Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re one of the many scientists and researchers using a PlayStation 3 as a cheap alternative to a supercomputer, you’ll want to steer clear of Sony’s latest firmware update.

Sony will offer a software upgrade on April 1 that will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on PS3 systems prior to the slimmer models. The feature allowed users to run Linux on the console. Now, Sony says “security concerns” have forced it to remove the functionality.

Users who get the latest OS version will lose access their older data after the update, says a Sony spokesperson.

The PlayStation 3 has emerged as a favorite among researchers looking to create homebrew supercomputers on the cheap. When clustered, the PS3’s Cell processor — developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba — can rival the power of a supercomputer, say some researchers.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna, for instance, created a step-by-step guide to building a supercomputer using the PS3 that could potentially reduce the cost of general computing research.

Stanford has a Folding@home initiative where PS3 users can sign up to use their machine as part of a distributed computing project that simulates protein folding.

PS3 users not choosing to upgrade to the latest version will pay a price. They will lose the ability to sign into the online PlayStation network, chat or play Blu-ray discs that require the latest version of the operating system.

But if you are trying to model the effect of gravitational waves or molecular dynamics, you probably won’t miss those features much, anyway.

See Also:

• Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with a Cluster of Eight PS3s
  
• Review: Custom Built Gaming PC Performs Like a Ferrari
  
• Microsoft, Cray Unleash $25K Supercomputer

Photo: (William Hook/Flickr)

All-terrain robots can cost thousands of dollars but Dino Segovis, a DIY enthusiast, transformed a busted Roomba into a robot called the Urban Roverbot that can crawl on rocks as well as it does on polished floors.

“Lots of people build bots that they can drive on flat surfaces,” says Segovis.”I wanted to drive one on rocks and was inspired by the Mars Rovers.”

The Urban Roverbot is about 12 inches long, weighs less than 8 lbs and took just about eight hours to build from parts that were harvested from the Roomba.

iRobot introduced the Roomba in 2002 as an automated vacuum cleaner. But the Roomba has also become a hit in the do-it-yourself community. eBay is teeming with used and busted Roomba that are available with or without batteries.

The main reason Roombas are discarded are drained batteries, dirty wheel sensors that don’t allow the device to move around easily, problems with the cleaning brush motor and an occasional broken drive belt. Most of these aren’t of concern to hardware hackers, says Segovis

Instead the Roomba’s innards such as the sensors, motors and hardware can be valuable and used to build other roving robots, he says.

Segovis who calls himself a “tinkerer with a very, very curious mind” got a few broken down Roombas from a friend and dissected them on his workbench. It was the first time he had seen a Roomba up close. “I thought the motors in it are very versatile and it got me thinking about what I could do with it.”

For the Roverbot, Sergovis says he opted for the Rocker-Bogie suspension arrangement that’s been used in the Mars Rovers. The arrangement has no axles or springs yet it allows the robot to climb over small obstacles and not topple over.

“The way the suspension works is that each side is independent, while a link that goes across the middle,” he says. “This allows the weight of the robot to be distributed over both sides of the vehicle and all the wheels always stay in contact with the ground.”

A Ping ultrasonic sensor to measure distance is at the front of the chassis for navigation. An Arduino micro controller helped Segovis complete the framework for his robot. He used four of the Roomba’s motor assemblies on the suspension arms.

And so far tests show the Roverbot is good to go on rocky surfaces. Here’s a video of the Roverbot in action:

Segovis says he’s fine-tuning the Urban Roverbot and hopes to have it ready in time for Maker Faire in May. The Roverbot will get a new chassis and suspension assembly made of aluminum, he says. Better wheels and the integration of edge sensors are also on the project plan.

“My long term goal is to build a bigger robot with larger wheels,” he says.

Check out the photos for a closer look at how the Roverbot was built

The connections from the Arduino microcontroller to the Roomba

The bottom of the Roverbot

See Also:

• Long Exposure Shows Web-Like Roomba Light-Trail
• Roomba-Maker Unveils Kill-Bot
• Scarab: A Roomba For The Mean City Streets
• Researchers Tweak Roomba to Respond to Emotions

Photo/Video: Dean Segovis

[via Hack a Day]

Dave Phipps is like the Ben Heck of automobiles, only instead of putting the parts of old game consoles into newer, smaller boxes, Dave takes sweet-looking old cars and fills them with hi-tech electronics. This time he has wired his 1969 Pontiac GTO to be remote-controlled by his iPod Touch.

The video above, from Jalopnik, shows the system in action. Dave uses the “iTouch”, as he calls it, combined with the RedEye iPhone remote to roll the car’s windows up and down, fire up the ignition, pop the doors and trunk and even roll down the roof.

The RedEye, you may remember, is a box that receives its instructions from the iPhone or iPod over Wi-Fi and blasts them out to your home-theater components via infrared beams. Dave has used it to build a Wi-Fi network into his GTO which is hooked up to all the motors in the car. He even uses the macro function of the RedEye app. Wait ’til you see the “all down” function in the video. I guarantee you’ll crack a smile.

While this is undoubtedly an awesome mod, one of Dave’s previous versions sounds even better. He had a Bluetooth setup that did all the same things, only it was controlled by voice. That sounds suspiciously close to KITT from Knight Rider.

Electronics Whiz Controls ‘69 Pontiac GTO With iPod Touch [Jalopnik via Gadget Review]

Before we tell you more about the shoebox-sized personal iPhone Theater, let me ask a few questions to gauge your suitability for such a project. Do you live alone, or better, with your mother? Did you stop painting RPG miniatures in your teens, or are you still doing it? Would a perfect night out for you would be a night in, with your dolls-houses, a roll of duct tape and that cute girl from down the street, the one who always laughs at you but you know she loves you anyway?

Of course, we tease. We are totally nerdy enough to love this downloadable, DIY mini-theater. For $12, you get a bunch of printable JPEG sections which you glue onto cardboard and arrange inside a shoe-box. These cover every part of the gaudy cinema experience, from the glowing neon corner-tower outside to the vomit-patterned carpets and seedy red-velvet seats inside. The iPhone slots in behind the screen and, while it won’t mimic the shafts of projector light pushing through the smokey air of the theaters of our childhood, it’ll give you some of the real movie-house atmosphere.

The kit takes around two hours to build and comes with a variety of textures and colors for walls and floors, which seems to faithfully mimic the range of hideous decor found in your average downtown flea-pit. One word of advice: don’t tip up the “empty” paper cups.

Personal Movie Theater [Personal Movie Theater. Thanks, Gary!]

Playing with apps on an Android phone is fun. Building your own apps, even more so. But what about using the phone to operate a moving, talking bot? Tim Heath and Ryan Hickman have done exactly that.

The bot they recently finished building — Truckbot — is still relatively simple. It’s got an HTC G1 phone for a brain, riding on top of a chassis with some wheels and treads. All it can do is roll around on a tabletop, turn and head off in a specified direction. When I visit the workshop where they’re building it, Heath and Hickman show how it can use the phone’s compass to make itself point to the south. But the duo have much more ambitious plans in mind.

“I knew I could build this thing. I just needed a phone,” explains Heath, a Python web engineer. He posted on various e-mail lists looking for one, including that of Hacker Dojo, a Mountain View, California, hackerspace. Hickman, who works for Google’s Doubleclick division, but has no connections to the Android people, saw Heath’s pleas.

They got together and started building. The first bot they built was made out of plastic. They just finished constructing their second bot, called Truckbot, which is lighter and cardboard-based.

They could have purchased the pricey $175 Oomlout kit, which includes wheels, motors and an Arduino-based brain. Hickman and Heath opted for making their own chassis. Here’s a full list of parts they used:

• $16 Bare bones Arduino
• $3 Micro servo
• $0.25 Hex inverter (handled 3.3v to 5v conversion)
• $4 HTC USB breakout board
• $3 Mini breadboard
• $4 miscellaneous cardboard, strap ties, wires, rear wheel

Total: $30 (plus shipping). To be fair, Heath and Hickman had access to a local workshop, the Tech Shop in Menlo Park, California, which helped tremendously in terms of having the tools to build some parts, like laser-cutting the cardboard chassis.

Their bot is more impressive for its potential than what it currently does. “Unlike most people out there,” says Hickman, as he types commands on the screen of his laptop, “we don’t want to use the phone as a remote control. Rather, it becomes the brain of the operation.”

This means they could utilize every hardware and software component of an Android phone, programming the bot to avoid obstacles, recognize faces and voices, pinpoint its location and go places. An Arduino board, which basically serves as a software-hardware link, is not smart enough to handle that, but an Android phone can.

For example, Arduino can detect when the bot bumps into something, but has to rely on the phone to decide on what to do next. As we’re wrapping up, the bot turns towards me and says, “Hello, Miran. Wired is awesome.”

Thanks, Truckbot! I like you too.

Wanna try building your own Android bot? Here is their five-step process:

• Laser-cut pieces in cardboard or acrylic using PDF file
• Attach breadboard, rear caster, 9V battery, servos, and Arduino using strap ties and glue
• Glue servo arms to wheels and attach with the small servo screw
• Connect wiring for servos, Arduino, breadboard, HTC USB board and battery
• Mount phone with large strap tie and insert USB plug to bottom

To get it to work, you also need to do the following with the OS:

• Load Cyanogen on Android phone*
• Download the Android Scripting Environment application from code.google.com
• Copy cellbot.py file to phone’s SD card /sdcard/ase/scripts/
• Load Cellbot code on Arduino board
• Run the Python script and telnet into the robot from a remote machine to control it.

* For the commercial version of Android, an additional BlueTooth module is required.

If you get stuck, go to Heath and Hickman’s bot development blog for more tips. Enjoy experimenting, and let us know how it goes.

See Also:

• DIY Freaks Flock to 'Hacker Spaces' Worldwide
• The Droid Has Been Rooted — Now What?
• DIY Robotics: The Rise of Open Source Hardware
• How Wired.com Built Beer Robot, Our DIY Kegerator

Photos: Miran Pavic / Wired.com