Light sensitive tracking device.  This was a really fun college project.
Here is a video clip that clearly demostrates the functionality of the device.

This is an excerpt from my project log book.  

Download pdf of project log book.

I put the circuitry on 2 seperate boards with a connecting data ribbon.  1 board was the computer processor and the other was the I/O board.  That way, I could re-use the processor board for future projects.

The potentiometer adjusts the photosensor sensitivity.

The project was based on the 8085 microprocessor.

I used a stepper motor to control rotation of the parabolic reflector.  The reflector was actually a solar cigarette lighter from radio shack.  I attached 2 photosensors side by side on the reflector focal point.

More wire-wrapping technique, same as the digital oscilloscope project.

The electric motor is a 1.8 degree/step 12v stepper motor.

I entered this project into the 1987 DeVry Career Expo (Irving, TX) and won second place.  I didn’t sleep the last 48 hours before the competition and finally got it working just 10 minutes before the expo opened.

On september 16 of 2007, I took a ride on my 1982 yamaha seca 400 … I had just synced the carbs and the bike was runnin good… so good.. it caught me by surprise.  As I went through an s turn, the bike accelerated better than expected.  It was dark and my headlight was angled too low, which gave me little time to see the back side of the s-curve.  I hit the brakes and skidded into the curb which dumped me into the grassy median.  I would guess I was going 35 mph when I hit.  As I fell, my left hand instinctively tried to catch my fall.  Bad idea, because I heard my forearm shatter like a tree branch snapping, then I rolled 1 time onto my right shoulder (fracturing it).  I’ve been riding since 82 and this is my first accident.

This is the result of a CT Scan done on my arm in preparation for surgery to improve movement of my tendons that are being held by excess scar tissue.

The CT Scan video didn’t visualize the data very well, so I vectorized each image and extrapolated a 3d model of my bones.  Now I can see exactly how my break is healing.

This timelapse video took some effort to create.  I visited my home 27 times while it was being built.  Each teim, I snapped 12 photos with my nikon coolpix digital camera.  The 12 photos were taken from the same position in the street and in a radial 360 degree pivot.  Then I “stitched” the 12 images to make a full 360 panoramic image.  Finally, I cropped and aligned the 27 panoramic images and blended them into a video.

This is my home being built in late 2000.
It’s an 1800 sq. ft. ranch home, built by Pulte in Michigan.

This is the #1 reason I bought this home.
The 1800 sq. ft. basement.  Eventually, I would build my woodshop here.

Here’s a shot of the typical stick construction.

Here is a 360 degree panoramic image of the interior.
Another example of 12 photos stitched into a single image.

My IR Remote Extender in action.

This circuit can be used to operate a DVR cable box from another room. It’s really an infrared signal repeater. The signal from the remote is received and then retransmitted over wires to an infrared LED. The beam from the LED is then picked up by the receiving window of the cable box.

The visible light LED in series with the IR transmitter is used to indicate that an IR signal has been detected. The 100k potentiometer adjusts the repeater’s sensitivity.

I bread boarded the circuit first to make sure it would work.
I learned that the remote needed to be withing 1 foot of the IR reciever to work.  This was sufficient for my purpose.  If you need greater range, then you’ll need a more complex circuit (see google).

I put the circuit into a case and solder the components onto a small circuit board.
I added a switch and a 9 volt battery.

Here is the completed case.  You can see the hole for the IR receiver on the end of the box.  If you will be using this device in a room with many sources of light, you should put an IR filter in front of your IR receiver.

I concocted this wooden arm to hold the IR transmitter in front of my cable box.