Arduino Library Modifications

Prior to the actual doomsday, we plan to use DOOMSDAY as a race timer for mountain bike races.  To that end we need precision time keeping.  We have a 1 ms accuracy goal relative to an absolute GPS time reference.  The GPS module provides time data in NEMA format as well as a one pulse per second (1pps) reference signal.  When the GPS signal goes out of view, a real time clock chip keeps track of time and provides its own 1 Hertz signal: a 1 Hertz square wave.

In order to sync the 1pps signals to the real time clock square wave, I made some modifications to two libraries: Time, and TinyGPS (by Mikal Hart).  Precision timing is made possible by adding a 1Hz reference to the existing library.  Millisecond accuracy is obtained by keeping track of the last 1 Hz transistion and the 1 Hz duration.  So in addition to the standard year(), month(), day(), hour(), minute(), and second() functions, I added millisecond() which returns an integer between 0 and 999.

Some other functions were added to support the 1Hz reference:

/* TJS: one Hertz interrupt to be called on rising edge of one Hz square wave. 
 *      Used to sync with GPS clock or other 1Hz source to get millisecond time accuracy
 *      trigger is one of LOW, CHANGE, RISING, or FALLING
 */
void set_1Hz_ref(time_t current_time, int interrupt_pin, void(*cb_ptr)(), int trigger);

/*
 * TJS: stop counting ticks.  Used to sync with absolute time.
 */
void pause_1Hz();

/*
 * TJS: start counting ticks.  Used to sync with absolute time.
 */
void unpause_1Hz();

The TinyGPS library also needed to be modified to support precision time synchronization.  The key enabler is a fix notification scheme.  At the heart is a user provided function that gets called when a new fix message arrives.   This function was added to support this:

/*
 * TJS: Add a callback routine to be called when a new fix arrives.
 */
void TinyGPS::add_callback(fix_cb_t fct_ptr);

// Example fix callback signature
void grab_datetime(unsigned long _date,
                   unsigned long _time,
                   long lat,
                   long lon,
                   long alt,
                   unsigned long speed,
                   unsigned long course);

2011 WyoLum Innovation Grant Winners!

And the 2011 WyoLum Innovation grants go to…

Erin Kennedy for her project RoboBrrd and Hunter Scott for the Peregrine Board.  They each will receive $1000.

We had such a hard time limiting the awards to just two winners we ended up with 4 finalists, each receiving $250:

Georg Ottinger — OggStreamer,

Frank Zhao — ReflowToaster,

Jeffrey Stattler — VirtualIntervention,

Travis Dynes — BeeTracker

 

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2011 WyoLum Innovation Applications

Thank you everyone who submitted for the 2011 WyoLum innovation grants.  The application period is now closed.

Here’s a list of all public entries:

Project Name Applicant
OggStreamer Georg Ottinger
Paparizzi Dmitri Belimov
BUSnet Rob Gray
ReflowToaster Frank Zhao
WirelessHandSensor Mushfiqur Sarker
RoboBrrd Erin Kennedy
VirtualIntervention Jeffrey Stattler
MPFabber David William Harper
PeregrineBoard Hunter Scott
OpenSmartMeter Al Senin
TotalUserInterface Alexandru Bogdan
ArduinoSchoolBoard Adrian Stefan
CarbonFiberTrumpet Kyle Bartholomew
BeeTracker Travis Dynes
UniMoto Joe Langevin

Good luck!!

 

Grant Application: Arduino School Board

Stefan Adrian is leading a team of Open Hardware developers on a Shield called the Arduino School Board for the purpose of teaching would be makers the joy of Arduino.  The unit has a lot of hacking potential.  The board hosts:

  • 1 switches
  • rotary encoder
  • 7 segments
  • 2*16 LCD display
  • nokia 1110 graphic display
  • RTC
  • micro SD card
  • 1 Wire thermometer
  • relay output
  • LED PWM adjustment
  • stepper motor command

Good luck Stefan!

 

BusNET, a wired network for Arduino.

Rob Gray from RobGray.com has been developing a substaintial RS485 networking hardware for Arduino.

http://busnet.robgray.com/hardware/arduino-dongle/index.php

From the site:

BUSnet is a low‐speed control network designed to monitor and control devices incommercial or light‐industrial environment but equally suitable for otherapplications. It is a multi‐master point‐to‐point protocol using a ring topologywhere all nodes can transmit frames when they please.