live spin code, your variable’s live values, a graph of them, or the status of the io pins

The programmer does not have to worry about cogs, objects, or the associated initialization/data/variables required for each object. You can change a program’s parameters as it’s running. 12Blocks manages the complexity of polling for events such as key/mouse clicks and starting up cogs.
Spinner is ideal for anyone starting out with the Propeller- it makes it easy to take full advantage of all the Propeller’s capabilities. Transitioning to programming in spin with the Propeller Tool is easy as 12Blocks continually shows you the generated code and it opens/saves regular spin files.
A perfect hardware complement is the Propeller Demoboard to let you:

• drive a robot with servos
• draw graphics for vga/tv
• react to keyboard/mouse
• communicate with a terminal
• output music tones, wav files, record and play back sounds, and synthesize speech
• interface with sensors like the PING and a compass
• perform input/output on the pins: measure frequency,pulse, count edges…

Coming Soon!

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Spinner

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Spinner makes it easy to do anything with the Parallax Propeller!
It’s still under development, here’s an early screenshot:

This shows Spinner’s main interface, consisting of:

• a top row of main actions
• a library of “blocks” on the left, organized into 10 categories
• the “program” sheet where you snap together blocks to create your program
• and the output pane where you can view the live spin code, your variable’s live values, a graph of them, or the status of the io pins

The programmer does not have to worry about cogs, objects, or the associated initialization/data/variables required for each object. You can change a program’s parameters as it’s running. Spinner manages the complexity of polling for events such as key/mouse clicks and starting up cogs.
Spinner is ideal for anyone starting out with the Propeller- it makes it easy to take full advantage of all the Propeller’s capabilities. Transitioning to programming in spin with the Propeller Tool is easy as Spinner continually shows you the generated code and it opens/saves regular spin files.
A perfect hardware complement is the Propeller Demoboard to let you:

• drive a robot with servos
• draw graphics for vga/tv
• react to keyboard/mouse
• communicate with a terminal
• output music tones, wav files, record and play back sounds, and synthesize speech
• interface with sensors like the PING and a compass
• perform input/output on the pins: measure frequency,pulse, count edges…

I gave a “Tech Talk” at Google about the projects I’m working on: ViewPort, the premier debugging tool for the Propeller, DanceBot, an interactive vision guided balancing robot, and PropScope, a multi-function usb oscilloscope/logic analyzer/function generator to be sold at retail for $199.

Here are my slides.

I’ve been busy giving talks and demos of my projects at Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Robotics Club, Willow Garage, Yahoo! and Microsoft.
Here are some Slides and Video

Pick up the March ’09 issue of Circuit Cellar or read the feature article here: Vision-Guided Robotics
A Next-Generation Balancing Robot DanceBot is still a prototype, but you can sign the waiting list here.

We’re proud to work with Parallax to bring ViewPort to a wider audience of electronic enthusiasts, educators, and professionals. Parallax is known for top quality electronic and robotic products- including the Boe-Bot, Basic Stamp, and more recently the multicore Propeller microcontroller.

Here’s some feedback from our users on ViewPort v4.1:

Several magazines picked up the Press Release:
Elektor, Servo, and Nuts and Volts.

During the Christmas Holidays, DanceBot balanced a flute of champagne (yes, it was filled!) on two wheels as part of an art exhibit. We had some accidents but DanceBot survived the ordeal. Read all about it

DanceBot balances flute of champagne

This week I released ViewPort version 4.  It’s taken 7 months of hard work since the last release, but I’m very happy with the result.  I want to thank all the people that helped in ViewPort’s development: Jen for the graphics, Andy for reviewing the manual and catching lots of bugs, my dad for his valuable insights and patience in testing dozens of builds, Harley and Mike for more testing and inspiration, and of course my mom and family for supporting me.  Take a look here!

My local robot club had a line-following theme the other night so I taught DanceBot to follow lines using computer vision. The video signal from a miniature camera is digitized and processed by DanceBot’s Propeller to guide it along a black line.