Jon Simpson’s Weblog

Ok, so tonight’s CSCS was focused around the unix userland & tools, and how to administrate a Linux/Unix box. Lack of networking hampered things slightly, but there was definitely some useful stuff demonstrated (and its the kind of thing that’s really useful when it’s exactly what you’re looking for). I’m posting a rough crib sheet [...]

So, CSCS week 2 was all about SodaRace, a rather cool java based environment for building small moving objects/things. The concept seems pretty straightforward, you can add a muscle (push/pull) reflex to lines that make up your object. There’s a vast layer of depth concealed by this, and just getting simple shapes to move or [...]

This is fast becoming a trend, but this post is directly in response to a number of posts by Matt regarding the UKC CS department’s website. To give some context to my own take on this, its worth noting that my business is heavily based around various web applications and web sites, and I have [...]

Courtesy of Slashdot, the FlockBot project aims to create an open design for a $800 robot capable of multiagent research. This isn’t the interesting part (for me, at least). That comes in the equipment list they quote for the project. (non-interesting/relevant parts cut)
A 200MHz Bluetooth-enabled Gumstix Linux computer with wireless TCP/IP
An Acroname Brainstem motor [...]

Ok, so I seem to have taken a short hiatus from writing weblog entries recently, but I figure its time to start writing about interesting things again. There have been two CSCS meets since my last entry, both of which have focused on getting results with the PDA+Brainstem+Servo combinations that we’re using. Both sessions felt [...]

The first week of CSCS of 2005. My random thoughts and narrative on events.

A concise guide to cross-compiling and installing the development kit for the Acroname Brainstem on the Sharp Zaurus from Mac OS X 10.3

Perhaps an interesting side-note to the current CSCS stream regarding cockroach robotics.

A brief summary of this week’s happenings in CSCS & other ramblings around the subject area.

A catch-up entry to accompany the last 5-6 weeks of “Cool Stuff in Computer Science” at the University of Kent.