Author Archives: paul

About paul

Paul is the Owner and Creator of MawsonLakes.Org.

paul

May 31, 2016

detourJust got off the phone from Salisbury Council about the road works an detours that are going on around the place. I got caught out yesterday, doing a last minute ‘Oh we all slept in!” dash, and ended up going a lot further than we needed to.

The details that I have:

  • Mon, 30th May –  Fri, 10th June: Mawson Lakes Boulevard – Closed from Parkway to Mary Street (Montague Road end). North detour back via Parkway in Technology Park.
  • Mon, 6th June – Thu, 16th June: Mawson Lakes Boulevard – Works at the Peninsula Drive and Parkway Drive Roundabouts.

Hopefully these two road closures won’t overlap by too much.

Just had a letter in the mailbox with more details, and I have rung Adrian, the Surfacing Coordinator to confirm access during these times. The plan at the moment(1 June) subject to weather:

  • Monday – Work starts on Peninsula Roundabout, Work starts on Parkview Dr. Roundabout.
  • Tuesday – Work starts on Parkview Dr.
  • Wednesday – New Asphalt put down on Parkview Dr.

Local access will not be completely cut off during this time, works start at 7am,  but there may be some delays getting in and out of adjoining roads. Access will be available after 5pm each day. Direction will need to be taken by road management services.

I will continue to update this post if I find out any more details

Adelaide Internet of Things (IoT) Hackathon

Yesterday (Sat, 23 April 2016) saw the first Adelaide IoT Hackathon held at the Smart City Studio in the City of Adelaide.

This author is very please to announce that we were successful and won the event with our project: City wide water leakage monitoring. We were us against the 10 Cent – Internet of trash and an Interactive Electronic Notice Board. The decision was very tough according to the judges.

The prizes include access to IBM’s IoT and Cloud platforms. We will be updating the Hackaday page above with more details as we progress with the project.

Stopping unwanted Paypass Purchases

The other day my phone (a Samsung S5, no, not the edge) started beeping at times when I was holding it. This began expectantly, and after a week of these obscure notifications, I tracked it down to when the phone was being placed next to my wallet. An App that I recently installed turned on the Near Field Communication (NFC) features on my phone, which ment that it was now registering my credit cards when they got close enough, through the outside of my wallet.

After turning of the NFC feature on the phone, I had a quick google on ‘RFID Card Shield’ and came up with a card sleeve (see picture) that works quite effectively.

The sleeve is made up of several layers of aluminium foil, for strength and cut to size, and wrapped in gaffatape.

 

Not sure why our particular location has been left out of the NBN rollout information (see image). Last month we received a generic notice saying that we may see the NBN doing work in our streets, so there is some confusion out there about this.

It looks as though there is a high-tech force field (a dome?) over our suburb which is keeping the NBN out.

 

Edison Robots

I have just been introduced to the Edison Robots.  I was shown a box of them that are going to be used to teach programming(coding) and robotics in a local primary school. They looked vaguely familiar.

The company behind the Edison is Microbric and they have been around for a while. They concluded an Kickstarter campaign in 2014, raising over $100,000. Somehow I missed this campaign at the time, but they managed to raise enough to create a ‘block based’ programming environment for the robots what will run in a browser, Windows, iOS, Android and Linux (including on the Raspberry Pi).

I had to delve a little deeper on the programming side though. I had dealt with the original Microbric robots, which could have a programming cable attached, but weren’t really programmable. They came with some pre-programmed actions, like ‘follow the line’, as well as playing the theme songs of the local AFL Football teams. The way these programs were selected was also novel. They could be made to run over and read a barcode which was read by a light sensor. It was also possible to hold them up to a computer screen, but this was a little bit unreliable. A the time I tried to manually decode the barcodes, but without success. There was a programming cable available (based on a Nokia phone cable) but it’s use was unsupported at the time I was looking at it. I don’t know if this ever changed.

On the other hand, programming the Edison with the Edware software is a great addition and a great introduction to robotic programming for students. The software is Python based under the hood, is available under a Free and Open Source license (GPLv2) and is available on Github.

Some things I would like to try with the Edison:

  • Attach a pen and get the robot to write a message, or draw a picture.
  • Build a robot arm that can move chess pieces.

One interesting application can be found here: Chocolate Rotomolding Machine (YouTube).

The MeetEdison website recommends the following Lego Kit – 42032 Compact Tracked Loader – as a good way of getting parts useful for building more advanced robots and machines. Details are in the EdBook3.

 

Oliphant Science Awards – 2016

It’s that time of year again, where I’m about to get involved again in the Oliphant Science group at the primary school attended by my daughter. We have a really great group of young scientists this year, and they have been sent away for the holidays, inspired to think about what great science they can do when they get back for term 2.

This year, for progress reports and logs are going to be making use of Google Docs. This should allow those of us who are Parent Helpers to better observe the progress that is being made, and see be able to provide better help.

It’s going to be a great year for Science.

Project: Implementation of an OpenADR Infrustructure with RaspberryPi(s)

A demonstration system is being built for prototyping the OpenADR system using accessible hardware.

This is a new project fo me, but I have an interest in learning more about how the Electrical Power network works as we have a Grid Connected Solar installation(SMA Sunny Inverter with Blue Tooth interface), and a Clipsal C-Bus home lighting/power control system in the house.

OpenADR (Open Automatic Demand Response) is a project with the aim of creating an open infrustructure to allow the consumer appliances in power networks to automatically respond to the market,
including pricing details and peak power periods.

In Australia, grid connected household solar systems are currently subjected to different mechanisms which impact on their final economic benefit. As well as overall cost, these include ongoing feed-in tarrif rates or restrictions on feed-in power. Add to this the ability to add local power storage via batteries (eg. Tesla Powerwall[2])  and it becomes more essential to control the local power sources and loads.

Standards exists[3] for controlling appliances, and DRED (Demand Response Enabling Device) incorporates a range of controls for various aA demonstrator system is being built for prototyping the OpenAD system using accessible hardware.ppliance types, and the list of included appliances is expected to grow.

OpenADR protocols form the communication link beween the power retailer and the DRED enabled appliances, via a consumer smart power controller. This project aims at investigating XMPP as the communication layer between the power retailer and the controller which then implements the control via DRED relay switching and hardware controls.

Technology being used: RaspberryPi, Linux, Raspbian, Ubuntu Snappy Core, XMPP client, ejabberd. ansible.

References:
[1] http://www.opwnadr.org
[2] Tesla Powerwall – http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/powerwall
[3] AS4755 – Demand Response for Air Conditioners

The Advertiser – Clothes theft in ram raid

From the Adevertiser, Saturday, May 9 2015, page 33:

“Clothes theft in ram raid: A stolen car has been used to ram-raid a Mawson Lakes business.

Police were called to Main St, about 5am yesterday, after reports of a car reversing into the building. Two men stole the clothes from the business and fled in a white Holdern Commodore, registration VGT-453”

Link

Hosting of New Websites

MawsonLakes.Org is pleased to announce that we will be hosting two websites for the Mawson Lakes community.

  • Mawson Lakes Community Church
  • Monstersale – A fundraiser for the Mawson Lakes Community Church.