I have been on the hunt for the easiest way to host a personal site and blog for a long time. Over the years, I: developed several versions of my own CMS used various static hosting solutions like Jekyll built a simple static templating solution with Flask used Medium used a headless setup with AWS and Zappa tried Micro Blog even gave WordPress a try. There were pros and cons with each solution, but nothing really felt easy to setup and update....
My name is Taylan Pince, and Kaizen Musings is my little corner of the internet. I tend to use this patch as a way to self-document my various interests, both personal and professional. It’s also a good excuse to write more, which I enjoy as a strategy for thought exploration and personal growth. Who Am I? I am a software engineer turned product manager and entrepreneur. I spent the last 20-odd years launching startups from the idea stage and getting them to market....
As I was putting together the Rover v2, there were quite a few lessons along the way, mostly about hardware. I’ll capture them here for posterity. Handling Power Since I have two motors for driving and another for the LIDAR, I had to use two L298N modules, with different input voltages. I already had a voltage booster for the drive motors, getting 7.4v from the LiPo and boosting it to 14v (12v for motors + 2v for the module)....
Now that the Rover v2 base is working and driving well, I am turning my attention to the new LIDAR module. After reconsidering the previous GT2 pulley based design, I decided to redesign it completely on the new Rover base, using a gear based approach. Reasoning behind using a geared drive is fairly simple: Pulley and timing belt approach didn’t necessarily create a smooth drive mechanism like I had imagined. It also takes up a lot of space and it’s a nightmare to calculate for....
Before jumping to the PID implementation and eventually autonomous driving, I wanted to make sure that the Rover v2 could drive and turn with stability. I could have done a simple keyboard implementation but I really wanted to integrate an old Xbox controller I had lying around. What I have seems to be an Xbox One controller and it connected to my Mac over Bluetooth with no issues. After some research, I found out that pygame is actually the best way to work with these game pads....