Arduino a compass, serialproxy and Unity3d

I have been trying to connect my arduino to Unity3d 2.6 on both OSX and Windows.
Unfortunately the implementation of the SerialPort in the version of mono that Unity is using is broken on OSX.
I did have succes on windows, once I found out that the mono-serialport doesn’t support events and therefore is synchronous!!
The best way would be to use a native plugin, but that would mean you would have to use the Non-Free Pro version of Unity.
So.. In comes Tinkerproxy and  Sockets. Using a socket to relay the serial-data also means that you don’t need Unity to be on the same machine as the arduino.
I even managed to read the sensor data directly from an arduino with an ethernet shield!

So what happens if take a compass module and tie it to the y-rotation of a camera..
well here is a video of me sitting on a desk chair with my laptop and the compass on an seeeduino.
[ sometimes macbook interferes with the compass! especially when I placed the compass over the HD ]

Looking back…

I was just looking back on one of the projects I did last year.
Xite.nl is a music-website, full of streaming videoclips.

I was asked to build the videoplayer and videobrowser.
This was my first project that used Zend_AMF instead of AMFPHP,
and also the first time I worked with the Zend-framework.

Go take a look Here:
http://www.xite.nl/

Screen shot 2009-09-20 at 4.35.16 PM

Upgrading to Snow Leopard a.k.a 10.6

So I’m upgrading my MBP to 10.6.
Since this is my production machine I’m taking no chances.
I bought an external 7200rpm 2,5” HD and installed 10.6 onto this drive.
Once this installation is as stable as I would like it to be, I’ll be swapping the internal HD for this one (leaving me with a backup OS in case of emergencies).

So far all my apps seem to be running just fine.

I’ll be keeping a list here for all minor/major tweaks that were necessary to get everything running.

Enabling PHP and MYSQL

First of all edit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and uncomment the following line
loadModule php5_module      libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Next install Mysql, get the latest version (now still says osx 10.5, but it will run!)
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html#macosx-dmg

copy php.ini.default to php.ini  (don’t forget to make it writable first)

edit default_socket properties: I’m using pdo so I had to change the following line
pdo_mysql.default_socket=/var/mysql/mysql.sock
to
pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock

edit the default timezone, i.e:
date.timezone = Europe/Amsterdam

edit some properties like upload size memory limit

start mysql , add at least one user since by default there’s only root without a password
(use sequel pro, It’s a nice opensource and free DB-tool)

now restart apache
sudo apachectl graceful

… you can now develop local php-sites

…..
more to come…..

Flash now talking to breadboard prototype

The Guys from Merapi pointed me towards their AS3-only branch on SVN.
It took me while the get my test running, mainly because I forgot to use the registerClassAlias function in flash, which ended up in Java not recognizing my messages.

After a succesful test, I quickly hacked a swf-module that could be loaded into version 2 of the Ukulele Chord Finder ( version 1 can be found at http://www.ukulele.nl ) that we have under development.
So now we can talk to Merapi Straight from the browser.

I also managed to turn the Java Side of the Merapi-Bridge into a Mac application.
So here’s a video of the things I made.

First breadboard prototype finished

Well, it took a lot of wires but here’s the first breadboard prototype:

The Arduino with Protoshield and Breadboard with ledmatrix

The Arduino with Protoshield and Breadboard with ledmatrix

On the left we have an Arduino Decimila with a prototypeshield on top.
The prototypeshield contains a max7221 ic 2 capacitors and a resistor.
The breadboard contains 64 leds in a 8×8 matrix.
I was aiming for a 4×16 setup, but there was no way I could get the wiring done on one 1 breadboard.

The 8x8 ledmatrix

The 8x8 ledmatrix

So far this is just a worked out example of : http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MAX72XXHardware

The Arduino is now running a simple loop.
Next stop is writing an intelligent layer like firmata.
So more to come soon……

prototyping of ukulele arduino and merapi started

I Just started to prototype the ledUkulele.

I got myself a max7221 IC and hooked it up to the arduino board.
I’m now thinking of good way to wire the 4*16 matrix
basically a 8×8 matrix but the physical postion of the odd rows is behind the even rows.
Designing this matrix on a breadboard sucks (too many wires), so I need to come up with a better way without soldering.  (suggestions welcome)

cleanup

Just walked through all the plugin and theme scripts and cleaned up a lot of duplicate scripts.
I had 2 Jquery scripts , (that killed lightbox).
and 3! swfobject scripts (including a v1)
Rewrote flvembed plugin to use v2.1 instead.
Maybe I’ll start looking for one plugin that can embed all media.

Still working on a spam-problem (eventhough I’m using captcha)

Thoughts about my next experiment, ukulele arduino and merapi

I’m thinking about a new experiment.
Here’s the thing, I love playing Ukulele. Once a Month we organize a playalong.
There are people who never played an instrument before and others that are regulars.
Together with my Friend Marcel, creator of ukulele.nl has made a really nice chordfinder
I will be making a version 2.

Here’s the though: what if ?:
I could build a Ukulele that shows the fingering of the chords ON THE UKULELE!
And even have it sync to the chords shown on screen?

What do you think, wouldn’t this be a cool Merpai/Arduino/Ukulele project?