Cybercrime and Cyberlaw

A few weeks back I got an opportunity to discuss "Cybercrime and Cyberlaw" to a group of lawyers and their MIS staff at the Sapalo Velez Bundang&Bulilan (SVBB) in Makati.
Although I've given varied seminars before, this is the first time for me to do one professionally related to my teaching of "Computer Ethics" at UPOU's graduate school. It was interesting to meet a group of lawyers whose expertise is on Intellectual Property Rights (the topic I actually treat in my class) and a group of information systems experts handling their databases and digitizing their records (the same type of database project I did for Don Bosco's thesis repository). In short, since I spoke both group's language, I felt at home talking as we started the presentation at 2pm and ended our discussions at 5pm. I gave them a detailed article comparison of the Budapest Convention of 2001 and RA-1017 after reviewing with them computer crimes.

Upon leaving the building, the lady security guard at the lobby read my ID as she gave it back to me and upon finding out my real profession asked whether I said Mass. I said "No, I gave a lecture to the lawyers on Cybercrime" and she scratched her head confused. Well I wasn't.

Robotic Arm (gizduino)

Here's a sample of a robotic arm I assembled from parts provided by E-Gizmo.

For the microcontroller I used either the gizduino or aceduino boards that I had. And oh yes, you're going to need a servo controller too. So programming will have to be in serial.

For the arduino program code, e-Gizmo provided a sample code for the arm to pick and place an object, then an exhibition code. I merely tweaked a few lines of code to make the pick and place action fit my stand, and added subroutines to make the exhibition part look like a dance and wave act for the arm.

Of course, afterwards I sell the whole piece to the Robotics department of Fr Demet with no profit but just to get back my petty cash so I could venture to buy new parts for a new concept... well that's religious life. A pity R&D is not that supported in schools here. Can't complain... Non dum matura est...  no worry, that time will come. Just need some of us to do some prophetic roles in indirect evangelization.

My first ground up Rover Robot

I've assembled other robots before but normally it would be either with a kit to be assembled and I would just have to program the arduino sketch.  This one here is what they call for us: My First! This means you build it ground up. Cut/machine the parts, drill the holes, choose your screws, bolts, and nuts. 

 

 This rover is made with an  Aceduino board(Arduino clone) as brains, an SRF05 sonar sensor as eyes, a TowerPro SG-5010 as neck (for panning), and 2 autonomous rotation servos for locomotion.

Since autonomous robots are hard to find, get the normal servo (SG-5010) which turns 180 degrees, cut off the tab to allow 360 degrees of rotation, change the potentiometer with two equal valued resistors and there you have your wheels.

Asian Journal of Distance Education

After five long years of "an allergy to writing," my solitude in Guam last December finally paid off with a technical article I presented earlier this year (February) at the 1st International Conference on Open and Distance e-Learning.  And now what great joy to see it published in a refereed journal such as the Asian Journal of Distance Education (2012, Vol. 10, no. 2).
It's entitled: "Technology-Aided Cheating in Open and Distance e-Learning." I was lucky to have a good group of graduate students who fed me with ideas and opinions on (lol) "how to cheat online."

Click on the picture to read the article.

Pinoy Bot (P-Bot)

I assembled and uploaded the sketch for this P-bot which Fr Demet and I bought from E-Gizmo (near DLSU). It took me a day to do this since all the parts are present... just a few soldering and a lot of uploading programs. 

 You see, this little thing is a 3-in-1 Robot. It can work as a Line tracer, a Sumo, and an Obstacle Avoidance just using the basic sketches. Heck if you go advanced programming you can even join it in the micromouse race since you could program it to solve mazes. I haven't got that last one right yet.

My baby: the Quadped or the Quadbot

The reason I call this my baby is that I built this from ground up. Experimented with various Arduino boards. Dabbled with so many sketches (programs) to fine tune and make it really work. And the hardest is to find the right power source for this baby.

It looks so simple yet so difficult. With eight servo motors to manipulate, I could not use any of my Arduino uno, mini, and duemillanove boards. I had to go for big time - the Arduino Mega 2560 (I got one at Alexan, but used the one from E-Gizmo because it was smaller). Then the programming part was very tricky and hard to find models. But that's not all. The servos are not automatic, you have to adjust them (screw and unscrew) to make them walk right.  Since I did not have an Arduino shield, I had to improvise the connections of all those servos to the board. 

Mr Oddbot (Russel) at Let's Make Robots can give you more information including videos.
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/25759

Relay Rover from INEX

Also in Bangkok, I managed to find the INEX office in Bangkapee with excruciating difficulty though it was kind of near the Salesian Provincial House. INEX is a Singaporean company with distributors in various countries.  When I asked INEX Bangkok if I could buy a robot from them, they showed me all they had. But when I asked if I could order from the Philippines, they informed me that Genetics Computer Institute distributes INEX from there.

Being quite expensive but well built and quality focused, I chose the least expensive one. It's a relay rover. This one is not autonomous as you can see from the wire in the picture. However this is a good exercise robot for Elementary kids to practice and hone their skills. They can even build it themselves. It also comes with a gripper. This makes it function in a way all those other autonomous ones could but with no freedom from its master (the one who controls the switch).

Future Kit Trio Robots

Last month I got the chance to go to Bangkok to attend a salesianity seminar. Having one day before my flight, I decided to look for this company where they sell inexpensive simple programmable robots.

So there's this trio for like $25-$35 each (more expensive at e-bay). The blue one with two sensors is a line tracer, you have to bend the sensors downwards towards the floor for it to detect your black line and follow it. The middle one is a sumo robot and will stay in a circle of black and try to push away all its foes unless it gets pushed out first.  And the red one is an obstacle avoidance robot which goes around and will try not to hit anything or anyone in its way. I forgot to include in the picture the light follower.
They have the six pin ISP socket for advanced programming of their Atmel ATmega168.

They can be found in the Future Kit website.
 http://www.futurekit.com/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1263&Itemid=350

Adventure Bot and the I-Racer (blue-tooth controlled)

Since they needed samples for autonomous robots here at Don Bosco Mandaluyong robotics lab, I got for them two from Dagurobots.com

This first one is called an Adventure Bot. Well it's like a puppy on wheels. If you place your hand near its head, it follows the hand. If your hand is too near its head, it goes backwards so as not to hit it. And this comes with background sounds too. The four sets of sensors below (around its mainboard) could be programmed either for obstacle avoidance or for edge detection. Yup the latter programming makes this baby detects the edges of the table so she doesn't fall off.

This other one is the i-Racer. It's basically a toy car like those RC ones. But instead of a Remote Controller, you use an Android apps from your smartphone to play around with it.

Football with a Mini BiPed robot

This one is called an autonomous mini biped and it senses when an object comes nears it and kicks.

Assembled this one last year and got the parts from dagurobots.com
You can get more information from Let's Make Robots
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/22588
 If you remove its face plate, you can find the Atmega328 processor which can be reprogrammed using an ISP programmer (notice the six pins on the upper left corner of its head).