Apr 102013
 

I would like to introduce:

Stanley Tweedle – Captain of the Lexx.
Formerly Security Guard Class 4 for His Divine Shadow, and Assistant Deputy Backup Courier for the Austral B Heretics.

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I have a new project that will have to borrow time from my robot stuff for a bit, so I wanted to go ahead and post what
I’ve done so far, mostly for my own reference when I go to pick this up again.

PARTS:
(1) Arduino Nano
(2) 9g Continuous Rotation Hobby Servo
(1) Ultrasonic Rangefinder
(1) 6DOF Acc/Gyro
(1) USB 5V Battery
(3) WS2811 LEDs
(1) Bluetooth chip

Tweedle is complete hardware wise, but I have a little more coding to do before I’m satisfied with his brains. I ran out
of space in the Nano for anything other than input/output so all the control is done from a remote PC via python over
bluetooth/serial. I also made a wiimote script to control him manually. His brains is just basic obstacle avoidance right
now, still trying to see how much nav/odom info I can derive from a 6DOF sensor. Dead reckoning would result in massive
error accumulation, so for right now it just tells him orientation.
Anyway I’m pretty happy with how he’s turned out so far and he’s been a lot of fun. I’m usually not concerned with
aesthetics of these kind of things but I think he’s kinda cute.

This probably won’t help anyone because if you’re deep enough in your a project to understand my code- you’re deep enough
to write it yourself probably faster than it would take to adapt mine to your project… but here is is anyway.

Tweedle Arduino Sketch
Python Ncurses Control Program
Python WiiMote Teleop Program (NOT WORKING)
DOWNLOAD

And here’s some more pics of the wiring…

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Apr 042013
 

Long after our civilizations dwindle and decay and our ignorance eventually drives us back into the trees, two new sentient species will emerge.

The noble elephant and the misunderstood rodent. Yep, those two

It’s a symbiotic intelligence that develops between them. The elephant is a thoughtful and patient creature, but with a big bad-ass temper. The rodent is a tireless, long-suffering little worker, with a knack for mechanical cleverness.

Over the millenia the elephants and rodents evolved to work together to gather food. Their primary food source was the regressivly evolving species of human-ape. The elephants devised strategies to encourage human-ape domestication, and the rodents did all the leg work, building enclosures and such.

In time their symbiotic intelligence grew more sophisticated and more complexly linked. The elephants and rodents could speak to each other and understood written symbols. The elephants thoughtful minds created mathematical  models of the universe and the busy and clever rodents tested the models and engineered new technologies. The elephants deductions and the rodents methodical testings honed their understanding of the universe until they became the first species to fulfill the destiny of life- to witness the ultimate perfection of creation.

They discovered the basis of everything, the fundamental nature of all and nothing, they uncovered the will in the void and learned the primal logos. It was a good day for elephants and rodents, and as always, the human-apes didn’t give a shit and just kept raping and murdering each other.

And that’s what happens after humans finally go away.