Giving a spin to Ubuntu Touch (Developer Preview)

After flashing custom Android ROMs over and over again and trying them out, I thought of giving a little bit of variety by trying out Ubuntu Touch.

The developer preview for the Ubuntu Touch is out, and I got hold of the version for the Samsung Galaxy S GT i9000. Instructions were pretty straight forward to run on a rooted Android mobile running the ClockworkMod recovery as outlined under the following link;

http://www.technostall.com/update-galaxy-s-i9000-with-ubuntu-developer-preview-custom-rom/

Few minutes of work, and voila! There is Ubuntu!

I like what they've done, and I am a fan of the no button - all gesture approach. It has a slight learning curve, but all in all, I find it interesting. The main difference I saw with content is how everything seems to be put out rather than hold back through a lockscreen and a homescreen the user is supposed to fill up. I'd like that customizability, but the way Ubuntu has done it is not bad either. It seems to lie in between iOS and Android in that sense. Ubuntu Touch uses the edges of the screen for some gesture inputs, and this might annoy some - specially if you are using a case with beveled up edges. The general functionality looks fluid enough even on my old phone, and I've seen videos of Ubuntu Touch running on newer devices like the Nexus 4, really fluid.

Looking forward for the official release in mid October, and a growing app store for Ubuntu Touch!

Note of appreciation for my dear S : Mobiles have grown tremendously over the last 3-4 years, but I am so impressed by the legendary Galaxy S which paved the way for the Samsung Galaxy lineup and being over 3.5 years with me, this baby is still running solid! My phone cannot compete at all with the latest phones, but the sentimental value I have for it is so much, and it gets me through my day!!

[Video] - DIY GoPro Mount Construction, Mounting and Testing

Keeping the promise from the last post, here is a video containing the construction, mounting and a small real world usage sample. Yet to do some high speed testing on a highway.

Enjoy!

Credits:
Videography : Janani Amarasekara (My Wife) with the Nexus 4
Soundtrack : Harmful or Fatal by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a CC Attribution 3.0.
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100210.

DIY GoPro Hero 3 Car Mount

The GoPro camera is one of the most amazing action cameras around, and for the craze of it I got myself a GoPro Hero3 Black Edition. Now, having the camera is just a part of the story. To get the best out of it, a multitude of accessories are needed to attach it to different things.

GoPro and accessory manufacturers know this, and that is exactly why all those accessories go for a relatively steep price. So, in order to save some bucks, and mostly for the fun of it, I thought of creating some useful mounts for this. My good friend Sampath and I had a chat about this and thought of doing a car mount and a steady cam mount. While being a driving fanatic myself, my first goal was to get the car mount done.

So, here goes how I did it – which is definitely not the only way of doing it.

Main design decisions:

• Most practical attachment for the car - The obvious option is to get a suction cup mount, which helps attach it to any relatively flat and smooth surface – which a car has plenty of! This gives me the flexibility to attach to multiple parts of the car with a lot of ease.
• Strong grip to the car - The most important fact is to have a proper grip to the surface to avoid the entire apparatus coming off during a drive and destroying the camera and everything else. Therefore, I picked one of the heavy duty industrial suction cup mounts used in to grab glasses – with a load rating of 200 lbs! (I picked the double suction grip. A double swivel grip would be better to support curved surfaces too, and a high rated single cup mount also would have worked as well)
• Attaching the camera to the mount – While attaching the camera rigidly to the mount, it is also important to get 3-dimentional flexibility. The 3-point mount already available with the GoPro already solves part of this. Additionally, I got the tripod mount for the GoPro, and decided to use an adjustable screw to attach the tripod mount plus 3-point mount. Using a butterfly nut allows me to quickly do any rotational adjustments.

Stuff I used:

• 1 industrial suction cup grip [REF]
• GoPro tripod mount [REF]
• 1 ¼" 20 threads per inch screw of 2.5” length
• 1 matching butterfly nut
• 1 metal washer
• 2 rubber washers

Steps (Piece of cake!):

• Decide on the best place to attach the mount on the suction cup grip and drill a ¼” hole
• Screw in the butterfly nut in the reverse direction (this is to use the nut as an adjuster plus fastner in one go)
• Send in the metal washer and a rubber washer (metal washer allows for the easy tightening of the nut, and the rubber washer grips well to the mount without damaging it)
• Run the screw through the hole in a direction opposite to the faces of the suction cups
• On the opposite end of the screw, send in a rubber washer (This helps good grip between the suction cup grip body and the screw mount)
• Screw in the GoPro tripod mount tightly to the end of the screw.
• Tighten the butterfly nut until it strongly fastens the tripod mount to the suction grip body.
• Now simply attach the 3 point mount and GoPro camera to the GoPro tripod mount.
• Voila! You are ready to roll!

 



Note:

• When you attach the suction cup mount to the car, choose the flattest surface possible to ensure good suction grip
• Make sure the surface is clean and shiny to ensure the suction cups remain airtight
• As a failsafe, always run a cord from the mount to some part of the car to cling on to the camera in case the mount comes off during a fast drive. 
• DISCLAIMER : This approach is to be followed at your own risk, and I am not to be held liable for any damage caused during your DIY project, if you decide to follow this approach.  

Out in the field:

Here are some images of the mount being attached to the car. 

Future improvements possible:

• Using a double swivel cup grip or a single cup optionally
• Modifying the double cup grip I used to give a little bit of play for the suction cups to support slightly curved surfaces.

This was done well under $20.00, and I am sure some folks can do this even cheaper as I had to buy almost everything for this. Even this cost is way under the cost of off the shelf accessories, and works just fine.


I will be uploading a video on the steps of assembling this mount, as well as some footage of practical usage in few days. Looking forward to making the steady cam mount…! Stay tuned!

UPDATE : The video promised above is available in the post at http://aravindad.blogspot.com/2013/09/video-diy-gopro-mount-construction.html

Firing up the Raspberry Pi

It’s been ages since I’ve written anything on my blog, and here I am back on blog mode. Let’s chase away the bats, blow away the dust, crack some knuckles and get started!

So much happened since my last post, but let’s go from this point onwards.

I was fascinated by the Raspberry Pi device which is meant to be a learning device for anyone. However, the intriguing thing is that, this is a little pockets sized computer (if you look past the cables and the I/O of course). The small size itself is fascinating, and also being a computer, this is obviously a multipurpose programmable device, which can be used to do a multitude of things. If someone did not really have time to have a lot of fun with micro-controllers (which is one regret I have as well), this will be a good place to try catching up – at a higher level of course. Combine the processing capabilities and the options available, and projects will be immense from lighting bulbs to creating your own home security system or more!

The Pi comes as model A and B for now, and the model B revision 2.0 has 256MB more RAM, an additional USB port and an ethernet port. So, I picked the Model B Revision 2.0. If you want to try other options, you can also consider other similar products like Arduino, Via APC, Beagleboard etc. I found the Raspberry Pi a better bang for buck and also the community is pretty active.

Info on the Pi are abundant on the web and I do not really need to duplicate info – but rather link. Just for completion, the device I am using has the following specs.

Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU and Videocore 4 GPU, 512MB RAM, 0/100 BaseT Ethernet, HDMI, (2) USB 2.0 Ports, RCA video, SD card socket, Powered from microUSB socket, 3.5 mm audio out jack, GPIO port.

Getting hold of one is very easy with a little bit of Googling. The official providers are Farnell and RS Components.

My accessory set up includes the following:

• GearHead Smart Touch Mini USB TouchPad Keyboard
• SanDisk 8 GB SDHC (I had a class 4, but a class 10 is recommended for faster performance)
• Airlink Wireless N 150 Ultra Mini-USB Adapter (AWLL5099)
• Monster High Speed HDMI cable
• Motorola USB Wall Charger with Micro USB Data Cable
• Blue transparent enclosure

There is a huge base of supported devices at http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals , and you can pick any combination of accessories to your liking.

Once the hardware is with you, getting the Raspbian OS (Debian based) on to the SD card is a breeze once you follow the instructions at http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup. The entire process took just about an hour and a half for me. If you want to be more adventurous there are other OSs you can try, which are outlined in the Raspberry Pi Wikipedia page. Raspbian itself comes with a bunch of lightweight applications to get going, but you can add your touch to it easily. Even without being a too much of a technical guy who like to live on the command prompt, there are plenty of ways to get things done on the linux platform now, with the graphical interface turning very user friendly.

Right now this is hooked up to my TV, and it will reside there for a while. So, I am just getting started here and not able to comment anymore about speicifics. I’m looking forward to try this out and try doing some fun projects among other things. Time to learn some Python as well! Any project ideas are warmly welcome!