Loading FreeCad designs into Paint 3D

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I've got lots of things I've designed using the lovely FreeCAD program. I wanted to play with them in Paint 3D in Windows 10 Creators Edition. If you want to do this too, this is how:

FreeCad doesn't seem to support a format that Paint 3D understands. You'll need to use a converter program to do this. I've found a free program at NCH Software that seems to do the trick.  First thing you need to do is download and install the program. 

Then, in FreeCad, select all the elements of the model that you want to export in the editor. Then select File>Export from the FreeCad menu to display the Export Dialog:

Select the "Wavefront OBJ" file type as you can see above. Give the file a sensible name, and then click Save.

Now you need to convert the OBJ file into a 3MF file. Open up Spin 3D. Select Add File (the big plus) and add your file. You can add lots of files if you like. 

I've found that models need to be rotated for some reason (perhaps because the coordinate frames of reference are different). Click the Effects button in the bottom left to ask the Spin program to do this for you.

You want to rotate -90 degrees about the X axis. Click the "Apply Offsets to Objects" checkbox and then put -90 in the Rotation X box, as shown above. Then click OK to close the Effects dialog.

Make sure that you've got the output format set to 3md as you can see above, and then click the Convert button on the bottom right hand side of the Spin 3D window. Your design will now be converted into a 3mf file that you can import into Paint 3D. 

I even managed to put the design into the Remix 3D site for people to download and play with. You can find it here.

Hull Pixelbots on News at Ten Tonight

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ITN are doing a feature about Hull and c4di are in it. Yay! John asked me if they could get some shots of Hull Pixelbots in action. 

Could they ever.

They were most helpful. After they'd finished I asked If I could take a shot "For the blog". Not only were they happy to help, but the cameraman set up his camera again so that I could get a good looking result. 

As far as I know, the item is going out on News at Ten on ITV (that's channel 3 in old money) tonight. 

Update:

Well, the items came and went. And there were Hull PIxelbots there. Kind of "blink and you miss it" stuff, but even so it's still News at Ten....

Hull Pixelbots at the MVP Community Connection

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Today it was just a simple matter of driving to London, running a few robot races and then back again. And it all went beautifully. The event was held at the RAF Museum in Hendon. So I put the postcode into the satnav and headed out. The journey down was smooth enough, and after a while I was all set up, with just a bit of nervousness about the network connectivity. 

As it turned out, we had a few races and at least one winner. 

This is one of our happy winners, with his winning robot. After the racing it was back into the car, enter another postcode (the one for home) and head back. I got into Hull just after midnight. It was great to meet up with a bunch of folks that I'd not seem for a while and talk "proper shop".

Thanks to Claire for inviting me. 

Hull Raspberry Pi Jam

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Today I was in Hull doing a bit of shopping. As you do. I also dropped into Hull Central Library to give Matt a pixel for his Hull Pixelbot. He's written a lovely blog post about building a robot last Thursday, and I thought I'd give him something extra to work with.  Matt was helping at a Hull Rasp Jam event.

Libraries have changed a bit since we used to take the kids every week to swap their books for different ones. There are still books there, but you can also find crafting sessions, people playing chess and  Raspberry Pi events too. Great stuff. 

I wasn't able to stay long at the jam, but it was great to see lots of people engaging with technology and having fun doing it. I'll try and make a bit more time for the next one. 

Hull Pixelbot Code Version 3.0

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The latest version of the Hull Pixebot Code engine is now available on Github. You can use this to download little programs into your robot where they are stored and interpreted. It makes controlling your robot a snap (said the man who wrote it). 

You can get the latest version of the code here

You can get the latest documentation here.

This is a stepping stone on the way to a full scripting language which will run inside the Hull Pixelbot. This version provides support for variables, simple expressions and conditional execution. It is designed to provide the execution engine for the script that I'm working on.

I'm quite proud of it. 

Build a Robot in One Day

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The team at the start of the day. Click through for a 360 degree view

Well, that was fun. By the end everybody had a robot moving around and using a distance sensor to notice things. Thanks to c4di for hosting, Robin for providing invaluable support and everyone for getting so absorbed in their building that they forgot two coffee breaks and I had to order them out of the room for lunch.......

Intense concentration....

Hull Pixelbots at the Hull Science Festival

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Twelve robots, six hours, hundreds of people coming. What could go wrong?

As it turned out, not a lot. While we had the occasional "rogue robot", and at one point the network decided to completely reset itself, I'm very pleased to be able to write that most of the time things worked very well. We had so many robot races that in the end I ran out of winner's certificates. But everyone left happy.

Thanks so much to my helpers, and the University of Hull for organising such an awesome event.

Hull Pixelbot Script

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I'm not sure if I'll ever get this working, but I am sure that without the language design I'll never get it to go.

I've got a tiny little language running inside the Hull Pixelbot which works rather well. All the commands are two characters and they are interpreted by the Arduino that controls the motors and sensors. And I can store the programs inside the robot EEPROM, as well as deploy them from Azure IOT hub amongst other place.

But the language is a bit of a pain to use to be honest. And there are things I just can't do. So it's time to make a proper language. I'm calling it Hull Pixelbot Script.

I've not done programming language design for a while. I'm a big fan of syntax diagrams (or railroad diagrams). To me they seem a really neat way to express the arrangement of a language. Above you can see the design for the statement element of Hull Pixelbot Script. You can see that the colour (or color) command must be followed by three values which are separated by commas, and an if statement can control a large number of statements (and maybe I could add an else later).

I made the diagrams by using a web site that takes my grammar and makes the nice looking output. It took me a while to remember how EBNF (Extended Backus–Naur form) fits together, but I'm quite pleased with the result.

Of course I've actually achieved very little, what I now have to do is build the actual code that implements the language.

But it's a start.  

Red Nose Day Racing and Rhyming

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Well, that was a fun day. Up bright and early to head up town to talk about the Great Robot Race on Radio Humberside, then home to write some poetry, then up to c4di to run the first race (which went rather well as you can see above). Then home for another radio chat, then tea and finally out to the University to deliver a lecture in rhyme. And race some more robots.

This is the winner of the first ever Hull Pixelbot Great Robot Race, who succeeded by using a cunning trick called "taking the race seriously".

 

This is the racing action at the Lecture in Rhyme

..and these are the winners of the rhyming race.

A good time was had by all, I took 149.68 over the two events, which I've generously rounded up to 150 pounds. That'll make my total takings up to over 600 pounds once I pay it all in. Not quite tutu money, but I'm happy with that.

If you want to take me closer to my 1,000 target, you can still give me some cash here.

Red Nose Day Robots

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I've got confirmation of the venue for my world famous (in my world) Comic Relief lecture in rhyme for 2017. I've been producing bad poetry in aid of charity for over twenty years. This year I'm breaking one of the immutable laws of showbiz:

Never work with children, animals or robots.

My lecture will be accompanied by a horde of Hull Pixelbot robots, each of which has a mind of its own (and isn't afraid of using it). You'll even be able to control the robots yourself during the lecture. As long as you've sponsored me here.  

I've chosen a crack team of robots to help in the presentation. Above you can see them being put through their paces.

The lecture starts at 7:00 pm in the Large Lecture Theatre in the Applied Science 3 building on the Hull University campus. You can find a map of the campus here.

There is free admission to the lecture but, as always, you'll have to pay to get out. I'll have robots guarding all the doors.

Please come. Bring money. Bring a friend. Bring pies.

"Alloy" wheels for the Hull Pixelbot

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OK, they're not really alloy. Although you could cast them out of shiny metal if you wanted. I'm going to have a go with some metallic filament I've got lying around.

Anyhoo, I've spent some time today improving the Hull Pixelbot wheels. They've been simple disks for too long. They now have a specially designed rim which turns a simple elastic band into a workable tyre (and the band doesn't seem to come off) and the rim is actually narrower than the wheel. And, the wheel now has holes in for lower weight, a better 0-60 time and faster printing.

I've just to do one final test on the finished design and then I'll put them on GitHub.

Light Pipes and Off Roading

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I've been experimenting with some wheels I found on a different, lessor, robot. They are about the right size, and they give a Hull Pixelbot a nice "off-road" feel. They make turning a bit more difficult though, as the thick tyres are very grippy. 

I've also been playing with printing "light pipes" inside the shade for the pixels. The idea is to give better defined points for a camera to track the position and orientation of the robot. But I think the results are quite artistic too. 

Hull Pixelbot Seminar Fun

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I've not taken an audience picture for a while.

And it shows.

Anyhoo, I gave my Hull Pixelbot seminar today. Great fun (at least I enjoyed it). Most everything worked and we had some great discussions about games involving the robots.

You can find the slide deck here.

I'm feverishly writing the howto guides and getting the software ready for the "big upload" on Friday.

It was great to see everyone, they do have lovely audiences at Hull.