EvalBot: Arrival And Assembly

October 23, 2010 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

[Chris Muncy] just received his EvalBot from TI and took some pictures of the assembly process. He was one of the lucky folks that picked up the kit for just $25 using a short-lived coupon code. Seeing the kit makes us wish we had ordered one. There is some assembly required but as you can see, it’s pretty much just mechanical assembly of the wheels and the front bumper arms.

We think the wheel design is quite good. It consists of two small gearhead motors mounted on the rectangular PCB parts that you can see on the right portion of the image above. Those mount to the circular mainboard using metal L brackets. The wheels themselves are three circular pieces of PCB, one with a smaller diameter sandwiched in between its two larger cousins. This creates a channel that is perfect for a neoprene O-ring to give the wheel traction. The main board uses an optical sensors and a hole through all three parts to function as a rotation counter.

It’s a fancy piece of hardware and we can’t wait to see what you can do with it! If you’ve got one, we want to hear about your adventures.

$125 Off The Evalbot Is A Steal

October 4, 2010 by Mike Szczys 518 Comments

When you see $125 off something you probably assume it cost several times that to start with. Nope, this drastic discount leaves just $25 plus shipping. Use coupon-code: 2JLP-R4XRT3 when ordering the little rover. There’s a quick video snippet of it embedded after the break.

What you’ll get is a Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller on a board with a bunch of goodies.

MicroSD slot
USB host and device connectors
I2C audio with speakers
Ethernet connector
96×6 OLED display
Motors
Optosensors
Bump detectors

As always, we want to hear about the hacks you come up with once you have this little guy in hand.

[update, the code is now expired]

[final update — Someone from TI explains what is going on.]

—- from the comments.

As some posts already note, the coupon code is only available to ESC Boston attendees. That said, we’re psyched about all of your interest and understand there seems to have been some confusion, so TI plans to fulfill all of the finalized orders to date. We’re working on some logistics in getting the code up and running again for ESC Boston attendees, but proof of ESC registration will be required. Stay tuned.

We hear you about the e-store and are working as quickly as possible to avoid issues in the future. Thanks for your patience.

Bottom line – we’re glad to see the excitement around EVALBOT and look forward to checking out your projects! We encourage you to share them on our e2e Forums at http://e2e.ti.com/

-Jean Anne Booth, Texas Instruments

——-

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Launchpad Not Limited To Value Line Chips

September 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 43 Comments

Wanting to use my TI Launchpad as more than just a development board I thought I’d do a few experiments using it as an in-system programmer. After a few tripping points I was able to get it working and then some. It seems that the device is not limited to just the value line of microcontrollers it was intended to support. In the image above I’m using it to program an MSP430F2272 which is a pretty powerful little chip with 32 KB of program space. Click through the break for more information on the setup.

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PlayStation 3 Exploit Using A TI84 Calculator

September 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[Brandon Wilson] came up with a way to exploit the Play Station using a TI84 calculator. This uses the same PSGroove open source code that we looked at last week. That package was running on the Teensy, which is currently sold out (we’d guess because people want to run the exploit). There’s a video demonstration of this new trick after the break. The calculator connects via a USB A to USB mini-B cable which comes with the calculator and is also used to charge the PS3 controllers. Once the connection is made, launch the software on the calculator, power cycle the PS3, and turn it on with the familiar power-eject button presses. The only problem with the system is that the calculator needs to be connected every time you boot.

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Graphic Calculator As A Spectrum Analyzer

July 29, 2010 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

[Michael Vincent] turned his TI-84 Plus into a spectrum analyzer. By running some assembly code on the device the link port can be used as an I2C bus (something we’ll have to keep in mind). After being inspired by the cell phone spectrum analyzer he set out to build a module compatible with the calculator by using an I2C port expander to interface with a radio receiver module. Now he can sniff out signals between 2.400 and 2.495 GHz and display the finds like in the image above.

[Thanks Cecil]

Ez430 Home Automation

February 8, 2010 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

[Oliver] has been doing some work to use his TI ez430 Chronos wristwatch for some home automation. He’s working with a RF controllable lightbulb adapter which operates in the 433 MHz band. A dirt-cheap breadboard-friendly transmitter is available from Seeed Studios and he uses this in conjunction with a computer and an Arduino. Before the trolls get to their thing, YES, this is incredible overkill. But remember that he’s prototyping. We hope that if he intends to actually use this setup he’ll migrate to something like an ATtiny2313 running V-USB. Better yet, you should be able to tap into the watch’s companion receiver and cut the computer out completely.

If you’re easily amused you’ll appreciate the video of a light turning on and off after the break. If you’re a little harder to please then take a look at Oliver’s methods of using Python processing for the watch’s data.

Ok, now we’ve seen this watch turning on lights and unlocking doors. What else ‘ya got?

TI-nspire Hacked

December 31, 2009 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

The regulars at the United T1 forums keep them coming, this time hacking the Texas Instruments Nspire graphing calculator. We enjoy seeing the exploits that unlock the backend of these types of devices. The difference this time is that the hacking continues even though Texas Instruments has shown that it intends to protect the security of their devices using the DMCA. The Nspire thread linked above discusses the DMCA concerns just a bit but it seems obvious to us that running your own code falls under the umbrella of the act. The exploit package hasn’t yet been posted, but if you want it make sure you check back regularly before the take-down order comes in from TI.

[Thanks Iceman]