What do you peeps want on this blog?

Hey there!

Just wondering what you want me to post on this blog... Do you want more hardware related stuff or software related stuff or anything else tech related that you want to know about?

Let me know in the comment section below! :)

Thanks!

Long time no see... :)

Hey guys!

Haven't written anything for almost a year... :P

We are in the middle of FRC build season. This years game is very... How should I put this... Different? :)

Here's a link to the game explained: FRC 2014 game

I am currently part of Royal Robotics.

I have a couple of articles queued up... Those will be out soon.. Hopefully... :P

Hope you have a great time!

The Torque 3D game engine

The Torque 3D engine from Garage Games became open source pretty recently and I have to say it's a pretty nice game engine. Though it's not my favorite it's definitely a great engine to use if you want to make a shooter. They've got guides and there's some pretty good books on it too.

I recently got a copy of the Torque 3D Game Development Cookbook. I really liked the book. It's put together in a "recipe" format (hence the "Cookbook" in the title). Each recipe focuses on a different specific task. One chapter has a bunch of recipes for string manipulation and string processing which I found quite useful. It isn't exactly a step by step project oriented book. Most game engine books focus on the basic topics needed to complete a project at the end of the book, but this one serves as a great reference instead. Most of the recipes are fairly stand alone too so you can read them in whatever order you want. If you want to learn Torque 3D then I would suggest going through the guides on the Torque website first.

Building a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system with a raspberry pi

Hi everyone. I joined here a while ago but I never got around to writing anything. Now I've got a great project to share though. If you've ever shopped for Network Attached Storage (From now on: NAS) systems then you'll know they can get pretty expensive. A decent NAS system cost around $250.00 to $300.00 last time I checked. In this three part series I will show how you can turn any external hard drive that you might have sitting around in your house into a NAS... for cheap.

Parts

Any external hard drive should work. I wrote this tutorial using a Maxtor One Touch 4.

You could just buy the raspberry pi and plug both of them into the wall separately. If you're going to go that route you'll want to skip straight to the software setup. But for a little extra you can get all the parts to make a nice self contained system. First you'll need a raspberry pi. The best place that I found to buy them was Newark. You'll also need to pick up a DC jack, a USB hub, and an LM7805 voltage regulator. The USB hub should support self powered mode I used an inland 08817 7 Port USB 2.0 Hub but anything that supports self powered mode would work fine. The USB hub will be used to power the raspberry pi. You could just wire the raspberry pi's power connector straight to the voltage regulator and into the DC jack. Doing that is more of a pain though because the pi uses micro usb for power, and you might as well have a usb hub in case you want to expand later. Here's the list:

• raspberry pi model B (very important to get the model B)
• an LM7805 voltage regulator
• a panel mount DC jack (I picked mine up at radio shack but Newark has them online)
• a self powered USB hub (again, any self powered hub should do the job. I used the one mentioned above)
• an external hard drive (I used a Maxtor OneTouch 4 750GB that I had sitting around)
• some sort of case (we'll get to that in the next section)
• a 6 inch long ethernet cable (we use this for the back panel ethernet port(The website link goes to a 8 inch not a 6 inch... :P))
• DC power connector (more detail in step 3(find the one that works with the USB hub that you plan on getting))
• An SD card for the raspberry pi's OS

You'll also need a soldering iron, super glue, a knife or wire strippers, and some wire cutters (or scissors).

NOTE: In the pictures you will see an HDMI cable that I added. You can ignore that because I only added it so that I could plug the raspberry pi into my TV and view photos off of it if I wanted. If you want to do the same then you only have to cut another hole in the back of your case and plug the cable right into the pi.

Step 1: The case

This is the inside of the case before installing the hard drive and pi

So the first thing you'll need to build is a case of some sort. What kind you build kind of depends on the hard drive you use. The bigger the drive the bigger your case will have to be. For my case I used plywood and just built a box. You'll want to build half the case, put the electronics in, and seal it up later. For your case you could use any material you like, even a cardboard box, but I wouldn't recommend using copper, or gold, or any other highly conductive metal, unless you want to make a Box of Death that will short out, maim and kill all your stuff... But, it would be a nice fireworks show! :P

Step 2: Cut out ports

The back view of the case with all the ports

First you'll want to cut out the ports on the back of the case. You can just drill a hole for the DC jack if you got the panel mount kind that screws in. The ethernet cable might be a little more tricky though. I just drilled a bunch of holes with a small drill bit and chiseled and filed out the rest.

Step 3: Find power connectors

You can see the power connector on the right.

You'll need to get power connectors for your USB hub and your hard drive. You'll also need to be able to plug the whole thing into the wall once you're done. The power connectors will be used for wiring the USB hub and hard drive into the DC jack so that you can power them both from one socket. For these you can just use any connector from old AC adapters that fit. 

You'll also need an AC adapter to plug into the wall with. I just used my hard drive's AC adapter because it fit my DC jack and it had enough power to run everything. You'll need something that puts out enough power to run the hard drive plus about 700mA for the raspberry pi (preferably 800mA).

Step 4: Wire everything

First you'll want to cut the connector off of the old AC adapter that you're going to use for the hard drive. Then you'll solder the wire end into the DC jack. You'll also want to cut a section out of wire off the adapter you'll be powering the USB hub with and solder this into the DC jack as well. Make sure to take only wire, not the power connector.

You'll then solder these wires into the input and ground pins of your LM7805 voltage regulator. After doing that, cut the connector off of the adapter and solder the wire end of it into the output and ground pins on your voltage regulator. 

Step 5: Plug it in

Now you can test your wiring. Plug the connectors into your hard drive and your USB hub. Now plug the adapter you're using to power the entire thing into the wall and your DC jack. If you can verify that your hard drive and USB port are getting power and functioning then you're finished with all the power connections. 

Step 5: Install the rest of the electronics

Unplug your NAS from the wall, because you're going to install some more electronics. The next thing to install is the raspberry pi itself. I added a little block for it to sit on to keep all the wires nice and organized, but that's up to you whether you want to add one or not. First plug in the ethernet, and micro usb power source.

Step 6: Configure the software

Next you need to configure the software. You might need to plug the raspberry pi in with it's own adapter while configuring software.

The first thing you need to do is go download the raspberry pi OS from here. Then you can use Win32DiskImager to image your SD card. 

Next you'll need to set your pi to autoboot without a login prompt. I found this guide to be very helpful.

Finally you will need to configure a samba server on your raspberry pi and connect to it from your PC the most useful guide for the software configuration can be found here.

Sources: Wikipedia, Google, Newark, Newegg, Amazon, Monoprice, raspberrypi, rpiforum and elinux.

FRC, Ubuntu 12.10, and Soundcloud

Hey guys!

Sorry about the delay... I have been very busy with robots, scouts and school... :)

Okay... First thing first: FRC

If you don't know what the competition is this year, here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHNW2OFr4Y

Update(s):
We got the shooter working... Here's a video on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OxBH23AM76M :P

We are still working on the climbing arm... We are pretty sure that we'll get it done before the competition...

Info:
The competition will be at the centurylink field event center.

Dates for the competition are the 28th thru the 30th of March.

Hope you go!

Next up: Ubuntu 12.10

If you didn't know before, Ubuntu is an adoption of GNOME which in turn is part of the overall Linux family.

Here's the main website: http://www.ubuntu.com/

Linux is an opensource OS... Which means anyone can edit it... For example: iOS is a non-opensource OS, Android is one.

Here's a photo of the desktop environment on the Linux part on my computer:

I usually have the task-bar hidden, which looks like this:

Over all (from a windows xp user... :P) this OS is awesome!!! Sure... I miss some of the programs I had on xp... But, overall this isn't to shabby!

From what I know it's compatible with most pc hardware... :)

Would I recommend it? Total and complete YES!!! If you are confused on some things in ubuntu or want to install ubuntu... Google it!!! :P

And last, but not least: Soundcloud!!!

Soundcloud is a music discovery and social website for the music creators and enthusiasts(like me... :P).

It's very simple to use and has some free music downloads... If you want to check out the song that I think are good, here's a link: https://soundcloud.com/robotob46

That's it for soundcloud... As I said... Very simple... :)

Thanks for all your support by visiting this website and reading the articles!!! :)

Sources: Wikipedia, YouTube, Ubuntu, FIRST, Soundcloud and Google.

Build season is almost here!!! :D

Hey guys!

FRC build season is right on our doorstep! :)

Yep... I get excited with this kind of stuff... :P

Build season starts January 5th with the kick-off and continues for 6 weeks.

Oh... And there is another person writing for this blog! He is a good friend of mine and and a very awesome programmer! :D So, you will probably see a couple of his posts soon... :)

Windows keyboard shortcuts

I don't know about you... But, I like knowing shortcuts so I can do things faster and more efficient. I only know Windows shortcuts... :) But, here's a link to a page of windows, mac and multiple different OS's shortcuts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts

I'm just doing some basic shortcuts... Nothing fancy-smancy... :)

First off, Desktop shortcuts:

Alt + Tab = Switch between open windows/programs

Alt + Shift + Tab = Same as above just opposite direction

Alt + F4 = Close window

Secondly, Browser and some Software shortcuts:

Ctrl + F = Find/Search

Ctrl + T = New tab

Ctrl + W = Close tab

Ctrl + Enter = Adds the www. .com... So, you type in "blogger" then press Ctrl + Enter and it should go to "www.blogger.com" . Sometime's, not very often, Google chrome will go straight to Google instead of the site... But, that does not happen very often... :)

Ctrl + Tab = Go to next tab

Ctrl + Shift + tab = Go to previous tab

F11 = Fullscreen

These shortcuts are used in every single thing that I have used on my computer and online:


Ctrl + X = Cut

Ctrl + C = Copy

Ctrl + V = Paste

Ctrl + P = Print


And just so you know... Space bar = Play/Pause in most music programs on your computer and online :P

Sources: Wikipedia