I bought chassis for my SunSPOT couple days before I forgot to blog around. In Prague it is not so easy to find a shop focused on robotics. I know only one but this is focused on plane models. So Jirka forward me to Hobby Robotics and theirs internet shop. Then I bought chassis and gearbox. Everything is from TAMIA company. I know this company from my childhood very weel because I put together lot of plane models.
Several month ago I bought LCD display based on HD44780 standart. and addtional stuff The issues was I had no simple access to right electrical tools to collect everything together in the right way. I tried to do it but everytime without success 
It's logical. The tin is really helpful and with iron it is similar 
. Other fact is that I was quite busy during this time to solving this.
I asked my colleague and friend Jirka Tusla (JiT) from our team for help. He was happy when he heard about SunSPOT and he decided to help me. Jirka is experienced in this case much more than me. I have learnt a lot around hardware background from him. I have also realized where I did sereral mistakes.
Here are some pictures and video from our successful work
I want to invate all buffs to join SunSPOT group on Facebook. Link is here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19191073032
I think this project is really great and we have to talk about it, discuss and discover possibilites of usage. It cann't be forgotten. SunSPOT have to live
Hi All who likes SunSPOT Project. I want to notice little success. I have found the way how can Sun employees buy SunSPOT development kit, with the discount of course.
Also I want to ask all who wanted to buy one SunSPOT development kit to send me an email. I'll try to arange it.
Miroslav.Kopecky@Sun.Com
PS: If you aren't Sun Employees you can contact me too.
import com.sun.spot.sensorboard.EDemoBoard;
example: serv = new Servo(EDemoBoard.getInstance().getOutputPins()[EDemoBoard.H2]);
Now you can use Servo methods getValue, setValue, setPosition ... to controll your servo.
this is the program but what about real binding ? You should prepare peaces of wire. Connect your sunspot with servo by ground connector, Than connect wire with SunSPOT's pin H2 (on eDemo board) and your Servos controller cable (yellow). Also you should connect two pins together on the eDemo board PINs +5V and VH. The last thing is connect your servo with power supplier 5V.
after all this you can see something like on the movie below. Based on yesterday duscussion with my colleague. I want to mention how much is SunSPOT project open source. There are really good ways how to contribute to this amazing project.
Because I haven't easily found one site where are all opensource projects placed together. I decided to do that (instead Mike's article of course - SunSPOT hardware open source) to increase success . Here it is. Enjoy !
SPOTs project - here you can find all projects
eSPOT Main Board
eDemo - demonstration board for SunSPOTs
eFlash - MiniSD card reader/writer add on board for Sun SPOT eSeSerial - RS232 interface board for the Sun SPOT
eProto - simple prototyping board for the SunSPOTs
eProtomega - Atmega88 prototype board for SunSPOT
solarium - SunSPOT simulator
And for the first time users is very good to have basic experience what the SunSPOT is. In this case there are some demos.
spots-sdk-demos
Today I have discussed about SunSPOT advantages and tehnology with one of my colleague. Instead of the fact I have lot work with opensolaris conference and my work I still thinking about SunSPOT During the weekend I soldered wires with my LCD display and also base for I/O pins. Now I'm looking forward to finish my program for initialize LCD display.
Back to todays discussion with my colleague about SunSPOT. He is really excited by this technology too. He has also strong java technical skills. He asked me how is possible to get SunSPOT like SUN employee. I gave promise to him I'll try to find it out ! If anybody has any comments to this you are welcome !
David Simmons announced on his blog Sun SPOT certification exam. I was really interested in it because SPOT is really cool thing. Otherwise I'm working on my robot by using this spot . So I wanted to get more new information about this device. I found out that lot of things I know but there were more addtional ones. I think this course is really great for begginers and aslo for advanced guys. It's nicely summarize all you need for. Enjoy yours one ...
Solarium Emulator who is available on SunSPOT purple SDK (Download Manger and additional demos) can be very useful for students or developeres which don't have physical SunSPOT yet. If Profesor decide to use SunSPOT for education purposes he can assign homework to it . It could be very interesting for students too.
For very quick introduction follow this entry.
1. Start up Sun SPOT Manager tool
2. Click on Solarium tab and on Solarium button -> SPOTworld Emulator should start
3. Add new virtual SPOT ( Emulator -> Add new virutal SPOT )
4. You can change a name (Right click on SPOT -> Set Name) if you want. But you should assign SPOT application by right click again ( Right click on SPOT -> Specify application jar file .. )
5. Now you can start up your application and display inputs from eDemoSensor board ( Right click on SPOT -> Display sensor panel ) [Image 1]
6. It's very useful to see output of your SPOT application ( Right click on SPOT -> Display applicaiton output ) [Image 2]
7. And in the end here is a source code of application output. SPOT applicaion you have to build and after that you have to assign it to your virtual SPOT [Image 3]
If you are interesting about fun with SunSPOT, just look to this video. I think it's better than flying simulator game I have found it on Davis blog.
My experience as a software engineer, ambassador, coordinator and university relation
