Google, ADK, San Mateo Fair, and Diner

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, June 24th, 2011

One of my hacker friends that hangs out in #fmcg also works at Google, so he invited me there for a bit to walk around and have a lunch there!

Big Android is really big. Also, tried touching the buttons on the phone but they didn’t do anything

I love the colour in this one, it looks really cool!

There was a bronze Android scuba statue on the other side of the campus. It had red LEDs on it, but they didn’t work (even when I wired up the battery in the back)

The wires:

This is one of the buildings, it looks pretty interesting!

There are flamingos trying to attack this T-rex!

He also gave me an ADK…

The accessory shield is really pretty @_@

The Google logo is silkscreened on there, in all those colours! Also, here you can see the joystick, three buttons, and three RGB LEDs

On this side there is a temperature sensor, light sensor, the golden Android is a capacitive touch sensor, three servo ports, and 2 relays!

On the back of the main board there is a QR code, and also ICP solder pads

Here is what the board looks like. There is also an Android etched into the chip The LEDs in the Android are just TX and RX

One thing about the Android Accessory shield is that the RGB LEDs are extremely bright!

This is what it looks like on the lowest setting aside from off

Retro also took me to a bunch of the electronics surplus stores in SV! WOW, there are so many of them with so much stuff. If something that you are making breaks or if you need a part, you can literally go to a real store and they will have the part. It is so cool! I made a video of everything that I bought. It is a little long, but if you want to watch it it is here:

Thanks for showing me Google and taking me to the electronics places retro!

On the last day I went to the San Mateo fair because I saw a tweet from @RoboGames that they would be there! It was nothing like the actual RoboGames or Maker Faire that are actually at the same place, but it was still really cool.

They had a swarm of Boe-bots! These are just a few of them!

I learnt some BASIC and programmed them up so that if one of the antenni are touched, then it backs up and turns right.

Zoom!

Also, there was one pink chassis and one blue one. It didn’t feel like it was spray painted though. I wonder how they dyed metal, or is that even possible?

There was also a Chevy Volt there

It was great seeing @MissySB from @RoboGames, and the intern too. WOW! I cannot wait for RoboGames next year, hopefully I will be able to make it!

Near my hotel there was a diner with absolutely amazing food. Take a look at this orange float!

This is a cool jukebox!

That pretty much wraps up this post. It was great meeting people. You can view more photos from Google, ADK, the bright ADK, San Mateo Fair, and Diner on flickr! Hope to see everyone again soon!

Posted in: Fun.

RoboGlyphs

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, April 19th, 2009

Lately, I have been trying to come up with ideas that would allow me to do a similar ‘gig’ as last year- when I was accepted to the Stanford program to learn AI.

Some may remember, some may not — some might not even know. Last year I was accepted into the Stanford University Education Program for Gifted Youth under the Artificial Intelligence program. Of course, it wasn’t very affordable. I created these Styrofoam vibrobots called Styrobots. Thanks to numerous efforts of the robotics community as a whole, we raised enough money for me to attend.

This year, I’m going to WWDC and RoboGames. I didn’t apply to any academic programs – aka the CMU Summer Robotics Institute & NASA’s Robotics Academy because they require US Citizenship, or something of the like.

WWDC and RoboGames are both in SF, CA, and around the same time period!

The idea I came up with are RoboGlyphs! They are small laser-etched ‘glyphs’ that can connect with other glyphs. The first three that I will be releasing are the 3 Laws of Robotics.

Here are some photos:

They look absolutely stunning in person!

However, this is not all that I plan to do with the RoboGlyphs. I plan to somehow attach a LED so that it can illuminate the words, so they can be seen in the dark.

I’m hoping to release these on Etsy around the first week of May. Keep an eye out!

Posted in: Art, Other, Projects.