- Pi-users - mail.socs.uoguelph.ca

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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meeting this thursday
by Judi McCuaig 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

Hi folks, We'll have a pi-users meeting this thursday- bring your show-and-tell items if you have them. I've got a shiny document filled with cool pi-projects that we can chat about and maybe set a goal for something we can all build over the remainder of the summer. Two other items: 1) We've got a pi-stuff channel in an irc chat room that I hang out it. If you feel like joining us in irc please do: tigger.pearlstein.ca 2) The first Ti-Cats home game is on thursday night.. so parking on campus will be a nightmare. I suggest biking or walking to the meeting. The parking announcement is below. See you Thursday! Judi ************* Campus Bulletin Most of the parking lots in central campus will be affected during the first game played by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Alumni Stadium Thursday, June 20. This will be the only home game that will be held on a regular work day. Motorists are asked to remove cars from parking lots near the University Centre and South Residences, west of the Ontario Veterinary College and along College Avenue by 4:30 p.m. Thursday. These lots -- P8, 9, 11, 17, 19, 23, 24, 30 and 31 - will be reserved for game parking that evening. Lot P6, located north of the Powell Building, and P59, at the western end of the South Ring Rd. Extension (west of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario), will be reserved beginning at 5 a.m. Thursday and will not be available for U of G parking all day. Lots P48 and P49, located on Powerhouse Lane adjacent to Alumni Stadium, will be reserved beginning at 5 a.m. Wednesday, and Powerhouse Lane will also be closed. Parking and access in this area will not be available until after the game on Thursday. Lot P7, located east of the stadium off East Ring Road, will remain closed for the entire 2013 football season. Affected lots are highlighted on a campus map: http://www.uoguelph.ca/img/news/ParkingLotMap.png All of the above lots with the exception of P7 will resume regular use after the game. Local traffic is expected to be very congested around campus and on Gordon Street before and immediately after the game, which begins at 7 p.m. There will be signs in the area directed people to Ticat parking lots.

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Re: [Pi-users] Pi-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 3
by James Chapman-Brown 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

Why don't you solder the wires onto the pi, it's a fairly permenant solution, requires a bit of skill, but should be rock solid and take up no space at all. I just looked at my pi and soldering connections that large is a breeze. ----- Original Message ----- From: pi-users-request(a)socs.uoguelph.ca To: pi-users(a)socs.uoguelph.ca Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:33:23 PM Subject: Pi-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 3 Send Pi-users mailing list submissions to pi-users(a)socs.uoguelph.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://snowhite.socs.uoguelph.ca/mailman/listinfo/pi-users or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to pi-users-request(a)socs.uoguelph.ca You can reach the person managing the list at pi-users-owner(a)socs.uoguelph.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Pi-users digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: My Pi Project (Julian Horvat) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:27:23 -0400 From: Julian Horvat <horvat(a)uoguelph.ca> To: "Stefan C. Kremer" <skremer(a)uoguelph.ca> Cc: pi-users(a)socs.uoguelph.ca Subject: Re: [Pi-users] My Pi Project Message-ID: <CACZE84eNLe0cOKu_R0BZpSre4ju_qc8d-dyEmAD00JTtnzmS=Q(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" If looking nice isn't a problem you could probably open that USB plug's plastic housing and then just protect the wires again using some electrical tape. Unless of course there's something important in that housing (not sure what that could be but you never know). Its not pretty and it'll be tedious but you should be able to reduce the size of that plug by removing all that plastic. If you're lucky you may even be able to preserve the metal that gives the plug more grip in the port. I won't be able to do it until much later tonight but I can post my own cable that I ripped apart to give you a feel of what it looks like. - Julian On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 5:56 PM, Stefan C. Kremer <skremer(a)uoguelph.ca>wrote: > Hi, > > So a few weeks ago, I spoke to this group about my RaspberryPi project: > an on-board sailing coach computer. The goal of this is to create a > self-contained, battery powered, waterproof Pi equipped with GPS, Compass, > Accelerometer and Gyroscopes. > > This is a little project report/update for anyone who is interested as > well as to see if anyone has any help with a couple of challenges that I > have encountered. > > I purchased a 4.3" diagonal TV (designed for car use) and successfully > connected it to the Pi (via RCA cable) and a USB cable for power (it can > run off 5v). My goal is to embed that display into my waterproof Otterbox > connected to a Cell-phone recharger USB battery. I will power the Pi also > via another Cell-phone recharger USB battery. > > The problem that I'm facing at this point is connecting all the cables and > still fitting everything into the box. > > For the RCA video connection, I need to take the cable from the mini-TV > which has a female RCA and connect it to the Pi which also has a female > RCA, so I need to have a male-male connector, like this one: > > > > sold by Adafruit.com > > But, that's going to stick out really far from the Pi, especially when I > connect the connector on the end of the TV's cable to it. I might try to > get a right-angle RCA connector like this: > > > > > I haven't found a good source for this connector in Canada; if you can > find one, please let me know. > > But, really I should get a male-male right angle RCA connector which does > not seem to exist. If anyone can find a male-male version of the right > angle connector, please let me know. > > The other solution is to just remove the female connector from the video > screen and replace it with a male connector that I can plug into the Pi. > If there is a short male RCA connector that I can attach to the video > cable, that would be awesome! Let me know if you know of any. > > The situation is even worse with the USB connections. I connect the GPS > breakout board to the Pi using this USB to TTL Serial cable: > > Holy cow! Look at the length of the USB plug on that sucker! It almost > doubles the length of the Pi when plugged in! > > I'm using the same cable to connect the Battery to the video. But the > battery has the USB output power on the side so it more than doubles the > width of the battery. Ack! > > There's a swivel adapter: > > > But even the swively part of that sticks out about 1" beyond the edge of > the Pi. > > Crazy thing is I have a USB Wifi adaptor that is tiny in comparison and it > does 802.11b/g presumably had an antenna inside, and only sticks out about > 2mm: > Wow, that's nice and small. > > So if anyone has any ideas on <how to build/where to buy> a > "short-profile" USB connector, please let me know. > > Once, I get these pieces resolved, I can finish the physical build. > > The next step after that will be to start pulling data off the sensors and > displaying them on the screen (first, while I walk to work, then on the > boat). > > Stefan Kremer > > > -- > Dr. Stefan C. Kremer, Director > School of Computer Science > skremer(a)uoguelph.ca * 519-824-4120x58913 > > > _______________________________________________ > Pi-users mailing list > Pi-users(a)socs.uoguelph.ca > http://snowhite.socs.uoguelph.ca/mailman/listinfo/pi-users > >

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My Pi Project
by Stefan C. Kremer 13 Jun '13

13 Jun '13

Hi, So a few weeks ago, I spoke to this group about my RaspberryPi project: an on-board sailing coach computer. The goal of this is to create a self-contained, battery powered, waterproof Pi equipped with GPS, Compass, Accelerometer and Gyroscopes. This is a little project report/update for anyone who is interested as well as to see if anyone has any help with a couple of challenges that I have encountered. I purchased a 4.3" diagonal TV (designed for car use) and successfully connected it to the Pi (via RCA cable) and a USB cable for power (it can run off 5v). My goal is to embed that display into my waterproof Otterbox connected to a Cell-phone recharger USB battery. I will power the Pi also via another Cell-phone recharger USB battery. The problem that I'm facing at this point is connecting all the cables and still fitting everything into the box. For the RCA video connection, I need to take the cable from the mini-TV which has a female RCA and connect it to the Pi which also has a female RCA, so I need to have a male-male connector, like this one: sold by Adafruit.com But, that's going to stick out really far from the Pi, especially when I connect the connector on the end of the TV's cable to it. I might try to get a right-angle RCA connector like this: I haven't found a good source for this connector in Canada; if you can find one, please let me know. But, really I should get a male-male right angle RCA connector which does not seem to exist. If anyone can find a male-male version of the right angle connector, please let me know. The other solution is to just remove the female connector from the video screen and replace it with a male connector that I can plug into the Pi. If there is a short male RCA connector that I can attach to the video cable, that would be awesome! Let me know if you know of any. The situation is even worse with the USB connections. I connect the GPS breakout board to the Pi using this USB to TTL Serial cable: Holy cow! Look at the length of the USB plug on that sucker! It almost doubles the length of the Pi when plugged in! I'm using the same cable to connect the Battery to the video. But the battery has the USB output power on the side so it more than doubles the width of the battery. Ack! There's a swivel adapter: But even the swively part of that sticks out about 1" beyond the edge of the Pi. Crazy thing is I have a USB Wifi adaptor that is tiny in comparison and it does 802.11b/g presumably had an antenna inside, and only sticks out about 2mm: Wow, that's nice and small. So if anyone has any ideas on <how to build/where to buy> a "short-profile" USB connector, please let me know. Once, I get these pieces resolved, I can finish the physical build. The next step after that will be to start pulling data off the sensors and displaying them on the screen (first, while I walk to work, then on the boat). Stefan Kremer -- Dr. Stefan C. Kremer, Director School of Computer Science skremer(a)uoguelph.ca * 519-824-4120x58913

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pi-users group meeting this Thursday
by Judi McCuaig 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

Hi everyone, This Thursday at 6:30 we'll have our next pi-users group meeting. If you've got projects to show off, please come a little early to set up and we'll have a show-and-tell time right at 6:30. Everyone can set up, and we'll just wander around looking at the different projects. If you want to give people a sneak preview of what you've been doing, post a message to the list and tell us about it. (you can post to the list by emailing pi-users(a)socs.uoguelph.ca) We'll take a look at the shoot-the-fruit game and see how far people got in making mods to it and I think we'll fire up my Gert boards and see what we can do with them. I have keyboards and monitors aplenty I think, but I'm short on mice- so if you have an extra mouse bring it with you? See you Thursday! Judi

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Meeting report: May 23
by Judi McCuaig 24 May '13

24 May '13

Hi everyone, We had a great turnout at the meeting last night- thanks to everyone who came! Dr. Kremer showed off his prototype 'sailor's coach' that he is constructing from his raspberry pi, Ben showed us his prototype banana piano (there isn't a banana involved yet.. but there might be), and we started to look at a bit of a programming challenge. HOWEVER- we ran out of time, so I'm proposing that we all work on the programming challenge over the next two weeks and bring our solutions to show off next meeting. The challenge was simple: There is a very basic 'shooter' game available here: http://goo.gl/ddDsU complete with explanation and source code. Its written in python. Its lacking in many gameplay features, so the challenge was to download the source and make it 'better' in any way that you define better. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, June 6 at 6:30 pm. See you all then! Judi

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Pi users meeting May 23
by Judi McCuaig 22 May '13

22 May '13

Gentle reminder that our pi-users group meeting is this Thursday (tomorrow. May 23) at 6:30 pm. We'll meet in Reynolds 312 at least initially. We might move next door into my lab to do some actual playing around with the Pis. I have about 10 computers/cables/powersupplies from this week's order that I can sell if you are still wanting a pi. I have a few SD cards and a bunch on order. If they get here by tomorrow I can sell you an SD card too. During tomorrow's meeting we'll do a quick check to see if anyone has found/started something cool with their pi, and then we'll do some actual development to see what we can get done in an hour. I think we'll work in python because that is a faster development environment for prototyping things and we'll start with something relatively simple. I have quite a few Pis here, but bring yours if you have it set up and are willing to use it for some paired-programming tomorrow. See you tomorrow! Judi

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notes about last week's meeting
by Judi McCuaig 15 May '13

15 May '13

Sorry for the delayed update, I should have sent this out last week! We had about 10 people at the first meeting of the pi-users group! I was impressed. We're going to try to meet officially every two weeks for the summer, but there is a smaller group of people who will meet every week- so you're welcome to come each week if you wish. The consensus was that we'd like to be 'doing' things at the meeting, not just discussing, so we'll try to make sure that every meeting includes some actual doing/learning. Until further notice we'll have the meetings in room 312 in the Reynolds building (right beside my office). Kyle has kindly set us up a wordpress site for our website (pi-users.socs.uoguelph.ca/) and it is ready for content. Three people volunteered to handle the website at the meeting- if you have requests or suggestions for the website, please send them my way. We started a list of pi-projects last week (that will hopefully find its way to the website) and I'm interested in finding more projects- including really simple ones. I'm sending in another order for Pi's today- to cut down on complexity I'm just going to order a bunch and will sell them to you if you want them. I should have them in my office by Tuesday I think. First come first served. The prices for individual components (including tax and shipping charges) are: Pi computer: $42 4GB SD card with Raspian preloaded $15 Micro-USB power supply $9 HDMI cable $4 USB Wireless $15 If you want an entire kit, including wireless its $80 If you want everything except the wireless is $65 Finally, our next 'official' meeting will be on May 23, Thursday at 6:30 pm (I was wrong during the meeting last week.... I'm busy on the 30, not on the 23). Hope to see you then. Judi

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meeting tonight- reminder
by Judi McCuaig 09 May '13

09 May '13

Hi Folks, This is just a reminder that our first users group meeting is today at 6:30 pm in the meeting room on the third floor of Reynolds. I'll set up my laptop with skype running so that people who want to participate virtually can. If you want to skype in, contact me today with your Skype id so that we can add one another as contacts. See you tonight. Judi

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first meeting of the summer!
by Judi McCuaig 02 May '13

02 May '13

Lets have our first pi-users group meeting next Thursday evening at 6:30 pm. If you've done a project with your pi already, you should bring it along to show everyone- we'll have a bit of a show-and-tell. Also, if you have some ideas for projects you'd like to do- bring a description along. My goals for this meeting are: a) identifying project interests and maybe forming some informal groups around specific projects b) identifying needs for hardware and figuring out where to order the necessary bits from (wires, leds, switches, resistors, soldering irons, etc) Finally, we *might* have some Diyode pi-cases available for sale that night, giving you the opportunity to bling-out your pi! We'll meet in the Reynolds building, Room 312 for this meeting (the meeting room that is beside my office). I'll make sure that the east stairwell door is open so you can get in. See you Thursday. Judi

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Raspberry Pi order is in
by Judi McCuaig 30 Apr '13

30 Apr '13

If you ordered a Raspberry Pi computer, the order is in my office now. The WiFi adapters were back-ordered, but I got notice yesterday that they have shipped, so they might even be here today. I'm in my office today until about 4:15 and most of the day tomorrow (Thursday) but not at all on Friday. When you come with the rest of the money you owe me, please remember to include GST in your final cost (I'll pay the shipping costs, but I can't pay for GST for the entire order). For example, the $35 Pi is $39.55 with GST included. If you ordered one of everything (including the wifi) the total is $78.41. I'm happy to round numbers to the nearest dollar (up or down) so please don't bring me a bunch of exact change! I'll send out email tomorrow about our first Pi-users group meeting (we'll have it next week). Judi

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Raspberry Pi for all!!
by Judi McCuaig 17 Apr '13

17 Apr '13

Hi everyone, I'm going to send in another raspberry pi order at the beginning of next week. If you'd like me to order something for your, please complete the Raspberry Pi Order form found at bucky.socs.uoguelph.ca. You have to log in to bucky using your CENTRAL login id/password (the one you use for webmail). You won't be able to complete the order form unless you log in. Once you've ordered, bring me half the cost of your order and you can pay me the other half when the order comes in. I'm going to place the order next Monday (but will be placing orders periodically throughout the summer, so don't panic if you miss this one). Judi http://bucky.socs.uoguelph.ca - Raspberry Pi Order on the front page.

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