Category Archives: Feldman Project

Tom.DeVito 1.10.10

Attempting to figure out a way to have the computer control the volume of an audio amplifier:

  • Reference for electronic diagram symbols:  http://library.thinkquest.org/10784/circuit_symbols.html
  • Reference for how to use a multi-tester: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Multimeter
  • The amplifier potentiometer gives the best volumes between  992- 950 ohms.
  • To measure current, the multi-tester needs to be in series with the circuit.  I am removing the potentiometer from the amplifier circuit so I can put the multi tester in series after it and read the range of current.  How many amps the current is will determine if I need to use a jfet or mosfet transistor for the voltage controlled resistor.

After taking off the potentiometer, we realised that this may not be the best way to have our speakers volume controlled.  We are looking into a couple of different IC amplifiers with programmable gain control.  See tomorrows entry for more details on this.

Other uses for capacitors besides storing energy to be released in burst or dimming lights.

Tom.DeVito 1.06.11

  • Ground off the epoxy so that I can start reattaching the strain gauges.
  • After much searching, I found this site http://www.educypedia.be/electronics/composemijfet.htm.  This seems like a really good reference site for electronics.
  • I am going to read the article on FETs As Voltage Controlled Resistors and JFETs as variable resistors tonight and post what I learned here either tonight or tomorrow morning.  These have a more in depth explanation then http://graffiti.virgin.net/ljmayes.mal/comp/vcr.htm has.
  • Because I will probably need to buy a couple components to make a VCR, I am going to hold off on going to the electronics store for the speaker until i know what else I need.  I hope to know what that is tonight after reading through those articles more thoroughly.
  • Some thing to note Vds = voltage drain to source and Vgs = voltage gate to source.

Phil 12.9.2010

7:30 – 11:30 VISIBILITY

  • Deployed the new PPM. Found a couple of bugs
    • The “screen resolution” value is not showing the browser window size, it’s locked on the (fixed) application size. If we can’t figure out how to calculate browser size, we should probably delete this
    • The “Save? Dialog” that gets launched needs to match the new “Save/Don’t Save/Cancel” dialog. This should be the same for every save dialog in the application.
  • Backed up everything – another 1k of data
  • Starting the DataManager class

11:30 – 3:30 FP

  • Finished transitioning the code from prototype 2 to prototype 3.
  • Put the fingers back on an worked with Tom on getting everything wired up and running. In the process, we probably killed the thumb and ring finger. At this point, the interface has the pinky and L/R palm control working – much fixing to do
  • Demo’d for class, which went well.

Phil 12.8.2010

7:30 – 11:30VISIBILITY

  • PPM db continues to grow. Forgot to bring in the new version today though.
  • Talked to John W. about hosting PPM on his servers. He had some (potentially show-stopping) issues that we’ll need to work through
  • Gave Christine some guidance on Mavenizing AirFileImageApp.
  • Got the DataClass2 working. looks like having a dynamic class gives pretty much everything that we need. There will be a public method to get type information for table construction

1:30 – 5:30 FP

  • Pulled apart the old control code and set it up to work with the new setup

Phil 11.8.2010

7:30 – 5:00 VISIBILITY

  • Discussed the demo of PPM with John W. THe new TD arrived today, so next week might be good.
  • Meeting with Anne and ?? for VISIBILITY on Nov 19 at 10:30 – added to the calender.
  • Working on the Air app. Skinning today? Nope, but finished the guts of the business logic.

FP – Work from the weekend. I’ll bring this in tomorrow:

Fully assembled components

Phil 11.4.2010

7:30 – 9:00 VISIBILITY

  • Nothing new with the customer. VISIBILITY is running well and getting used quite a bit. Left Christie a note saying that we’d be rolling out the new version of PPM early next week.

9:00 – 6:30 FP

  • Building fingers. You can reach me on my cell at 410.300.7293

  • Hand with actuators

Phil 10.28.2010

7:30 – 9:30 VISIBILITY

  • Meeting with Christie R.
    • There is some problem with the budget summing rollup in the project summary. I’ve printed screenshots and handed to Dong
    • We should change the panels that are used to select projects to DynamicPanel. Things need to be resizable, and we should add the search.
    • Search fields
      • Project ID
      • Project Name
      • People
      • Service

9:30 – 3:30 FP

  • Building more fingers
  • Actually, one of these fingers is a bit skewed. I think I need to face the posts.

Phil 10.27.2010

7:30 – 2:00 VISIBILITY

  • Fixed the table that was misbehaving for Anne. It turns out that you can’t have a ‘/’ in a column header and still expect Google SQL to handle it. Need to add that to the substitutions in the ingestors
  • Working out a fancier password system. Done. To test, I’ve put Tom’s Dong’s and my accounts into the system. If it’s working tomorrow, we’ll transfer more of the accounts over

2:00 – 3:00 FP

  • Demo for Mike F. and Scott G.

Phil 10.25.2010

7:30 – VISIBILITY

  • PPM is getting used. Talked to Christie Richard, who is entering most of the data. She has a list of suggestions
    • She needs to be sysadm to view projects she creates. We need to make it so that if you create a project, you should still be able to see it.
    • We need to make it so that projects can be created piecemeal. The minimum amount of information should be the project name and ID, but after that, the user should be able to enter data in any order or amount.
      • An incomplete project is one that does not have all the fields plus (sufficient? e.g. something other than all zeros) financial data entered.
      • There should be an INCOMPLETE warning in the title bar if a project is not sufficiently entered. Maybe we can flag that in the project list by highlighting the row, or being able to filter on incomplete projects.
      • It might be worth having an alert come up that indicates what still needs to be done on an incomplete project.
    • She’d like the ability to enter more than one POC for a project. Need to find out just what fields those are. Is this just on project creation or also other forms, such as creating funding requests
    • Add a per-project comment log. It should be visible on the project page and the enter financial data forms (Maybe funding request as well?). There should be an entry field that is editable, and then a text area (searchable?) that shown entries with timestamps and user id.
  • Worked on the MavenAssist site with Dong. The updater site is up, as is a download site. The home page is prettier (it’s a copy of our own web page on MavenAssist)

Phil 10.14.2010

7:30 – 9:30 VISIBILITY

  • Attempted to deploy a new Visibility3, but not all the swfs are there. Need to burn that again.
  • Deployed the new version of Scripting, but I’m not sure that it was actually new, since syntax coloring wasn’t there. Need to check on that too.
  • Email from Matt H. on where he’d like to go with VISIBILITY. All looks good. It would be nice to tie into some more databases. Anne’s right though, we need to talk to CMM.
  • Noticed that Dong was about to write the same DOM navigation code to fix the same <dependencies><dependency> bug that I found in MvnAssist a few weeks ago. Stopped him in time. @Dong – Can you check to see if I checked in a more recent version since you checked yours out?

9:30 – 4:30 FP

  • Got my collection of *tiny* metric screws, so I can finish assembly of the first finger. After that, I’ll see if I can put together a couple more.
  • Need to narrow down the strain channels in the palm – done
  • Finished one finger, drilling and tapping the rails
  • Drilled the matching channels in Delrin as well
  • Progress for today – the finished index finger and the parts for the next four:

Phil 10.12.2010

7:30 – 5:30 VISIBILITY

  • Trying to set up a meeting with Matt and Anne. Maybe Wednesday at 10:30? Check on the way home. Done. Meeting is set up for 1300 today.
  • Looks like Dong has gotten Maven to behave better than I did. Now we need to fix MvnAssist to incorporate and work on the Mac.
  • Flex in a Week
    • Day 2 Episode 11
    • Day 2 Episode 12
    • Day 2 Episode 13
  • Burned the new PPM disk

BTW, Here’s progress from yesterday:

Phil 9.30.2010

7:00 – 6:00 FP

  • Machining today. You can reach me at on my cell
    • Finger hinges are done. The U-channel is slightly less than 1/2 inch spacing, so I had to mill that out.
    • Built the base and connected it to the half-finished palm
    • added the finger hinges to the palm and discovered that the ring finger clevis was too close to the index. Moved it over a bit
    • Mounted the fingers
    • Had a fright that I had ordered the wrong hollow rod, but after measuring it and the motor, it looks good.
    • Class tonight.
    • Here’s progress for today:
  • Also filling out expense reports. Done

Phil 9.24.2010

7:30 – 4:30VISIBILITY

  • Deployed new PPM swf. Looks like only a few things left to go
    • Fix the title of the PM Manager
    • Add subtotals and grand totals to Financial Request form. That should fix the addition check bug as well
  • Sat down with Masha M to walk through what she’s trying to do with SLA
    • Ingested a new data table and played around with it.
    • Tried to make a new dashboard with the table she loaded. It saved OK, but wouldn’t load in. Permission problem.
  • Working the autosave problem, but with interruptions. Hmmm. Seems to work here
  • Going to add in Dong’s “about” dialog, but on Monday, now that I’ve got everything checked out and running.
  • Talked to Anne. Meeting on Oct 4th(?) am

FGM

  • Finishing performance Eval. Done.

FP

  • Fixing a few things and resubmitting the paper

Phil 9.22.2010

8:00 – 4:00 VISIBILITY

  • Mary M had uploaded and attempted to ingest a big spreadsheet. It still had some formatting and didn’t work. I removed the formatting and re-ingested. She’ll be out until the 25th, so we’ll have to wait to see how that worked out
  • Installed the new SWF from Dong. All appears to be working and it looks like all the users have been added.
  • Asked Dong to put together an “about” panel that has the compiled date in it. That turned out great. I’m going to add that to the other pieces of VISIBILITY
  • Working on self-assessment – waiting for some definitions
  • Back to Flex in a week
    • Day 1 Episode 8
    • Day 1 Episode 9
    • Day1 Episode 10

KF

  • Wired up the 32′ USB extension cable, which appears to work fine. Need to re-tune the SG amps
  • Going to start cutting some metal for the hand plate tonight

FGM

  • Team Lunch

Phil 9.21.2010

7:30 – 11:30 VISIBILITY

  • Exchanged email with Mary M who’s with SLA, I think. She’s attempting to upload items and wants to use the Ingest Manager
  • Everything else is working fine. Some use by Anne G and Mary Mof the demo databases
  • Burning new PPM swf to disk

11:30 – 3:30 FP

  • Finished paper
  • Formatting paper for SIGCHI Archival format – done and submitted!