jeffa April 4, 2010
If we add together parts of parallax propeller .spin ping and radar. What do we get? Spingdar!
I recently finished a course in .net C# (.cs) at Spokane Community College. So over the spring break, which ends today, I reviewed pingdar from Parallax http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=6&m=129099 What my programs do is effectively the same however I display the data on a pc using GDI+ in C# on a radar like circular graphics object on a form with a sweeping line and a dot for the location plot. The math is done in the .cs rather than the propeller. I wanted to begin learning about the xbee radios so I utilized them to connect my Stingray with Lynxmotion tilt pan servo assembly to the pc. That’s my dog Sampson under the workbench. He’s my best bud. Above the ping sensor is a TTL micro cam from 4dsystems. I haven’t begun to work on that yet. It’s just sitting in where I think I would like to mount it.
Now about this project and the source code. I had a goal to accomplish a certain amount of functionality. At this point it was just for the learning. I accomplished that goal. The code is not pretty and the entire project isn’t of much use except as a learning experience so keep that in mind if you download the source.
When I have time again this summer I’d like to move on to a phase two of this learning project and enhance the graphics and add probably some code as delegate in .cs. All the graphics and the input data manipulation occur in a serial received data event.
Resources:
ttl micro camera http://www.4dsystems.com.au/prod.php?id=75 (Hope to make a project out of this real soon!)
Parallax ping sensor http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/ObjectDetection/tabid/176/ProductID/92/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName
Parallax Stingray Robot http://www.parallax.com/Store/Robots/AllRobots/tabid/755/ProductID/601/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName
Sampson dogMyDoggieBoy http://not-for-sale.NoWay.jose
pan tilt http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=287
Excellent GDI FAQ/Tutorial http://www.bobpowell.net/
…io.ports http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.ports.serialport.aspx
Very useful program and informative for general .cs programming techniques and specifically for serial communications in C# http://msmvps.com/blogs/coad/archive/2005/03/23/39466.aspx
Code:
Visual Studio 2008 project for spingdar
.spin code for the propeller