None of these things really fit in with any other category or topic, but I think they are still worth mentioning. You might group them under potential tools for final projects, but I don't really think that my group used any of these tools directly.
Other #1: Camera manipulation
Code which shows moving objects
On this day we visited Tufts and Chris showed us around. We presented our two final ideas for our final projects. But, one of the coolest things we did was manipulate images in LabVIEW. Hande and I worked together. First we wrote code which displayed items from the camera in the computer. Next, we edited to only show moving objects by subtracting out the background. That code is above. We also wrote code which filtered everything but red. This was fun because Hande and I spend most of our time goofing off in front of our computer trying to see what would show up as red or how fast we could wave and have it still show up on the LabVIEW display.
Other #2: Bluetooth
Code which receives messages via Bluetooth and runs a car
The task this day was to build a remote controlled car. On this day our class was grouped by project groups. Then our project groups were paired up. My group got paired with Bryn and Juliette. My project group worked on building a car and coding it to go forward. Bryn and Juliette coded the "joystick" which sent messages to the car, telling it how fast to go and in what direction. Then we had a competition between the our car and the other half of the class' car.
Other #3: Pickles
Our pickle intstrument
Today we worked with PicoCricket and we made a musical instrument using a delicious pickle. This device measured the resistance between the two resistors (what look like miniature jumper cables attached to each side of the pickle in the picture above) and translated that number into a frequency, and played the note corresponding to the frequency value. This was fun. We, however, did not use PicoCricket in our final project as it does not have the same ability to measure resistance.
However, this programming environment was much nicer and much clearer than LabVIEW. Instead of wiring pieces together, you fit together the pieces which looked like puzzle pieces. So, the problems with LabVIEW, namely all programs turning into a scrambled mess of wires, did not occur in PicoCricket. I am sure that there are other issues when programs in PicoCricket become large, but our program here was fairly simple and this is the only programming that I have done in this environment.
