Sign Up
Login
Home
Blogs
Tutorials
Media
Games
Experiments
About
Sawfish Media
LIDAR
Over the weekend the LIDAR arrived for the Robotics Club. For those who don't know, LIDAR rotates while shooting out lasers, then using some electronic awesomeness (has to do with mirrors and comparing beams) it calculates the distance from the robot to each wall/object. This will be used for the SLAM or mapping and navigation of the quadrotor. Since a few other people and I are working on SLAM, there is much more of a push to getting the SLAM working on an iRobot create. Right now I'm trying to install and try out some libraries, but there are some problems that I have to look into.I've been doing much more biking lately and I finally set up a workout schedule which is M,F and maybe Sunday or Saturday. I wish I had a better camera (than a cellphone) because there are some amazing trails and routes. That's the nice thing about Corvallis, city to fields/forest in only a few miles.I also have a couple midterms this week. My classes are going pretty well, I'm learning Java in CS 161 which is a pretty easy language (just like all the others). Though it is nice to have a more-formal instruction, I'm learning more about the specifics of programming and some nice tricks.
1/27/2010
Fun
0
Holiday recap
So... The holidays are over (1 week ago). I knew it would go fast, and it did. Anyway, I may have done a lot of stuff over the break but I didn't really get started on everything I wanted to.First, over break my family and I watched a ton of movies. We saw Julie and Julia, which is a great movie and really gives an insight into the past of Julia Child. I also saw Sherlock Homes. It was a pretty good movie, though a bit unrealistic, but I enjoyed the movie's style and the characters. There were also various other movies that I watched but the list is very long (I need to get back into movie reviews on here).I also worked on transferring LPs (vinyl records) to iTunes. Basically I just had an adapter which connected to the record player to my computer. I recorded each side using SoundBooth (could also use Audacity), then I split it up into songs and named them. Throughout this process I realized that I should really record the songs at a lower volume and then increase the volume in SoundBooth. The audio turned out okay, there are some clicks and rumbles though.During break my some friends of mine had a movie night and gave each other secret santa (armadillo) gifts. I made my "armadillo" a potter puppet pal. I chose Harry Potter, because he is the most known, after Dumbledore of course. I looked for pictures of the puppets as well as guides to making them. I found one guide that pointed me in the right direction. Using photos I found I approximated the measurements of the puppet (using a human face as a reference) and made plans. When I actually went to the fabric store I was the only (single) guy there. The robe and hair was made with black felt. Then skin and face was made with flesh-tone polyester. The arms and face were stuffed, and the details were painted onto the face. The entire puppet was glued to a small plastic water bottle which served as the holder for the wooden dowel in the center and provided more structure.So, now I'm back at college, with new classes and more homework. I'm still working on the SLAM--it is a very complex subject. My sister also got me some Reese's, which are the largest (the company sells). Each is huge and it is filling just to take a few bites.
1/10/2010
Fun
2
Finals Done! Holiday Break!
This will be a long entry, due to everything that has happened. So, finals week is over! (7+ days later) It went pretty well, there were some that I thought I did so-so on but everything worked out. I did better than I thought on the ECE 111 exam, I did really well in the Vector Calc exam (I guess the hours of studying and doing review problems paid off), though I thought I did better in Discrete Math. It's kind of interesting how in high school, I would be just hoping for a 90% or above but now I hope for at least a 94% since GPAs are calculated differently. Finals week was very cold (11F lowest), but cold weather is kind of nice sometimes.Well, now that winter break has started I'm trying to get started on projects I want to do. The first is to write some pseudo-code for the SLAM for the robot. First I'm trying to understand the all the concepts in work for SLAM. Probably once we have a working SLAM implementation we will branch out and work on adding other parameters to see what works best. Another thing I want to do is to work on a new game I'm going to start, which is a music based parkor game. I've been procrastinating on it so far because of the animating I have to do (which I feel slows me down). I will also be working in Flash CS4 instead of FlashDevelop, which is very hard since programming in Flash CS4 sucks; FlashDevelop is dream. I'm also going to work on converting some LPs to digital using either SoundBooth or Audacity.I also got some new Headphones! I got the Sennheiser HD 201s, which are very nice. It is interesting getting used to them because they are much different from the iPod earbuds, and the sound is supposed to be great. The insulation is okay, but not great, though they are very comfortable. I also made a new iPod case out of plastic bags using this tutorial, which I previously used to make a messenger bag. I made the case a bit big but the design is great.
12/19/2009
News
3
Thanksgiving Update
So, it's been a while since an update. I've had some midterms which went pretty well. Next week is dead week, and then finals. Unfortunately I have all my 3 final on a single day.Thanksgiving, went well; it was nice to have a break from the regular day-to-day ritual. I'm getting back into running, but I still have a long way to go. Before the break, I started getting into Tetris, and I thought it would be cool to try my hand at creating my own version. So over break I work on my own Tetris game, which runs in Flash. It works fairly well, it seems like most of the work went into performance, such as rotating the pieces the correct way. There are numerous tweaks to be made still but I think I might move on. I also implemented some AI to give "hints" on where to place pieces. The next game I plan on developing is a music-based running/avoider game.Clubs are going well, we're progressing in Robotics and starting on the software development for the flight controller and motor controller.
11/30/2009
News
1
All SM Posts (38)
SM Community
Last BCT blog
Today is the last day of BCT---which means that this will be the last ever BCT blog. Never again will there be blogs about anything interessting--so hopefully you enjoyed this last hoorah
6/11/2009
Fun
0
Dead Mage Writing
Yeah, yeah, I know I haven't been on this site in forever. I blame, um...... society? That a good thing to blame. No? How about the media? School? The government? The lack of actual music on MTV? Oh, I got it! Reality TV. How about that?Er, well, anyways, I'm back in red to post this sweet link that might be of interest to anyone unfortunate to stumble across my blog page that I use to ramble in vain at the world in hopes that some poor sucker might actually be listening. At without further to do, here it is. A little click of the mouse, or mouse pad as it may be, will sent you zooming across cyberspace to visit the good people at 1up.com, which I may or may not have mentioned in an earlier, slightly less inane post. Once there, you will be confronted with a plethora of links to various free games across the web, emphasis on free in case you didn't notice the blatant use of italics. I figured that everyone could always use another dozen or so ways to waste their life away on the computer, so sharing away I am. Enjoy. Red Mage out.
5/14/2009
Fun
0
WoW answer for Monseiur Sawfish
During bus stop talk time, mr sawfish was unsure of what "divine intervention" is on WoW, so I used my skills to confirm my theory.Divine intervention is the following: The paladin sacrifices herself to remove the targeted party member from harm's way. Enemies will stop attacking the protected party member, who will be immune to all harmful attacks but will not be able to take any action for 3 minutes. Some may say that you would never want to sacrifice a paladin because he is a Holy Warrior.Use this spell with caution, as it is really only to rescue an entire party from a raid or attack.Then do this: (its good) Select Leeroy and press the F key. (This is a default key and might be rebound to something else.) Select Leeroy assist and type "/assist" Type "/assist Leeroy" Create a macro with the line "/assist Leeroy" Turn on target's target in the options menu, and select Leeroy to see his target. Good Times!(in no way do the opinions or facts presented in this post necessarilly represent true tactical skills of a true WoWer)-(do not post bash this post)
3/10/2009
Games
1
Chai Tea!
Chai tea; one of the wonders of the world is very tasty:Chai Tea recipeboil water in panput tea into panlet cook foor 7 min.strain tea leaves outplace tea in mugput 1 tbs of honey + 1tbs of sugarmixput milk in to taste (2+tbs)DRINK!!!
3/4/2009
Blah
0
All Community Posts (43)
Internet
Bre Pettis
A cool blog from Bre Pettis, creator of NYC resistor, makerbot etc. Interesting content, perfect for anyone who likes to make things!
3/21/2009
Cool
0
Typography Blogs
Some amazing blogs about typography.
3/20/2009
Cool
0
TV Tropes
TV Tropes is, well, a really addicting website. You know how you can spend hours on Wikipedia, hitting link after link? Yeah, it's kinda like that. Tropes are, well, the main page explains it better than me, but they're more or less cliches, though I wish I could think up a less negative word for them. The way the site works is you type in the name of your favorite movie, book, video game, band, comic, etc. and up pops a list of all the tropes in it for your reading pleasure. Bizarrely enough, I've found these useful for writing book reports, so they're definitely worth a look at. Oh, and I take no responsibility for anyone getting hooked on reading them.
3/12/2009
Cool
3
Web Design Trends For 2009
Trends for 2009, recent popular web design elements for 2009.
1/15/2009
Web Design
0
All Internet Blogs (14)
RSS
Get Rss Feed!
Tags
Fun
28
News
23
Cool
18
Web Design
5
Games
4
Music
1
Books
2
Movies
8
Events
3
Blah
1
Support
2
Show more tags
Comments
Very nice...
By: Sawfish
1 mths. ago...
Harry Potter
By: Jonathan
1 mths. ago...
YEAAHHH BOI
By:
2 mths. ago...
Yeah
By: Sawfish
2 mths. ago...
YEAH!
By: MonkeyButt
2 mths. ago...
Ad
User Name:
Password:
Remember me next time.
Or login with Facebook Connect
Cancel