May 2007 - Posts
http://www.zune-online.com/news/zune/bach-zune-sold-more-than-1-million-players.html
ZUNE sales is estimated to reach 1 million sets by the end of June. However, it is still not available in many pahrts of the world and unfortunately, one of those places without Zune is Singapore. I heard some Zunes are given away as free gifts (for answering questions) during MS101 last week. Hope to get my hands on it when it finally reach Singapore.
For those who didn't notice, my videos on Robotics are now on Channel9. Check out other videos produced in Singapore by visiting this link:
(Thanks to chewy for helping!)
http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/singapore
Check out http://dev.live.com/silverlight/
You can share up to 4GB and 10minutes of video using the Live Streaming provided by Live (powered by Silverlight).
To encode, you can download a free trial version of Expression Video Encoder: Download a free trial version here...
In my Day 2 of the presentation training (final day), I will be presenting on the benefits of using Microsoft Robotics Studio as my concluding presentation. Since I'm preparing for it, I'll summarize it here:
In my opinion, the top 3 most compelling reasons to use MRS are:
-
Cost Saving as customers do not need to commit to the actual hardware during the initial phases (evaluation,developing of logics,etc)
-
Group Collaboration as teams located around the world can work on the same robots without having to meet up in a centralize location. Each team member can own their personal virtual robot and do not need to have access to the physical robot itself.
-
Time Saving as deployment time to the actual robot into the simulator is much faster than to the physical robot itself. During development and test phase where rebuilds are very common, this will translate into time saving.
I will talk more about MSR in the days to come.
The part 2 of our Robotics Series is currently being uploaded. In this video, we will talk about creating a SUMOROBO from scratch (with reference to the help file that comes with the SUMO Package).
After viewing this video, developers should be able to:
- Create their own SUMOROBO
- Understand the steps required to create future bots of their own
Soapbox: http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=11181de0-f671-4829-af72-1da7b2c5992f
http://popfly.ms/ is one of the first few domain hosted under the .ms extension. Based on rumour going on, Microsoft.ms is still unregistered but I guess anyone stupid enough to register it will face fierce protest from Microsoft Legal.
In this video, we will take a look at the various type of sensors available to us on the iRobot machine (the robot which we will be using for SUMO Robot Competition in MEDC). Sensors highlighted here are those used during Sumo Competition.
Those sensors are:
- Left/Right Bumpers
- 3 Wheels
- InfraRed Scanner (front left/right, left/right)
- Multi-directional IR
- Webcam
At the end of the video, developers will understand:
- Various type of sensors available to the players in the sumo robots competition
- Where are they located on the simulator and in the physical machine
Soapbox: http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=1a0cdaeb-503f-4061-a7ec-d0896664b826
Here’s a super-short introduction on how the sample SumoPlayer works:
- In a pre-determine interval, the TimerHandler method is called.
- TimerHandler do a couple of checks to see if the robot requires a mode change, it also calls the webcam to take a picture for processing. Afterwhich, it will call the IRobotStateHandler
- IRobotStateHandler will call RobotUpdateFloorSensorsHandler, RobotUpdateBumperHandler, RobotUpdateButtonHandler.
- These handlers (above 3) bascially queries all the available sensors and assign the result to the _state.sensors.* fields which can be access by the other parts of the codes. It also process those input from the sensors to determine if there is any response (e.g. bumped right (sensor)->escape to left (response)). It also determine if a mode change is required
- The process repeats itself throughout the lifetime of the robot
These are the very brief lifecycle of the iRobot SumoRobots Sample included in the SumoRobot Package on Robotics Studio Site.
More details will be explained in the video I will be producing tomorrow.
Hi everyone,
I’m the new intern @ Microsoft Innovation Center in Singapore. In this blog, I will be posting events’ video, presentation materials and random stuff that I encounter in my daily work. Check out this blog everyday for the latest updates.