Robotics
Scott’s Bots – Back to custom code.
I enjoy WordPress for ScottPreston.Com, but for Scott’s Bots.Com, I’ve decided to go with my own custom version of the web site.
The reason is that I wanted to do too many things with the site and was forced to look for so many so-so plug-ins. So rather than do that I just coded what I [...]
How To Hack A Servo
I’ve put together this video showing you how to hack a servo. It’s great for those that want to buy an in-expensive standard servo and convert it to a continuous rotation servo. For more video’s like this, go to www.roboticsed.com.
Thinking More About Robot DVD
I have actually started to think a lot more about my robot DVD so much so that I am starting work on it. Check-Out RoboticsEd.Com for more information.
One Project – A Robot Building DVD
I think that this year I am going to try and limit myself to one project at a time, rather than starting three or four and doing them all partially and then getting frustrated at the results.
The whole multi-tasking concept is dead for now. My thinking today is that if something is worth doing, it’s [...]
Java Media Framework on Ubuntu Linux
It’s been years bug I have finally figured out how to solve my Java Media Framework issues on Linux/Ubuntu.
Basically it requires an X11 environment/framebuffer to work. To get things to work I installed the following:
sudo apt-get install xvfb
Xvfb :1 -screen 0 800×600x24&
export DISPLAY=localhost:1.0
run your java program.
So if you want to run this headless, you need [...]
Linux Webcam Success and A Shop
I have managed to scrap JMF (Java Media Framework) and instead created a roll-my-own JNI web cam capture with C and Java. So far so good, but it only works with a few older web cameras and performance is not optimized.
I also have a new shop. Now I have a place where I can build [...]
Creating a Pause Method in Java
I use this often in my robotics code. The reason is simple, it takes the robots time to do things and I need to wait for a microcontroller to perform some action, like get a sensor reading, or move a certain distance, or change heading. It’s very simple, but I will add more robotics code [...]
Text To Speech (TTS) with Ruby and PHP
I was working with some scripts for having my PC talk. The first one is in Ruby:
require “win32/sapi5″
include Win32
v = SpVoice.new
v.Speak(“this is the easiest thing to do since I have started working with ruby..”)
Now this one in PHP:
<?php
$tts = new COM(“SAPI.SpVoice”);
$tts->speak(“this is a test”);
?>