Michael L. Belanger

Author: admin

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  • New ATtiny85 Quickstart Tutorial

    I’ve just posted a new tutorial on getting started with the ATtiny85 micro-controller. If you’re an Arduino Uno user its a fairly seamless transition to use this low-cost, embeddable chip:

    ATtiny85 via Arduino Quickstart Gude

  • ATtiny85 prototype board complete

    ATtiny85 breakout board
    ATtiny85 breakout board model T-85

    I Just finished scratch building and testing the first prototype of my ATtiny85 microcontroller board. Believe it or not this tiny thing is quite powerful. 1mHZ or 8mHz operation, 2.8v to 5.5v powering (everything from CS2032 watch batteries to AAAs, AAs, and LiPo battery packs). 5 input/output pins, PWM, analog input circuitry, In-System Programming with an Arduino motherboard.

    My breakout board concept is to provide ground, power, and signal connections for each input so that sensors, leds, etc can be built with 3-pin 2.5mm female header connectors to plug-and-play with any of the inputs of the board. This also makes the standard input pin-compatible with servo motor 3-pin connections as well!

    Now to crimp a few hundred 3-pin connections to try out various sensors and actuators…

  • ATtiny85 Processors Arrive!

    I just received an order of 10 ATtiny85 microcontrollers from Jameco (they run about $1.75 each in small quantities) so I can begin to experiment with cloning Arduino code down to a much-less-expensive and easy to embed processor. So far it’s been a breeze, using an Arduino Uno as my programming device and getting the beloved blink sketch up and running in about half an hour.

    Now back to designing the world’s smallest Attiny85 board…

  • NASA’s squishable robot ideal for planetary exploration | Digital Trends

    NASA’s squishable robot ideal for planetary exploration | Digital Trends.

  • Pleo Voice-Changing Script

    Pleo Voice-Changing Script

    pleo robot speaking

    The Pleo’s operating system uses 3 virtual machines running the PAWN scripting language to handle all the sensor input, animation output, and overall control of the built-in personality.

    Here is my first experiment in running Pleo code in the mysterious 4th virtual machine, the User VM.

    Pleo_Voice_200.zip

    Download and unzip this file, then copy the contents of the Pleo_Voice_200 file to an SD card. On start-up the script temporarily sets the Pleo’s sound playback speed to 200%, shifting the Pleo’s voice into a higher frequency.

    For those interested in the programming side of things, here are the contents of the startup.p PAWN script that was build into the startup.amx file that runs on the Pleo

    // startup.p
    // on start-up change Pelo's sound playback to 200% speed

    public init()
    {
    sound_set_speed(200);
    return true;
    }

  • Pleo Ships!

    Pleo Ships!

    I’m eagerly awaiting delivery of my first Ugobe Pleo from eBay. Can’t wait to start programming!