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How To Get Involved

There are many ways to contribute to the DorkbotPDX community. Some of us are information junkies, so we have adopted a wealth of ways to share between ourselves and any passersby. Here are a variety of things you can do if you are interested in being a part of this crowd (we are most definitely non-exclusive!):

  • Present on something interesting you're doing/working on/interested in at an upcoming meeting! Let Thomas or Jason know if you have some ideas.
  • Sign up for the mailing lists.
  • Join us on IRC.
  • Sign up on this site and create a member page.
  • Join the DorkbotPDX Flickr group and post pictures you think we should see. The last five of these will appear in the righthand sidebar of the site.
  • Tag your del.icio.us posts with "dorkbotpdx" if you'd like others in the group to see them. You'll notice that these links appear in the low part of the sidebar of the site just like the Flickr pics.
  • Sign up for our Vimeo group and share your Dorkbot videos.
  • Best of all: join us at our bi-weekly meetings.
  • If there's some other way you'd like to get involved or you'd like to make DorkbotPDX aware of something you're working on, feel free to contact us via any of these means.

One final note: please post comments where they are appropriate. If you just have general communication for the group, please post to the mailing list or join the IRC channel.


Comments

Mon, 02/21/2011 - 19:58 — lubun

Machine Control Research

Greetings! I am a newcomer and absolutely out of my realm. I recently watched a video demonstration of a closed loop control setup of a simple (?) robot platform controlled by a laptop. I realized this could be the most direct approach for a project I've been researching for several months.

I've decided to attempt my version of a film telecine (a way to scan movie film images a frame at a time). The commercially produced machines are many thousands of dollars. thankfully, there are a handful of clever folks out there who have documented their DIY approach, but I'd appreciate your input. If this has previously been discussed on this site I welcome the link. Otherwise, here is the task:

A film projector lamp is replaced with a cool LED, a webcam is attached to the projector lens, and as the film is slowly advanced and stopped, each frame is captured via the webcam. This cycle repeats 5-10 times per second.

Some inventors have used DC motors, others use steppers. Some prefer to have the projector control the action, others prefer to use software control. Please understand I am not a programmer but I could learn the basics to accomplish this. Visual Basic has been suggested. I'm guessing the majority of opinions will be that this would be better served with another os platform. If need be I'll learn that too.

Question 1 Can my PC do the commanding of a project like this or is there a seperate circuit needed?

Question 2 DC or stepper motor for best accuracy? Maybe straight DC for purposes of faster rewind, etc.

Question 3 The standard film projector advances film via the sproket holes along the side of the film. Can you suggest an optical or IR method to detect the image frame, in the event damaged sproket holes would prevent accurate control?

Thanks for your patience with a newbie!