The Burning Machine

Here is some very unimpressive video of my machine working. I’m using the ARM board’s push buttons to move the altitude and azimuth motors. I’m totally aware it doesn’t look like much, but it represents a lot of work.

I had to learn how to use, and properly configure the PWM controller, and timer counter to control this beast. For the control portion, I just mapped some buttons to activate the outputs which run to the motor drivers.

I’m just finishing up source reacquire, and acquire modes tonight. I’d like to get the actual source tracking done as well, but we’ll see. The sick thing is, this system was essentially done 3 weeks ago. We had our photo detectors running into a summing circuit which would get the difference between two detector voltages corresponding to the altitude and azimuth planes. Basically, the closer the difference was to 0, the more on target the system was. The major drawback to using hardware for the subtraction was that I couldn’t code in any sort of intelligence other than proportional control.

Now we pipe down all 4 detectors to an analog multiplexer, a way to basically let us use the 4 detectors, one at a time on a single input. This still has its own set of issues, but the code (my) portion is fabulous. FABULOUS.

Tom

I’m terrible at this blogging thing, it’s almost never on my mind. I’m in glass casting right now, which is interesting I suppose, waiting to make plaster-silica molds. I enjoy glass casting however my teacher is starting to get under my skin. The kind of things she wants me to do are so contradictory of eachother, how about choosing one? Ah well. Mug night is coming up, it is the glass department fundraiser, aka, buy an epic mug and get it filled with beer.

I have friends on facebook who write, and sometimes, they’ll boast about how many words they’ve written that week, and say “1000 words! :D” which is fine, then hear nothing for a while. It might be an odd comparison, I write lab and progress reports for my relentless instructors weekly, each averaging 2000+ words, with figures. Lets hope it goes to good use one day.

I’m working furiously on my capstone project. When there is more to show, I will show it.

I think if there’s anything I really loathe about lecture classes it is being taught about grammar as though I am in Elementary school. My grammar might not be absolutely perfect, but it does me alright. My teacher, Mr. Mark Giles, could not be more of a bore. He plays jazzy music at the start of the class in an apparent attempt to make us like him. Like my friend Kelsey said, it feels as though I am forever questioning what the point of this class is.

Here’s a picture:

Here’s a picture Sara:

In art history. Y’know when people from your past that you
hate reappear later in your life? Yeah that’s this girl:

Here is a list of things:

1. There is often a copy of The Sun on a table.
2. Someone often leaves a copy of The Sun in the restroom.
3. Our microwave may contain a ww2 era cavity magnetron.
4. The ladies in the office.

Yup. Those are things.

This is not a fucking blizzard.