Travelling to contests is great. Except for the bits and pieces that you need to lug around. For several years I have used a smart charger for my LiPo batteries. It is a fine charger but bulky. Along with its mains power supply it is about the size of a large laptop charger and needs several cables to join together. I decided to make a smaller, portable charging solution. (more…)
On Sunday May 4th 2014, the University of California, Los Angeles will be hosting the 2nd Annual All America Micromouse Competition. The venue is the UCLA campus at Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles. Entry is free and there are cash prizes to be won. To sign up, or find out more,…
In a first for me, the APEC 2014 micromouse contest returned to a previous venue. This year we were back at the Fort Worth Convention Centre, Fort Worth, Texas. Since my last visit, I discovered a number of interesting things to do in the area and was looking forward to…
Minos 2014 will soon be upon us. This year, we have a change of venue. Minos will be run with the support of Birmingham City University at Millennium Point in Birmingham on April 26th and April 27th. Only the place has changed. Minos is still the event for catching up…
For years Michael Backus taught students to build and program LEGO robots at the Alaska Summer Research Academy. He eventually began taking students on field trips to look at Steven Kibler’s micromouse. As a computer engineering student, Steven explained that in order to build and program a micromouse students need to take several engineering and computer science classes. Naturally, Michael went home and began work on a LEGO robot capable of solving a maze. Unfortunately, it could not fit in a micromouse maze and was needlessly expensive. (more…)
Joseph Yiu has updated The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 Processors to includes details about the M4, including the floating point operations available. With more than 12 years experience with ARM processors, FPGAs and System on a chip technologies, Yiu guides you through all aspects of these exciting…
I enjoy working with the STM32 processors. They are easy to use, powerful and cheap and there are lots of options for developing code. One minor annoyance is the question of a programmer. ST-LINK/V2 One of the most commonly available and widely supported commercial programmers is the ST-LINK/V2. This is…