Each pot is responsible for either the pitch, yaw, or roll of a cube in PV3D.

Simple stuff that’s been done before! I think I need to think of something a bit more interesting now

f

Here’s the on-screen result:

The very simple circuit:

Video:

I need to get some better potentiometers, these are pretty rubbish.

Yey for making … stuff!

For me, the most interesting aspect is using the Arduino in conjunction with Flash, sending and recieiving data betwen the two. I realy like the twitter > flash > arduino > LCD display that Mario made. I found it quite inspirational.

Getting Flash and the Arduino talking is initially very, very easy. It takes no time at all to initially write your first “hello world” app - in this case a blinking LED. After that, I turned my attention to reading the output of a potentiometer, and display that in Flash. Again, this is very easy, espically when people have done it already, and you can copy and paste their code! Thanks Beltran, Brett, and Aral for sharing your code!
In no time I had a potentiometer controlling the brightness of an LED, and the Arduino writing the data to the serial port, which Flash was trace()ing to the output window.

Nothing’s that easy though, right? Indeed. I’m expecting values between 0 and 1023, and specifically in this instance, around 1023. This is what I got:

15:37:53:104 = 102
15:37:53:135 = 3
15:37:54:104 = 1023
15:37:55:119 = 1023
15:37:56:135 = 1023
15:37:57:119 = 102
15:37:57:135 = 3
15:37:58:119 = 1023
15:37:59:135 = 1023
15:38:0:151 = 1023
15:38:1:135 = 10
15:38:1:151 = 23
15:38:2:151 = 1023

How strange. As you can see, occasionally the output is split over more than one line. It also does the same on my laptop.
After a lot of hair-pulling, I’ve made a couple of examples, which you can test if you wish. You’ll need to change the port to the one serproxy (or equivalent) is set up to use.

Arduino code:
[code]
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
Serial.println(”hello”);
delay(100);
}
[/code]

Actionscript 3 code:
[code]
import flash.events.*;
import flash.net.Socket;

trace(”__AS3 Example__”);
var socket:Socket = new Socket(”localhost”,5335);
socket.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.SOCKET_DATA, socketDataHandler);
function socketDataHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void {
var now = new Date();
trace(now.getHours()+”:”+now.getMinutes()+”:”+now.getSeconds()+”:”+now.getMilliseconds()+” = “+socket.readUTFBytes(socket.bytesAvailable));
}
[/code]

Actionscript 2 code:
[code]
trace(”__AS2 Example__”);
var socket:XMLSocket = new XMLSocket();
socket.connect(”localhost”,5335);
socket.onData = function (data) {
var now = new Date();
trace(now.getHours()+”:”+now.getMinutes()+”:”+now.getSeconds()+”:”+now.getMilliseconds()+” = “+data);
}

[/code]

AS3 Output:

12:10:43:140 = hello

12:10:43:234 = hel
12:10:43:250 = lo

12:10:43:359 = hello

12:10:43:453 = h
12:10:43:453 = ello

12:10:43:562 = hello

AS2 Output:

12:11:25:406 = hello

12:11:25:515 = hello

12:11:25:625 = hello

12:11:25:718 = hello

12:11:25:812 = hello

12:11:25:921 = hello

AS3 has odd output, and AS2 has the expected output. It’s almost as if ProgressEvent.SOCKET_DATA is called too frequently?
I’ve looked at this, which may be a similar problem. Here’s my post on the Arduino forum which I wrote as I experienced the problem.

In the end I found AS3Glue, which “is an ActionScript 3 library that enables communication between Flash/Flex/AIR applications and Arduino boards”. This changes the way in which AS3 and the Arduino communicate, and fortunately solves the problem described above.

If you use AS3glue, you’ll also need to use the Arduino Firmata firmware. The firmware page also briefly mentions:

It turns out that the USB-serial drivers are optimized for fast bulk data transfer, and those optimizations actually wreak havoc with the timing of the messages over the USB-serial.

Perhaps that’s the problem i’ve experienced? If I can, i’d like to find out exactly what’s going on, but for now, as3glue will suffice If you can, please have a test and let me know if you get the same output!

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

On the 11th Feb, Channel 4 released a preview of Episode 1 to the world, and it’s been picked up by the blogosphere. My favourite moments so far have been seeing my dead body on the front page of Kotaku, and seeing my fat arse on the front page of my favourite site BoingBoing.

To my fellow programming friends, it’s all ActionScript 3, and no, I didn’t do the entire thing by myself

Be warned, there’s a few bugs in this *preview* release. Oh, and there’s 4 more episodes to come in the very near future.

To show the grandkids, when i’m grey and old:

BoingBoing

Kotaku

Team Littleloud rocks!

After uploading a few panoramic photos to Flickr, I found that I really wasn’t too fond of the small image it displays. Asking a user to click all sizes > original just doesn’t cut it for me either.
I found myself thinking “Wouldn’t it be good if i could just click on a link to a fullscreen, panning image?” Well, what with Flickr’s API, and Flash’s StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN, I did just that..

This is only something i knocked up in the last couple of hours, so don’t be too harsh, it’s just alpha

Here’s a link directly to my app

Here’s a bookmarklet: View Fullscreen (add this to your favourites or drag and drop to your toolbar)

Here’s a link to an image of mine on Flickr

Of course, adding that bookmarklet to your toolbar means you can view anyone’s (public) image fullscreen. Just browse to their image and hit the bookmarklet

Best use of Flash award, originally uploaded by yezzer.

I’ve been far too busy to blog anything recently, so while i’ve got a spare 10 minutes, I thought i’d just write something about us winning the ‘Best use of Flash’ award at the Brighton web awards.

Yey

Respect to Fritz Solares!

Slingbox + n95 + TV out, originally uploaded by yezzer.

Crazy. I’ve got my n95 and the Slingbox working, which is quite cool. i can control it remotely so I could watch stuff i’ve recorded, which is pretty neat.

Anyway, this goes like this:

Satellite > My satellite dish > sky+ box > Slingbox > router > interwebs > 3 > n95 > TV

I think it’s crazy that a mobile phone has TV out. Nokia really did pack then95 *full* of features.
Shame one of those features wasn’t a better battery

I currently spend £40-50pm with o2.

In the end the choice was:
1. Stay with o2 and get an iPhone. £269 plus £35pm tariff for 18 months. That gets you 200 minutes, 200 texts, and unlimited data.

2. Change to Three and get an n95. The deal there is:

• N95 @ £15pm
• Contract @ £15pm for 18 months.
• Add-on X-series gold including Slingbox @ £10pm
• £50 of accessory vouchers
• £30 off my bill using the refer-a-friend thing.

That gives me: 1GB data transfer pm, free calls to skype users, a FREE slingbox, free viewing of recorded stuff on my slingbox, Orb (to access files on my home PC), mobilemail so i can have IMAP Gmail , free windows live messenger, 300 anytime anynetwork texts or minutes, 300 3 to 3 minutes, and 150 mins of video calls a month. Oh, and some free yahoo and ebay things that I haven’t really looked at yet.

The n95 also supprts 3G and other faster-than-edge technologies. Oh it has GPS too. And a 5MP camera with carl zeiss lens. I can transfer my number over too. Did i mention it supports SDHC, so can use up to 8GB cards?

Oh, and it’s not all locked down like the iPhone, which is the real killer for me.

I’d be crazy to go for the iPhone while deals like this are out there. So i went for the n95 last night. Yeah, the battery life is awful if you don’t turn off wifi scanning, but i had the same problem with my N80.

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If by any chance you want to join Three, I can get you £30 off on the recommend a friend thing - so do let me know, as i get £30 off too!

Update: A 16GB iPod touch is £254. So for the cost of a 8GB iPhone, you could get an n95 on three AND a 16GB iPod touch. Who in their right mind would buy an iPhone?

o2 were going to cap data transfer at 200MB per month, but it’s now going to be unlimited:

”So we’ve taken the decision to remove the fair usage cap so that ‘unlimited’ really does mean ‘unlimited’ – this is a market first.”

Data accessed must be for personal, not commercial, use and the phone must not be used as a modem.

Sounds great to me! And to think i used to be a very vocal anti-mac fanboy