Yann's Techno Toys Blog
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php
Sony panoramic mirror makes for a cheap omnicam
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100627-221352
It costs $83.00, which is about 5 times cheaper than the nearest competitor. The part number is X25467051. ]]>AT&T Wireless "Unlimited" plan was not unlimited at all
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100607-091041
Last year, I got a family plan from AT&T Wireless, with cheap/free phones for the whole family. I explicitly asked about the cost of unlimited data plans and was told it was $15/month. A few months later, I bought a Google Nexus One, and went to the AT&T Wireless website to activate the "unlimited data plan". I clicked the "AT&T recommended unlimited data plan" for $15/month.
The plan does have a fine print that says "data unlimited is not available on PDA/Pocket PC, RIM devices, or laptop connect cards". But it says nothing about Android phones.
In any case, the service worked great for about 9 months. Then a few days ago, I got a notice by SMS and by email saying that I had a "smartphone" (whatever that is), and that they would just switch me to the $30/mo unlimited data plan for smart phones. I went to the AT&T Wireless website and looked for their definition of smart phone, but I could only find a list of smart phones that AT&T distributes, which (obviously) doesn't include my Nexus One.
They say their $15/mo plan is "unlimited data" but it really isn't. It is limited by the phone hardware they allow it on. In you opinion, is this false advertising? Is their forceful switching of my service from $15/mo to $30/mo "bait and switch"? ]]>Tuesday nights at the Bar Next Door
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100502-010417
Bar Next Door at La Lanterna on 129 MacDougal street in Greenwich Village. The sets are from 8:30 to 9:45 and from 10:30 to 11:45, and the cover is $12, even if you stay for both sets. That's hard to beat.
But what's really hard to beat is the quality of the music. On most Tuesdays you will hear Joel Frahm's Trio, with Joe Martin at the bass and Bill Campbell at the drums. Whenever Joel is on tour, you might hear Chris Potter, Bill McHenry, Anat Cohen, or John Ellis. When Joe Martin is on tour, you might hear Omer Avital, or Allan Hampton at the bass.
The acoustic is great, the room is intimate, the people are friendly, and the music is fantastic. ]]>Ridiculously fast jazz solos on the recorder
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100502-004719
Benoît Sauvé is a French virtuoso recorder player who manages to emulate the likes of John Coltrane and Michael Brecker on the alto recorder. In his YouTube videos, he plays Coltrane's solo on "Blue Train" and Mickael Brecker's solo on "Some Skunk Funk" without missing a note.
For all of you, non recorder players, these solos are supposed to be played on a tenor saxophone, which is in B flat, and has lots of keys to make the fingerings easy and the flats and sharps real simple. An alto recorder is in F and has no keys (only holes). This means that playing certain notes (including most flats and sharps) requires very strange and complicated combinations of fingers, sometimes covering half a hole. Playing a jazz tune designed for a tenor sax will invariably involve lots of sharps and flats. Typical transitions between notes will require switching 4 or 5 fingers at the same time. That's why Benoît's performance is so impressive.
]]>FanWing: horizontal-axis rotary wing
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-013258
FanWing is an airplane design that uses an interesting type of wing.
It reminds me of a beach toy I had when I was a kid: a light plastic kite, shape like an airplane whose wings rotated around a metal axis.
The wings of the FanWing are composed of slats arranged as a cylinder that rotates on a horizontal axis. By rotating, the cylinders generate lift at lower speed than conventional wings.
]]>Vicacopter
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-012857
The Vicacopter is a minimalist PIC-based open source auto-pilot for helicopters, tri-copters, and quadri-copters. ]]>Arduino Nano 3.0
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-012319
Arduino Nano 3.0, available at MakerSHED for $35, is PCB-mountable, small footprint Arduino with an Atmega328 chip and a mini-USB connector.]]>Swisscopter: single-seat helicopter with H2O2 rockets on tip of rotor
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-010937
Swisscopter AG has a couple demo videos of a single seat ultra-light helicopter that is powered by H2O2 rockets on the tip of its main rotor. The advantage of the design is the quasi-absence of moving parts, and the absence of a torque on the body.
]]>Using Android phones to control robots
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-005659
- Cellbot - Firmata: Android <-> Arduino via Bluetooth - Amarino: Android <-> Arduino via Bluetooth]]>One Week with a Nexus One Google Phone
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-002712
Nexus One phone that works with AT&T's 3G frequencies, I got one ($530 direct from Google). This is the best phone every made by a long shot. Waaaay better than the iPhone. The 800x480 OLED display is fantastic. With 800 pixels, it's wide enough to display web sites without weird reformatting. The 1GHz snapdragon ARM-based CPU is very fast, and the browsing experience is fantastic (and it does have multi-touch pinching zoom). The Android 2.1 UI has all the buttons and functions in the right places. This is very much unlike Android 1.5 on my Samsung Galaxy 7500, which was incredibly clunky, slow and unresponsive.
As Wired magazine says, there are 3 types of "flashes" that the Nexus one supports and the iPhone doesn't: Adobe Flash (to view YouTube videos and browse the web), an LED flash for the camera (5MP with autofocus), and a microSD slot for a flash card. My Nexus One came with a 4GB microSD, which I replaced by an 8GB.
It has been said that the Nexus One sales have been slow, but it's because the US cell market is so fragmented: T-Mobile uses GSM for 2G and standard frequencies for 3G, but their coverage sucks; Verizon has good coverage and uses normal 3G frequencies, but they use CDMA for 2G instead of GSM like everyone else; AT&T uses GSM and has good coverage, but they use weird frequency bands for 3G. Bwaaaaah!
Why couldn't the US government do its job and establish standards, as Europe did?
In any case, the Nexus One now works with a carrier that actually has decent coverage. The apps are fabulous (even has a VNC client), but I haven't been able to figure out how to use the 3G connection from a laptop through BlueTooth. ]]>JeeLink: Arduino + RF
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100329-002057
JeeLink v2 is an Arduino with an RF link package in a tiny form factor. It costs about 30 Euros. It can be paired with an 18 Euro JeeNode, also an Arduino + RF module.]]>Aerotrain: the documentary
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100308-180053
Aerotrain was a French R&D project headed by engineer Jean Bertin in the 60's and 70's to build a high speed hovercraft monorail. The first prototypes of the Aerotrain used gas turbines for levitation and propulsion. Later models used a linear motor for propulsion and gas turbines for levitation. There are a few fan sites, that trace the history of the development .
Interestingly, the technology was licensed to an American company in Colorado called Rohr Industries. They developed and tested a prototype, but the project was later abandonned.
The project received a lot of publicity in France in the late 60's and early 70's when I was growing up. A friend of my aunt's was a young engineer at Bertin in the early 70's, working on the Aerotrain. Growing up, I was totally fascinated.]]>Personal Electric VTOL aircraft from NASA
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100121-003509
an article on the Puffin.
The Puffin has two contra-rotating propellers in the front, and four tail booms with tail planes that fold out to turn into a landing gear for vertical landings. The pilot "stands" in the plane (when sitting on its tail), and lie on his belly when the plane flies horizontally.
The 4.1m-wingspan plane is powered by a 45kg lithium-phosphate battery that gives it a range of just 80km at a cruising speed of 240km/h, but progress in battery technology could triple the range over the next 7 years. The motors have an approximate total power of 45kW.
]]>Operation: No Smoking May 16th, 2010 Plerguer, France
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100118-115507
Aero-Modèle Club de la Côte d'émeraude (AMCCE) in Plerguer, near beautiful Saint-Malo, France, is organizing an all-electric fly-in on May 16th 2010. They call the event Operation No Smoking. The website shows pictures of several electric planes from yours truly (I spend some of my summer vacation nearby and fly there on week-ends).
Here is a satellite pic of the flying site:
View Larger Map]]>Parrot AR.Drone: super-duper wifi-enabled, Linux-based quadricopter with vision
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100107-025557
Parrot AR.Drone is a very exciting and very unusual quadricopter: it is Wifi enabled and has two on-board cameras. At first glance, you could think of it as a flying version of the Rovio. Essentially it is a self-stabilized flying wireless webcam. But the AR.Drone has much more to offer to TechnoToy enthusiasts: it comes with a "shared source" API that allows any wifi-enabled device to get video and sensor data from it and to control it. The website has a number of drool-inducing videos of iPhone controlled AR.Drones, and augmented reality games in which AR.Drones appear to fight giant robots or appear to shoot lasers at each other.
The specifications are nothing short of amazing, really a dream come true for anyone interested in tinkering with flying robots: 6 DoF IMU (3 accelerometers, 3 gyros), 468MHz ARM9 CPU running Linux (which should open the door to custom firmware hacks), an ultrasound altimeter/ground detector that allows automated takeoff and landing. Last but not least, there are two cameras: the first one looks down and is used for vision-based stabilization and ground target detection (176x144 resolution, 60fps, 63 degree field of view). The second camera (640x480 resolution, 15fps, 93 degree FoV) looks forward and its output can be streamed through wifi.
There is no price and no release date, but I'm guessing this is not going to be cheap.....
The coolest aspect of the whole thing is that it is hackable. There is a developer website with a Wiki and downloadable source code (registration required). The system is "open" but not open source in the traditional sense (the license of the API is not an open source license).
Even more interesting, the protocol to communicate with the AR.Drone from the ground (e.g. from an iPhone or a Linus box) is documented in the Developer Guide. Apparently, it consists in sending a bunch of "AT"-style command through a Unix socket. Nice.
The puzzling thing is that Parrot is a French company which, until now, was involved in high-end cell phone audio accessories and expensive designer digital photo frames. What prompted this 400-employee company founded by a former journalist to get into the hobbyist/toy business? Perhaps the fact that their CTO used to work at Arianespace?]]>iPhone vs Droid, XKCD style.
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091225-112257
link to more XKCD. ]]>6 DoF IMU + Arduino
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091220-160222
DIY Drones store has a very useful piece of hardware: the ArduIMU+ v2. It's an Arduino-compatible board with a 3-axis accelerometer chip and a 3-axis gyro chip with appropriate filters. It also has a connector for a GPS module (with a 4Hz refresh rate). All of this for $100 (plus $90 for the GPS). Very useful.]]>Modifying an ESC for digital speed control
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091130-155041
a whole thread about this on RC Groups, as well as a PDF file with detailed instructions, and schematics.
The alternative is to buy an I2C compatible ESC from YGE: 60 Euros (about $90) for the 18A YGE-18i, or 70 Euros ($115) for the 30A YGE-30i. Ouch!
Speaking of which, for you ESC DIYers, Fairchild has a 40V, 20A, Dual N & P channel mosfet pair, the FDD8424H (available at Mouser for $0.86). ]]>Micro heli and 3D-capable plane from e-Flite
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091130-131801
Blade mSR ultra-micro helicopter, and the 4-Site ultra-micro 3D airplane.
The Blade mSR comes in an a "bind-and-fly" version for $150 (requires a separate Spektrum 2.4GHz DSM-compatible transmitter), and an RTF version for $180 (which includes a transmitter). The rotor diameter is 180 mm, and the mass is 28 grams. It uses a 120mAh single-cell LiPo battery. It's available from Hobby Lobby, and from Red Rocket Hobby.
According to some reviews, the Blade mSR is the first single-rotor (non-coaxial) micro-heli that flies well. Most single-rotor micro helis have a separate motor for the tail rotor. These motors have relatively long reaction times, which makes the heli rather difficult to fly (they will rotate every time you increase or decrease the throttle). The Blade mSR is so tiny that the inertia of its tail rotor is very small, and the reaction time is very short.
The 4-Site Ultra-Micro comes in 2 version: "bind-and-fly" for $170, and "PNP" for $110. A Spektrum DSM-compatible transmitter is required. The wingspan is 386 mm, and the mass is 35.5 grams, with a single-cell 150mAh LiPo battery. e-Flite has other such small planes, but this is the first 3D capable ultra-micro from them. The plane includes a 5-in-1 P board with a 2.4GHz DSM receiver, a brushed speed controler, and two linear servos. Two additional servos for the ailerons are pre-mounted on the plane. It's also available from Hobby Lobby, and from Red Rocket Hobby.
]]>Shrediquette: an Arduino-based Tri-copter
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091130-130224
Shrediquette is a tri-rotor helicopter built by William Thielike from Germany. William is a PhD student in biology, who seems to have many talents: micro-controller system design, control, mechanical design, flying contraption construction, as well as film making.
His tricopter is built around an Arduino Pro Mini micro-controller. Oddly, William didn't use the Arduino development tool and C/C++ programming language: he wrote his software in Bascom, a dialect of BASIC.
The yaw control is performed by rotating the tail boom with a servo. This very unlike the more conventional servo-less yaw control of quadcopters, but it's practically unavoidable for tricopters.
eRC Micro P-51 Mustang RTF for $99
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091103-000521
Hobby Lobby has the eRC Micro P-51 Mustang for $99.00. The diminutive ready-to-fly warbird has a 37 cm wingspan, weighs 30 grams, and comes with a 4-channel 2.4GHz radio. The plane has proportional control for the ailerons, elevator, and throttle. It uses a geared brushed motor.
Apparently, there is no rudder control as with the similarly sized Kyosho Minium Piper Cherokee. But the Minium is $180....
They will be rolling out a spitfire in December.]]>David Berkman at Smoke
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091101-144308
David Berkman was playing at the uptown club Smoke yesterday and Friday with Antonio Hart on the sax, Ted Poor on drums, and Ed Howard on bass. I went to the last set on Saturday and it was awesome. David has a new CD out entitled Live at Smoke (also on Amazon MP3 downloads), with live performances of some of his fantastic pieces from earlier records, like Weird Knack, which appeared on his amazing 2000 CD Communication Theory (though it was mispelled "Weird Knock" on that CD). Interestingly, David post the scores of many of his compositions on his website (though the links seem dead right now).
In fact, I first heard of David Berkman while listening to the WBGO radio station back in 2000. They played a piece from Communication Theory. I was hooked.
David played on Joel Frahm's first two CDs ("Sorry, No Decaf", and "The Navigator"), and composed some of the pieces on these CD (like "Interesting perhaps, but hardly a fascinating rythm"). It would be awesome if David and Joel could record together again. It would also be awesome if David played more often in NYC, particularly downtown.]]>ttymidi: serial/usb to MIDI for linux
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091017-222659
TTYMIDI is a linux hack to allow any serial or serial/USB device (such as the Arduino) to produce MIDI events compatibel with ALSA in Linux. This makes it easy to turn any Arduino-based hack into a MIDI controller. ]]>Omer Avital with Joel Frahm and Bill Campbell
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091017-210057
Bar Next Door, Joel Frahm and Bill Campbell were accompanied by bassist Omer Avital (instead of Joe Martin). The second set was particualry energetic, with one of Omer's composition called Flow, which is based on the changes of Giant Steps. I had never heard Joel play giant steps. Pianist/Composer David Berkman says in his book that Joel plays a mean Giant Steps. He is right, despite Joel claim that he hadn't played Giant Steps in while and was a bit rusty. ]]>Joe Martin's latest album
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091012-172543
Joe Martin's latest album,'Not By Chance', has been out for about a month now. It features Joe at the Bass, Brad Mehldau on Piano, Chris Potter on Sax, and Marcus Gilmore on Drums. What a nice line-up! Go Joe, go. ]]>Gadi Lehavi: 13 year-old Jazz piano prodigy
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091012-002955
His playing is amazing for a boy this age. Actually, it's amazing, Period. He is classically trained, and has been playing Jazz for about a year and a half.
]]>Hydroptere sails at over 100km/h
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091010-215859
L'Hydroptere, a sail-powered hydrofoil beat the speed record for a wind-powered watecraft with an average speed of 51.36 knots over 500 meters. The boat reached peak speeds of 103 km/h. Back in 2008, it briefly reached over 110km/h shortly before it capsized. L'Hydroptere has been in development since the early 90's under the leadership of Alain thebault. This idea was born in the mid 70's following a discussion between a group of aeronautical engineers and French sailing legend Eric Tabarly.
The previous 500 meter record was held by French kitesurfer Alex Caizergues at 50.57 knots.
]]>Our Experiments with Engine Sound Synthesizer for Electric Airplanes
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090914-115539
engine sound generator that could be mounted in an electric model airplane. This would allow scale models to not only look realistic, but also sound realistic, more realistic in fact than gas-powered model airplanes.
Other people have built engine sound generators before, but my dad's idea was to synchronize the pitch of the sound to the speed of the propeller.
After some semi-succesful experimentations with simple eeprom-based circuits, we built a sound synthesizer using a microcontroller module with some custom software. The module was a Tini2138 from New Micros, which has a 60MHz ARM7-TDMI with 512KB or eeprom (plenty of room for sound samples), and a 10-bit DAC.
The system worked quite well, but it's rather bulky and complicated to build for the average hobbyist. We are now developing a new version based on the hugely popular Arduino microcontroller platform. The new system is considerably more simple and lightweight, and will fit into small park-flyers. Stay tuned....]]>Flymentor3D: Vision-Based Flight Stabilization for R/C Helicopters and Airplanes
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090910-142109
Shenzen KDS Model Technologies proposes a new type of flight stabilization system for model helicopters and airplanes called the Flymentor3D. Instead of the usual separate gyros, the system uses an all-in-one IMU (not clear if it contains a 3-axis accelerometer or just 3 gyros), and a CCD sensor with a vision system. The CCD camera points down and can detect movements relative to the ground, presumably using some sort of optical flow calculation. The processing involved is similar to what takes place in an optical mouse, and in fact, I suspect they use the same chips.
There is a downloadable manual in PDF for more details (in semi-non-broken English). Unfortunately, no price is given on the KDS website.
The nice thing about vision-based stabilization is that there is no drift, unlike with gyros and low-cost IMUs. The helicopter will stay exactly in the same place with the same heading for as long as you want.]]>Air Hogs Switchblade
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090910-141205
Amazon has it for pre-order for $70.
There is a test video on YouTube.
]]>A week with the Samsung Galaxy i7500 Android phone
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090907-012226
MobileCityOnline.com. This is a $600 unlocked import model built for the European market. T-Mobile isn't schedule to distribute the phone in the US until later this fall, and I use the phone with AT&T anyway (since I don't get any T-Mobile signal at home).
Problem #1: The main issue with using the Galaxy with AT&T (or any existing Android phone for that matter) is that AT&T uses unconventional frequencies for 3G that are not supported by any Android phone. Hence, using an Android phone with AT&T means being restricted to 2G and Wifi. It sucks, but it sucks less than having no signal at home.
Setting up the phone to work with an AT&T SIM card posed no problem. The Settings->APN entries are as follows: Name: anything_you_want APN: wap.cingular Username: wap@cingulargprs.com Password: cingular1 MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com MMS Proxy: wireless.cingular.com MMS port: 80 MCC: 310 MNC: 410
Problem #2: the version of the firmware/software installed on the unlocked Samsung phone is essentially unusable in the US. There is no "Market" app to download software from the Android market, no automatic switching of the screen from portrait to landscape, no access to the accelerometer and magnetometer. Fortunately, the fix is easy: you can flash the latest version of the firmware (H7), and everything will work fine. The procedure is quite simple and described here. You will need a Windoze machine to run the MultiOdin ROM flashing utility.
Thank you kam187 from androidforums for the trick.
The phone is simply fantastic.
]]>Another foam cutter CNC kit
http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090827-031843
RCFoamCutter has a number of kits of CNC machines for cutting foam costing $400 for a basic kit to about $1300 for a complete kit (including electronics, hot wire power supply and such). ]]>
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