Hello mbed World! (and your project plans)

Topic last updated 23 Aug 2010, by Simon Ford

projects | 49 replies

Simon Ford

# 25 Nov 2009 . Edited: 26 Nov 2009

Hi all,

It is great to see things come to life here, and people starting to help each other out. If makes the long hours feel worthwhile, but also highlights the long hours still to come!

But it triggered a chat about growing pains, and how to avoid them as much as possible (flames, unreasonable demands, rudeness to newbies etc). So far it has been great and we haven't seen any of this sort of stuff, but we want to ensure we can keep it this way as more people join in. Our conclusion was actually that it wasn't about rules or guidelines, but just trying to keep to the spirit of mbed. It is not meant to be the end result, but be a tool to give you a headstart in what you want to try and create for yourself, so the focus should be around that.

In that spirit, I'd like to start this this thread simply to introduce yourself, and the ideas for projects you are planning to create. Please include any interesting photos and explanations/references to the background; this is a great opportunity to teach others about what you know, and learn from others in return. But overall, I hope it'd be just a nice, inspiring thing to see what people are up to, and encourage a generally supportive environment (especially useful when you get stuck on your own project!). You may even find a collaborator...

So, Hello World?! What are you up to!

Replies

Vlad Cazan

# 25 Nov 2009

Hello mbed World!

My name is Vlad Cazan and I am located in Toronto, Canada (Would be great to see a map of where all these mbeds have ended up around the world). I am in my 3rd year of university for radio and television arts at Ryerson University. I am currently studying in the field of digital media and new media applications. It was only a few months ago last year that I got introduced with the adruino and fell in love with the possibilities it created. (Kinda felt robbed that I didn't know about it before) As soon I the summer started I heard about the mbed, signed up for the beta program but did not get accepted. As soon as the mbed came out I ordered one that morning. In high-school I was very interested in computer programming so I do have some experience in VB and Java, which I learned is pretty much the same as any coding language.

Right now I am currently working on a project titled "Second Life Rock Band". I have started a page for it here with lots of pictures and comments. Second Life Rock Band. For my digital virtual world's class I am attempting to create a "portal" from the real world to a computer game. My project will let users play a rock band guitar in the real world for people logged on to the second life video games.

Another topic I have been planning to explore for some time (limited by time, damn school) is an application to interface an iphone/itouch application with the mbed. iPhones/itouchs have tx rx pin so serial communication could be a possibility. I know that in the cookbook there are examples of play/stop on ipods but has anyone else attempted to communicate with an iphone, ipod touch?

No other real plans for my mbed I just like knowing that if I ever get a good idea im only a few seconds from trying it out. I am also enjoying this new site and its features. Great to see a little information about everyone and "my notebook" is a perfect addition to the "cloud compiler" as everything from your project goes with you. I can work on a project at school, log out and then go home and continue from where I left off, no USB keys or stupid uploading

Cant wait to see what everyone else is up to!

Simon Ford

# 25 Nov 2009

Hi,

You probably already know I work on mbed, but I also try and use it a lot too (eat your own dog food!). Here is something I just got off ebay, and is my next planned mod when I get a chance...

Idea is something to do with music if that gives you a clue :)

So that is two musical projects so far. What else?

Stephane ROCHON

# 25 Nov 2009

Hello Mbed World!

I just got an mbed yesterday. I looked at some profiles of people posting in this forum and, as I already guessed, I am sort of an alien here.

First by age (40), it is one of the first times I am concidering myself old ! You will see it will happen to you sooner than you would wish...

Secondly, my background is alsolutely not linked with electonics, microcontrollers and so on. I am a post graduate in computer science (pre Internet age I must admit...), graduate in general engeneering and also in english, but I did not do any technical development projects since graduating. I have been a CEO of an e-commerce company in France for the last 10 years, but I still spend some time educating myself and I try to follow up what's new in physics, computer science and lately, robotics.

I spend last year trying to understand Strings theory to reach unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics (yes... I know what you think, I must be mad...). I lost enough neurons on this one so I found a new subject of interest.

I have two kids (9 and 13) and I started to read a lot about robotics last summer because I know a revolution is in march and they will live that revolution. We have already 3 robots in the house (two roombas and one for the pool) and I feel that's the next big market. Thus I am trying to learn all I can on the subjet and as usual do some myself. I discovered mbed while reading pages on the web and was impressed by the cloud service which is also a very important market for the future (by the way I am a great fan of Dropbox.com)

So I got one and I will play with the kids by modifiing some little fancy programs I will grab in the cookbook, so I will only be a lurker here, sorry.

If I had time, my ultimate project would be to create a Rovio like bot using mbed but that's totally unreachable for me at this time. I need you guys to do your own projects so I can grab some interresting pieces ;-) First I would need wireless transmission so wifi ? Xbee ? Then a mobile mbed controlled bot plus video transmission and some web service for control.

So thanks you mbed team for setting up this great solution and thanks in advance to all of you who will help me directly or indirectly in the future.

By the way, I am also an underwater photographer and you can discover some photos here : http://www.subphoto.com

Cheers

Vlad Cazan

# 25 Nov 2009

Stephane ROCHON wrote:

If I had time, my ultimate project would be to create a Rovio like bot using mbed but that's totally unreachable for me at this time. I need you guys to do your own projects so I can grab some interresting pieces ;-) First I would need wireless transmission so wifi ? Xbee ? Then a mobile mbed controlled bot plus video transmission and some web service for control.

Thats amazing everything your children learn now will stay with them forever! I wish my dad knew about the possibility of these programably micro controllers, I would have gotten one when I was 10.

You said you have a few roombas in the house. I just wana show you a project I did in the summer with an old roomba, it could easily be done with an mbed. It could also be the startng point to your ultimate Rovio project. Not much just two motors, and an xbee module but its so fun to play with!

David Styles

# 25 Nov 2009

Hi all..

I'm Chris' brother.. I am nearly 40. and I learnt to program on an Acorn Electron many moons ago.

Worked at British Gas as a Computer Room Op when an 8Gb drive was a cabinet 6ft high, 3 ft wide and 8ft long.

I program in Java as a day job, and to be honest its childs play compared to C++. (its basically like BASIC!)

Project wise... I've been plinking around with all sorts.

I want to build some sort of race car data logger when I get round to it. (as I own a race car)

and recently my nephews came to stay, and I found out that a 2 year old and a 5 year old are rubbish at scalextric.

but.. an mbed, a transistor, a resistor and ten minutes learning how to PWM.. and you have a Scalextric speed modulator.

just pass the current from the controller across a transistor, being switched on and off from the PWMOut before it reaches the track.

and you have a way of controlling the top speed. Use a pot on a different pin as a means to control it.

add a digital number LED thingy that I had laying around, and you can visually show the speed setting.

Add a pushbutton and 4 leds.. a few more transistors,and use the pushbutton to cycle through the 4 LEDS signifying the 4 controllers you want to modulate.

and you have a 4 channel PWM motor controller that overlays your 4 normal controllers.

Tis just a minutes work from there to make it do starts, start lights.. and give penalties for jump starts.

You can probably tell I'm a convert... I can't believe what can be done with it.. its like having my acorn electron back, in a package an inch square.

(even if it is slightly harder to program!)

Stephane ROCHON

# 25 Nov 2009

Thanks for sharing Vlad, I guess I will ask you about some tricks with your roomba later ;-)

Concerning teaching the kids, I am sweating in advance when I am thinking about how I will explain them pointers that are all over mbed code ;-)

David, I see you are also from Jurassic age. I started to learn programming at 11y on a Sinclair ZX81 with 1KB of RAM. I was lucky to own a very expensive 16KB memory extention for it a year later...

C P

# 25 Nov 2009

I also started on a sinclair, copying programs by hand from magazines and saving to a cassette tape. Yes, I am a geezer also, I am 44.

I am an electrician by trade, but electronics and computers have always been a hobby. I have no paticular plans for my mbed, but I had to add it to the toy collection after seeing the Billy Bass (I have an old Billy Bass waiting to get hooked onto the internet - haha)

I have limited time to play as my 2 year old enjoys most of my free time. But I sure am looking forward to sharing Lego and electronics with him.

Good luck to all, and thanks for the helpful forum.

David Styles

# 26 Nov 2009

Stephane ROCHON wrote:

Thanks for sharing Vlad, I guess I will ask you about some tricks with your roomba later ;-)

Concerning teaching the kids, I am sweating in advance when I am thinking about how I will explain them pointers that are all over mbed code ;-)

David, I see you are also from Jurassic age. I started to learn programming at 11y on a Sinclair ZX81 with 1KB of RAM. I was lucky to own a very expensive 16KB memory extention for it a year later...

Those were the days ! Try explaining life without a hard drive to kids of today. Mind you,.. it means we actually understand whats going on inside the boxes. I work with new grads quite a bit.. the stories I could tell you.

Matthew Waddilove

# 26 Nov 2009

Hi,

I'm Matt, I too learnt programming on ancient hardware like you guys :) My first program was a hangman game on the ZX81 :D Nowdays I program games for a living :)

I'm currently aiming to get my mbed to talk to the ECU in my car, with the aim of making a dashboard module that will display sensor details.

The ECU is an Adaptronic e420c ( http://adaptronic.com.au/ ) which can talk modbus.

The car is a Mazda Eunos Roadster (Japanese import MX5) with a supercharger :D

So far, I've got a link to the modbus specs(Thanks vlad), and got a breadboard and some LEDs and made them flash.

But then stalled there, as with too many of my projects I'd love to do them, I rarely feel like much hacking after a hard day at work.

Richard Sewell

# 27 Nov 2009

David Styles wrote:

I want to build some sort of race car data logger when I get round to it. (as I own a race car)

David - you might find an ally in this thread:

http://mbed.org/forum/topic/166/

Richard Sewell

# 27 Nov 2009

Morning, chaps!

I've been doing some fairly feckless Arduino-based tinkering in the last year or so - a direction-finding hat:

http://jarkman.co.uk/catalog/fripperies/compasshat.htm

and a GPS-based theremin:

http://jarkman.co.uk/catalog/robots/gpsamin.htm

and some musical bike wheels, in conjunction with Dorkbot in Bristol:

http://code.google.com/p/pisanomatic/

The musical projects did sound synthesis directly from the Arduino, playing out wavetables to the PWM output, and they were on the bleeding edge of workability on that device. Adding one or two more lines to the interrupt handler that clocked out the wavetables was enough to bring the whole thing to a grinding halt. Well, actually, a sort of bleepy halt.

I was very happy to come across the mbed, which does much of the same stuff as the Arduino but has a lot more processing power available. My first project with it is another Dorkbot Bristol collaboration, and I hope it'll be on display at Uncraftivism in the Arnolfini on 11/12/ and 12/12. That uses the mbed and a camera to spot people going by, and stares at them with a robot eyeball.

I have the half-formed idea that getting cheap & easy machine vision working with the mbed will be the starter for all sorts of amusing projects.

Richard

Matthew Waddilove

# 27 Nov 2009

Richard Sewell wrote:

David Styles wrote:

I want to build some sort of race car data logger when I get round to it. (as I own a race car)

David - you might find an ally in this thread:
http://mbed.org/forum/topic/166/

Oh, and me :) I'd missed that in your intro David

I know that the Adaptronic & MegaSquirt talk via different serial protocols, but most of the same parameters will be present.

David Styles

# 27 Nov 2009

ah.. you see my car is a 1967 Triumph Spitfire, but fully modified to be a historic race car. The rules are, I am only allowed to use Triumph bits, but allowed to use any, and it has to remain looking like a spitfire. Its basically a fibreglass car now, with a very tuned engine, and all the best bits off all the short chassis triumphs. Amazingly, the engine in it is a 1963 1300cc, putting out about 145bhp, and redlining at about 8000rpm. (thats from a 1.3 push rod engine !). Anyway.. datalogging.. I have no posh ECU to tap into, although it does have electronic ignition ! So I am looking at how many sensors I can fit on a car. I have a friend who is what I call a "max power magazine freak", he reckons that him and all his mates would buy a processor in a box, (prototyped via mbed), and a bunch of sensors, for reasonable amounts of money too. I think there is DEFINITE potential for a commercial product, with what I know about mbed. A very basic laptimer will cost you £100. A datalogging laptimer more.., datalogging sensors on your car and software.. possible thousands.

Anyway... maybe a commerical collaboration could be possible ? I program java/jsp applications for a day job, The software bit is the bit that scares me least, and the mbed bit isn't hardly scaring me at all ! Its just time.. time time time !

Aaron Krone

# 28 Nov 2009

Hello everyone!

My name is Aaron and I am an Electrical Engineering student at Arizona State University that graduates in less than a month. I'm usually all talk when it comes to my crazy ideas, so I took the first step to remedy that and bought an MBED. Honestly, I seriously contemplated picking up a Parallax Propeller chip but I saw the Mbed was fresh out of the gate so to speak, and I wanted to be part of a new and developing community.

My first project idea I want to try and develop is a Airsoft prop that is a mock up suitcase dirty bomb. I think a prop that actually has to be 'disarmed' in the middle of an Airsoft game would be really cool and add a new dynamic to the hobby. I was also interested in exploring the ethernet and embedded webserver capabilites.

I hope I will be able to contribute to the community and help those that come after me since I will probably be asking help from those who came before me =)

Cheers

John McAdams

# 03 Dec 2009

Hello mbed world,

Got my mbed the other day and broke out some SSRs that I had lying around from another project and have animated my Christmas tree lights with various patterns. I have 5 strings right now, going to do 8 tomorrow. This is so much fun and I cannot believe how easy it is to get up and going.

Regards, Mac

Simon Ford

# 03 Dec 2009

Hi John,

Any chance of posting some videos?

And is anyone else working on any xmas-releated projects?!

Simon

Richard Sewell

# 03 Dec 2009

Simon - it might an exaggeration to say I was working on it, but I have a length of addressable RGB LED strip here, and I plan to use it for tree lights. I just need to do all the work.

Here's the stuff:

http://www.synopticlabs.com/blog/?p=97

We got it from here:

http://en.blueview.cn/product_show.asp?cid=207&id=225

Chris Styles

# 03 Dec 2009

Simon Ford wrote:
And is anyone else working on any xmas-releated projects?! Simon

I want to attach some "jingle bells" to a servo or something so they jingle for a few seconds from time to time. Then place the finished thing on the roof of our house. All of this is withthe intention of making my 2 year old think Santa is in the area (and therefore he should behave and do as he's told)

I'll write it up and post a video sometime... when I've done it.

Cheers,
Chris

John McAdams

# 03 Dec 2009 . Edited: 04 Dec 2009

Simon,

I will be hanging the lights today and then I'll shoot a video. I'll update when it is posted on you-tube. -- John

edit: video posted on My Notebook pages.

tt198@...

# 03 Dec 2009

Simon Ford wrote:

And is anyone else working on any xmas-releated projects?!

Would I? :)

I've just taken delivery of a Home Easy remote control pack from B&Q (£20). Three 433MHz radio controlled relay units that sit neatly between the wall socket and the fairy light plyg, and a really simple push button remote controller. Having made an ethernet controlled Christmas tree a long time ago using a Rabbit and a bodged triac setup, I feel a bit more relaxed about leaving these plugged in whilst I'm not around, and I don't expect these to electrocute me either.

Though, I won't be the first to hack with this kit: http://homeeasyhacking.wikia.com/wiki/Home_Easy_Hacking_Wiki

Dave Falkenburg

# 04 Dec 2009

Hi,

My name is Dave Falkenburg, and I'm a model railroader. My plans for mbed include building several "special effects" projects for my train club (http://www.siliconvalleylines.com/). Eagerly awaiting BatchPCB to deliver my breakout board— built my own before someone mentioned that BoB2 was available.

Simon Ford

# 04 Dec 2009

Hi,

John: Nice work! I'd like to post this on the blog sometime as it is our first xmas project! Do you want me to hold off if you are going to writeup the circuit/code on the notebook page, or are you done for now?!

Dave: If the batchpcb thing works for you, can you point people at any design/results? I'd like to see peoples experience with it as it seems like it could turn out to be a really great service. Especially if anyone else could use the design.

Simon

Alex Louden

# 05 Dec 2009

John - lovely christmas tree. I should really get around to putting up one.

I'm Alex, studying Mechatronics at UWA (in Australia). I've got a few months between 2nd and 3rd year, and a few ideas for projects. The first computer I played with ran windows 3.1, and the first program I wrote was an RPG on a graphics calculator (in high school when I should have been learning calculus). I've been programming in VB since I was 12, and I learnt Java, C, PHP in the last few years. I'm looking forward to being a part of the community here at mbed.

I have posted a video of my first play with the mbed in My Notebook. Bought a cheap keypad from Jaycar, and hooked it up to a servo I had lying around, for a simple door unlocking system. (Type in the correct code and the servo turns & unlocks the door handle for you)

I'd like to eventually use mbed to control an autonomous r/c 4wd car. I just need some cheapish distance sensors and a lot of time!

Hope to talk to you all in the near future,

Alex

Chris Styles

# 08 Dec 2009 . Edited: 08 Dec 2009

Simon Ford wrote:

And is anyone else working on any xmas-releated projects?!

I was going to do some Jingle Bells, but instead I did this, maybe not quite so festive. Maybe i'll do the bells too :-)

http://mbed.org/users/chris/notebook/christmas-tree-watering/

Cheers,
Chris

Alex Louden

# 08 Dec 2009

Alex Louden wrote:

I'd like to eventually use mbed to control an autonomous r/c 4wd car. I just need some cheapish distance sensors and a lot of time!

I've written up the project and my plans: Autonomous 1:10 car

I'd love some thoughts/feedback on it - any tips, tricks, code segments, ideas etc you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

John Daragon

# 18 Dec 2009

Well, I think I'm front runner in the age stakes so far... I'm 52, and responsible for the internal systems for a start-up data centre outfit in the UK. I'm looking for a flexible, inexpensive embedded controller to do everything from handling access control on the doors to measuring the temperature inside each rack.

Like everyone else, I've been playing with the Arduino, but we have some applications that could benefit from the higher clock speed, and I'm attracted by the more workmanlike dev environment on the mbed, and the ease with which I can put together a simple PoE prototype.

Patrick Palmer

# 23 Dec 2009

Hi,

This account is shared by my dad and me (Dad being Dr.Palmer), I'm 12 years old, I have known (not at the same point in time) 6 (all I can rember right now) programming languages being Pascal, HTML, CSS, C++, FLUXUS and Batch.

I'm currently trying to make a traffic light system, but I'm haveing trouble with ints and rands ect.

N Palmer

John McAdams

# 23 Dec 2009

Patrick Palmer wrote:

Hi,

This account is shared by my dad and me (Dad being Dr.Palmer), I'm 12 years old, I have known (not at the same point in time) 6 (all I can rember right now) programming languages being Pascal, HTML, CSS, C++, FLUXUS and Batch.

I'm currently trying to make a traffic light system, but I'm haveing trouble with ints and rands ect.

N Palmer

Young Palmer,

Specifically, what trouble are you having? If you share your code and point out the areas where you are having trouble, we will be in a much better position to help. You experience in C++ will be the best experience here as it matches what we do with the mBed.

Merry Christmas,

John

Duane Benson

# 24 Dec 2009

Hi Simon;

I have a dual purpose for my mbed. First, my pcb assembly company, Screaming Circuits, is always looking for ways to reach out into the hardware community and I think the mbed has a lot of potential to bring engineers into the embedded world, or bring them up to 32 bit processors. From what I can see, it's done a wonderful job of lowering the barriers to entry.

Second, on a personal level, I've been building 8-bit microcontroller based robots as a hobby for a number of years now and I've been looking for a way to move up to ARMs. Until the mbed, I haven't found a device that really fits the bill, given my limited available time. There are plenty of development systems, but the amount of time required to get the development environments up and keep them up is just prohibitive to me. With the mbed being such a complete turn-key package, none of those limitations exist any more.

Aside from the complexity of getting most other dev boards going, most are either too big or have limited connectivity. The mbed is nice and small enough to fit with my custom hardware and it has a good set of GPIO and peripherals accessible on the pins.

Duane

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