Pi-users

pi-users@socs.uoguelph.ca

21 discussions

Advertising the programming contest
by Judi McCuaig 21 Nov '13

21 Nov '13

Hi everyone, Please help me advertise our "not quite winter break" programming contest to anyone who might be interested in it. I've attached a single slide that you can use if you wish- but mostly I just hope that you'll encourage the people you interact with and/or teach to join the contest. You should join it too. Details can be found at https://bucky.socs.uoguelph.ca Thanks! Judi

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Christmas Lights Display
by Frazer Seymour 15 Oct '13

15 Oct '13

Hi all, I ran a project idea by Judi this afternoon and she said to forward it on to the group. What I have in mind is a small Pi-powered Christmas lights display somewhere on campus, to promote SOCS and the Pis and because we can. A script on a Pi would play music (broadcast method TBD), then use its GPIO pins to brighten strands of Christmas lights depending on the intensity of different groups of wavelengths - akin to the old Windows Media Player visualizers. I was picturing it on/around Reynolds but the cannon might be a cool location if we could manage it. So if anyone is interested in taking part in this, let me know. I have a few ideas, but I imagine there's more planning and work to come than I think. I know people are just putting out Hallowe'en stuff, but I figure it wouldn't be a bad idea to get started soon if it is to be ready when snow flies. Cheers, Frazer.

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anyone have some time on Wednesday and/or Thursday?
by Judi McCuaig 02 Sep '13

02 Sep '13

DIYode is going to be in the Reynolds building selling pi-kits to my first year class on Wednesday and Thursday and they would love to have some help. If you have some time and would like to help, let me know? We could use people to answer questions, people to help sell, people to show the students how to set up their pi, etc etc. I'll bribe you with food.. lunch and snacks. Let me know? Judi

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no meeting tonight
by Judi McCuaig 29 Aug '13

29 Aug '13

Only two people have said they would come to a meeting today, so I think we're better off to cancel the meeting. I'll reschedule for mid-September. Judi

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its meeting week...
by Judi McCuaig 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

Last meeting was pretty sparsely attended, is anyone available to meet this week? If you would like to come to a pi-users meeting this week, please let me know asap. If I don't hear from at least 5 people, I'm going to cancel the meeting. We'll reschedule for the second or third week of the semester. Judi

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three things...
by Judi McCuaig 08 Aug '13

08 Aug '13

1. I totally forgot there was supposed to be a pi-users meeting last week and I went camping instead. I'm really sorry that I didn't even send out an email. My apologies to all. 2. We should have a pi-users meeting next week and people should bring their robots to show off. We can even do test-runs if you're ready for that. 3. The TA positions are posted for the fall semester. (https://www.uoguelph.ca/sessional_ta/ta_post_view?field_tajob_depts_value_m…) Judi

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who is coming to July 18 meeting?
by Judi McCuaig 17 Jul '13

17 Jul '13

Hi folks, I'm unfortunately really busy this week and can't make the pi-users meeting on Thursday. That said, you don't really need me to have a meeting- if there are people who plan to be there- I will make sure you have access to meeting space. I think it would be really interesting to see what progress people have made on their robots. Reply to the list if you were planning on being at the meeting and I'll help you organize it. Judi

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Distance sensing for the Pi
by Rick Knoop 05 Jul '13

05 Jul '13

Hi Everyone, For those of you who are taking part in the car challenge we were talking last night about different approaches to get the car to detect the wall. I figured I would save you all some research if you chose to use a distance sensor; one of the cheapest sensors available on the market is the HC-SR04 arduino sensor . This sensor takes a 10 microsecond signal and responds with a signal detailing how long it took for the signal to bounce back; or the distance to the object is half the time divided by the conversion of microseconds to m/s such that : distance in cm = (duration/2) /29 There are two small problems with this sensor and the pi though: 1. It sends a 5V signal as output which since we are using the GPIO pins on the pi (3V3) has a chance of shorting the pi , this can be prevented by using voltage divison ; there are wiring diagrams available that are specific to the pi and this sensor but the math tells me the resistance given in the diagram will result in a 2V1 signal to the pi. 2. The sensor when interfacing directly with the pi has a standard deviation of around 8%; this is due to the nature of having the os able to interrupt your code, but if you are using an arduino to the distance sensing though it comes to a 1cm standard deviation up to 2 metres. I will probably end up getting an arduino uno as they are not too expensive and I prefer the more accurate sensing. The hyperlinks are just there to show how cheap it is possible to get them on ebay choose vendors as you wish. Rick Knoop

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Thursday night meeting
by Judi McCuaig 03 Jul '13

03 Jul '13

Its meeting-week again! This week we'll do our regular 'what has everyone been doing' round robin, and then we'll see who has robot plans so far. We'll spend a tiny bit of time planning out a few more parameters for the robot-race contest and maybe set some deadlines. Robots can be constructed in teams or by individuals- we don't care. Please let me know if you're planning on building one so that I can get an idea of how many judges I might need to conscript. Judi

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a robot contest!
by Judi McCuaig 25 Jun '13

25 Jun '13

We had a small but enthusiastic turnout to last week's pi-users meeting. After looking at a few in-progress projects we had a look at a list of projects that we had found online. You can see the whole list of projects on our pi-users website. http://pi-users.socs.uoguelph.ca We decided that we should focus the pi-users group efforts on a project so we decided to run a robot contest something like the one described here: http://pi-users.socs.uoguelph.ca/?page_id=33 Basically you are challenged to build a robot using your pi that will propel itself down the hallway, stop when it encounters a wall, turn 180 degrees and propel itself back to the start. You can use a battery or you can have a long extension cord.. it doesn't matter. We'll have a 'wall' at the start position too so that its easy to tell when you are back to the beginning. Post your progress to the list. We'll run one set of trials before the summer is out and then we'll run another set the first week of classes so that people who are away for the summer can still build and compete. I'll try to create some judging criteria and maybe even find a couple of small prizes. Finally, I'd like your help in trying out one of the enrichment activities we have designed for first year programming students. You can see the activity at http://greebo.socs.uoguelph.ca/~bend Please give it a go and send any comments you might have to me. Hope to see you at the next meeting! Judi

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