JeremyBlum.com

The nerf sentry gun was developed as a final project for Cornell University’s CS1114 Matlab Robotics class.  Jason Wright (www.jasonline.net) and I worked on the gun together, and were awarded “coolest final project”.

Check out the video of the gun in action, and see how we built it:

READ ON FOR PICTURES, SOURCE CODE, AND A COMPLETE FEATURE LIST

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Oops, I forget to charge my camera battery, so no pictures today we managed to get some the next day (posted below), but here’s what we’ve done recently.

We completely finshed the metal rack that will hold the sensors, and accompanying tripod mount for it.  Using module components, we are able to construct it in such away that sensors can be replaced without unsoldering anything, and using clip-in racks, the positioning of the sensors can be easily adjusted based on screen size.  Our tripod mount is also adjustable, allowing the tripod to stand close to, or far away from the TV using an adjustable arm.  This is beneficial, if for example, the TV is in a cabinet.   There are also felt bumpers on the front of the bar to prevent damage to the television.

Thanks to a suggestion and some help from youtube user al337h4x, we modified the game textures to remove lightning!  That completely fixes the problem we were having with the sensors activating when lightning flashed past them.  This should be good for allowing us to get some high scores, but DeepNote will of course continue to work on standard, unmodified Guitar Hero games.

Enjoy some pictures of the finished sensor rack!

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Since we are convinced that the inside our our guitar is going to look really cool when complete, we’ve decided to make a a back window out of plexiglass, so today we’ve started to cut it.

As normal, today was also another day of program tweaking, something that will likely take a while longer at the current pace.

Since we now have the PCBs in our possession, we have also begun running tests with them.  The sensors work perfectly, and though we will be getting different control boards, we are modifying the current ones to work as the future ones will (by jumpering connections, and cutting leads).

Here are some pictures from today:

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Programming continued today. In fact, we are essentially rewriting the code to better take advantage of the propeller chip’s many IO pins. In addition to that, we installed an LED above the rocker switch to indicate when autonomous mode is activated, and installed a hex switch (0-15), that will allow use to change delay times on the fly (on intervals of 10 ms). Pictures are below:

Work on the guitar has been continuing at a steady rate. What has been going on:

• We’ve installed the d-sub connection into the side of the guitar
• We’ve installed a switch above the whammy bar that will turn autonomous mode on or off
• We’re still working on trying to mold the buttons so we can create some transparent replacements with LEDs inside
• Code tweaking. We’re really close to fixing the issue where star power notes tend to not get strummed
• More code tweaking. The level of software post-processing has gotten so heavy that we are moving some of the code from an interpreted language to assembly code in order to speed it up
• We’ve finally finished the computer design of the circuit boards, and we sent them out to get printed professionally today. We should be able to start soldering on the components by early next week when we get the boards.

Here are some pics of all the stuff I’m talking about :)