18 March 2007 - 19:29

Ok it has been a long time between drinks here...... Anyway, I am happy to report that the Brisbane Robot SIG (Special Interest Group) had its second meeting for 2007 and it was a great success. This was in no small part due to "AndrewM" who was kind enough to host the meeting at his house and to organise the project the group is currently working on. (and even go so far as to delight the group with his gourmet home made pizzas!)
I will upload some photos of the meeting and of the project. I have also been working on my own project of late and will put some photos up of it too (with details).
If there is anyone in the Brisbane area looking to join the Brisbane Robot SIG, either us the contact me details on this site or post a note to me in the forum.
Hopefully this will be the beginning of something very useful to the robot community.

8 April 2006 - 22:01

Doesn't time just fly when you're having fun? Well, sometimes.... Anyway been updating a few little sections of the site. I've added another Australian supplier of Microcontrollers and associated boards, JED Microprocessors amongst other things recently. Furthermore, I should have a little more time in the near future and with that I am going to learn more about ARM cored uC. I only have a Phillips ARM7 to play with at the moment but expect to see some info about it.
Also something I came across recently was a press release from Atmel about the upcoming AVR32 core. This new core looks amazing, connects to everything, draws little power and will run a linux 2.6 Kernel (not uCLinux, but MMU enabled Linux), more info over on linux devices

10 January 2006 - 21:10

New! I have started creating webpages showing home made PCBs and providing the designs for people to use if they so wish. This will be the first of many to come. Click here for the AVR TV/VGA board

10 November 2005 - 16:49

Update! I finally got around to building a simple stepper motor control circuit (unipolar and not using a driver IC).This is just a transistor based one, next version will be MOSFET based. Of course it is controlled by an AVR. I'll upload a page with all the details soon. I've also had success in creating animations on a 16x2 LCD. They are really fast and only use 4-bit mode, I'm really quite surprised :) I'll upload these and a few other projects in the coming days.

19 October 2005 - 18:16

Updated the Mega32 page with a little facelift and a new program. So far most of the C code I've posted has been quite simple, that is because the more complex code I'm working on is slowly taking shape that can be uploaded :) Stay tuned!

9 October 2005 - 17:19

Updated the Mega32 page with some new code for old programs and a new program, reading and writing to an 24LC256 eeprom or similar. I'm looking to post a project soon showing how to use the Mega32 to datalog temperature, using a DS1631 for temp, a DS1307 for timestamping and storing it all in a 24LC256 for later readback. I might even write a quick PC program to display the data once retreived. I'm also hoping to demonstrate R/C servo control with the Mega32 soon.

22 September 2005 - 21:22

Updated the Mega32 intermediate page with code that actually works in full! :P Now you can set the time to 1:30:00pm on the DS1307 by sending "s133000" via UART. Watch out for the "Magic number" way of dealing with BCD

21 September 2005 - 23:13

Still here, trying to get some time off from real life. Will have some time free in the next little while, Expect to see updates on the Mega32 front and some related projects I've been waiting to pursue.

4 August 2005 - 20:11

Update! A great project has come in from Rod Richards called Tankbot. This is a great demonstration of a tracked robot. The project includes video, circuit diagrams and lots of explaination. So rush on over to the projects page and click on the link. Great work Rod Richards!

3 June 2005 - 19:12

Finally an update! :) Sorry I haven't had the time I would like to have to create updates. Real life can be such a pain sometimes, no? Anyway, Bones sent through some exciting pictures showing off his new shoulder prototype.Here is the link

10 Feburary 2005 - 23:01

Added a Mega32 page in the C code area. Started it off with a Hardware I2C (TWI) example program. Hope that helps get people on track with hardware TWI.

3 Feburary 2005 - 11:11

An interesting new parts supplier for robotics has started in Singapore. So far the range is a bit small but I'm sure that will quickly change. The prices are really good, as is postage. Check out Singapore Robotic here

2 Feburary 2005 - 16:22

No news for a while doesn't mean I haven't been busy! :)

11 January 2005 - 19:22

Added a new page in the C code with AVR tutorial series. This one is how to use I2C from scratch. The code is a software implementation of the I2C protocol to read the current temerature from a DS1631 chip. Check it out in the C code section and post any feedback in the forums

7 January 2005 - 11:22

Update: Reworked the entire "Making a pin go high" tutorial in the C with AVR section and revamped the code. Despite being a bit more complicated, the code now effects only one pin at a time. I've explained everything in detail so the extra complexity should not pose too much of a problem

4 January 2005 - 14:27

Update: Added the "making a pin go low" tutorial in the C code for AVR section. Quite an indepth explanation, how it helps a lot of people who have trouble with that particularly cryptic looking line piece of code

30 December 2004 - 12:27

Update: New photos of Bones' Terminator. These are of the new shoulder prototype. They are on page 4 of the Terminator project

18 December 2004 - 18:52

Merry Christmas everyone. I'm going to enjoy my break and I hope you enjoy yours! See you in the new year!

15 December 2004 - 14:12

I've added a "Getting started with C and the AVR" guide. This should help anyone who wants to start programming an AVR using C but has no idea what hardware to buy and how to set it up. Click "C Code" on the bar above to access the new guide

14 December 2004 - 22:12

I've just finished the code to use the AT90s2313 to read the current temperature from the I2C Dallas/Maxim chip the DS1631. Again I will place a tutorial online when I've cleaned up the code a little

14 December 2004 - 11:47

Updated the links section and added a direct link to the ever-growing C code area. Enjoy the new tree based links!

13 December 2004 - 21:42

I have just finished a simple C program to read and write data to/from the 24LC256 memory chip using the AT90s2313. This includes a software I2C implementation and hardware UART serial communications that all fit in the small codespace of the 2313. It is currently setup on a Futurlec 2313 Development board but should be easily changed to suit your own setup. I will post it as soon as it is cleaned up a little. A huge thank you goes out to the people behind the wonderful avr-gcc compiler!

11 December 2004 - 17:55

I have started adding another page to the C tutorials. This is about connecting your AT90s2313 to your PC. The C code to do this and the circuit diagram will be up in a few days

7 December 2004 - 12:10

I have just finished reworking Bone's Terminator project pages. I've also included the latest update, page 3, Air Muscles! The results of Bone's work looks very promising indeed! Check it all out here

6 December 2004 - 17:54

I've started a page that is an introduction to writing C code on the AT90s2313. The test page is here. It does not contain much info at the moment but you can see where it is heading at least. Tell me what you think in the forums. I've also been adding to the tree-based links list. Will be fully populated soon

4 December 2004 - 9:34

Wish the large links section was ordered hierarchically? Thought so, that is why I'm converting all the links into a tree format. I won't delete the flat list of links from the site but will offer the the new tree in addition. Hope it helps finding that critical link a little easier........up soon....test page....tell me what you think about it in the forums

  3 December 2004 - 19:48

I have been mucking around with the free WinAVR C compiler for AVRs. One thing I haven't found is a nice listing of simple tasks in C in one place. To address this I will be posting a project showing a few really basic things in C for AVR. When I say basic, I mean really basic ;)

12 November 2004 - 13:14

---Site Not Dead!-----

My exams are over, I'm dog tired but alive, and that is the main thing :)

 Anyway expect to see some groovy new projects I've had as a twinkle in my eye for a while now. It is time to give birth to them ! I'm talking CNC, MP3 and all things to do with AVR.

26 September 2004 - 17:42

I have uploaded Amit's AVR LCD project, see it here

 21 September 2004 - 14:32

I have added an update to Bones' Terminator robot page, check it out here

9 September 2004 - 11:37

Will soon upload a couple of new projects, one showing how to use the SPI bus and a 74HC165 and 74HC595 IC's to increase the number of input and output pins on a PIC (demostrated with a PICAXE). Also I'll upload the project I'm making to transmit sound to my robot (FM bug etc)

Stay tuned.....

20 August 2004 - 14:19

Added a new Project, Mike's Mouse robot! And updated the IO card project to include parallel interface

18 August 2004 - 9:57

Added a new Project, Thrashbarg's IO card!

18 August 2004 - 9:33

Added the text to Bones' Terminator Project - Sorry for taking so long Bones! And updated the LCD project

8 August 2004 - 1:52

Continually adding more links associated with hobby robotics and amateur mechatronics. If you have some more please email me or post them in the forum.

3 August 2004 - 2:07

Started adding some information on the Projects page - if it doesn't appear to have changed for you make sure you refresh the page to avoid looking at an old cached version - submissions welcome!

23 July 2004 - 20:57

Added some new links on the Links page - feel free to email me if you have a good one - or post it on the forum

15 July 2004 - 8:32

Corrected my email address on the links page and added Grid.org banner - click on it to use your PC to help fight cancer

9 July 2004 - 15:30

Updated links page with some more interesting pages for Australian robots  

6 July 2004 - 15:08

Call for photos. If you have some interesting photos of your robotic endeavours then don't hesitate to send them in and I'll post them. Alternatively just post them in the forum. Don't forget to provide quick blurb about what's in the photo too.

6 July 2004 - 14:25

Fixed no images problem

6 July 2004 - 13:14

Site is born!