Chip with simple program for Toy

[Roger Johansson]

John Woodgate <jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> wrote:

I would try the skin on one of my thighs, it is fairly easy to attach a
thin elastic cloth around it and leave it on all day.

Then I need a way to excite the nerves in the skin of my thigh.

IIRC, you have picked the body area where nerves in the skin are most
sparse.

That may be so but the number of receptors is big enough.
Touch the thigh anywhere very lightly and you
will feel it and you can tell exactly where it is touching.

I thought about the back of the body first, because it is big area, but
it would need some kind of adhesive and very flexible surface to stay in
contact with every piece of skin. An elastic cloth around the thigh stays
in contact with every piece of skin under it.

To make a prototype I would try to find a very thin and flexible wire,
which I could fix in the cloth, by sewing into the fabric. At the end of
the wire I would take off the isolation for a few millimeters and make a
loop or knot which does not irritate the skin mechanically.
(copper wire may irritate the skin, so I would get some other surface
metal on the wire, or chemically add a layer of zink or whatever works
better against the skin than copper)

Then I need a microprocessor which can be programmed to take the average
of the light level in one small area of the video picture and send a
signal of that level to the skin. Maybe 4*4 pixels for each skin
stimulation point. (Because the number of pixels in the camera will
probably be much higher than the number of pixels in my thigh cloth.)

We need controls for intensity and contrast for the skin. They will work
just like the intensity and contrast control on a tv. I might want to
adjust these controls during the day, and when I sleep I turn down to
black screen, or take of the cloth.



--
Roger J.

 

[John Miles]

In article <12lxvb7qtm1b8$.dlg@news.individual.net>,
reply2group@ndbbm.net says...

He means that the rotating field is symmetric and is || to the axis
of rotation. Therefore the flux remains constant throughout the
revolutions.

IOW if you flip the bar magnet around, the field is *not* uniform -
it changes.

True... what confused me is that if a bar magnet is being rotated pole-
over-pole, the field itself is still uniform, but it's easy to observe
its rotation from a fixed point. Ergo there *is* such a beast as a
rotating magnetic field.

Still, this is a neat .PDF. Thanks for posting it, Don.

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:38:43 +0100, Roland Zitzke wrote:

"Robert Monsen" <rcsurname@comcast.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:eSHtd.628892$mD.13594@attbi_s02...
Roland Zitzke wrote:
I am using such device for 25 years now myself and as an engineer I am
constantly looking for techniques to replace / rebuilt it.


Roland, is this a device to help you see? I've read about these, but never
actually had any direct contact. Can you recognize different faces? Or the
fact that a face is in front of you?

Yes, I use it because I am blind and it lets me recognize images when moving
a CCD camera over it.

As mentioned the represented image is quite small (20 x 5) and this is not
enough for recognizing complex structures like a face in the sence that I
could tell two faces apart.
Biometry is a science of it's own ;-)

With a device I suggested it could be a much larger image and that would
certainly enable "TV for the blind" to some degree.

I seem to remember seeing a thing on edjamacayshunal TV where somebody
actually put electrodes against some volunteer's brain, at the back, at
the visual cortex. The lobes all have names, but all I can remember of
them is Steve Allen pointing at a skull, saying, "This is the frontal,
this is the top-al, this is the back-al, and these are the two sides-al."

Occipital?

But I don't think you're ready to have electrodes poked into your brain,
are you? =:-O

On a less goofy note, I do wonder how hard it would be to build a bigger
array of little piezo thingies. Probably not all that hard, just big bucks. )-;

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 18:15:29 +0000, Roger Johansson wrote:

"Jim Douglas" <james.douglas@genesis-software.com> wrote:

Check out the medical device called a "Tens" unit, it's send a small
tingle.

The first part of the problem is to find a set of nerves on/in the body
which can be used to "see". The fingertips are sensitive, but very small.

I would try the skin on one of my thighs, it is fairly easy to attach a
thin elastic cloth around it and leave it on all day.

Then I need a way to excite the nerves in the skin of my thigh.

200*300 points, or more, on the inside of the cloth will excite the
nerves and create a picture which wraps around my thigh, and I use the
nerves in the skin to "see" it.

The idea about electrostimulation fits well into this device.
I would simply try different combinations of frequencies and currents
until I found a setting which gave the best "image" without being painful
in any way.
Mechanical stimulation is also possible, but would be a little more
difficult to manufacture.

A small videocamera can be hidden below or above my own face, in a
band around my head, like a tennis player's sweatband, for example.

So I would feel with my thigh what the camera sees.

With some training it could become really useful.

Put the device _in_ the sweatband, and feel it on your forehead.
For my second choice, I'd go chest or back. But as Mr. Woodgate has
mentioned, the thigh is probably one of the least sensitive pieces of skin
that you have. Then again, this might simplify the design.

Y'know, this could turn out to be an interesting project!

But I still say that applying electric shocks doesn't sound like the best
way to do things.

Hey! How about some of those microphonic/piezoelectric SMT caps? ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[john jardine]

"Don Lancaster" <don@tinaja.com> wrote in message
news:41B9E19E.D0C684F2@tinaja.com...

... is now available for free download as
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/funfield.pdf

It is on fun with fields.

Additional gurugrams at http://www.tinaja.com/gurgrm01.asp
Consulting services available via http://www.tinaja.com/info01.asp

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Nice pics!.
I've no idea of Postscript but another pretty field plotting method that can
be progged in just a few lines of Basic, C etc is the 'inverse square law'
that applies to gravity and charge.
Basically goes as, the force on any point in space is due to the sum of the
effect of every other point in space.
For progging, step through each screen pixel in turn and calc the pythoras
distance (H) to every pixel that has been prefilled with a charge (+/-) (or
galaxy +!) and then sum up as 1/H^2. Plot the pixel colouring according to
its strength.
Also works nicely in a 3D volume but is just a tad slower
regards
john

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net>
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.10.19.16.31.64580@example.net&gt about 'Circuit
that produces a tingling sensation in the fingers.', on Fri, 10 Dec
2004:

I hope I'm not being impertinent, but how do you read newsgroups? With
your device we're talking about, or do you have talking software?

The Royal National Institute for the Blind in UK has done an enormous
amount of work on computer aids for blind people. Quite a few years ago,
they has voice-operated writers (needed a lot of training, so not viable
commercially) and readers. The readers would run at speeds far higher
than normal speech and people were trained to understand at those
speeds.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Nice pics!.

Cute. I'm just reviewing some of this stuff after (mumble) years, so
timely too. I guess it's doing the calculations inside the PDF, and
that's why its so slow.

I've no idea of Postscript but another pretty field plotting method that can
be progged in just a few lines of Basic, C etc is the 'inverse square law'
that applies to gravity and charge.
Basically goes as, the force on any point in space is due to the sum of the
effect of every other point in space.
For progging, step through each screen pixel in turn and calc the pythoras
distance (H) to every pixel that has been prefilled with a charge (+/-) (or
galaxy +!) and then sum up as 1/H^2. Plot the pixel colouring according to
its strength.
Also works nicely in a 3D volume but is just a tad slower
regards
john

I did a 3-D calculation to find the voltage gradients in a
electroplating situation back in school. It was fun.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

Roland Zitzke wrote:

Since the late 1970s there were devices available called Optacons.
snip
Unfortunatly this technology has disappeared from the market. It
essencially
consists of a neadle array (20 x 5) where such trigger is stimmulated
by
vibrating certain sets of these pins at a time.

Roland,

Would you please describe the spacing of the pins as best you can --
or (the overall dimensions of the rectangle? I
have an idea that might reproduce this device's behavior, and be
somewhat scaled up.

Similarly, do you know anything about the
frequency of vibration used? (If memory serves, one peak in human
sensitivity to vibration is around 300 Hz., and I *think* there's
another one (different sensory neurons?) much lower (50 Hz?.)
Unfortunately the neurologist who I recall mentioning the frequency
response is no longer here to ask.

Do you think a quasi-static displacements would work well enough to
use? Fast enough to show sequences of tactile "images" (like a
morph-able wood carving), but not fast enough to feel like a vibration?
In that case, an array of pins displaced by resistance-heated Nitinol
wires might work for a dense, potentially inexpensive device.
Larry Pfeffer

 

Roland Zitzke wrote:

Since the late 1970s there were devices available called Optacons.
snip
Unfortunatly this technology has disappeared from the market. It
essencially
consists of a neadle array (20 x 5) where such trigger is stimmulated
by
vibrating certain sets of these pins at a time.

Roland,

Would you please describe the spacing of the pins as best you can --
or (the overall dimensions of the rectangle? I
have an idea that might reproduce this device's behavior, and be
somewhat scaled up.

Similarly, do you know anything about the
frequency of vibration used? (If memory serves, one peak in human
sensitivity to vibration is around 300 Hz., and I *think* there's
another one (different sensory neurons?) much lower (50 Hz?.)
Unfortunately the neurologist who I recall mentioning the frequency
response is no longer here to ask.

Do you think a quasi-static displacements would work well enough to
use? Fast enough to show sequences of tactile "images" (like a
morph-able wood carving), but not fast enough to feel like a vibration?
In that case, an array of pins displaced by resistance-heated Nitinol
wires might work for a dense, potentially inexpensive device.
Larry Pfeffer

 

[Rich Grise]

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 16:09:06 -0700, bee wrote:

John Miles wrote:

True... what confused me is that if a bar magnet is being rotated pole-
over-pole, the field itself is still uniform, but it's easy to observe
its rotation from a fixed point. Ergo there *is* such a beast as a
rotating magnetic field.

Still, this is a neat .PDF. Thanks for posting it, Don.

-- jm


But there is ---> no <--- test you could perform on that field that would
let you tell ANY difference between it and a stationary one of equal
uniform strength.

This is the usual place where the homopolar church of the latter day
crackpots types often screw up.

Well, if it doesn't make any difference, then what difference does it make?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that bee <bee@tinaja.com> wrote (in
<41BA2B9E.DAAA15C7@tinaja.com&gt about 'AN: GuruGram #39', on Fri, 10 Dec
2004:

Take a cylindrical magnet and hang it on a string. Place another
cylindrical magnet below it on the same axis.

Rotate the bottom magnet.
The Top one does NOT rotate.

It is important to clarify the orientation of the magnets with respect
to the string.

ASCII art: use Courier font:

| |
| |
| |
_|_ _____|_____
| | |___________|
| |
|_|

_ ___________
| | |___________|
| |
|_|

No rotation Rotation
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[R. Steve Walz]

Active8 wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 11:39:30 -0800, John Miles wrote:

In article <12lxvb7qtm1b8$.dlg@news.individual.net>,
reply2group@ndbbm.net says...

He means that the rotating field is symmetric and is || to the axis
of rotation. Therefore the flux remains constant throughout the
revolutions.

IOW if you flip the bar magnet around, the field is *not* uniform -
it changes.

True... what confused me is that if a bar magnet is being rotated pole-
over-pole, the field itself is still uniform, but it's easy to observe
its rotation from a fixed point.

It depends on *where* the observer is - on the magnet or not.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
-------------------

But all that changes is whether it looks like the fields are electric
or magnetic, and how much and which orientation of each.

-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

 

[Rich Grise]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:49:57 +0000, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Active8 wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 11:39:30 -0800, John Miles wrote:

In article <12lxvb7qtm1b8$.dlg@news.individual.net>,
reply2group@ndbbm.net says...

He means that the rotating field is symmetric and is || to the axis
of rotation. Therefore the flux remains constant throughout the
revolutions.

IOW if you flip the bar magnet around, the field is *not* uniform -
it changes.

True... what confused me is that if a bar magnet is being rotated pole-
over-pole, the field itself is still uniform, but it's easy to observe
its rotation from a fixed point.

It depends on *where* the observer is - on the magnet or not.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
-------------------
But all that changes is whether it looks like the fields are electric
or magnetic, and how much and which orientation of each.

They're 100% interchangeable, if you have consciousness to evert the
7-dimensional hypertorus.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:46:39 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that bee <bee@tinaja.com> wrote (in
41BA2B9E.DAAA15C7@tinaja.com&gt about 'AN: GuruGram #39', on Fri, 10 Dec
2004:

Take a cylindrical magnet and hang it on a string. Place another
cylindrical magnet below it on the same axis.

Rotate the bottom magnet.
The Top one does NOT rotate.

It is important to clarify the orientation of the magnets with respect
to the string.

ASCII art: use Courier font:

| |
| |
| |
_|_ _____|_____
| | |___________|
| |
|_|

_ ___________
| | |___________|
| |
|_|

No rotation Rotation

OK, so you've got a bar magnet suspended vertically. It has a certain
"field strength," in gauss or teslas or something. If you twirl the bar
magnet on its axis, it doesn't entrain the other magnet.

But if you spin it fast enough, would the rotation of the molecules in the
metal influence the field?

And if you have a conductor, with current, with one line of force around
it, does the concept of rotating that line of force (where the
conductor is the axis) even make any sense?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net>
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.11.07.49.07.89260@example.net&gt about 'AN:
GuruGram #39', on Sat, 11 Dec 2004:

And if you have a conductor, with current, with one line of force around
it, does the concept of rotating that line of force (where the conductor
is the axis) even make any sense?

'Lines of force' are imaginary. Rotating something imaginary rarely has
a physical effect.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Robert Baer]

John Miles wrote:

In article <41B9E19E.D0C684F2@tinaja.com>, don@tinaja.com says...

... is now available for free download as
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/funfield.pdf

It is on fun with fields.

Additional gurugrams at http://www.tinaja.com/gurgrm01.asp
Consulting services available via http://www.tinaja.com/info01.asp



I don't understand your assertion that "there is no way you can tell if
a perfectly-uniform magnetic field is stationary or rotating."

If I bring a piece of wire into the field, a detectable current will be
induced by a rotating magnetic field, but not a stationary one. AC
motors would have a hell of a time working otherwise. Is this one of
those Heisenberg-style trick assertions (e.g., the field's no longer
perfectly-uniform once I couple energy out of it with a conductor)?

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

Assume a uniform magnetic field in a given area.
Then rotate that field about a central axis that is parallel tothe
field lines.
Impossible to detect.

That is the only case i can think of right now; is one sufficent?

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net>
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.11.11.37.54.917548@example.net&gt about 'AN:
GuruGram #39', on Sat, 11 Dec 2004:

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:57:35 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.11.07.49.07.89260@example.net&gt about 'AN:
GuruGram #39', on Sat, 11 Dec 2004:

And if you have a conductor, with current, with one line of force around
it, does the concept of rotating that line of force (where the conductor
is the axis) even make any sense?

'Lines of force' are imaginary. Rotating something imaginary rarely has
a physical effect.

But if they're imaginary, then what is it that induces the current in
the wire that cuts one?

Nothing. It's a voltage that's induced. (;-)
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Robert Monsen]

Guy Macon wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:


The human brain can interpret speech at a much higher speed than
people can speak clearly. There are devices that speed up voice
(essentially by stealing chunks of it, so that it doesn't increase in
pitch) and they are still understandable at much higher than normal
speeds. I wonder if there's a better algorithm that might be practical
today.


An old trick that the books on tape folks do is to speed up the tape
a percentage point or so to avoid having to use a small part of the
last tape. I wonder if I could cobble together a program that gives
me independent control of the length of the silences, vowels, and
consonants...

Windows already allows you to do this, I believe.

--
Regards,
Robert Monsen

"Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis."
- Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon,
on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:34:20 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.11.11.37.54.917548@example.net&gt about 'AN:
GuruGram #39', on Sat, 11 Dec 2004:
On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:57:35 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <rich@example.net
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.11.07.49.07.89260@example.net&gt about 'AN:
GuruGram #39', on Sat, 11 Dec 2004:

And if you have a conductor, with current, with one line of force around
it, does the concept of rotating that line of force (where the conductor
is the axis) even make any sense?

'Lines of force' are imaginary. Rotating something imaginary rarely has
a physical effect.

But if they're imaginary, then what is it that induces the current in
the wire that cuts one?

Nothing. It's a voltage that's induced. (;-)

LOL!

It seems we're just going to have to sit down and try to reach a
consensus. Who's in charge here, voltage or current? (pun unintended, but
noted.) ;-)

Thanks!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 18:50:31 +0000, Guy Macon wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:

But I still say that applying electric shocks doesn't sound like the best
way to do things.

Hey! How about some of those microphonic/piezoelectric SMT caps? ;-)

Now *that's* an interesting idea!

I think that I could localize a small mechanical buzzer a lot better
that I could localize a shock. I wonder whether a frequency-of-
buzzing to color-of-image maping would be beneficial.

You know, the government likes to give grants to anyone who works
on technology to assist the handicapped...

At least three times now, I've wasted a day trying to track down that "get
a grant" stuff. I think the bottom line on that is that you have to be
some politician's brother-in-law or something.

If you know how to get a grant, I'd be more than happy to collaborate on
the project itself. I also want to come up with some kind of
neuron-silicon interface for smart prosthetic limbs. And the tactile parts
of both projects would seem to dovetail nicely.

Cheers!
Rich