The Thing about Sports

I've finally done it -- I've gone and cracked the code.

I, my good ladies and gentlemen of the audience, worked out why everyone is so obsessed with sports.


It came to me after a visit with my grandparents, driving back to Aunt Michelle's in Maryland. I was thinking about robotics, my grandparents, my soon-to-be extended family of the Lawver clan, and sports. How is it that Poppa still watches football, so far in his years, I asked. If he tried to watch even a minute of robotics competition, he'd be lost and confused, probably angry, then turn off the TV to go do laundry or something a little more calming. Why is it that people who haven't played sports since their childhood can still find refuge in a booming modern industry? Why do people get tired of some things and not others? How is it that Dad can still learn new woodworking techniques but can't stay awake through a single movie?

I felt as though my skull caught the idea like a screwball struck into center field.

You see, humans are innately passionate beings. Everyone who had a half-decent development has their niche: be it art, engineering, performance, comedy, teaching, hunting, or even sport. But I have spoken to engineers too old to live on their own, and while somewhat more competent than most in fields like computers and circuitry, it is obvious that their heyday is far behind. I would never have guessed that one man with jowls that could frighten a bulldog built his own television from scratch and understood every part. Most modern engineers don't even come close to that.*

"You kids and your cellular telephones and E-lectronic mail."

But consider it from the beginning: as a human child, one is full of energy, though their brain may be all but empty. If one should see the beauty of the insect, in it's habits and career, while still a child then almost invariably insects become of great interest. A child will, once informed that it is there, seek out knowledge on insects in books, documentaries, and study. This same phenomenon will occur multiple times over one's lifetime: discovery of a new and interesting thing, curiosity, questioning, and study. Over time, the once energetic and empty minded child changes into something quite different, though nothing quite as beautiful as the butterfly he or she once chased. No, this creature is grotesque--it seeks not knowledge but food, feels not curiosity but fatigue, asks not why, but "why should I?" This creature has no more room to invest itself, perhaps even having shed it's preadolescent passions. So, upon discovering a new and beautiful and complex thing, it does not look twice. Rather, it turns to something that it has always had: gossip, hunting, war, sport. These things it knows, there is no effort in learning them anew, only the slow, dreary trudge through the well-worn paths of it's own mind. This is why people so universally love sports over other, more intellectual pursuits. The very same thing that drives modern industry and invention is, sadly, just as despicable and unavoidable in human nature: sloth. One need only have learned about sports once, and then find themselves able to enjoy every game since. With these games come endless, repetitive, familiar drama: new players, new expectations, new bets; Old scandals, old rules, old crimes. Nothing like the engineer who once built his own television. No, in the name of comfort and ease, perpetuity of gratification, people seek out and settle down in the mediocre and the unchallenging. This behavior too, can only be thought to connect with the fact that some minds deteriorate with age and some do not; while some are watching the thousandth identical baseball game, some are still discovering their insects.

Minio, an Internship, and Other News

It's  been a bit since I last posted, as I was pretty busy finishing up my school year. For today I shall begin with the good news:

-I got an internship! Working with such intellectual greats as Mickie Byrd, Dakotah Karrer, and Joseph Midura, I'll be writing the demos/tutorials for the Minio! (see below) The kickstarter is just kickstarting at the time of writing, and I'll soon be receiving an advance kit so that by the time backer presents start shipping, I'll have a decent portfolio of the Minio's functions ready to go.

-Minio, the next big step in phone hardware, and the DIY-on-the-go-er's best friend, is making it's debut. To give the condensed pocket-edition summary, abridged, of the Minio, it's an Arduino attachment for your Android phone. What you actually receive is a small circuit board, not much larger than a quarter, with a micro USB plug on one side and some pins on the other. Downloading the app then gives you the ability to write code for your Minio, which opens a whole new world of phone periphery. Essentially, when you have Minio, you have access to not only your phone's computing power for all of you projects, but you also have the ability to expand on that, for the sake of an upgradable phone. If you're an engineer on a budget like me, the prospect of upgrading phone hardware rather than repurchasing is one full of promise and endless possibility. And of course, a single paragraph couldn't begin to scratch the surface on the possibilities, I'm just saying what I've seen. To get one, go head over to the Minio website and don't forget to check out the kickstarter.

-I have a new design I hope to begin working on soon, for a holodesque virtual reality rig. Since the first rumors of the Oculus Rift VR headset, and even more so once the Leap Motion Sensor came about, people have been frantically looking to finish the VR Trifecta by allowing the player to move freely while not running into walls, mainly with omnidirectional treadmills. In existing designs, a good omnidirectional treadmill has always had at least one major flaw, like requiring a building-sized apparatus. Others flaws have been the need for specialized, expensive, hyper slick materials that are easy to damage and very hard against your foot, or the need for an awkward, strenuous motion. At present, the leading design seems to come from the Virtuix Omni, which takes the form of a large, curved platform with a waist brace. 

Pictured: Impracticality and minimal planning

The inside of the curve is covered in either a slick surface, requiring special shoes as well, or small rollers. This design is popular since it only takes up about a square meter of floor space, and is small and inexpensive compared to competitors. Despite this, I am still not satisfied. Unlike the Oculus Rift, this piece of VR hardware is going to be planted in the corner of a room and stay there--there is no portability. It's also much more than a gaming peripheral, it's a piece of furniture, which is a trait that may make it popular with nerds but sadly, not the parents who's house they live in. Even if you're okay with it's other shortcomings, it would be nice if they at least made it disassemblable, so one may fold it up and tuck in it in a closet when not in use. Lastly, all of these designs require cameras coupled with complex motion tracking software or imprecise, easily confused accelerometers strapped to the user's legs in order to (poorly) detect movement. After all of this trouble, expense and unreliability even I was about ready to give up on the technology--but some late-night crazies gave me the insight to a design that simplifies the whole thing into (you're going to want to sit down for this) (this set of parenthesis is to further delay for dramatic effect) a pair of shoes. Or at the very least, a pair of shoes will be all you need to buy. These shoes will not only be comfortable and flexible, they will have minimal friction with whatever material you chose to use them on, because you get to decide what the base is. Got a thing for concrete? make a waist brace out of two-by-fours and drop it in the garage. Have some rotting support beams in the kitchen that make the linoleum oh-so-cushy? Wait for Mother's soap operas to come on and it's all yours. Or perhaps you'd like a dedicated rig with backup power, 5.1 Dolby surround sound and a locked door between you and your sister; In that case, only your ingenuity sets the limit. It will even be just like a gaming mouse, in that you can drop $500+ getting the best pair of gaming shoes on the market, or you can head to Staples, get a set of strap-on soles for $20 and nab some stale candy on your way out. Once I have a programmer and a little cash to build my prototype, it should only take a few weeks to get up and running, as 90% of the code required already exists. This will be something to keep an eye out for here on Contents Explosive during the next month or two.

-The same night I came up with my Gaming Shoes idea I also finally figured out how to make a cheap, reliable, hollow centered slipring with only basic tools. A later post will cover in-depth instructions, so check back often!

Now that you're no doubt riding a dopamine high from all the great things I just told you, I'm going to go ahead and cut that off by saying I lost all of my CAD files for Project Abraham. My entire hard drive was compromised by my chronic cranial activity deficiency (I did something dumb) and so the project is on hold until I have the patience to redo all of that modeling work.

The night carries on and so must I. It is with great excitement and hope for upcoming projects that I close this letter to you, my faithful Reader, and bid you a prosperous and enlightening time.

-K

The Long Awaited

Alroighty, it's been long enough. It's about to get three-dimensional all up in this bitch:

Up close and personal

This here is called the 'front'. I'll do my best to avoid technical jargon, but bear with me. You can see some hidden lines in this picture, those are showing the layout of each of the parts. Also, it is worth noting that the screen size shown here is slightly smaller than actual--I forgot how thick I was supposed to make the border, so just stuck it in as-is. Next, from the rear:

and an iso for you to get your bearings:

So, for identification purposes, the three light gray blocks are batteries, and were probably the hardest to place. The large green square above them is the charge/discharge circuit, and just outside of the frame I actually have a couple of Anderson Powerpoles which were to be the power plug. The largest green circuit board in the upper right would be the motherboard from the GameCube, situated directly right of the memory card slot (off-white), SD card slot (orange, upper), and the WASP (orange, lower). Immediately below, one may observe the audio amplifier, who's controls lay on the opposite end of the device. The green one is a volume knob, and the black one is a pair of headphone jacks. Between them is a small, slim green board which holds the buttons used to control the LCD controller board, which may be my favorite: it's not easy to see from this angle, but it's actually tilted down. There was no way to fit it in flat with all the other components taking so much room, so it juts out, giving Abe here a Gameboy Color-esque ass. In the end I found out that a 1 inch thick portable is insanely slim, given the usual thickness of GCN portables. Altogether, I think I'm happy with it thus far, I just need to 3D print that case. Speaking of which...




*Dun-Dun-Dun*

Here's a quick rundown of the major points:

-controlled only by an Arduino. No shields, no add-ons of any kind, only basic circuitry (switches, transistors, etc.)
-must use only a normal, DC motor, the kind you could pull out of any old appliance. No steppers.
-$100 budget, at the most. Ideally we should aim lower.
-Any parts that need to be custom made, like the frame, should be able to be cut from any chunk of wood with basic tools. This means no laser cutting, no plasma cutting, just what can be done with a circular saw, jigsaw, a drill, and some sand paper.

What you should say to yourself is, "how can I build this without paying for anything?" After the fact, what I expect to happen is one will make their own basic framework, then 3D-print better parts to gradually increase the precision of the machine. So far, my minimal-budget mechanism ideas are as follows:

Stepper Motor Alternative


so I was thinking about how I could just make a really nice, small step motor with nothing but a DC motor and a switch, and something something got this idea. The green part is a VEX lemit switch, and the blue part is one you'd have to make yourself. Now I know what you're thinking: "how the flagship am I supposed to make something that small and precise?!" Weeellllll, it just so happens that when I made the part, I discovered that you can put in all the necessary constraints, but still make it as big as you like. Just pick a radius, print a profile, staple to your plywood and you're in business.



Plate Rests


This one's a little more intimidating, but I assure you it can be done. I imagine one would first cut the top and bottom out of 1/2" plywood, then glue them together. The hole can just be an interference fit for a 7/16 nut, plus you could fill the edges with hot glue or something. (not in the tool list, I know, but still common enough.) Both of these design use 1/4" allthread, and you can get more than enough of that on Mcmaster-Carr. (6ft for $4) This does mean that leveling your plate would mean individually spinning each corner around and around until it's just so. Also I realize there are a few parts that I left open-ended here, like how to attach an encoder wheel to allthread, but I think you're all clever enough for that. So by my calculations, if one uses 1/4-20 allthread and the 8-lump encoder wheel shown here, you can get a precision of 1/320th of an inch, or just under 80 microns. For comparison, a MakerBot Replicator2 goes down to 20 microns--a tolerance that we can beat with a simple 3/13 gear train, printed from the initial machine. Obviously there are plenty of other ways to do it, but that's the one that came to mind first.


I have found myself to have bitten off a bit more than I can chew trying to convert stl files to a step-code that this design could use, so I'm thinking of using Slic3r or one of the many existing slicing engines out there, then working from their .gcode. That'll be my next contribution, though it may not come for quite a while. Until then, I'm sure everyone can keep busy with this little springboard here. Good luck.

K