Archive for December, 2010


Hello LaunchPad

Filed Under: microcontrollers by tdr — Leave a comment
December 26, 2010

A few months ago on Hack a Day a saw a story about Texas Instrument’s  new product the LaunchPad. It is TI’s attempt to come more into the hobbyist market. I ordered two when I read the piece and forgot about it.

Weeks later they arrived , I was surprised how much you get for under $5. In the box you get

  • LaunchPad Development board (MSP-EXP430G2)
  • Mini USB cable
  • 2x MSP430 flash devices
  • 10-pin PCB Connectors (2 male & 2 female)
  • 32kHz crystal (MS3V-T1R 32.768kHz CL: 12.5pF +/-20ppm, Www.microcrystal.com)
  • Quick Start Guide
  • 2x LaunchPad stickers

A friend of mine, has created a great kit using the LaunchPad the Mini Mood Light.

TI clam the kit is open source but there is no easy way to use it in Linux. I followed these set of instructions to get the Dev environment working with Ubuntu.

For small projects I think the LaunchPad will be the way to go in the future.

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The Kindness of Strangers

Filed Under: personal by tdr — Leave a comment
December 2, 2010

Yesterday I had a bit of trouble getting home. Leaving college at 3pm to find all the buses stopped. I decided to walk into town from DCU to try and try and get a train. After making my way to Drumcondra train station, I got the train to Tara Street station. I then hoped on the train home.

After 10 minutes on the train waiting between Tara and Connolly station, I started to feel  strange. The heat and lack of air was unreal. I stated to feel my head spinning, I dropped my phone and that’s all I remember.

I woke up a few minutes later to find myself lying down on the seat with a concerned people around me. I had fainted or blacked out or something. The people around me had moved to a seat and got some water and some chocolate. If it wasn’t for the nice people around me I don’t know what would have happened. It goes to show the kindness of strangers and their willingness to help other. I never got the names of the people who helped, maybe some day I can return the act of kindness to someone else.

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An Embedded Motion Capture Device V0.1

Filed Under: arduino, FYP by tdr — Leave a comment
December 1, 2010

Over the last number of weeks I have been working on the high level design of my Motion Capture system for my FYP. I have come up with the design below.

Parts List

Over the next week or so I hope to work on getting the I2C and SPI buses working.

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The Best Man, The Better Man

Filed Under: personal by tdr — Leave a comment
December 1, 2010

For any of you big the Wedding singer fans out there you will know where the title comes from.

Over the weekend I was down visiting my twin brother. I had a great time building a snowman as they had plenty of snow in Laois. I even stayed an extra day due to being snowed in(not really that was just the excuse ).  Anyway back to the title, my brother asked me over the weekend to be the best man at his wedding next year. He plans to marry the love of his life in March next year in the romantic surroundings of  Tullamore Court Hotel. I have only been to one wedding before this and that was in Poland. I am a bit unsure of the duties of best man. After some googleing around and reading different articles , I found my main duties are

  • Organizing the stag night.
  • Making sure he makes it there on the day.
  • Giving a speech.

Stag Night,

I got talking to all his friends on ideas for the stag night over the last few days. The general idea is, we want to go to another county. The consensus  being,  what happens outside Ireland stays outside Ireland. The cities on the cards so  far are Berlin, Newcastle and Liverpool. The date, some time in January (I have to find out my exams dates first).

Speech,

Having only heaned one real best man speech in my life and that was in polish, I am still unsure what i should talk about. I think I will head into Easons this weekend and see if I can find a book on the subject.

If any of you have any suggestions on a best man speech, where to go or  things to do on a stage night please leave a comment.

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