VI Shots Hits the Road

Every now and then we go out and talk with people about the latest technology and ideas shaping our industry. If you know of an event or topic we should cover, let us know about it at feedback@vishots.com.

Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy Team 1717 – FIRST Robotics

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    This video is from my trip to Atlanta for the 2008 FIRST Robotic Championship.

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Powercast Wireless Power System

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  In this video from RoboBusiness 2008, we interview Steven from Powercast who shows off some cool wireless power technology. From the Powercast website: Founded in 2003, Powercast developed a receiver module with breakthrough efficiency levels. Coupled with a transmitter that sends RF energy using algorithms developed by Powercast, the Powercast Wireless Power Platform™ was [...]

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LabVIEW based electric guitar effects pedals

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A video from NIWeek 2008. Benjamin Cook really had fun building this electric guitar effects system based around NI hardware and LabVIEW. This is a wireless audio processing project. A 550 MHz transmitter transmits FM modulated data to a 5600 down converter. It down converts the data to 25MHz. That gets sent to a 5640R [...]

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New FIRST robotics controller – Interviews and Opinions

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    The big announcement this year at the FIRST robotics finals in Atlanta was the new robot controller from National Instruments. This new controller called cRIO runs a real-time OS and can be programmed using LabVIEW. The power of this new technology will open the door for new and more interesting challenges for future [...]

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LabVIEW powered “Flexstack” iRobot Create reads RFID tags

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    Boston Engineering decided to demonstrate their FlexStack product by attaching it to an iRobot Create programmable robot, have it scan RFID tags and then make it do several dances. FlexStack is powered by LabVIEW Embedded. Take a look at this original VI Shots video.

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Justin reviews the OLPC and reveals some cool applications

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Roving VI Shots corespondent and LAVA member Justin Goeres participated in the “buy one get one” program that the OLPC foundation announced last year. This is where you spend $400 and you donate one laptop to a child in an impoverished nation and in return you get one laptop for yourself. I caught up with [...]

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NITRO – Ball shooting cRIO powered FIRST Robotics demo bot

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Another video taken at the FIRST final competition of 2008 in Atlanta. NI built a robot called NITRO to demonstrate the powerful capabilities of the new cRIO controller that will be used by the competition teams this year. In addition to a cool ball shooting mode, NITRO has some advanced image analysis capabilities. Here we [...]

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iRobot Looj – Inventor talks about gutter cleaning robot

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In this video taken at Robo Business 2008, Jim Lynch gives us an overview of the latest iRobot robot called the Looj. Resources: Looj product page on iRobot

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Technical overview of cRIO (Compact RIO) controller used in FIRST Robotics

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This video highlights the new Compact RIO hardware that will be used as the controller for the 2009 FIRST robotics competition in the FRC category. National Instruments had a booth close to the pits at the 2008 FRC final championship in Atlanta. They built several robots demonstrating the capabilities of the new controller. One of [...]

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Boston Engineering – FlexStack using LabVIEW Microprocessor SDK

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Boston Engineering has created FlexStack. The FlexStack product is a 2.5 inch, rugged platform that takes advantage of the flexibility of LabVIEW Embedded with the power of the Analog Devices Blackfin Processor. Additional Resources: Boston Engineering Website FlexStack Information LabVIEW Microprocessor SDK

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Dexter and Monty, ANYBOTS Teleoperated Robot

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Dexter is a biped teleoperated robot created by the Mountain View, CA based company – Anybots. Dexter’s walking is performed autonomously and is a demonstration of the type of hybrid robot that Anybots is working on. It will mainly be teleoperated but certain tasks will be automated such as walking. Here’s a VI Shots video [...]

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