Archive for March, 2010

Charlotte's Web

Zeven and I are creating a solar powered tone generator for our final with a form factor of a spider. A miller engine circuit will power the “legs” which will act as switches to set off the tones.

We are using the simple LM 386 amplifier circuit and a hacked into Hex Schmitt Trigger. Both circuits are powered by four solar panels wired in Series and Parallel. The buzzing oscillator sound is a square wave and runs on 6 volts.

The Miller Engine Circuit is powered by 4 solar panels wired in parallel creating 80 -100 miliamps and 3 volts. A small geared page motor acts as a “leg” switch to turn on the audio circuit.

Right now we are having an issue with the miller engine. Our amperage for our circuit is being lost somewhere in our circuit. We are only getting 25mA out of a possible 130mA. After testing the capacitors, trigger, and transistor we have found out that those are not the problems. We now assume it could be the signal pin on the voltage trigger not letting all of the amperage through.

RF Radios

My group and I were testing these RF Radios to see if we can make some DIY rfids. These modules are 434 mhz radio transmitter and receiver pairs that run at a range from 2v – 12v. It operates at 2400 baud rate. For more information is located on the sparkfun site: transmitter and receiver.

One of the most important things is the shape of the antenna. Coiling around a 1/2 inch cylinder give a good signal. The receiver is well labeled the only trick is that middle power pin needs to be grounded with a capacitor. This helps smooth out the radio signal coming through. The receiver data pin goes connected to the RX port. For simple tests simply listening to the serial port will give you the transmitted data.

The receiver’s data pin goes connected to whatever you want to send across the link. In this case we are sending analog values via a pot. The data pin is connected to the RX pin.

RWET Midterm: SOS Poem

The SOS Poem structure is based on the Morse code sequence . . . _ _ _  . . . Another goal for the poem is to follow the rhythm of SOS by using the following word structure: Name and Name Adverb Verb Adverb Name and Name. Also each name is composed of three letter names and the adverbs and verbs are composed of nine letter words. You can also see that it has a palindrome feel to it. Because of how the code is set up it words best when you input a list of names and another source text.

The source text is a list of congress people and the Obama Health Care bill

Lee and Jos gradually clarifying gradually Lee and Jos
Ken and Ron currently conducting currently Ken and Ron
Dan and Max seriously increased seriously Dan and Max
Ike and Joe primarily empowering primarily Ike and Joe

For and Fee gradually clarifying gradually For and Fee
All and One currently conducting currently All and One
But and Tax seriously increased seriously But and Tax
Act and Key primarily empowering primarily Act and Key

import sys
import re
congress = set()
congressName = list()
bill = set()
billWords = list()
verbs = set()
verbsList = list()
adverbs = set()
adverbsList = list()
state = "New"
name = " "
words = " "
verb = " "
adverb = " "
congressCounter = 0
verbCounter = 0
adverbCounter = 0
displayCounter = 0
fileObj = open('obamacare.txt')

lines = fileObj.readlines()

for line in sys.stdin:
    line.strip()
    for matching_string in re.findall(r'\s[A-Z][a-z][a-z]\b', line):
        name = matching_string
        congress.add(name)

congress.remove(" New")

congressCounter = len(congress)
for num in range(0,congressCounter):
    name = congress.pop()
    name=name[1:]
    congressName.append(name)

for words in lines:
    words.strip()
    for matching_verb in re.findall(r"\b\w{7}ed|\b\w{7}ing",words):
        verb = matching_verb
        verb = verb.lower()
        verbs.add(verb)

verbCounter = len(verbs)
for num in range(0,verbCounter):
    verb = verbs.pop()
    verbsList.append(verb)

for words in lines:
    words.strip()
    for matching_adverb in re.findall(r"\b\w{7}ly",words):
        adverb = matching_adverb
        adverb = adverb.lower()
        adverbs.add(adverb)

adverbCounter = len(adverbs)
for num in range(0,adverbCounter):
    adverb = adverbs.pop()
    adverbsList.append(adverb)

if congressCounter < verbCounter and congressCounter < adverbCounter:
    displayCounter = congressCounter
elif verbCounter < congressCounter and verbCounter < adverbCounter:
    displayCounter = verbCounter
elif adverbCounter < verbCounter and adverbCounter < congressCounter:
    displayCounter = adverbCounter

for num in range(0,displayCounter,2):
    #print num
    if num < displayCounter:
        nameone = congressName[num]
        nametwo = congressName[num +1]
        print(nameone + " and " + nametwo + " " + adverbsList[num] + " " + verbsList[num] + " " + adverbsList[num] + " " + nameone + " and " + nametwo)

Congress Text
Obama Care Text