On Line Neighborhood Watch

On Line Neighborhood Watch or, Two Camera Switcher
I have a 4 camera security camera setup, two cameras point to the street outside where a camera on the shed sees the traffic coming and another on the back of the shed sees traffic going. Since we live at the end of a dead-end street, the neighborhood gets interested whenever someone goes up to the end of the street.

Most of the time, when a car goes by, it comes right back as soon as it discovers there is no outlet. These cars aren`t of much interest. It is the occasional car or truck that goes up the street and doesn`t just come right back.


 

To solve this issue, I volunteered my two street cameras to my neighbors, thus creating the first coming and going traffic cam in "the hood." Cars that stay too long can be visited, or you can simply note the license plates.

One of my neighbors intends to hookup the feed to an old VHS tape recorder. He can change tapes every couple of days, and if someone is up to "no-good," he has a recording to turn over to the sheriff.

All in all, this Neighborhood watch setup works great. It is possible that we could use the same type setup on another part of the street, then next thing you know our whole mile long neighborhood road is on line and discouraging parking couples, drinking parties, and wood pirates stealing our firewood.

Of course, this was a great build it yourself project for the C What I Can Do Website

And it is kinda cool to serve my own security cameras!  My street is famous (on my street, of course.)

Arduino Development VS picAxe Development

 Yes, we hear all about Arduino and they ARE great with lot`s of developers creating lots of software.  The real "competition" if you care to call it that, is between the chips themselves. This boils down to PIC chips against Atmel chips. PIC chips generally speaking require a more technical approach and special programming tools. The compilers are not often simply free, so the investment is larger.

Enter the picAxe chip. Here someone took a PIC chip and put a bootloader (like arduino) but just a little more... A BASIC interpreter! So you can hook up a PC as a terminal and program in BASIC. 

 So I created a benchmark test:  Blink Ten LED`s in sequence. Easy peasy with picAxe dev board. Not so easy to get ten grounds from an Uno. Not without either buying a pins-in breadboard for your Uno, or soldering iron and breadboard shield, but the soldering messes up the apples vs apples tests.

In Summary:


1. I like, neigh Love, Arduino Uno. It`s hard to beat an Arduino Uno with an added proto-board. The great software is off the charts, and complex projects get easy.

2. Since the introduction of the M2 parts, you can`t beat a picAxe for lowest cost, electrically tough parts.

3. The new kid on the block uses a group of parts for creating an UNO using a pin-block and handful of glue parts. Now you have both the advantages of the picAxe dev system (lots of pins for experimenting). And the software for Atmel chips. I like this approach, though I haven`t tested it thoroughly just yet. I may leave that part up to you.

See the whole project at C What I Can Do .com and enjoy developing what ever flavor you choose!

 

Zombie Drives Wheelchair

You guessed it...  It's not really a ghost driving the wheelchair.  The wheelchair is Autonomous!  That's right, this wheelchair can take you on a tour of a rather large area...


Watch the video

Or see the whole project at  CwhatIcanDo.com

Wheelchair Robot Becomes Autonomous

There's a new robot in town and it is finding it's way along my messy deck.
 

Check out the action and how-to build your own on CwhatIcanDo website.

This wheelchair is getting smarter.  Er, uh, this ROBOT is getting smarter.  And you can STILL use it as a wheelchair.   You will have to modify the software so you can turn it on and off, but imagine you could send it loose on a piece of land it would avoid collisions with farm animals and give an auto-tour of the property to the wheelchair rider!  :-)

Wireless RF Remote for Power Chair Twenty USD

The latest video on CwhatIcanDo.com.  This one is for people with power chairs who would like to be able to have wireless control over their wheelchairs.  This one can allow freedom to move your chair aside when you plop down in a favorite chair or visit with people at the table.  Just move the power chair aside under remote control.

This is about as simple as you can make a thing.  Once I established the presence of a 3 volt power source, I knew I could run the whole unit on 12 volts directly from the power chair.  (Remember in another project, we use an H-bridge to robotically control things?)

Check it out on CwhatIcanDo

Robot From Power Chair Follows Wall

This time I wanted to continue to use the controller I already had and add sensors.  To test my ideas, I made a pretty simple wall follower type algorithm and that made it happen like this:

So now I can keep a robot on the straight and narrow using IR in close quarters.   I expect a sonar would also be nice, so I guess I will have to add a sonar ping'er and give that a try.

Next time, though, I'm really thinking about making something really practical for wheelchair owners.  Not that it isn't practical to manage a wheelchair through narrow passages, but that can come later.

Check out the project at Edge Detection on Power Chair Robot on CwhatIcanDo.com...