[General] RFID help - Thank You!

Mon Jan 7 08:18:20 CST 2013

What time and where will it be on Saturday?  I'm assuming you mean this
coming up Saturday January 12.

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Faye Lynn Thompson
<watersprite at charter.net>wrote:

> Mentor it is.
> We'd love to have you visit the teams display Saturday.
> All of us involved with this team plan to spend more time with you.
> Thanks again.
> Faye Lynn
>
> On Jan 6, 2013, at 9:51 AM, Matthew H <hendrix04 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> IDK how lego league does it, but FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) uses the
> word mentor a lot.
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Joshua Pritt <ramgarden at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's a very great question!
>> We could use the publicity.
>> 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.
>> 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.
>> On Jan 6, 2013 8:29 AM, "Faye Lynn Thompson" <watersprite at charter.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> May my daughters robotics team list makers local 256 on their display
>>> board at competition as "consultants"  ?
>>>
>>> Faye Lynn Thompson
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>> *From: *Faye Lynn Thompson <watersprite at charter.net>
>>> *Subject: **Re: [General] RFID help*
>>> *Date: *December 31, 2012 7:05:28 PM CST
>>> *To: *General discussion about makerslocal <
>>> general at lists.makerslocal.org>
>>>
>>> Thank You!!
>>> We've got it working with your help.  Now we're making it "pretty"
>>> On Dec 31, 2012, at 12:50 PM, James Fluhler <j.fluhler at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> James F.
>>>
>>> On Dec 28, 2012, at 12:59 PM, Arthur <Arthur at cd-net.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yep, it looks like those use an FTDI chip to look like a good old serial
>>> port.  Here's the driver page for them.
>>> http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm Though, last I checked on most
>>> newer Operating Systems (Linux at least) you don't need to install a
>>> driver.  It just works.
>>>
>>> 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:
>>> https://code.google.com/p/nxt-python/
>>>
>>> Since it looks like the tags are preprogrammed with a unique ID, it
>>> looks like you don't have to configure them as well.
>>>
>>> Based on the datasheet<http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/audiovis/28140-28340-RFIDreader-v2.2.pdf>,
>>> 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 "ser.set
>>> DTR(True)"
>>>
>>> Here's a simple pySerial program to test this:
>>>
>>> import serial
>>>>
>>>> #This is COM? on Windows systems
>>>>
>>>> ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyS1', 2400, timeout=1)
>>>>
>>>> #Enable the serial module
>>>>
>>>> ser.setDTR(True)
>>>>
>>>> #Do this forever
>>>>
>>>> while(True):
>>>>
>>>> #The datasheet says the module returns a 12 byte string
>>>>
>>>>  #If timeout happens without reading anything, it should print a blank
>>>>> line
>>>>
>>>>  print(str(ser.read(12)))
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Arthur Moore
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Faye Lynn Thompson <
>>> watersprite at charter.net> wrote:
>>> > Wow, y'all are already being so helpful.
>>> >
>>> > This started as an add on to my daughter's FIRST Lego League robotics
>>> team
>>> > project.  The team is trying to use RFID to find misplaced items
>>> without the
>>> > need to replace batteries.  The one we have is too short range, but it
>>> is a
>>> > good way to learn we hope.
>>> > We have this one...
>>> >
>>> https://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx?txtSearch=rfid+usb
>>> >
>>> > It is built/designed by Grand Idea Studio....
>>> > http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/rfid-reader/
>>> >
>>> > I think the usb port is an add on to the board from FTDI chip
>>> > http://www.ftdichip.com/index.html
>>> > but I'm not sure which driver to use.
>>> >
>>> > We are using my early 2009 macbook pro and osx 10.8.2 because it's
>>> portable.
>>> > We have windows 7 available on other machines and dual boot on the
>>> laptop.
>>> > Just to make it trickier we'd like to be able to compile the code on a
>>> > friends linux machine too.
>>> >
>>> > I suspect part of our problem is just not being able to make time to
>>> get it
>>> > our brains wrapped around it.  Now we'd like to have something that
>>> looks
>>> > nice for the teams display at state competition on Jan 12th in
>>> Huntsville.
>>> >
>>> > Thank You so much already
>>> > Faye Lynn
>>> >
>>> > p.s.  You are all invited to the state competition.  Dates are still a
>>> > little fuzzy but it will be in Huntsville.  Jan 12th or 19th at
>>> Huntsville
>>> > High or Grissom
>>> > http://alabamafll.org
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Dec 27, 2012, at 11:36 PM, Arthur <Arthur at cd-net.net> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > That sounds like a fun project.  Could you give me some details about
>>> it.
>>> > Does the reader use a virtual serial port?  If so, I would suggest
>>> pySerial.
>>> > The other question is what do you want to do with it?  There are so
>>> many
>>> > great ideas for RFID.  Which one are you looking at?
>>> >
>>> > Arthur Moore
>>> >
>>> > On Friday, December 28, 2012, Faye Lynn Thompson wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> My daughter and I are trying  to get a usb RFID reader to work and
>>> look
>>> >> good doing it.  We can get it to read and display the tags in a
>>> monitor /
>>> >> shell window.  (ugly but it works)  We'd like to do something in
>>> python.  So
>>> >> far we have lots of bits and pieces of code, but are having trouble
>>> getting
>>> >> it all together.
>>> >>
>>> >> Any advice, urls, etc you can throw our way would be great.
>>> >>
>>> >> Thanks
>>> >> Faye Lynn
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> General mailing list
>>> >> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>> >> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Sincerely,
>>> > Arthur Moore
>>> > (256) 277-1001
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > General mailing list
>>> > General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>> > http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > General mailing list
>>> > General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>> > http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Arthur Moore
>>> (256) 277-1001
>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
>
>
> -You can't stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go
> everywhere.-
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