Display your Lync status on this new add-on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my latest fun project which I worked on in collaboration with Rolly Seth.

The device reflects the status of Lync (which is an enterprise equivalent of Skype and comes with the office suit of Microsoft). The main goal behind desiging this device is to use this agent to increase the productivity of the employees in the organization. Having these device on the top of the cubicles displaying their status which can be easily interpreted by others, can help the employees to have control over their time by reducing interruptions from others . So, now employees can work in an open and collaborative environment and can have a control over their time (by choosing do not disturb/budy status) on the Lync application.

Technical details:

It has a microcontroller inside the devices which takes data serially from the laptop and then actuates the RGB LED on board. FTDI chip is used between laptop and the microcontroller (USB-serial).

On the laptop, a Windows background service runs in the background and contantly pulls that staus of the user using Lync API’s.

The outercasing has been designed and 3D printed in view that it will give the device a cool form factor for them to use.

Useless Machine

On my last night at Cambridge, I wanted to design something using the laser cutters in the lab and useless machine was the first  that popped-up in my mind. I stayed overnight in the lab to create this epic shit.

Wizitank: An autonomous ground vehicle

 

Our team ‘Wizminds’ presented ‘Wizitank’ at Microsoft Imagine Cup Poland. The vehicle is designed to handle low intensity conflicts and to to navigate through rugged terrains. It operated in two modes, autonomous and manual.

8051 Development Board

This development board developed by our team ‘Wizminds Tech’ to conduct workshops for students of our college who were eager to learn basic robotics skills (but later we took it to teach other college students as well). Various sensors can be connected to the microcontroller directly or to the op-amp on board. Here are the features of the board:

1. Microcontroller: AT89s52

2. OpAmp: Volatage comparator (LM324)

3. Current Driver: L293D (Max. driving current 1 amp)

4. Bridge Rectifier and volatage regulator

5. In-circuit programming

 

(Note: IC have been removed in the photograph)

PIC Development Board

 

To teach and to get students up to the speed of learning microcontroller based circuits, at TechnoPlanet some development boards.The above one is based on PIC microcontroller. The project name was seismozone. Here are the specs of the board:

 

1. PIC16F844A Microcontroller

2. In circuit programming

3. On board DB9 Female connector (with MAX232 to convert RS232 logic to TTL)

4. Real Time Clock (DS1307)

5. All IO pins available to use

6. 16×2 LCD

7. Input Power: 8-12V

8. 4 way dip switch connected to the microcontroller

9. On board 10k pullup for PORT A

The clash between metals

 

Developed in 2009

Here are the two of initial robots that we developed for participating in the Robowars competitions nation wide.

First one is for under 20 kg category. Having weight 19.8 kg and fitted with very high torque DC motors, the small beast is capable of quite easily dragging other robots out of the ring. This simple looking structure has won several titles at various National College technical festivals.

Second one, participated in the under 40 kg category at Techfest, IIT Bombay (2009). The robot can lift up upto 40 kg of weight and can dent & cut opponents with the tool attached. The picture above shows the robot which was damaged after fighting several round in the competitions. We are amongst the top 16 teams out of around 300 participating teams .

 

Let’s go wireless

While participating in the national level Robotics competition in various categories like Robowars, underwater, on the surface of water, pic n drop object; the main hassle our team used to face was of wires. So, I decided that we will go wireless. Hence, after a bit of research, I developed the transmitter receiver pair using HT12E as an encoder and HT12 D as the decoder IC. Here is a brief of specs:

 

1. 256 channels using DIP switch: Tx and Rx module should have the same configuration of of the DIP switch inorder to communicate with each other. 8 Switches in a DIP prive 256 (2^8) configurations. Hence, a total of 256 pairs can work simultaneously without interference.

2. 4 ON/OFF switch: The module can be used as a remote control with the 4 swtiches provided on transmitter.

3. Current Driver: Received has L293D onboard which can drive a maximum of 1A to drive motor for small robots or any other output device in the given range.

4. External Antennas: Both the module have external antennas and RF circuit.

5. Input Power: 8-12V

6. Frequency: 433 MHz