Maker Faire – Makerbot

Lots of great exhibits…Makerbot awesome! Got to meet Adam Mayer, one of the 3 founders of Makerbot!   Wish could have taken more pics.

My son at Maker Faire next to Makerbot

My son in an Iron Man Suit!

My son loved his Iron Man Suit for Halloween!  I added some cool tech!  Here’s a video:

• Repulsor Air – Blows air with CO2 air pump on hip and hose back to his hand.
• Repulsor Missile – Using CO2 air pump can also launch a paper missile.
• Repulsor Sensor/Light - A magnetic switch sensor lights his repulsor hand light and fades out and in his glowing eyes.  Arduino handles this effect.
• Repulsor Sound Effect(s) – Originally not working.  Worked around problem by using right-mouse, middle-mouse button and configured Elightenment17 to playback sound effects using Mplayer script.  Mouse buttons activated by Arduino Digital output triggered by sensors.
• Arc Reactor – A LED night light from Costco embedded in his chest.
• BeagleBoard: Powerful Computer – With BeagleBoard already running in JARVUS box on my son’s back need to add other features.  Possibilities: Web cam, mobile router with hotspot and a head-mounted display, VoIP, streaming video of Iron Man view.
• Arduino: Super Input/Output Board - Handles repulsor effects but can add other sensors to enable even cooler special effects!!

Also, entered suit in Instructables Halloween Contest [here].

We need lots of good luck!

-Enrique

PS: The backside has a JARVUS box with this block diagram.

Originally, unable to activate sound because of missing software link between linux and Arduino serial port.  Worked around the problem by using a PS2 mouse embedded into JARVUS.  When Arduino has the repulsor sensor activated, Arduino automatically closes the middle-mouse button.  The middle-mouse button is then heard by the BeagleBoard Enlightenment17 mouse binding and plays back the repulsor sound.

Iron Man Suit with Tech Block Diagram of JARVUS.

My Dream Laptop

Someday…someday:

My dream laptop will look like this MacBook touch:

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Invisible keyboard-Type in midair anytime. The keyboard magically types into the laptop above.  Maybe something like this but invisible glove and wireless tiny attachement…

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Kubuntu with KDE 4.x – KDE has much better customization than Mac OS X.

BeagleBoard at DigiKey

I’m about to order this from DigiKey…part of my current project(s) for Halloween.  They have Ubuntu, and Gentoo and other distros running on this puppy!

Miro – Internet TV

Miro is great because you can take it with you on your laptop, unlike this TV.

I’ve been using this app off over the past 6 months. This TV app is great when downloading various video RSS feeds, such as CrankyGeeks and Linux Journal podcasts.

The download speed of these podcasts is faster than iTunes!

Miro

Miro playing Linux Journal's great and funny podcast.

PS Yes, that’s one of Oprah’s podcasts on the left in Miro.  It’s my wife’s podcast, really!

VMware Server 2.0 RC1

VMware Server 2.0 RC1 is ready for download!

1. Register for a free key.
2. Install VMware Server 2.0 RC1.
3. Create a new VM.
4. Install any operating system.
5. Boot your fresh, new VM!

Bringing up Xubuntu has been easy, as in previous versions of VMware Server.  Best feature is moving USB 2.0 devices into the VMware VM.  Tranferring files should be faster via a USB flash drive.  Might be placing my iPod Touch iTunes there.

The new interface needs some time to get used to it.

Download – Big download about 550 MB.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

Release Notes – Make sure to read about accessing the new VMware Console.

http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/vmware_server/releasenotes_vmserver2.html#issues

Screenshots

Hello!

For anyone out there that stumbles on my blog, as time goes one, I’ll have some updates regarding my adventures in linux, robots, and all other things that can come up.  Enjoy!

Here’s my son at Robogames 2008 in San Francisco…

-Enrique