This weekend, the hacker extraordinaires from GearBox are hosting "Hack Weekend Boulder" in downtown Boulder, Colo. This event will run from 10:30AM on July 24th until 10PM on July 25th and caters towards Android developers. So what's this "hack weekend" all about? Glad you asked!
GearBox is a Boulder-based start up that works with consumer electronics companies and developers to bring phone controlled open devices to the market. With this in mind, they created the "Hack Weekend" event to bring Android developers together to play around with their new Smart Ball APIs. These cool new "toys" (I almost feel bad calling them that) allow you to control a ball via Bluetooth from your Android 2.1+ based phone. Once you have control of the ball, what you do with it is up to you.
The event will give you the opportunity to experiment with the Smart Ball, hang out with some like-minded hackers, and possibly win a Smart Ball of your own! The top app may also get mentioned at the Techstars Investor Day in front of a whole slew on venture capitalists. All you need to participate is a computer and an Android 2.1+ based phone. GearBox will be providing free food, free beer, and free Red Bull - awesome!
Man, Boulder must be the Hobby Hacker Capital of World to have so many awesome companies pop up all over the place. If I had the chance to move over, I would in a second. Plus, free Red Bull is about the coolest three words ever to be spoken.
go Boulder, the new silicon valley of OSHW based companies!
This little fella would be great for augmented reality applications, just add your favorite marker flavor(IR,Color,2d bar-code variants) =)
Color should be fairly easy. First it could scan the image to see which color is least present in the surroundings. Then it would light up the ball LEDs either red, green, or blue. Finally it would use simple blob tracking to find the ball and overlay whatever you wanted on top of it. A pack man?
Sounds pretty solid, just need the ball to be diffused a bit so the camera can see it a little better. Also IR might be easier if you are indoors.
I was curious about using IR after I saw your IR/projector demo in the SparkFun building. I haven't had time to look into it though. I wonder how dark it would have to be before a cell phone camera would pick it up?
In our lab we used cheap IR filters ~20$ and it worked nicely with webcams, in fact it worked so well that if we used the 0.5 Watt emitters we could almost "see" through skin (http://www.hackeneering.com/myimages/photos/projects/IR/halfwattIR.png)
pretty cool =]
What kind of IR filters are you using? I've tried a number of filters from exposed film negatives to scientific IR filters I got online, but haven't found a happy medium that works in anything less than a well controlled environment.
Hi RoHS,
I used filters like these:
http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&q=massa+IR+filter&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Fl1ITNfjD4S0lQeZpf2ODA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CC8QrQQwAg
Results vary a lot from camera to camera (given that most have some sort of IR blocking filters), We trashed quite a few cameras while trying to remove these...
You could also make the ball enclosure out of IR filter plastic.
If you put an IR led on it, you could make a wii-mote track it fairly easily with the pixart camera on the front.
Woa slow down there dill1233. Yes Boulder has Sparcfun but not much else. Young homeless tree-huggers pester you night and day for money and or food. The police are the worst I've ever seen, they have cameras on the traffic lights which ticket you for running a red. The traffic itself is ALWAYS slow from the 8 million Subaru's driving 5 - 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. Urg! I gotta go take my meds.
Sorry, you get ticketed for running a red light? You do realize that running a red light is illegal? That's like complaining that you get arrested for theft.
Coming from Fort Collins I was not a fan of Boulder at all (big college rivalry). I still think CU sucks but it's definitely a killer spot for tech startups! ;)
Call me crazy, but Boulder is one of the most chill places I have ever lived. There is practically no violence or crime (except for people stealing bikes), there are tons of bike paths all over town and I worry more about people judging me for forgetting to bring my recyclable bag to the grocery store than cops hassling me.
...and it seems this crazy town is attracting a lot of young tech savvy people interested in creating new and innovative things.
These look awesome. I really want one.
I wanted to find out more, so I googled "smart balls" <--- DO NOT DO THIS!!!
Funny! Funnnny!
ehehhe, I just searched to see your surprise... hahahahha lols
Yeah-Google is not the place to go for more info on these things hahaha
The first person to make a real-life Marble Madness with a ball that completes the level by itself wins.
Anyone else thinking of making something to make it act like those ball bearings from Aeon Flux?
You could use the bluetooth connection as an range finder and then have it navigate its way to the source (depending on the ball's hardware)
OMG! I want to build it, and now, OMG OMG. It makes my nips hard! (so to speak)
This is awesome, but what are you using for the balls to move?
Check a few posts back. I like to call it the hamster ball technique :)
How exactly do the "Smart Balls" move? They look fully enclosed, and the only way I can imagine is an off balance weight floating inside the sphere...
you got it! that plus a very complex control system
Given half a day, Sparkfun customers can come up with an entirely new project concept. Amazing.
Back in 2005 (I was an intern working at university lab) one of our projects involved the use of small robots in augmented reality environments in order to provide some physical feedback to the scene... We used IR back then (under controlled lighting conditions) but we had no where near the freedom of movement that these guys seem to provide with these spheres
I know some professors who would definitely like to play with these "toys" =)
I meant to reply to gearboxian (my bad!)