sports4nerds

Tide Clock for Android

2011-12-17T19:59:00.010-05:00

Tide Clock is for boaters, fisherman, sailors, surfers, sun bathers, swimmers, kayaker, water skiers, paddle boarders, wind surfers, sheller's, and generally any non-landlubber or beach goers’. Tide Clock is just that - a clock that keeps track of high and low tides.

Tide Clock is easy to set. And depending on your location, Tide Clock can run accurately for a good long time without needing adjustment. Tide Clock is not for navigation purposes, but can be used to keep track of the tide for water and beach related activities. It is your responsibility to set and check your tide setting.

Tide Clock includes setting options, color themes, and a place for the name of your boat. It does not use excessive battery, and does not require GPS or data downloads. It has been tested to work on tablets and phones alike.

Tide Clock is only $.99 US in Android Market.
From Coded by Elves

If you would like a branded version of Tide Clock for your company, boat or crew - with theme or logo, please feel free to email me.

We use:
The Gimp Eclipse Inkscape (has come a long way)

THE SCREAMING LOCUST

2011-03-02T00:21:00.006-05:00

"This Sumo Bot is a Scream”

Sumo Bot Entry for 8th Grade NYS 2010-11 Science Olympiad by Justin Fisher

Screaming Locust is dual-motor remote-controlled tank-style sumo bot featuring an Arduino microcontroller controlling two high-torque motors with orbital transmissions. Built for low speed pushing its custom motor shield uses a combination of 3-volt relays and fast switching transistors to provide variable speed adjustment and low heat characteristics while battling opponents. It is powered with eight nickel-metal hydride cells, and remotely controlled with dual Wii Nunchuck remotes for simultaneous pilot and co-pilot operation.

In keeping with tradition, the Screaming Locust’s extruded aluminium front bumper and aluminium chassis provide low-weight and high-strength and act as the bot’s main heat sink. The narrow chassis and oversized 3.5 diameter soft rubber tires allow this bot to run inverted.

At 3.66 lbs the Screaming Locust is a formidable opponent.

Screaming Locust top side view with major features

Taking almost 12 months to make, the Screaming Locust is built to push.

Features

2 high torque symmetrically balanced motors with locked stopped position and orbital gear transmissions
Welded and threaded aluminium axils with direct driveshafts
Nickel-metal hydride rechargeable cells
On-board ATMEL ATmega328 microprocessor in Arduino Duemilanove configuration
2.4 Gigahertz wireless communications with 433MHz sideband
Two sided operation
Rugged hand crafted aluminium chassis
Custom power switch cover imported from china
On-board radio for tunes
Relays and fast switching transistors with electrically isolated left and right channels
Remote control operation with Wii nunchuck
Dual 100+ decibel sirens
Practice golf ball for single third wheel.

Special thanks to

Arduino - http://www.arduino.cc/
Adafruit - for their parts and tutorials
Tod Kurt - for his instruction and inspiration
Gold Coast Hobby for motivation
Dr. Wolf, Mr. Lee and Mr. Maier - for their sponsorship
Paul Kurtlando - for his battery advice
Jose B. - for his expert TIG welding

http://sports4nerds.blogspot.com/

Parts, software and help from Arduino, Mouser, Black & Decker, ThingM, Adafruit, Digi, ATMEL, TI Sparkfun, Fun Gizmos, Radio Shack, Duracell, ST, Seeed Studio and others.

Preview of the Screaming Locust

2011-01-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

Hold on to your joysticks, here it comes…

A revamped Arduino Sumo Bot for 2011 from Justin Fisher

The Screaming Locust features a totally reprogrammed Arduino with a custom motor shield using 3 volt relays instead of 5 volts for faster response and more variable speed adjustment. The Arduino sketch includes a single trigonometric formula for each motor to provide seamless tank-style control throughout the 360 degree joystick motion. In keeping with tradition, the Screaming Locust’s main distinguishing feature is an extruded aluminum front bumper with lightning holes. Eight nickel-metal hydride cells provide 3X the power and the 2.5 inch tires provide twice the traction as last year’s LV Tanker. And just for fun - the golfers’ own practice ball makes up the single third wheel.

LV Tanker Takes 5th Place Medal

2010-03-13T17:06:00.006-05:00

LV Tanker Takes the 5th Place Medal

In the NY Science Olympiad Regional Finals at Webber Middle School, the LV Tanker plowed its way to 5th place of 43 contestants.

The LV Tanker pushed its way through the semi finals and – with is blinking LEDs and front mounted laser the Tanker was a real crowd favorite - being the only contender to be controlled by a custom 2.4 GHz remote with Wii Nunchuck, and the only sumo bot entry with its own on-board programmable (Arduino) microcontroller. But in the end, the Tanker got blindsided from the side - its only weak spot, and was pushed out.

Thank you all for your support and ideas.

THE LV TANKER

2010-01-09T15:19:00.006-05:00

"IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT 1.982 KILOGRAMS … THE LV TANKER!!!"

Sumo Bot Entry for 7th Grade NYS Science Olympiad by JP

This Sumo Bot runs on low voltage batteries and uses a programmable Arduino microcontroller for all controls. A second Arduino communicating via 2.4 GHz XBee is used for remote control. The remote talks I2C to a Wii nunchuck joystick with accelerometer. The Tankers high-torque motors and locking transmissions, plus double sided operation with automatic attitude detection make it a tough challenger. It was designed to meet the NYS Science Olympiad Class "B" specifications.

The LV Tanker Top-side View

Tanker bottom-side view with major features

Bottom-side view showing lightening holes, homemade remote control, and initial design in Blender

Starting with a design in Blender nearly 11 months ago the LV Tanker took estimated 250 hours to build, 3 prototypes, 4 motor shield designs, and many hours of programming.

Features

2 high torque low voltage motors with orbital gear transmissions in a tank-style configuration
On-board ATMEL ATmega328 microprocessor in Arduino Duemilanove configuration with 32Kb memory and 16Mhz clock speed
2.4 Gigahertz wireless mesh network communications based on the XBee
Laser assisted guidance
Multiple programmable modes
Automatic attitude detection for seamless two sided operation (it can be flipped over and still drive and nunchuck automatically reverses)
Rugged aluminum, steel, & plastic construction
9 individually controlled LED status indicators
Piezoelectric "speaker" for audio signals
Symmetrically balanced motors with locked stopped position by Black & Decker
Direct driveshaft for main axels, light-weight Nylon chain driven secondary axels for tank-like operation
Transistors with electrically isolated left and right channel motor relays
Operation with Wii nunchuck joystick and accelerometer control or old-school 2.4 GHz wireless Arduino based joystick

Special thanks to:

Arduino - http://www.arduino.cc/
Adafruit - for their parts and tutorials
Tod Kurt - for his instruction and inspiration
Gold Coast Hobby for motivation
Dr. Wolf, Mr. Lee and Mr. Maier for their sponsorship

http://sports4nerds.blogspot.com/

http://sports4nerds.wordpress.com/

Feel free to contact us for more information, code etc.

Specs:

Locust Valley Tanker
L: 30cm, W: 29.5 cm, H: 7.5 cm
1.982kg (U.S. PO Weight)
(4) 1.5V "AA" and (4) 1.5V "C"
By JP

Parts, software and help from Arduino, Mouser, Black & Decker, ThingM, Adafruit, Digi, ATMEL, TI Sparkfun, Fun Gizmos, Radio Shack, Duracell, ST, Seeed Studio and others.

H-Bridge Motor Controller

2009-09-11T07:43:00.004-04:00

After burning out the H-Bridge motor controller from Adafruit we tried the NYT version and had the same problem. We have started a new design based on the design by Radu Motisan at http://www.pocketmagic.net/. We have laid it out in Eagle and built it on a breadboard and its working well so far. We are trying to add forward and reverse LEDs before we move it over to a Radio Shack 276-150 board. If you need the parts list available from Mouser let us know.

C# "Software Joystick"

2009-06-14T14:23:00.006-04:00

We've hacked together a C# program that writes motor commands like #+20-15; (motor 1 200 forward, motor 2 150 reverse). The serial port has Xbee connected to it. The only tricky part was the motor equations below.

double radians = Math.Atan2(dy, dx);radians = radians + Math.PI / 2;

m1 = (int)(Math.Abs(dx) * Math.Sin(radians) + Math.Abs(dy) * Math.Cos(radians));

m2 = (int)(Math.Abs(dy) * Math.Cos(radians) - Math.Abs(dx) * Math.Sin(radians));

(Equations from David "Wild Shot")

(ps: Its a Visual Studio 2005 project - We can post a copy once its been cleaned up.)

The Prototype "LV Tanker"

2009-06-10T22:19:00.004-04:00

The first prototype with working Arduino, Adafruit motor shield, XBee, XBee adapter, motor power pack and 9V Arduino power, plus the Arduino sketch and Windows controlling program. The first try was buggy but working. Update: It turns out that the rechargeable power pack (from a swiffer) used to run the 2 DC motors was overheating the H-bridge on the motor shield. After switching to 4 AA batteries everything ran smoothly and we were able to drive it around the house.

XBee Adapter Kit

2009-06-10T22:13:00.007-04:00

Making the XBee adapter ... about 1/2 done. After configuring with a TTL cable and testing the XBee adapter, the motor shield and the XBee adapter (both from Adafruit) were easy to get working together. (We were able to get analog pins 14-19 working fine as digital pins but could not get NewSoftSerial to read more then 2 chars in a row without errors so we went back to pins 0 and 1).

Fabricating parts

2009-06-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

We have made 6 aluminum axils that are attached with nylon chain and turn in brass bushings. We are using nylon, aluminum and Lexan polycarbonate sheet to keep the weight down.

Initial Design

2009-03-18T22:42:00.003-04:00

Prototype design of "The LV Tanker" - Blender perspective screenshot and underside render

The initial design done in Blender is a dual motor, 6-wheeled tractor controlled by an Arduino Duemilanove, remote controlled using XBees and a laptop. We are big Blender fans and have a lot of fun making things that are not real.