PascalNet.Net Blog

Montreal Mini Maker Faire 2014

1 month ago

by Pascal in DIY, Electronics, Microcontroller, Robotics, Visits

Went to visit the Montreal Montréal Mini Maker Faire today ! Saw cool projects. Here’s a video I recorded from the event:

Testing the Mini ELM327 OBD II

3 months ago

by Pascal in Car, Electronics, Smartphone

This is the Mini ELM327 V1.5 OBD2 II Bluetooth Diagnostic Car Auto Interface Scanner HE.
I tested it and it works very well.
Useful to diagnose your check engine light problems and get a lot of informations about the sensors of your car.

: OBD Car Doctor: Battery voltage

: OBD Car Doctor: Ambiant Temperature

: OBD Car Doctor: Fuel Left in Tank Percentage

: OBD Car Doctor: Run Time Since Engine Start

: OBD Car Doctor: Engine RPM

: OBD Car Doctor: Fuel Consumption

: ObdElm327

car obd smartphone

Space Concordia Astronaut Assistance Mars Rover Capstone Project

3 months ago

by Pascal in Electronics, Microcontroller, Robotics

My final project at Concordia University is over, it has been a great experience working with an interdisciplinary team of software, mechanical, electrical, computer and industrial engineering students! I was responsible of programming the embedded computers on board of the rover. The embedded programming was mostly done in, C++ and C# and the operator user interface was done in .NET / MVVM. The Arduino Mega was used on the robot to interface with the multiple sensors and servo motors along with a Pico ITX board in charge of communicating with the operator’s main computer and streaming the cameras.
Here’s an article talking about it on Concordia University’s website: http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2014/04/01/running-on-ice-snowandmars.html

arduino capstone concordia mars robot rover SCAAR

New Project and Review for New Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained Evaluation Kit for Robotic Vision Project

4 months ago

by Pascal in Electronics, Robotics

I want to announce that in the upcoming week I will review the new SAMA5D3 Xplained board and try to interface a camera to it in order to give vision to my robots, something I can’t do usually with the Arduino UNO or MEGA alone.
I will surely use the OpenCV library on it and try to interface a robot platform with it.

For more information on the Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained Evaluation Kit, make sure to visit these links:
http://canada.newark.com/atmel
http://canada.newark.com/atmel/atsama5d3-xpld/dev-board-sama5d36-cortex-a5/dp/07X2224?ost=ATSAMA5D3-XPLD
http://www.element14.com/community/community/knode/dev_platforms_kits/sama5d3xplained?CMP=PRR-GLO-14-0003

Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained evaluation kit specifications

Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained Hardware

atmel board development kit new robotic SAMA5D3 Xplained

Arcade 11 & TAG Open House at Concordia University

4 months ago

by Pascal in DIY, Gaming, Visits

Last week I visited the Arcade 11 & TAG Open House at Concordia University, there were many different experiments involving games and we tried out most of them. It was a fun experience and hoping there is going to be a Montreal Joue festival next year! Here are some pictures and a video of the event:

: Oculus Rift, Dumpy: Going Elephants!

: Oculus Rift

: Oculus Rift

: Oculus Rift

: NOVINT FALCON Feedback Device

: Game Played with Sound

: Fishing Game with Experimental Input Device

: Fishing Game with Experimental Input Device

: Fishing Game with Experimental Input Device

: Spaceship Game with Ultrasonic Sensors as the Controller

: Ultrasonic Sensors

: NOVINT FALCON Feedback Device

: Space Team Multiplayer Game over Bluetooth

: DDR Style Inputs

: Jarvis the Chatbot

: Jarvis the Chatbot

: Kung Fu Volleyball

: Pyramidwarf

: Pyramidwarf

: Pyramidwarf

: Royale Arcade Machine

: Royale Arcade Machine

: Arcade 11 TAG Open House

arcade concordia DIY experimental game joue montreal tag

Working on an Arm / Stabilizer Prototype for a Mars Rover Robot

8 months ago

by Pascal in Electronics, Microcontroller, Robotics

I’m currently participating in the University of Utah Mars Rover competition. I made a small prototype of what an arm or stabilization system could look like on the robot.
Material: three 9G micro servo, one 9 DOF IMU, an Arduino Uno with a Sensor Shield V5.0 mounted on top

Here’s a stabilizer mode instead of an arm mimicking mode, useful to keep certain objects stable while they are mounted on a moving vehicle encountering bumps and obstacles.

arduino imu prototype robot servo

THL W8 Smartphone

1 year ago

by Pascal in Electronics

I just received a THL W8 Smartphone. Here are some pictures and video of it.

Unboxing:

Here’s a video sample I recorded with it:

cellphone phone smartphone

Robot Dog Project

1 year ago

by Pascal in Robotics

Here is my current Robot Dog project, the goal is to make it autonomous and do various tasks.
It’s based on an Arduino, I plan on combining a beagle bone to it later.
For now it can only track objects and it has basic movements capabilities.

arduino robots

Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II Display Zoomed 200X in HD Cycling Colors

1 year ago

by Pascal in Uncategorized

Tonight I recorded some cellphones display with my microscope to look at the differences between the pentile Matrix of the Galaxy S III and the Note II non-pentile display.
Here’s the video cycling through red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow and white: