Maker's Faire Load-in

R2 Booth, 2 tables yay

 Pics for setup at Maker's Faire KC 2013.  We are outside unfortunately but we're close to the front doors for "random" trips to wander inside.

Booth right in front of the main doors

Generator right behind the booth

Booth Tables

Center 3 door are wider for R2 access

Loading Map

Rugs should be able to roll up

Sidewalk behind the booth

Sizzled replacement

My replacement Xbee break out arrived today.  2 days early.  I'm a fan of sparkfun.com and their derive desk.

Fried and sizzling

So trying to prep my Teeces for full testing I started trying to make some half baked connection cables and my power cable for the marcduino Master board was crud and I wound up fring my Xbee break out board.  It made a nice pop and sizzle sound.  Even had some smoke drift by.  According to my USMC computer trainer, it needs that smoke to work, so I've ordered a new Xbee break out board (it should still have the smoke inside) and some real connection cables.

RLD assembled

So the PCBs and LEDs arrived Saturday, just in time for Father's day. 

I only got one LED backwards in the RLD (I don't have anythign else finished yet), pulled out and think I fried it in the process.  I have to replace that one.  Those are a PAIN to take out. 

I have the RLD assembled but it doesn't look right.   The 1/3 of the LEDs on the Right (next to the Mini) are real bright, but the rest of the LEDs are dim.  They all light up and flash, flipping the LEDs makes them go super bright so I know they are put in correctly.  Switching around the IC's doesn't change which LEDs are bright/dim.  I've tried 5 ICs and in any combination its the same.  The right 1/3 is bright, the rest are dim.   Trying to figure out what is wrong with it.

Makers Faire announcement

So the KC R2 Builders are going to have a booth at Union Station for the Makers Faire.  With all my parts and pieces I should have lots to display on the table.

Periscope and HP

Bought a resin periscope and movable HP.  Hopefully they will arrive soon.

Shipping

So the HP light kits and the Teeces PCBs have finaly shipped!  I should have them this coming week.  Now Ijust need the LEDs to arrive from Hong Kong (I think they are stuck in customs).

DOME

So R2's head arrived a couple days ago.  It arrived it perfect condition and in less than 5 minutes I broke it. :(

It's just a small piece and I can fix it when the dome layers are bonded together.

I numbered all the panels and smoothed out the tabs that were already broken.

Cut a chunk of extra off the inner done edge and also separated the outer ring.

Broke it!

Video of end Product

Here's a short video of one of my local builder compatriots Travis and his droid at Lego Land here in Kansas City.  The hope is one day my droid can look and sound as good and of course the kid coing up toward the end makes it all worth while.

MarcDuino Part 2

So I've assembled and flashed the HP Controller code to the Slave MarcDuino board.  This went much smoother than the Master board even with changing laptops and having to re-install AVRDude, though Burn-O-Mat still doesn't have the ATMega328p as a valid option so back to the CLI commands and I got my 1 sec blinking red LED.  This code flash is mostly just to test the assembly of the board.  The code will need updating to work with the Teeces displays.

/opt/local/bin/avrdude -C /opt/local/etc/avrdude.conf -p m328p -P usb -c usbtiny -U efuse:r:./efuse.hex:i -U hfuse:r:./hfuse.hex:i -U lfuse:r:./lfuse.hex:i


/opt/local/bin/avrdude -C /opt/local/etc/avrdude.conf -p m328p -P usb -c usbtiny -u -U efuse:w:0x07:m -U hfuse:w:0xDF:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m

/opt/local/bin/avrdude -C /opt/local/etc/avrdude.conf -p m328p -P usb -c usbtiny -U efuse:v:0x07:m -U hfuse:v:0xDF:m -U lfuse:v:0xFF:m


/opt/local/bin/avrdude -C /opt/local/etc/avrdude.conf -p m328p -p m328p -P usb -c usbtiny -U flash:w:/<src>/HPController_v1.2.hex:a

Teeces Annoucement

So seeing as there is apparently no date in sight on when a JEDI display will be available, I've committed myself to using a Teeces display setup.  My fellow builders are joyed that someone took up that challenge.

So far my research is pointing at 2 approaches.  I can either drive the displays directly from the MarcDuino with major code updates or I can use a Arduino Micro to drive the display and just code the MarcDuino to send the Arduino Micro jawa commands.  I'll probably attempt both at some point.

Teeces Lighting Info:
http://astromech.net/droidwiki/index.php?title=Teeces_V3_Dome_Lighting_System

Orders Orders Part 2

Ok so some orders have arrived over the last couple days:

MarcDuino PCB and components which I've assembled and installed the HP Controller code and that seems fine.  This code will probably be updated later for the Teeces setup.

Teeces Components are here as well except for the IC's which are enroute from China.  Still waiting on Osh Park to ship the Teeces PCBs.

Alu Dome topper and Reson dome bumps arrived.

Droid Con 2011 DVDs are in and I've watched some of Disc 1 and 2 but there are spots on both that aren't viewable so it skips occasionally.

Wife's Cake and we'll eating that later today  YAY!