Dǝve Derıso

I love the laser cutter!

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:24:04 -0800

I love the laser cutter!

evosyn: (via rosarioflorio)

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:20:31 -0800

evosyn: (via rosarioflorio)

R is the cats pajamas..

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:54:08 -0700

R is the cats pajamas..

Visual Programming We wanted to give a group of visiting high...

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:14:00 -0700

Visual Programming

We wanted to give a group of visiting high school students a feel for problem solving using robotics and programming -without having enough time to teach them either. Everyone in the lab was instructed to come up with a few ideas.

I had an idea to replace programming with tangible objects that represented code for controlling the robot, a sort of “visual programming” language where code is replaced by color. For example, if the robot ran over a red piece of paper it would turn right, blue would turn left, green would speed up, yellow would slow down, etc. This was difficult to develop and TinFan Wu, a PhD student in the lab, was instrumental in getting the robots and the color sensors to work together.

The visual programming system encompassed the basic concept of representing physical changes as discrete commands that could be arranged to solve problems. We then introduced obstacles that they were asked to navigate around, which introduced the notion of using programming to overcome environmental constraints. The other lab members had the idea to use line avoidance, where the robot could not cross lines and therefore would have to stay within the bounds of the track. This led to the development of a large poster-board race track that had several difficult areas to navigate through.

The teams were given these tracks and instructed to use the colored squares to “program” the robot to navigate the maze. There were a few races where all teams competed over who could navigate the entire maze 3 time. The fastest teams got ribbons. A good amount of the students expressed interest in the robots and there was some bonding between the students and their team mentors, which is great for encouraging them to pursue science.

The event was written up by CalIt2: http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/article.php?id=1879

The lab bought some robots to teach junior-high students how to...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:00:00 -0700

The lab bought some robots to teach junior-high students how to think about programming. It basically runs on an ATMega328 with an Arduino bootloader, 2 motors, and 5 line sensors. It has a buzzer that plays classical music too. If you want to get the included AVR programmer to work with OSX, prepare for some gnarly firmware updates. This is my first test run after uploading the included line-following example code.

Next step, integrate color sensors!

Pololu 3Pi Robot + AVR Programmer
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1306

Hi Dave: Perfect template for our start up project. I understand this uses the wiki format. How do I delete your entries in the calendar so I can replace with ours? I also noted when it syncs with my Gmail calendar; I don't want group participants to view that information. Any thoughts? Thanks again for designing such a great workspace! Best to you in your research, and future work endeavors. Terri Hansen

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:48:00 -0700

Hi Terri,

Thanks for the kind words! The calendar on the template is just an example. To put your own events in, you need to completely replace the calendar with your own. To keep others from seeing your personal calendar, make a new calendar just for the site at the Google calendar page. When you do, follow this tutorial to getting the calendar into the google site.

Google Sites Calendar Tutorial

Best of luck with your project!

Cheers,
Dave

Putting Your Own Calendar In Google Sites

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:36:00 -0700

Google sites is intended to simplify the process of making a web site. However, the documentation can actually make the process harder than it needs to be. For example, changing the calendar on a pre-made template can drive people crazy. This example will hopefully make the process of changing site features easier.

A while back, I shared a Google site template that allows people to organize group projects.

This example will involve changing the calendar page on this site.

Step 1

Go to the site and click on the calendar page.

Step 2

Look for the “Edit Page” Button at the top right-hand corner.

Step 3

Notice that the calendar turns into a ‘placeholder’ and that a save button appears in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Step 4

Whenever a widget (like a calendar or checklist) turns into a placeholder (ie light brown box), you can click on it. When you click on it, a little bar menu pops up on the top or bottom of the calendar. Look for the icon that has a gear or sprocket or whatever (it means ‘settings’). Click this.

Step 5

In the properties menu, a variety of options are available. At the top, you should see “Display another Calendar.” Click this.

Step 6

If your calendar doesn’t show automatically, paste a link to your calendar here. (For instructions on getting a link to put here, see the Google Calendar Documentation)

letterheady: Frank Lloyd Wright, 1946 | Source A sheet of...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 23:25:54 -0700

letterheady:

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1946 | Source

A sheet of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s personal stationery; a much larger version of which is here. His studio letterhead has been featured on Letterheady previously.

Great, so this is the GDP of freedom? takeactionunite: The tear...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:48:58 -0700

Great, so this is the GDP of freedom?

takeactionunite: The tear gas used against demonstrators in Tahrir was made in the USA. This makes me feel really ashamed… :’(
Photo by: @TravellerW

Two awesome mentors!

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:23:21 -0700

Two awesome mentors!

Hi!
I find your idea about Open Sensors very nice and hope you (and other) will contribute meterial very soon. I had a similar idea, to make a blog for collecting all medical and health related projects that are based on open hardware and specifically Arduino. My question is if you would like to share some of the material you got and your own creations (e.g., the EEG electrode). The blog is at medicarduino(dot)wordpress(dot)com Thanks!

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:45:00 -0700

Hi Charalampos,

Thanks for reaching out! The OpenSensors Project is growing behind the scenes. The goals of the project are to develop biomedical sensors using open source tools and to make them available for third world countries and the open source community. To implement devices at the clinical level requires a very high set of standards for validation and peer-review. Though this process is much slower, the integrity and impact of each sensor is much higher. Consequently, I cannot release any sensor schematic or code until it has passed at least one round of review and validation. However, I imagine that some material will have met this criteria and be made available, along with the raw validation data, near the fall of 2011.

As the project grows, I encourage you and your colleagues to take part in the design and validation process.

Cheers,

Dave Deriso

PS. I have to say, I loved your article on Open PCR. Keep up the great work!

Photo

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:38:23 -0700

Hi Dave,

I'll be graduating with my bachelors in electrical engineering next spring, and wish to pursue a future in Neuroprostheses and BCI's. I'm new to your blog and am not sure how much of your experience overlaps into this domain, but I was wondering if you are familiar with any good internships and masters programs I can try looking into.

I've made some good progress on the masters front, but wish to do an internship first and am not as far along. Are most of the internships that I'd find connected to academic labs, or are there many industry internships I could look into as well? I'm still learning how far along this research area is, and how far its made its way into industry.

Thanks, and hope you can help!

Tyler

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:28:00 -0700

Hi Tyler,

Sure, I had a similar question here about graduate programs (link here) but that was about academia.

Internships fall under the domain of industry, and therefore require careful market analysis. A recent report by the Neurotechnology Industry Organization outlines the different sectors of the neurodevice industry (link here). Choosing the best internship depends on what specific sector you want to join, and how far you want to travel to find the ideal fit. You may have to narrow your search down to neurostimulators, drug delivery, or neuromodulating devices, to name a few. Even within these domains, different parts of the brain may have radically different mechanical and computational requirements. A cochlear implant is very different from the new hippocampal device research that is sweeping the news. I recommend a few courses in neuroscience to learn more about these differences.

Without knowing exactly what sector you are interested in, I can only offer a by-no-means complete list of companies that may offer internships across a broad spectrum of sectors within the neurodevice industry:

Medtronic, Inc.
Boston Scientific Corporation
St. Jude Medical, Inc.
Cyberonics, Inc.
Cordis Corporation
Accuray Incorporated
Elekta AB
ev3 Inc.
Micrus Endovascular Corporation
Codman & Shurtleff, Inc.
Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation
B. Braun Melsungen AG
Terumo Corporation
Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG

Good luck with whatever you choose, and please drop me a line when you start working at one of them!

Cheers,
Dave

Managing a Research Project

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:01:00 -0700

When collaborating on a scientific project, it is important to keep the momentum going with each successive meeting. Meetings that lack structure often take up energy of the group and the project starts to wither. To develop a quasi-universal framework for meeting structure, I scoured the internet for “Steps to Doing Research” and have compiled a list that should hopefully focus group efforts to keeping the project moving:

Identify an area of interest
Assess ongoing reserach and identify trends in current literature
Clearly define terms and concepts
Find a unique problem or question
Review the literature in that specific area
Clarify the problem and identify the purpose of the study, define objectives, and hypothesis
Get Feedback from Trusted Colleagues
Identify:
-Experimental Design (randomization, etc)
-Population
-Types of Measurements and Units
-Number of Subjects and Measurement Precision (Power Analysis)
-Outline Statistical Analysis
-Develop Standard Protocol
Secure funding for the study
Prepare a protocol for the study
Get IRB approval
Recruit Assistants
Recruit Subject
Conduct and Monitor the study
Close the study
Analyze study data and interpret the results
Communicate the results

Sources:

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~halina/ExpDesWk/ResSteps.pdf

http://psychology.about.com/od/researchmethods/a/steps-of-scientific-method.htm

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/clinicalresearch/steps/developconcept.cfm

http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/steps-of-the-research-process

This is how a democracy begins. When the government does not...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:28:00 -0700

This is how a democracy begins. When the government does not serve the interests of the people, the people have the right —and duty— to overthrow the faulty state.

Though the “right of revolution” is as old as the Zhou Dynasty (1122-256 BC), the process of revolution has radically evolved with modern warfare and technology. Accordingly, the strategies of both parties, the people and the state, have adapted to the threat and potency of a digitally enhanced revolution.

Most states have prevented their coup d’état by successfully hindering the ability to assemble and communicate. However, as new digital communication tools, such as Twitter and SMS, have become more available to people in less advanced countries, the ability to assemble has been restored. In correlation with the availability of such technology, there have been several newly sprouted revolutions occurring throughout the world in the last few months alone.

Syria, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia have all seen the same strategy of governmental response: block websites, if not shutting down the internet outright, and blocking cell phones. Thought this strategy may have been effective, the digital community is fighting back in its own way. The tools developed by this technology-based liberation front provide ways to communicate through narrow and censored pipes.

One such tool is Tor, a tool that “bounc[es] your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.” Tor has allowed users in heavily-censored areas to effectively hide their location by using a remote computer as a proxy. Other tools, such as Google’s SpeakToTweet, allow users to call a number and leave a voice message that will be tweeted when access to Twitter is shut down.

But where do these people turn when the government shuts down internet or cell phone service entirely? Enter Open Mesh. Open Mesh is a project that allows “citizens of the world to commonly communicate without telephone or cable companies” through a system of interconnected computers, called “nodes,” that both capture data and send data to other nodes on the network. These “mesh networks” allow information to propagate from peer-to-peer while providing access to many other peers. Furthermore, the system is self-healing such that when one node goes down (ie. is captured), other nodes can assume the workload provided they are within range of the users. This system allows the people to take control of their own communication in spite of the government, restoring their ability to organize and revolt.

As panicking states struggle to maintain control, they flail at every option they have left to prevent the public from unifying. But what happens when their tactics lose effect? What sort of control can a corrupt state exert over the people’s ability to assemble when they can’t control communication? In the next few years, it will be less and less likely that they can do anything at all.

The digital community has made their stances and support for an open internet that promotes human rights and will aid the people in fighting pro-censorship governments. In the age of communication, authoritarian governments may find that they cannot supress an informed and equipped public.

http://www.openmeshproject.org/blog/item/1-egypt-situation-gets-worse.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution

https://www.torproject.org/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-weekend-work-that-will-hopefully.html

http://www.openmeshproject.org/about-us.html

Using Python and jQuery

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:09:00 -0700

Python has a solid set tools to power web applications. The necessary knowledge lies in passing variables between python and jquery, however this can be hard to figure out. Here is a simple tutorial on how to send information between python and jquery to make python-powered web applications.

1. Write the HTML




Python-jQuery Example





Python-jQuery Example

2. Write the jQuery Script

Note: If you are testing this on an OSX, place the html file in /Library/Webserver/Documents/.

3. Write the python script
#!/usr/bin/python

import cgi, cgitb 
cgitb.enable()  # for troubleshooting

#the cgi library gets vars from html
form = cgi.FieldStorage()
jquery_input = form.getvalue("stuff_for_python", "nothing sent")

#the next 2 'print' statements are important for web
print "Content-type: text/html"
print

#this is the actual output
print jquery_input
Note: Name the python script test.py. If you are testing this on an OSX, place the python script in /Library/Webserver/CGI-Executables/ (this is the cgi-bin).

References:

http://api.jquery.com/submit/

http://docs.python.org/library/cgi.html

The Active Desk

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:15:37 -0700

Ernest Ramirez is a PhD student at the UCSD Center for Wireless Health Systems. Apart from designing new ways to keep people healthy, he has redesigned his own office into a body and mind workout station. Literally 6 feet away from my desk, he has set up a treadmill so that he says fit while doing his research. There are some cool things going on at UCSD’s CalIt2, but Ernesto and his active desk really stand out. He’s new to Tumblr, so if you are interested in the latest intersections between health and technology, I strongly recommend following him!

wellovations: Two and half years ago I took the plunge and went out an bought a treadmill. Not for exercise, not to run indoors. No, I bought a treadmill to work. Yes, that’s right. I bought a treadmill for work. I have done a lot of research and long ago decided that this was not just a good idea, it was a must-do idea. So after trading one crisp clean Benjamin for a older model treadmill, convincing my parents that I needed their extra desk, and whipping out the few tools I have I was able to build my treadmill desk. What is a treadmill desk? Well…

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"The addition of the proposed modifications to the Research Plan has been done in such a way as to be..."

Fri, 27 May 2011 14:49:26 -0700

“The addition of the proposed modifications to the Research Plan has been done in such a way as to be very confusing.”

- UCSD IRB

New prototype for a stimulus trigger board with fiber optic...

Wed, 25 May 2011 21:21:00 -0700

New prototype for a stimulus trigger board with fiber optic delivery triggers to check the monitor for the exact time the stimulus was displayed. I love my job.

Although our visual system can paint a vibrant portrait of the world, its palette of colors is actually quite limited, as we only see between 390 to 750 nm of the full electromagnetic spectrum while the remaining trillion wavelengths escape our view. But what would the world look like if we could see more of it?

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:24:00 -0700

Although our visual system can paint a vibrant portrait of the world, its palette of colors is actually quite limited, as we only see between 390 to 750 nm of the full electromagnetic spectrum while the remaining trillion wavelengths escape our view. But what would the world look like if we could see more of it?