What I learned from building autonomous model race cars for a year

January 3, 2020

I was part of a university project group that develops autonomous model race cars. We are a group of twelve students working on the project in part time for year.

LED Matrix Materials Guide

May 8, 2017

I built an LED matrix out of 256 WS2812 LEDs. This post will describe which materials I used and which I tried with no success so you don’t have to.

Computer Vision and Robotics Demo with Raspberry Pi

July 2, 2016

This spring, I spent some time at SAP’s commercial hackerspace. I wanted to explore how computer vision can be used with embedded devices and robotics. I built a demo that can detect QR codes and similar symbols and point a laser at them. Possible applications of this are putting QR codes on objects to help the robot locate them and grab or manipulate objects. Another possible use case is local navigation. A robot could infer its own location and orientation in space by detecting QR codes with known locations.

16×16 LED Matrix

September 12, 2015

This is a 16×16 RGB LED matrix, made of 256 WS2812B LEDs. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi and can display images and animations. With a game controller attached, it can play games.

Connecting my fish tank to the Internet of Things – Part 1: Hacking an automatic fish feeder

June 30, 2014

I bought a used automatic fish feeder from ebay. This device is completely mechanic and very old (older than 1989). It has 27 containers for fish food and a disc that does one rotation per day. By sticking pins into that disc one can trigger one or more feedings per day. A pin will rotate an outer ring with the containers by one unit. One container always faces down, emptying its contents. So if the outer ring has made one revolution, all containers have been emptied.

Raspberry Pi Wetterstation

September 23, 2013

Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich entschieden, das Projekt jetzt mit einem Raspberry Pi weiterzuführen. Die Sensordaten werden wieder vom ILC-Board geliefert, das ich für den Schülerwettbewerb Intel Leibniz Challenge bekommen habe.

Arduino-Wetterstation mit Bluetooth, Datalogging und Android-App

July 9, 2013

Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen Schülerwettbewerb (ILC) bekommen und zusammengesetzt habe. Auf dem Board rechnet ein ATxmega128A3U. Temperatur, Luftfeuchte, Luftdruck, Helligkeit, Regenmenge und Windgeschwindigkeit werden bestimmt. Die letzen beiden Werte werden durch mechanische Aufbauten ermittelt, an denen ein Magnet einen Hallsensor passiert.