User:Idpeoples: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:01, 28 April 2016

About Me

My name is Ian Peoples, I'm a fourth-year Computer Science student at Michigan Technological University. I've been involved in the Open Source Hardware Enterprise for three years.

OSHE Work (Spring 2015)

This semester I worked on the Prusa i2, the Gigabot as well as providing technical help across the board.

Prusa i2

Early in the semester, due to a misfire when trying to flash firmware onto another printer, the firmware on the i2 had to be redeployed and recalibrated. Little adjustment was necessary as I had an earlier version of the firmware on hand that I could easily modify to the current state of the machine. I redeployed Sprinter and calibrated all the appropriate values, mainly the steps per unit of each axis and the overall length of each axis. It is now in printing condition, but some print settings may need to be adjusted, and this can be done easily through Cura. No physical adjustments were made.

To the right is a recent print from the i2 using the current firmware and print settings. The holes can be fixed by increasing the shell thickness and reducing the print temperature.

Gigabot

At the beginning of the semester, the Gigabot could move along all its axes (mostly) and had some mechanical errors. This led to it being reworked several times. For example, adjusting the print head in any way would involve re-leveling the print bed. Almost every adjustment we made (and there were many) required more adjustments elsewhere. I can't speak to much of the mechanics of the device, but it uses RAMPS/Arduino combination running Sprinter as the firmware. Sprinter was chosen because I've used it before on the i2 and its relative ease of modification. After adjusting the steps per unit and length of each axis (a significant adjustment because of the relative size) it came down to the final few adjustments to allow printing. Now, finally, after a semester-long refining process, it is in printing condition. However, the print settings need to be adjusted to increase print quality.

OSHE Work (Spring 2016)

This semester I worked exclusively on the Lasersaur with Tate Hanawalt, and I'm proud to say it is now fully functional.

Working with Tate Hanawalt, we realigned all the mirrors to reflect the full laser.

After the machine was fully mechanically adjusted we set to work on the software for the machine. It is currently controlled by a Smoothieboard, running the laser cutter version of the firmware. There are three main ways to generate gcode for use with the Lasersaur: J Tech Photonics Tool, 305 Engineering Raster, and Graycoder. The first two are extensions for Inkscape and open-source which we modified slightly to work with our hardware. The third, Graycoder, is a standalone Java application I created to generate gcode that engraves grayscale images in wood and other materials.

All the code I have written thus far is open-source and available on Github (my username is NuclearEagleFox). The extension modifications are here and Graycoder is available here.

I'm working on more detailed documentation that describes the inner workings of the code I've written. This is forthcoming.

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 == About Me ==
-: My name is Ian Peoples, I'm a first-year Computer Science student at Michigan Technological University. But that doesn't mean I'm new to programming, I started programming in 7th grade and have been hooked ever since. I've got experience from microcontroller programming to graphical ballistics analysis, from video games to robotic control systems. I love programming from top to bottom, especially seeing my digital efforts translate to real-world results.
+: My name is Ian Peoples, I'm a fourth-year Computer Science student at Michigan Technological University. I've been involved in the Open Source Hardware Enterprise for three years.
-== Interests ==
+== OSHE Work (Spring 2015) ==
-*Robots - Robots are just plain cool.
+: This semester I worked on the Prusa i2, the Gigabot as well as providing technical help across the board.
-*Microcontrollers/Circuits - I took a couple electronics classes in high school, they were pretty fun. More recently, I've been messing around with Arduino.
-*Graphical Interfaces - Sometimes it's cool to see a pretty interface representing your work, instead of "Oh, it calculated that value, but you can't really see it."
-== Experience ==
+==== Prusa i2 ====
-[[File:3539 Robot.jpg|thumb|left|My FIRST Team's 2012 Robot]]
+: Early in the semester, due to a misfire when trying to flash firmware onto another printer, the firmware on the i2 had to be redeployed and recalibrated. Little adjustment was necessary as I had an earlier version of the firmware on hand that I could easily modify to the current state of the machine. I redeployed Sprinter and calibrated all the appropriate values, mainly the steps per unit of each axis and the overall length of each axis. It is now in printing condition, but some print settings may need to be adjusted, and this can be done easily through Cura. No physical adjustments were made.
-*In 2012, I became my local FIRST Robotics Team's lead programmer. I was in charge of designing, implementing and maintaining the software for our robot. I also taught incoming programmers how to use the software and robotics-specific programming.
+[[File:i2print.jpg|thumb]]
+To the right is a recent print from the i2 using the current firmware and print settings. The holes can be fixed by increasing the shell thickness and reducing the print temperature.
+==== Gigabot ====
+: At the beginning of the semester, the Gigabot could move along all its axes (mostly) and had some mechanical errors. This led to it being reworked several times. For example, adjusting the print head in any way would involve re-leveling the print bed. Almost every adjustment we made (and there were many) required more adjustments elsewhere. I can't speak to much of the mechanics of the device, but it uses RAMPS/Arduino combination running Sprinter as the firmware. Sprinter was chosen because I've used it before on the i2 and its relative ease of modification. After adjusting the steps per unit and length of each axis (a significant adjustment because of the relative size) it came down to the final few adjustments to allow printing. Now, finally, after a semester-long refining process, it is in printing condition. However, the print settings need to be adjusted to increase print quality.
+== OSHE Work (Spring 2016) ==
+: This semester I worked exclusively on the Lasersaur with Tate Hanawalt, and I'm proud to say it is now fully functional.
+: Working with Tate Hanawalt, we realigned all the mirrors to reflect the full laser.
+: After the machine was fully mechanically adjusted we set to work on the software for the machine. It is currently controlled by a Smoothieboard, running the laser cutter version of the firmware. There are three main ways to generate gcode for use with the Lasersaur: J Tech Photonics Tool, 305 Engineering Raster, and Graycoder. The first two are extensions for Inkscape and open-source which we modified slightly to work with our hardware. The third, Graycoder, is a standalone Java application I created to generate gcode that engraves grayscale images in wood and other materials.
+: All the code I have written thus far is open-source and available on Github (my username is NuclearEagleFox). The extension modifications are [https://github.com/NuclearEagleFox/ExtensionMods here] and Graycoder is available [https://github.com/NuclearEagleFox/graycoder here].
+: I'm working on more detailed documentation that describes the inner workings of the code I've written. This is forthcoming.
 [[category:OSHE]]
-[[File:Computer_Simulation_Final_Product.png|thumb|left|A small software project I did in high school]]
-*This was a smaller program I made for my group's AP Physics final project. It calculates the angle needed to fire an arrow in order to hit a falling plush monkey. From the input data, it would give you the angle and give a small pictoral representation of the trajectories. It included a simple meters/feet converter as well.
-[[File:Banner.png|thumb|left|My entry into a make-a-video-game-in-a-month challenge]]
-*In July 2012, a friend and I entered the Something Awful Game Development Challenge, a challenge/competition hybrid that forces participants to squeeze the long creative process of creating a video game from scratch into a single month. I created all the code needed for our game, and my teammate supplied the graphics. We collaborated on the design of the project as a whole.