Trigger

The March (late) Update

Posted on by burf2000

Welcome to another monthly update, this one is a bit late because it is my birthday at the start of April. Again, March does not feel like a productive month for similar reasons.

Governor Duties

So this has continued (my fault) to eat into my robotics time. I had an all-day training session on one of the Wednesdays and quite a few meetings. I hope I am past the worse of it else I will be evaluating doing it. There are 3 training courses I need to nail and then things should calm down.

Nissan Micra

So a slight change of direction on this. Due to buying the Jeep and wanting to keep my dad’s van in the family, the Micra has been sold. The van will become the project vehicle.

3018 CNC Router

So I had some fun with this, it has become so much more useful since I discovered https://easel.inventables.com/ This program allows me to easily design stuff for the CNC machine

Tank Driving
Not a project, but my dad and I drove a tank :). Was a brilliant experience!

TGB Trigger Mk1

So one of the Wednesdays I finally got to drive this thing some distance, and it is now housed at my house so I can take it out more often. It worked well and managed a top speed of 33mph. It is quite good fun but rather scary as so low to the ground. Not sure what my plans are for this except to make it go a little faster (40mph). The kids seem to enjoy it.

Electric motorbike (Yam EC-03)

So as part of my electric bike project that I want to do, I managed to buy an Electric scooter for only £175! What a bargain! They are £2200 new but the battery is a little ill. It does 30mph with a range of 30 miles. I have already stripped this down and am looking to repair the battery. Bargain of the month

The Electric Motorbike Project

So for my birthday, I asked my dad to get me a donor bike for the electric bike project as there are a lot of cheap bikes on Facebook. We managed to get a 125cc Huoniao motorbike. It’s a 14-plate and has been in someone’s front garden for a few years! The engine does work (fired up after 2 tries) but only by kickstart (a bonus as I wanted a kickstart bike), I plan to strip the engine out and put an electric motor in. It’s not in great shape but for £150 it’s worth it

Inmoov Robot update

Hmm, this has been a pain in the arse too. So I finished it, then turned it on and it snapped a bicep. I have repaired that and now it’s broken a shoulder joint. I am getting nearer to a fully functional reliable robot but printing replacement parts does take time.

Garage Update

So, I am making good progress with making the garage more of a workshop where I can actually make parts, etc. I now had a pillar drill 🙂

Autonomous Car: Deep Learning & Computer Vision for Beginners

Nothing was done, again I need to work harder to get this done

Maths

Nothing was done, again I need to work harder to get this done

Defining some goals and staying to them

Reviewing last month’s progress, I think I have failed on this. I have removed goals completed in Feb to make the list less confusing.

  • Goal 1: Finish the Inmoov robot and fix the issues listed above so that the robot can be demonstrated to people. This is so near!!!
  • Goal 5: Create a demo of controlling the mobility scooter with a PS2 controller (reducing to low priority)
  • Goal 6: Spend some time at Khan Academy on Algebra and Geometry. (increasing the priority to medium)
  • Goal 7: Do something around self-driving with the Micra van else sell it. (high)
  • Goal 8: Continue with self-driving courses (medium)
  • Goal 9: Improve Burf.co Chat API (low)
  • Goal 10: Work on the electric motorbike project (new, medium)

Friday Update: Where has the time gone?

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf update! I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post and it’s nearly Christmas. I think quite a lot has happened over the last month, but who knows until I list it?

Wheelchair Hacking
So in my last post, I wrote about trying to hack the wheelchair. I decided to take a different direction in this by designing and 3D printing a device that would control it for me. This taught me some useful skills including using Fusion 360.


DevCon
Compsoft Creative hosted another DevCon which was great! I showed people 3D printing, VR and then moved on to continue my work with Wheelchair Hacking. I focused on programming the remote for the wheelchair using Arduino IDE.

I plan to continue on this today as I have the day off. The aim is to be able to control it via an infrared Remote Control using an Arduino Mega and some servos.

Update: IT worked!



Trigger TGB Mk1

I also bought a new vehicle, a 50CC moped trike that is known as GoCar’s in the US and used in Tourism. My dad and I have had some good fun with it already. We have some big plans for it. I technically saved it from rotting in a shop’s back garden 🙂

The Loft

I also did some DIY!!! I know, shut the front door! Randomly I had a day off work and my dad and I boarded the loft. That was a long day!

Math

So I am still plowing through this, I have been jumping forward a little so that I can get to learning Algebra sooner. Writing this post reminds me to do more

The Complete Self-Driving Car Course – Applied Deep Learning

So this was one of the courses I wanted to do this year, and I have now started it. I should have probably started the Coursera one first but hey ho!

Project Lancelot lives
I have taken ownership of the crazy Lancelot project my dad and I built last year and spent a bit of time getting it back up and running

Vevor CNC machine
I got this great little machine from my dad for Christmas last year and thought I would give it a go one evening. It sadly didn’t go to plan due to a malformed chuck however with a bit of brute force I managed to fire it up. I am not sure how much I will use it, I feel I need to master designing stuff for 3D printing first however it was still interesting. Again you can use Fusion 360 to design and plan your milling.


Review

So in my next blog post, I hope to review what I have done this year, the good the bad, and the failures! I also want to start to think about next year’s goals and really focus on some harder targets, ones that are less playing and more life-changing.