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• STEMCA Inventor showcase at Maker Expo

  Marius Slavescu • 09/09/2016 at 13:53 • 0 comments

  Maker Expo is a diverse, family-friendly showcase of makers, artists & organizations who create amazing things in celebration of the do-it-yourself spirit.

  Excited to see lots of cool projects?

  Join GTA Robotics and STEMCA tomorrow at second MakerExpo.ca in Kitchener, Ontario.

  Talk with STEMCA Inventor personal assistant (the source will be released soon) and play with very cool robots!

  Lots of very interesting people and projects, here are a few in robotics area, ours is DIY Robotics Projects: http://www.makerexpo.ca/2016/09/8-days-robots-robots-robots/
  

  More details about our presence at Maker Expo are here on GTA Robotics event page, if you are in GTA you could join our effort to promote robotics education and DIY:
  

  https://www.meetup.com/GTA-Robotics/events/233995378/

• New Applications made with STEMCA App Inventor - by my kids :-)

  Marius Slavescu • 01/17/2016 at 19:49 • 0 comments

  Happy New Year!
  

  I invite you to try some new apps we created, in last few weekends, with STEMCA App Inventor (about 2-3 hours per app) for Learn, Teach, Invent, Make initiative!
  

  All these can be used without STEMCA Brick.
  

  Download and install them on an Android tablet (also works on Android phones or Android media players like MX III):
  

  OpenCV 3.1 - uninstall existing OpenCV first (this is required by all apps bellow, the Google Play version is too old, use this one for now):
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/OpenCV_3.1.0_Manager_3.10_armeabi-v7a.apk
  
  Flappy (works well on 10" tablet and MX III), a Pong game, where you control the paddle with a physical colored ball (or any other colored object), just click on the colored object and then move it close to the camera (to get radius > 80) to start the game (check reflect to revers the direction of the paddle), tracking score and on-line rating site coming soon
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/flappy_copy.apk
  
  Speed chart (works well on 10" tablet and MX III), shows you a chart with the movement of a bouncing colored ball (when finished this should show your running/walking speed by tracking your knees movement)
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/speed_chart_2.apk
  
  Video Drawing (works well on 10" tablet and MX III) - drawing app that you can control with a colored ball (or any colored object), later we will extended this to use both hands directly
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/video_drawing.apk
  

  Some older apps, updated to OpenCV 3.1 and other changes
  

  Driving Assist, monitors your face wile driving and notifies you if you don't pay attention to the road (this is for demo purposes, don't trust it while driving :-)
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/driving_assist_7.apk

  Save all of these in /sdcard/ folder (use Total Commander to copy them there), they are needed for Driving Assist app:
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/lbpcascade_frontalface.xml
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/haarcascade_righteye_2splits.xml
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/haarcascade_lefteye_2splits.xml
  
  Simple Computer Vision Test, you can use sliders to tune the color to be tracked
  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/cv_test1_5.apk
  

  You can also use Android media players to run these apps and see them on TV (big screen), there are plenty of media players (<$100) like MX III (see these http://www.amazon.ca/MXQ-Android-Tv-Box-Preinstalled/dp/B016II7Q0Y or http://www.amazon.ca/GooBang-Doo-Amlogic-loaded-Add-ons/dp/B013NGP51Q) with a USB webcam (Logitec 920 worked fine for me).

  We will post some videos on Youtube, on how these apps works and how they were created, they are still in a rough form, but should show how the new advanced capabilities of the STEMCA App Inventor can be used.
  

  I'll post more updates on twitter.com/stemcaedu, or you can search for "STEMCA Inventor" on Google, for more details.
  

  Let me know how they worked for you, what FPS you get on your device and what other projects would you like to build with computer vision and robots.

• Learn, Teach, Invent, Make! with STEMCA Inventor

  Marius Slavescu • 12/02/2015 at 04:57 • 4 comments

  I'm launching a new initiative and invite everyone to innovate for good, and benefit from their creations:

  Learn, Teach, Invent, Make! with STEMCA Inventor platform
  http://www.stemca.com/home/learn-teach-invent-make-with-stemcainventor/

  At the same time, although still a bit rough around the edges, but pretty functional, I'm announcing the first STEMCA App Inventor beta, with lots of interesting features.

  To try it out please go and subscribe to our news letter on www.stemca.com then head out to invent.stemca.com and login using your e-mail.

  I'll publish soon the companion app in Google Play, for now you can use the APK direct link http://invent.stemca.com/sai.apk
  

  I'll publish a few sample apps with the new Computer Vision component in the next posts.

  All MIT App Inventor 2 tutorials should work in STEMCA App Inventor.

  You can find a very good introductory course for both learners and teachers here:

  Educational App Development Toolkit for Teachers and Learners

  STEMCA Robotics components learning material will come soon, through videos and sample apps.
  

  On the hardware side, soon we will take pre-orders for STEMCA Arduino brick (that I showcased in previous posts), this is the easiest way to get started with STEMCA Inventor for robotics, automation or any other STEM related projects, very easy to quickly prototype, very affordable to expand.

  SPARK (STEMCA Personal Assistant Robot Kit), RC Coller hack and RC Car hack are all using STEMCA Arduino brick to control the motors and read the sensors.
  

  Lego Mindstorm EV3 and NXT can also be used with STEMCA App Inventor.

  I wish you Happy Inventing!
  Marius
  

• MakerExpo and new #STEMCAInventor project

  Marius Slavescu • 09/18/2015 at 12:41 • 0 comments

  Join us for lots of making and fun @MakerExpo tomorrow in Kitchener, read more here http://www.makerexpo.ca/.

  You'll be able to see #STEMCAInventor in action for #wearable #IoT #robots #STEM #education #homeautomation.
  

  Bellow is another project build with #STEMCAInventor, I'll post more details and videos soon.

  STEMCA Inc. ‏@stemcaedu

  • @hackaday #STEMCAInventor "Beaver Tails" robot + turret controlled by 2nd #STEMCABrick + live video streaming from K8 watch.
  • @hackaday @WeAreWearables we will demo this tomorrow at @MakerExpo, YouTube video soon. Remote control and live stream video at the show

  Thanks to Romulus Gheorge for the very cool new chassis design (no screws required to assemble).

  We will sell them soon on our upcoming #STEMCAInventor online store, together with #STEMCABrick and other #STEMCAInventor components, so anyone can enjoy these very fun and educational robots.

• A voice controlled Youtube search and play app

  Marius Slavescu • 09/16/2015 at 04:44 • 0 comments

  Here I used #STEMAInventor, actually only STEMCA App Inventor, to build an app that should simplify the search and play of Youtube videos (music videos specifically).

  The app is running very well on my watch:

  https://twitter.com/stemcaedu/status/644005828836597760
  

  Voice controlled YouTube search and play on XBMC/Kodi, the APK and details on @hackadayio #STEMCAInventor project log

  
  

  Install the app on your Android device, and as it will work best with an XBMC/Kodi player connected to your TV (an Android based player works best, like MX III), you need to install also Yatse app from Google play, then when asked for the app to share with just select Always and then Play on Media Center. Then it will always play on the current XBMC/Kodi player configured in Yatse.

  To search just shake the phone/watch and then say "search cheerleader" (change "cheerleader" with other songs or artists names), then after the search is done it will ask you to select the entry number from the search result list, just say "play one" to play the first entry in the list (in the image above you can see the 4th entry of the search result).
  

  This can be improved a lot, but it is still pretty functional as is, and it shows the power of STEMCA App Inventor.

  I tried to keep the development under 2-3 hours, my target for most STEMCA Inventor platform demo projects.

  You can download the app here:

  http://www.stemca.com/hackaday_stemca_inventor_apps/youtube_search_play_5.apk
  

  I'll make the source available to those that will join the STEMCA Inventor beta program, coming soon.
  

• STEMCA Inventor demo project RC cooler

  Marius Slavescu • 09/16/2015 at 03:38 • 2 comments

  The smaller brother of previous RC cooler, partying at @HackerNest event :-)

  It would respond to voice commands through the Android phone that controls it, next would be mind control, once I add Muse (the brain sensing headband) support to STEMCA App Inventor.

  @HackerNest Amazing event! If you missed my #STEMCAInventor RC Cooler demo, here it is :-) Built it in less then 1h

  https://twitter.com/stemcaedu/status/626002531794198528
  

  For Muse, the idea is to also use the embedded accelerometer to detect if you had enough beers (based on your head movements), and make the RC cooler run away from you :-)
  

• STEMCA Inventor in action

  Marius Slavescu • 09/16/2015 at 03:21 • 1 comment

  2 kids from a FLL team that participated at @GetYourBotOn hackathon took my challenge to smartify an RC Coller in 15min using STEMCA Inventor platform:

  From cutting wires to connecting motor driver, #STEMCAInventor Brick and battery pack to building the control Android app in STEMCA App Inventor

  https://twitter.com/stemcaedu/status/643251037772619777
  

  Then play time :-) Today's kids love tablets! #STEMCAInventor best for learning #STEM while having fun.

  https://twitter.com/stemcaedu/status/643254574120308740
  

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