Masafi Water-Air C-Engine Rocket

Playing with air pressure rockets is really awesome, I used to take on of these Masafi bottles, but water hose in (tight fit), pump water -> after sometime, the air pressure inside will be high enough that you can't hold it anymore, then point up and release and BOOOOM

That what happen with one bottle, so what about a whole rocket??

so, I set to make a rocket, which currently is a big fail because I did not have a proper air sealing material,,,

concept of one bottle, first pressurize then release (click to enlarg)

When I connected two, the leak happened as shown

The concept of the Multi-Masafi Water-Air Rocket (cross section showing 2 of the six C-Engine Cylinder :P) and yea, C for Circular, and "strobe" should be "straw"

The pictures above does not show the actual bottle size, below it does (okay, to some extent, excuse my hand skills on MS Paint)

It also shows the expected aerodynamic behavior (the rocket is going up)

  

well, if it failed/drifted etc am gonna add a cone/rocket case to remove the effect of the straws / bottle shape

I collected bottles

drilled the holes

assembled with duct tape and glue gun:

The problem is that glue gun does not withstand air pressure and fails, I'll continue this when I have what I need, till that time, this rocket which looks like one of Yuri's buildings (Red Alert) will stay on the wall

Garage Door

Recently, we moved to another home, unfortunately (or fortunately) the garage door does not work, we open it manually currently, we requested the house owner to fix it but they said that they tried many times but failed, so what does this mean for an EE lover?

An awesomeness of course, a new toy to play with, a new game to reverse engineering :)

I tried the manual button, the motor does work but the door does not move, I tried assisting it by giving it a push but no hope, so apparently, the gears are broken/loose etc a mechanical problem in short.

not only that, but also, we do not have the remote controller, so apparently I'll have to hack it to put my own wireless connection, later..

now lets start playing:

The box:

Now I need to remove the bottom to reach the mechanical problem and fix it, I had to use a lot of force to open these two blots on bottom:

notice how the spanner got bended in the image below

What about this dried-sanded grease:

overview of the inside, 

top right is the motor with three wires (I don't have experience with motors, so your help is apperciated here, the motor has three wires two of them are connected the big cylinder you can see on the top left [I guess a cap??!] and there is a third wire)

What is this motor? which type? what are the three wires?

Is it a capacitor really? why it is there?

top left a capacitor (I guess)

below it is the transformer

and on bottom the PCB

Wireless chip on right side of PCB

Connection Header on top of PCB

The circuit 

started labeling some wires

I then used WD-40 and sprayed on the screws to remove the PCB (Along with the transformer which is soldered to the PCB)

Now I need to remove wires, so I took note of all connections and labeled wires

Before that, I decided to test it, found that the motor is actually rotating as well as the output shaft

so, I reconnected it up again, but again it does not work!!!

conclusion: the mechanical assembly is having a problem which I cannot fix

repairing attempt Failed!

Large Simon Collider

So, I decided that its enough for my young brother and sister wasting their money in the stupid malls games and will make my home game arena!

Luckily I had an old computer table which was about to be thrown, the 15mm wood will help a lot to make strong bases. (Kids games needs to be 10x military ratings)

Starting with a simple one, Sparkfun Simon game in a big scale, basically I'll buy their kit replacing the switches with big domes

I started today with the base, can't continue as I have only one dome push button

First, I took dimensions of available wood real-estate and choose the appropriate part, its a 30*48 cm surface with about half meter height

face is shown below, dimensions in mm

then I proceeded to cutting with jigsaw and drilling, added duct tape on the edges and the result:

To be continued ... after getting Simon kit and Dome Push buttons

Finally, got them, oh and Sparkfun did an awesome job by replacing bulb with LED so I don't need to waste time modifying it :)

Then I decided to display current level, I modified the code as following:

Added definitions:

#define ControlPort PORTC

#define RCLK_Pin PINC0

#define SRCLK_Pin PINC1

#define Data_Pin PINC2

#define SETBIT(ADDRESS,BIT) (ADDRESS |= (1<<BIT))

#define CLEARBIT(ADDRESS,BIT) (ADDRESS &= ~(1<<BIT))

void ShiftData (uint8_t Data);

void DisplayDigit(uint8_t HighDigit, uint8_t LowDigit);

void DisplayNumber(uint8_t Number);

and added the function below at bottom of code (I wrote function my self, got the CLK concept from bildr)

void ShiftData (uint8_t Data)
{


//[ld,d,rd,dot,ru,u,lu,m]
uint8_t SSArray[]={
0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1, //0

1,1,0,1,0,1,1,1, //1

0,0,1,1,0,0,1,0, //2

1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0, //3

1,1,0,1,0,1,0,0, //4

1,0,0,1,1,0,0,0, //5

0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0, //6

1,1,0,1,0,0,1,1, //7

0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0, //8

1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0 //9
};










CLEARBIT(ControlPort,RCLK_Pin);

for (uint8_t i=0; i<8; i++)
{
if (SSArray[8*Data+i]==0) CLEARBIT(ControlPort,Data_Pin);
else SETBIT(ControlPort,Data_Pin);

SETBIT(ControlPort,SRCLK_Pin);
CLEARBIT(ControlPort,SRCLK_Pin);
}

SETBIT(ControlPort,RCLK_Pin);
}






void DisplayDigit(uint8_t HighDigit, uint8_t LowDigit)
{



// Send data starting with HIGH Digit
ShiftData(HighDigit);
ShiftData(LowDigit);



}






void DisplayNumber(uint8_t Number)
{


if ((Number>=0) && (Number<10))
{
DisplayDigit(0,Number);

}
else if ((Number>9) && (Number<100))
{

DisplayDigit(Number/10,Number%10);

}

else
DisplayNumber(0);




}





Then modified the "game_mode()" function as below

static int game_mode(void)

{

nmoves = 0;

while (nmoves < MOVES_TO_WIN) {

DisplayNumber(nmoves+1);

uint8_t move;

/* Add a button to the current moves, then play them back */

add_to_moves(); 

play_moves(); 

/* Then require the player to repeat the sequence. */

for (move = 0; move < nmoves; move++) {

uint8_t choice = wait_for_button();

/* If wait timed out, player loses. */

if (choice == 0)

return 0;

toner(choice, 150); 

/* If the choice is incorect, player loses. */

if (choice != moves[move]) {

return 0;

}

}

/* Player was correct, delay before playing moves */

delay_ms(1000);

}

/* player wins */

return 1;

}

On the hardware side, I've connected the two seven segment displays with two 8Bit Shift Registers as on the bildr example, pinout from arduino tutorial 

result:

and after fixing the segment on place:

and turning power ON

Done! :D

RoboBlind - a smart guide for blind people

Originally, our entry to IEEE UAE Student Day 2011 Common Design Project, now we are up to GIST Initiative 

The winner will be decided on the number of likes on the video, so please like and share :)

NetHome

I am extremely happy today, I am almost done with Light Control through Ethernet. I can't believe it was soooo easy!

I started this project about a week ago, not a new idea or any thing, it is for my own educational purpose

NetHome

I started with a rough sketch of the idea (pictures are hi res so it will take time to load)

After getting the required components I started implementing directly

5v power is supplied from USB, 3.3v regulator is used for the webserver WIZ200Web from Sparkfun

Relay PCB, to control the 220 VAC

Powering up!

Yay its working, now feedback sensor, Miniature Solar Cell

WIZ200Web - web server (from sparkfun)

Using this guy was awesome, only need to connect two 3.3v pins, four GND pins, Rx0, Tx0. Then from PC use configuration tool to connect/configure and download firmare/webpages.

Below, I was testing in external ATmega168 before using the server (which has ATmega128 with pins you can use for I/O ADC etc)

Ethernet link - blinking!

webpage:

I've connected my relay driver to PB4 pin (on J2) which is LED0 on the WIZ200web development board, so I was able to control the light.


After that I decided to make two interfaces, one from PC "PC Station" and an "Android Station" and maybe also "iPhone Station"

I started with the simplest, "PC Station" for which I used Visual Basic:

The PC Station is working fine, however, there is small problems with changing the IP Address, if the connection is successful and I tried to change the ip address, it would still say "connected"

Also, I've not implemented Syncing data yet

Since It is working, I thought I'd move to the next step, Android!

The UI on Virtual Manager

I am able so far to toggle the picture ON/OFF, however, I am still looking for how to control the light :D

.