Modeling an object with internal IMUs

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Joseph Malloch] sent in a really cool video of him modeling a piece of foam twisting and turning in 3D space.

To translate the twists, bends, and turns of his piece of foam, [Joseph] used several inertial measurement units (IMUs) to track the shape of a deformable object. These IMUs consist of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and a 3-axis magnetometer to track their movement in 3D space. When these IMUs are placed along a deformable object, the data can be downloaded from a computer and the object can be reconstructed in virtual space.

This project comes from the fruitful minds at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Lab at McGill University in Montreal. While we’re not quite sure how modeled deformable objects could be used in a user interface, what use is a newborn baby? If you’ve got an idea of what this could be used for, drop a note in the comments. Maybe the Power Glove needs an update – an IMU-enabled jumpsuit that would put the Kinect to shame.

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Another homebrew Segway clone comes in at under $300

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Matt Turner] tipped us off back in January about his homemade Segway project. Unfortunately that message slipped through the cracks but we’re glad he sent in a reminder after reading Friday’s feature an a different 2-wheeled balancer.

We like it that he refers to this project as being on the budget of a graduate student with a young family. We certainly understand where he’s coming from, and we hope he can ride this to job interviews to show them he truly lives engineering. The control circuitry is a bit higher-end than we’re used to seeing. He chose a Cypress CY8C29466 SoC to control the device. But the sensors are a common choice, using the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Nunchuk for the gyroscope and accelerometer they contain. This is a no-brainer since the sensors are high-quality, cheap and available locally, and communicate of the standard I2C protocol.

When looking for motors [Matt] was happy to find an old electric wheelchair on Craig’s List. This also gave him a gear box, wheels, and tires. He added a pair of motor drivers, with his own alterations to suppress feedback. Sounds like they run a little hot because he plans to add cooling fans to them in the future. But this first iteration is up and running quite well as you can see in the clip after the break.

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Avoid shaky camera movements with gyroscopic stabilization

March 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Right after “no editing whatsoever”, the “shaky camera” is the bane of YouTube viewers the world over. [David] came up with a nice solution to the problem of shaky cameras that uses gyroscopes to even out the bumps of making a great movie.

Most cameras attached to moving frames – from the zip-line cameras at NFL games to police helicopters and aerial reconnaissance drones – have some sort of gyroscopic stabilization. Even though gyroscopic stabilization has been around for more than 60 years, the designs haven’t changed that much. [David] dug up a few patents dating from the 50s and set to work replicating the design.

[David] bought a pair of [Glenn Turner]’s fabulously heavy and expensive-looking powered gyroscopes and began bolting them onto a piece of sheet metal. Per the 1950 patent, the gyroscopes were mounted 90 degrees apart and bolted onto the camera.

From the video demo (after the break), there’s a marked difference between filming a stroll though a parking lot with the gyros on and gyros off. While the pair of motor driven gyroscopes look a little ungainly and are a bit too loud for our tastes, the solution is much less expensive than the $1600 professional gyro [David] based his build on.

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