<div dir="ltr">IDK how lego league does it, but FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) uses the word mentor a lot.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Joshua Pritt <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ramgarden@gmail.com" target="_blank">ramgarden@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><p dir="ltr">That's a very great question!<br>
We could use the publicity.<br>
But I wonder if consultants is the right word? One of the greatest uses of a makerspace is getting help with a project through the resources of knowledge and skill of the members. I know I've had several projects that were easily finished with the help and ideas from the other members. For that I'm thankful I found this place and want to pay it forward any chance I can. <br>
Anyone else want to say if it's ok to put us down as helped on a robotics project? I will vote yes but don't take my say as final. </p><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 6, 2013 8:29 AM, "Faye Lynn Thompson" <<a href="mailto:watersprite@charter.net" target="_blank">watersprite@charter.net</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">May my daughters robotics team list makers local 256 on their display board at competition as "consultants" ?<div><br></div><div>Faye Lynn Thompson<br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
<br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0)"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">Faye Lynn Thompson <<a href="mailto:watersprite@charter.net" target="_blank">watersprite@charter.net</a>><br>
</span></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0)"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium"><b>Re: [General] RFID help</b><br>
</span></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0)"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">December 31, 2012 7:05:28 PM CST<br>
</span></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0)"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">General discussion about makerslocal <<a href="mailto:general@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">general@lists.makerslocal.org</a>><br>
</span></div><br><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Thank You!!<div>We've got it working with your help. Now we're making it "pretty"<br><div><div>On Dec 31, 2012, at 12:50 PM, James Fluhler <<a href="mailto:j.fluhler@gmail.com" target="_blank">j.fluhler@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
<br><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto"><div>Also as a side note those ftdi chips are really great and robust; they are absolutely a very simple USB to serial chip and used in many consumer devices. <br><br>James F.</div>
<div><br>On Dec 28, 2012, at 12:59 PM, Arthur <<a href="mailto:Arthur@cd-net.net" target="_blank">Arthur@cd-net.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite">Yep, it looks like those use an FTDI chip to look like a good old serial port. Here's the driver page for them. <a href="http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm</a> Though, last I checked on most newer Operating Systems (Linux at least) you don't need to install a driver. It just works.<br>
<br>I don't know what controller you're using, but if it's the Lego NXT, here's a python module for that as well: <a href="https://code.google.com/p/nxt-python/" target="_blank">https://code.google.com/p/nxt-python/</a><br>
<br>Since it looks like the tags are preprogrammed with a unique ID, it looks like you don't have to configure them as well.<br><br>Based on the <a href="http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/audiovis/28140-28340-RFIDreader-v2.2.pdf" target="_blank">datasheet</a>, to activate the reciever you need to set the DTR pin to high on your virtual serial port. This pySerial command should do the trick "<span>ser.<span style="font-family:monospace;font-size:16px;line-height:20px;text-align:justify">set</span><span style="font-family:monospace;font-size:16px;line-height:20px;text-align:justify">DTR(</span></span><span style="font-family:sans-serif;line-height:20px;text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:16px">True)</span>"</span><div>
<div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><br></span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px">Here's a simple pySerial program to test this:</span></font></div>
</div><div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><br></span></font></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">import serial</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">#This is COM? on Windows systems</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyS1', 2400, timeout=1)</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
#Enable the serial module</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">ser.setDTR(True)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">#Do this forever</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
while(True):</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>#The datasheet says the module returns a 12 byte string</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>#If timeout happens without reading anything, it should print a blank line</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>print(str(ser.read(12)))</blockquote>
</span></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hope this helps,</div><div>Arthur Moore</div><div><br>On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Faye Lynn Thompson <<a href="mailto:watersprite@charter.net" target="_blank">watersprite@charter.net</a>> wrote:<br>
> Wow, y'all are already being so helpful.<br>><br>> This started as an add on to my daughter's FIRST Lego League robotics team<br>> project. The team is trying to use RFID to find misplaced items without the<br>
> need to replace batteries. The one we have is too short range, but it is a<br>> good way to learn we hope.<br>> We have this one...<br>> <a href="https://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx?txtSearch=rfid+usb" target="_blank">https://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx?txtSearch=rfid+usb</a><br>
><br>> It is built/designed by Grand Idea Studio....<br>> <a href="http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/rfid-reader/" target="_blank">http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/rfid-reader/</a><br>><br>> I think the usb port is an add on to the board from FTDI chip<br>
> <a href="http://www.ftdichip.com/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.ftdichip.com/index.html</a><br>> but I'm not sure which driver to use.<br>><br>> We are using my early 2009 macbook pro and osx 10.8.2 because it's portable. <br>
> We have windows 7 available on other machines and dual boot on the laptop. <br>> Just to make it trickier we'd like to be able to compile the code on a<br>> friends linux machine too.<br>><br>> I suspect part of our problem is just not being able to make time to get it<br>
> our brains wrapped around it. Now we'd like to have something that looks<br>> nice for the teams display at state competition on Jan 12th in Huntsville. <br>><br>> Thank You so much already<br>> Faye Lynn<br>
><br>> p.s. You are all invited to the state competition. Dates are still a<br>> little fuzzy but it will be in Huntsville. Jan 12th or 19th at Huntsville<br>> High or Grissom<br>> <a href="http://alabamafll.org/" target="_blank">http://alabamafll.org</a><br>
><br>><br>> On Dec 27, 2012, at 11:36 PM, Arthur <<a href="mailto:Arthur@cd-net.net" target="_blank">Arthur@cd-net.net</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> That sounds like a fun project. Could you give me some details about it. <br>
> Does the reader use a virtual serial port? If so, I would suggest pySerial. <br>> The other question is what do you want to do with it? There are so many<br>> great ideas for RFID. Which one are you looking at?<br>
><br>> Arthur Moore<br>><br>> On Friday, December 28, 2012, Faye Lynn Thompson wrote:<br>>><br>>> My daughter and I are trying to get a usb RFID reader to work and look<br>>> good doing it. We can get it to read and display the tags in a monitor /<br>
>> shell window. (ugly but it works) We'd like to do something in python. So<br>>> far we have lots of bits and pieces of code, but are having trouble getting<br>>> it all together.<br>>><br>
>> Any advice, urls, etc you can throw our way would be great.<br>>><br>>> Thanks<br>>> Faye Lynn<br>>> _______________________________________________<br>>> General mailing list<br>>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>><br>><br>><br>> --<br>> Sincerely,<br>> Arthur Moore<br>
> <a href="tel:%28256%29%20277-1001" value="+12562771001" target="_blank">(256) 277-1001</a><br>
><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> General mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
><br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> General mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
<br><br><br>-- <br>Sincerely,<br>Arthur Moore<br><a href="tel:%28256%29%20277-1001" value="+12562771001" target="_blank">(256) 277-1001</a></div>
</blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>General mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a></span><br>
<span><a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a></span></blockquote></div>_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a></blockquote>
</div><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br></blockquote></div>
</div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general" target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><br><br>-You can't stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.-
</div>