Last updated at 09:20 PM on 27 Jun 2010
This page provides supplementary information to support lectures in ME 199A during Winter 2010. The notes are presented in reverse chronological information, i.e. the most recent lecture is listed first.
Class meeting on 8 March 2010
Homework: Assignment 16 Due 10 March 2010
Photos of the impellers after they were printed on the MakerBot
Class meeting on 3 March 2010
Homework: Assignment 15 Due 8 March 2010
Class meeting on 1 March 2010
Homework: Assignment 14 Due 3 March 2010
There are many on-line demonstrations on soldering and building circuits on breadboards. The following video, "How and Why to Solder" shows the basic technique and explains the purpose of flux.
Adafruit.com provides a set of links to soldering tutorials.
Another, broader set of resources, is the collection of Physical Computing Tutorials from the Physical Computing course by Tom Igoe at NYU.
To see how developing soldering skills will help you build electronic systems, have a look at this tutorial on perf board projects from the Make Magazine blog.
Class meeting on 24 February 2010
Homework: Assignment 14, Due 3 March
Refer to the pump fabrication guide that you downloaded for class 13
According to a blog post at thecarconnection.com on the Toyota recall, a modern luxury car has about 100 million lines of computer code running on 70 to 100 microprocessors.
The Economist magazine has an article on using rapid prototyping technology to make replacements for body parts. Be sure to read the comments.
As a follow-up, consider spending 20 minutes watching this TED lecture. (The video requires a Flash plug-in.) The speaker describes a bioprinter at about 11:00 minutes into the presentation.
Class meeting on 22 February 2010
Homework: Homework 13, Due 1 March
Refer to the pump fabrication guide that you downloaded for the last class
Class meeting on 17 February 2010
Homework: Homework 12, Due 22 February
Download the pump fabrication guide to your laptop and bring your laptop to class
Download and print these documents before coming to class
Class meeting on 15 February 2010
Homework: Homework 11, Due 17 February
Download and print these documents before coming to class
Before taking the Solder Safety Quiz (on the homework), View and study this presentation
Class meeting on 10 February 2010
Homework: Homework 10, Due 15 February
Download and print this document before coming to class
Paul Falstad has many educational Java applets
The following applets may help you learn about basic electrical circuits
Note that you can edit the circuits by right-clicking on the image
Class meeting on 8 February 2010
Class meeting on 3 February 2010
Homework: Homework 9, Due 8 February
One way to study for the midterm is to review the Learning Objectives for each lecture that are posted on this web page.
Print these out an bring them to class.
Consult the list of equipment needed for the class at http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~gerry/class/ME199A/equipment/.
In particular, make sure you have
Safety glasses
Stainless steel ruler (6 inches)
Dial Caliper
Screw Driver
Fine point Sharpie (or other permanent marker)
Teflon tape
This equipment should be part of the toolbox that you bring to class.
The FREQOUT
command is used to produce a sine wave output
from one of the I/O pins on the Basic Stamp. You have already used this
to make a tone to indicate that a PBasic program has started.
Putting FREQOUT
in a loop allows you to play a continuous tone
FOR counter = 1 TO 100 FREQOUT 4, 10, 2500 NEXTor a time-varying tone, like a ramp in pitch
FOR pitch = 2000 TO 3500 STEP 100 FREQOUT 4, 10, pitch NEXT
You can see where this is going ...
Suppose you wanted to play the five note sequence G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C, from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You could consult a table of frequencies of musical notes to find the frequencies for each of those musical notes. From there, it is a simple matter to make you Boe-Bot whistle the five note sequence.
Class meeting on 1 February 2010
Homework: Homework 8, Due 3 February
The quiz covers the following topics
Your two-page paper on sustainability is due on Wednesday. Come to class with your paper completed, and be prepared to discus what you found.
Print these out an bring them to class
Class meeting on 27 January 2010
Homework: Homework 7, Due 1 February. Part 4 due on 3 February
Print these out an bring them to class
Note that the memory map function on the Macintosh MacBS2 application does not give as much information on memory contents as the memory map function for the Windows version of the compiler. The MacBS2 application only shows the amount of memory occupied by the program and by the data. The Windows Basic Stamp compiler uses color in the "RAM Map" to show the type of variable stored in memory.
FastCompany Magazine has a story about an interactive coffee table that uses LEDs to respond to objects or motion. The table was created by a (literal) couple of designers from Because We Can, and uses interactive LED panels from Evil Mad Science laboratory.
Hat tip: adafruit
Class meeting on 25 January 2010
Homework: Homework 6, Due 27 January
For Macintosh users running MacBS2 as the IDE for the BOE-Bot, the DEBUGIN command does not allow communication from a Mac to the BOE-Bot. The MacBS2 FAQ suggests using programs such as Zterm or goserial that communicate across a serial port. GWR was successful using CoolTerm to communicate between his Mac and the BOE-Bot with the following procedure (after installing CoolTerm)
Compile the TestServoSpeed.bs2 program, and download it to the BOE-Bot
Set up the marker system for recording wheel rotation, and start CoolTerm
Answer the prompts with a number in the range 650 to 850.
Measure the number of rotations and record the value in a table similar to the one on p. 116 of the BOE-Bot manual
Print these out an bring them to class
From the ENIAC Programmers Project
Did you know, sixty years ago, six young women programmed the ENIAC, the first all-electronic programmable computer?
the public unveiling of ENIAC, February 1946. Six young women mastered the power of the ENIAC an 80 foot long, 8 foot tall, black metal machine and harnessed its power through an archaic programming interface using dozens of wires and 3000 switches. They programmed ENIAC to perform a ballistics trajectory, a differential calculus equation important to the WWII effort, and they succeeded brilliantly. When the ENIAC was unveiled to the public on February 14, 1946, their program captured the imagination of the press and made headlines across the country. Afterwards, the ENIAC became a legendary machine and its engineers (all men) became famous. Never introduced or credited at the ENIAC events of the 1940s, the Programmers story disappeared from history. They became invisible.
Grace Hopper is another (and there are more than just a few) distinguished contributor to the development of modern computing.
Class meeting on 20 January 2010
Homework: Homework 5, Due 25 January
Print these out an bring them to class
Here is a short video that gives you the essence of converting decimal integers to binary (base 2) numbers.
This blog post by bre pettis shows you how to use your fingers to count in base two:
Class meeting on 13 January 2010
Homework: Homework 4
Print these out an bring them to class
Class meeting on 11 January 2010
Homework: Homework 3
Quiz 1 will cover Electricity, Ohm's Law, and the basic structure of an atom
Download the PowerPoint presentation on using a multimeter and the breadboard area of your BOEbot
Bring your BOE-Bot and a laptop to class
Resistor values are indicated by a series of stripes on the resistor. The following diagram shows how to interpret the meaning of the color stripes.
How about a self-balancing water tray to keep your drink from spilling in your car?
or craft and textiles with electronics?
or LEDs in a brain-shaped jello mold?
Class meeting on 6 January 2010
Homework: Format for homework involving the BoeBot, and Homework 2
Class notes on electricity
The tronixstuff blog has three posts on resistors that complement the class notes
Paul Falstad has many educational Java applets
The following applets may help you learn about basic electrical circuits
Note that you can edit the circuits by right-clicking on the image
In the last class, a format for completing engineering assignments was described. Many assignments this term will involve programming your Boe-Bot. Those assignments do not fit the format for general engineering assignments. Instead use a modified format, which can be downloaded with this link.
First, we'll do a sample calculation of the equivalent resistance of the series and parallel combinations of resistors. Download the hand written version of the analysis.
Save these documents to your hard drive by right-clicking on the link, and selecting "Save As..."
To complete Homework 2, you will need to purchase your own BOE-Bot, a robot kit from Parallax. Each student needs a kit.
Parallax has set up a custom link for PSU students at their educational store
http://www.parallax.com/tabid/768/ProductID/634/Default.aspx
Your price will be $127.99 instead of $159.99 (plus $12 shipping). The only way to get the PSU discount is to use the link, above.
To buy a kit from Parallax at the discounted price:
Use the custom purchasing link.
Don't worry if the web page says "Not in Stock". Here's a note from the Sales Manager who helped to set up the custom PSU link:
The part is not "out of stock", but we have no way of getting rid of that notice on the page. Let them know their order will ship within a day and they should choose UPS ground, or USPS priority. Shipping either way will be about 2 days.
Select UPS Ground or Priority Mail. There is no need to use more expensive shipping because standard UPS shipping should have the kit arrive in two days after your purchase.
Class meeting on 4 January 2010
This course does not have textbook, but you will be required to purchase a BOE-Bot robot kit, and a modest collection of hand tools.