Monthly Archives: May 2012

Dong Shin 05.31.2012

  • cleaned up PPM project structure – moved scripts to new directories
  • working on PPM to add new fields
    • created VO’s for Funding Type, Organization, and Location
    • updated BudgetCenterData with new fields
    • modified CreateProjectPanel to work.
    • testing

Phil 5.31.12

8:00 – 4:30FP

Tom 5.30.2012

Start: 9:30

  • Changed the location of the grounds for the midi controllers on the new board
  • Finished routing sensor circuit traces
  • Finished adding amp circuits
  • Routed power lines
  • Still haven’t found a hard drive power connector which I could mount to the board but I did find the footprint for one in the schematics
  • Still looking for either a connector for the ribbon cables or a footprint for the ones I have.  I can use the standard pins without a mounting harness but the harness is nice as it cannot be plugged in the wrong way.
  • Changed the wiring of the midi and amps to use the two prong connectors I have been using for wires going to the arduino.  This will make it easier to swap out parts if needed.

End: 6:00

IT WORK (OVERHEAD) — 1:30-3:00: My laptop has been having intermittent problems which seemed to be characteristic of overheating.  I spent some time today opening up and cleaning off the fan as this is a common problem with this model.  Once the fan was cleaned off, I noticed that the laptop idles at a much lower usage level and even with the overclock settings the fan does not spin nearly as fast.  I ran 3dmark06 to benchmark and test stability.  It ran it very well even with the CPU overclocked to 2.75ghz(normal clock is 2.2ghz).  Furthermore, the area below my left hand, where the graphics card resides, does not get hot anymore.  The fan did not even reach max speed during this test.  Hopefully this solved the stability issues I have been experiencing for almost a year.

Asus has very efficient cooling systems in their laptops, but even the best systems will fail if dust sneaks in.  It is always good to clean the fans periodically, as I have seen computers which seemed destine for the junkyard, fully recover after their cooling systems were cleaned.

Mike 5.30.2012

  • Server backups at site
  • Fixed a broken link on the visibility index pages
  • Moved over the map hosting webapp so visibility displays maps correctly
  • Working on the charting package

Phil 5.30.12

7:30 – 4:30, 6:30 – 8:30 FP

  • Put together all my semester info for reimbursement.
  • Working on the tone structure for the fingers.
  • Here’s a nice chord that works:
    • thumbIO.setContactNote(52);
    • indexIO.setContactNote(55);
    • middleIO.setContactNote(60);
    • ringIO.setContactNote(64);
    • pinkyIO.setContactNote(67);
  • Adding some PC-side data throttling so that we don’t overwhelm the Arduino
    • Setting up the sandbox to play with buffer management.
  • Brought over one of the other PhD students to look at the system and see what kind of study/paper can be done with it

Tom 5.29.2012

Start: 9:30

  • Found the footprint for a hard drive power plug and placed it on the board
  • Found the footprint for the D-sub connectors for the hands sensors and speakers
  • Drew the traces for the sensor voltage divider.  It is now much smaller
  • Still trying to figure out how to mount the ribbon cables wiring slot on the board
  • Ribbon cables are easy to attach to the female connector.  All that is needed is to line them up and then squeeze the top part
  • Cleaned up the lab area a bit
  • Phil was able to get the hand working so we tried it out.  It feels really good and I can see a potentially low learning curve once everything is tuned properly.  Tuning includes adjusting sensitivity, add more dynamic range to the volume, figure out a way to isolate each finger to an extent(it might be good if you feel some vibration in the other fingers), and selecting notes and  chords
  • http://www.8notes.com/piano_chord_chart/
  • I tried to find a list of cords in midi numbering format but couldn’t.  We will have to convert them using the chart.

End: 5:30

Mike 5.29.2012

  • Production backups at site
  • Created some Portfolio Manager accounts for users who requested them
  • One of the remote sites that was having difficulty connecting to our server resolved the issue.  It was a proxy on their end.
  • Created a document describing how remote users can test their connection and included a lot of troubleshooting information.  Hopefully we can send it out this week to all potential users
  • Status meeting this afternoon:
    • Apparently what the help desk told me was our production server is not actually a production server and we are still in the test and integration environment.  We need to jump through some more hoops to get to production.
    • May need to bring Phil back for help with the test plan
    • Tangie is working on getting a final user list so we can send out and connection test email to everyone on Friday
    • The next step will be getting some early adopters to start entering data

Phil 5.29.12

7:30 – 4:30FP

  • Adding in more sounds.
  • Looks like the contact sound is never enabled.
  • Sounds are all fixed and working. If too many characters come in, the Arduino crashes, but it seems pretty robust. I’m going to give each finger a different pitch tomorrow. For now, hit and movement sounds are off.

Interview at 10:00. Here’s hoping that I find out who it’s with and where it is before I have to leave. Yay. I have an address and contact info.

Mike 5.28.2012

  • Working on the chart stuff from home
  • Finished my class structure and all toXml and fromXml methods, here’s an example:

And the XML that defines it:

<flexichart>
<series>
<set seriesType=”ColumnSet” type=”clustered”>
<series>
<series seriesType=”ColumnSeries” yField=”0″ fillColor=”14976769″ fillAlpha=”1″/>
<set seriesType=”ColumnSet” type=”stacked”>
<series>
<series seriesType=”ColumnSeries” yField=”1″ fillColor=”10861646″ fillAlpha=”1″/>
<series seriesType=”ColumnSeries” yField=”2″ fillColor=”1807833″ fillAlpha=”1″/>
</series>
</set>
</series>
</set>
</series>
</flexichart>

 

Now I need to start working on the configuration screen

Also, here is a useful link for parsing XML using e4x: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/E4X_Tutorial

Mike 5.25.2012

  • Production backups
  • Back and forth emails with Jessica R. regarding account troubles, she was trying to log in to the data vis thinking it was project assistant
  • sent out the vis tool weekly status email
  • After lots of digging I found a connectivity trouble shooting guide designed for the problems we’re having! I found a link to it through someone’s blog.  I plan on using to it write our own troubleshooting guide to send to users.
  • I sent a few tests from the troubleshooting guide to a local site admin I’ve been working with.
  • Worked with Dong to debug an issue with my auto-login system

Phil 5.25.12

8:00 – 5:00 FP

  • Added set and get byte methods to DataElement.
  • Tested sounds. Things are working much better. Nice job, Tom!
  • Working through note change/on/off logic in sim – done
  • The midi boards need to have power cycled to get a reset?
  • PAD lab meeting
  • Got the collision sound working reliably. Calling it a day.
    • >>{“nm”:f1Ht,”vol”:128,”nt”:84,”instrument”:116}<< // hit
    • >>{“nm”:f1Ct,”vol”:128,”nt”:72,”instrument”:59}<< // contact
    • >>{“nm”:f1Mv,”vol”:128,”nt”:60,”instrument”:20}<< // move

10:00 phone interview

Tom DeVito 5.24.2012

Start: 6:00

  • My wrong pin theory was incorrect.  Yesterday, I thought that the top pins on the aux IO pin block might be pin 22 and 23, throwing off my numbering.  It turns out, the reason these pins were hot(putting out voltage) was because they were in fact 5 volt pins.  This means the numbering is correct.
  • The middle and rings midi controllers were swapped.  Problem solved.
  • I found while running my testing sketch that the reset method does work on all but the index finger.  Upon inspection of the midi board, I found that a surface mounted capacitor had a broken connection.
  • Tried to repair the problem but it was beyond fixing.  Cut all the wires and confirmed that this was the one having problems.
  • After replacing the Midi shield, the reset method was still not working.  The connector for the reset was not connecting properly.  I guess it was just a coincidence that the capacitor was also loose.  I am not sure how the capacitor was effecting the functionality of the shield as it seemed to work but wouldn’t reset.  Regardless it is probably best that it was replaced.
  • Everything seems to be working now.  I changed the instrument from church organ to viola 42 because the organ wasn’t sustaining properly.  I am pretty sure the organ is supposed to but I couldn’t get it to do it.
  • It just occurred to me that maybe you were not selecting church organ properly.  Change instrument accepts bytes and you are passing it an int.  There is likely a loss of data issue there.  I am pretty sure all the midi class parameters are signed bytes are what the midi protocol uses.
  • Tested this by hard coding the instrument settings and it sustained properly.
  • When it first starts up it does not sustain the first note but when you start one through the console it sustains properly
  • I tried a few different strings and they all seemed to work as expected.
  • If you have any problems call me 301-787-0490.  I am hoping to hit the road by noon at the latest so if you can me before then I may be able to drop by if necessary.
  • I will clean up the office Monday.

End 4:30

Dong Shin 05.24.2012

  • Demo/Tutorial at the site with Mike
  • fixed scriptEngine returning Byte to String for VisibilityScripting
  • fixed SolrXMLIngest to change illegal characters in column names to ‘_’
  • following fields to be added to PPM’s Budget Centers
    • Funding Type – BASE or OCO
    • Location
    • Org
  • SQL to add the fields to the budget centers
    • ALTER TABLE `budget_centers` ADD `funding_type` VARCHAR( 255 ) NULL DEFAULT ‘BASE’,
      ADD `org` VARCHAR( 255 ) NULL DEFAULT ‘S1’,
      ADD `location` VARCHAR( 255 ) NULL DEFAULT ‘Fort Meade, MD’;

Mike 5.24.2012

  • Production backups
  • Checked on the ticket status for diagnosing connection problems to specific sites; it is “in the queue.”
  • Demo/Tutorial with Jessica R., Lenni M., and Carla H. at my desk.  We went over PA, PPM, and data vis.  I gave them PPM accounts and made them all admins.  They seemed excited about the tool. A few issues arose from the demo:
    • in the data vis, periods cannot appear in column headers or you have problems
    • Need new columns for reqs:
      • Funding Type
      • Physical Location
      • Organization
  • Fix the period issue by having all ingestors replace periods in headers with underscores

Phil 5.24.12

8:00 – 9:30, 2:30-4:00 FP

  • Probably going to take a few hours to go to Salisbury today. Tom needs the time to make the electronics work anyway.
  • Adding the note on/off code to SoundWrapper
    • Use pitch to set up note changes
    • If a new note comes in (either as a new note or from pitch), then we need to turn the old not off, then add a new JSON string that turns the new note on.
    • Start thinking about polyphony.