Didn’t win in the Darwin Race of Languages… that wasn’t a big shock! Ah well congratulations to the individuals that did, some of the submissions were really well done and significantly easier to install than mine. Check out the entries!

Good prizes as well.

Dream Build Play

St. Mary’s College is fielding two teams for Microsoft’s Dream Build Play contest. I’m part of one, we’re working on ideas now. Hopefully we get started soon, we only have approximately two months left. Should be a blast if we can dedicate some time and effort to a good game building on experience from last year.

Thesis

I’ve a final thesis to do. I want to build robots. This is not entirely physics as my adviser will probably point out, but I am a joint major. So, at the suggestion of a partner, we’re going to play with genetic algorithms and robots.

First Stages:

We need a robot platform, and we’re strapped for cash. I’m going to be in charge of building something cost effective that will allow us to run simulations from a host. Let’s look at some candidates for parts for a platform to test the feasibility of our idea:

• (1) PICAXE-08M Microcontroller - the brains of the little guys. 128 bytes to work with. 8 pins. This could get hairy!
• (1) L293D Driver. Used for controlling motors. Actually, we might be going with a project board for the picaxe which would give us 4 digital on/offs and 2 reversible power outputs without much headache. Enough to turn two servos and collect a little input from the environment.
• (1) 5V Voltage Regulator. We don’t want any blue smoke.
• (2) Microswitches to collect input.
• (1) 9V Battery.
• (2) GM10 Motor Kits.  They have to move somehow.

All of these parts thrown together should make a fairly basic robot. If we add a wireless serial controller, then we’ve a mobile platform which we can control from a host.

Where’s my credit card? I’ll be using it at Octopart, that’s for sure!

Steve

Don’t forget to VOTE!

Also, check out my other posts to the left concerning the development process using NetBeans.

Update:

The zip archive was quite large and took awhile to extract thanks to all of the doc files and random libraries included. I’m trying to trim it down to a more manageable size for all of you to enjoy. This includes a full installation of Ruby, associated libraries, my applications, and MySQL. There’s a lot to pack! The new archive below is roughly half the size. Here’s a quick shot of one of the folders bubbled up using the great tool, WinDirStat:

Downloads:

• DarMonInstantRails.zip

Ruby System Monitoring:

Well this is my best bet at the moment for having a completed project.

Attached to this post I will include a zip file with everything you should need to get started. This includes Ruby, RoR, ImageMagick, and an abundance of other bits.

Here’s how to make this all work:

1. Download the attached Zip file (DarMonInstantRails.zip) and extract somewhere on your hard-drive. It should come out as “X:\PathYouMade\InstantRails\”. I apologize for the size of the archive. Again, this is the only way I know how to easily make this work.
2. Navigate to the directory you just extracted to in InstantRails and run the ImageMagick installer:
3. Pick an installation path and accept the rest of the defaults for ImageMagick.
4. Launch the InstantRails Application:


You might get some errors. Ignore them! I stripped out Apache because we don’t need it in this case.

5. You should get something like below. Make sure that MySQL is Started. If not click the MySQL button and click start.



6. Click the “I” button in the top left corner and goto RailsApplications->Open Ruby Console Window. Do this 3 times so that we can launch the Agent, TractorBeam, and Interpol.
7. NOTE: In the root of the rails_apps directory there is an Agents.zip. This contains the Ruby script necessary on any of the computers you wish to monitor. If they have Ruby Installed, the script will run.
8. Change directories in the three console windows to “Interpol”, “Agents”, and “TractorBeam”.
9. Launch an Agent:



10. Launch Interpol from the Interpol directory by typing: “ruby script/server –port=3000″. If you’re successful you should see this:



11. Open a browser and navigate to “http://127.0.0.1:3000″:



12. Make sure at least 127.0.0.1 is added and your “Agent” from above is running.
13. Bring up your other unused Ruby console and change directory to TractorBeam. Then type: “ruby script/server –port=3001″ Take care with the port number!



14. Once TractorBeam is running navigate in a browser to: “127.0.0.1:3001″ and click on Sample Administration:



15. Click “Run Tests” and let it roll. It will begin to poll any IP’s you have added. If you get an error then the Agent probably is not running on the given address.
16. Go back to 127.0.0.1:3000 and click “View CPU Load Graph”. If all is well you should be presented with something similar to this:



17. As you bring up more Agents on your network and add their IP Addresses by click “Add/Remove CPU to Monitor,” they will be added to the graph with their respective loads and times. The graph isn’t pretty right now… and after awhile it gets cluttered. C’est la vie for now.
18. That’s it. Shoot me an e-mail or post a comment here if you have troubles.