Society of Robots - Robot Forum

General Misc => Misc => Topic started by: LXE on September 09, 2010, 03:45:10 AM

Title: Suggestions for what to do with the "Nicta ed1 Board"
Post by: LXE on September 09, 2010, 03:45:10 AM: The specifications and the schematic for the "Nicta ed1 Board" are right here.

http://www.nicta.com.au/research/research_themes/embedded_systems/artemis/ed1 (http://www.nicta.com.au/research/research_themes/embedded_systems/artemis/ed1)

I am doing a competition which asks me to do something "cool" with the board. An I'm currently out of ideas, so maybe you guys can suggest some. So do you have any ideas?

I was thinking of using the LED's as light sensors but I'm not sure if that's possible.
Title: Re: Suggestions for what to do with the "Nicta ed1 Board"
Post by: Ro-Bot-X on September 09, 2010, 05:31:53 AM: Hi LXE, welcome to SoR.

You can use the LEDs for light sensing, but you have to connect them reversed. Clear LEDs give good results to day light, colored LEDs are sensitive to their color. This is a method some people use to determine the color of an object. I don't remember exactly the schematic, but if you can't find it through Google, I'm sure another SoR member will point you in the right direction.

Nice board you have there. I see it already has a light sensor, and the built in LEDs you can't use for this purpose. If you want a cool idea, how about this:
- use a TV remote to control the board
- use the LEDs to display a Knight Rider
- use the speaker to play the music of the KR movie
- display some text on the LCD, some phrase Kit was usually saying

Cheers!
Title: Re: Suggestions for what to do with the "Nicta ed1 Board"
Post by: voyager2 on September 09, 2010, 05:50:52 AM: Reversing LEDs?
Seems like a bad practice, but it sounds cool!!
Title: Re: Suggestions for what to do with the "Nicta ed1 Board"
Post by: Soeren on September 09, 2010, 06:21:09 AM: Hi,

Quote from: voyager2 on September 09, 2010, 05:50:52 AM
Reversing LEDs?
Seems like a bad practice, but it sounds cool!!
Nothing bad about it. You just bias it with a low current and use it as a photo diode. If you have a metal transistor, you can cut the top and you have a photo transistor (that's how I got most of my photo transistors back when I was a kid - BC107s or whatever you found on a dumped board).
All semiconductor junctions are (more or less) light sensitive, hence the packaging in a light tight enclosure.

Old germanium diodes were just painted black and when the heat and time chipped off the paint, they would really wreak havoc to eg. radio reception as the diodes were then modulated by the mains frequency glow from the tubes surrounding them.
Title: Re: Suggestions for what to do with the "Nicta ed1 Board"
Post by: LXE on September 09, 2010, 08:15:05 AM: Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the rules is that you cannot interface it with external devices. Sorry for the late notice.