Future Projects

This page includes some projects I would like to do in the future, but can not be done now because of money (perhaps a reason to sponsor/donate? ;) or time restrictions.

3D Virtual Reality Manipulation As I am now busy with a project involving tracking the hands and gesture recognition, I would like to drive this even further. The goal of this project is to create a 3D world where you can manipulate the objects using your hands (dragging, rotating, pushing, ...). This will be achieved by tracking the hands based on colored dots, and accelerometer data. To enhance the "VR" experience, I would like to buy a pair of video goggles to view this 3D world up close.

Cost: ~600 EUR

Rabbit IRC Node I have always needed to be online on IRC 24/7 for some channels, so that I would not miss important messages (from my student club administration channel as an example). So far I solved this by running irssi in a screen on a linux server. Lately I have become annoyed with the fact that it went down sometimes, it requires you to login over ssh every time, it's ugly, takes time to configure and has abosolutely no advantage over a nice graphical GUI. That is why I decided to do something about it, and create something that is always connected, accessible from any pc, and has a nice graphical GUI. This is the plan: As the server I will use a tiny embedded linux system called the Fox Board. I plan to build it into an empty Nabaztag case (about the only usefull thing to do with a Nabaztag ;). Hence the Rabbit reference. I will then build an IRC client that runs on the Fox Board, that always remains connected, maintains my channels, ... The special thing about it is, that this client parses the incomming data, and can forward them to other programs connected to the Rabbit IRC Node. Then I will build a graphical GUI that runs on OSX, Windows, Linux, ... (ruby or java) connects to the Rabbit Server and retrieves the backlog, messages, ... for as long as it is connected. Basicly the Rabbit acts a forwarding pre-parser that keeps a backlog. Other than that, it will be easy to configure (graphical smileys, autorespond, auto-reconnect, ...) via het graphical GUI, that will set these settings on the server app. Basicly a screen+irssi replacement, but graphical and running in a tiny toy rabbit :)

Cost: ~200 EUR

Autonomous Rover Robot I have always wanted to build a simple robot. The plans for this project involve a small autonomous rover (30cm large, 4-wheel vehicle). I would like the rover to be equiped with multiple sonars, IR proximity sensors and a webcam. The goal would be that the rover would be free to explore the area, and try to create a map of it's (indoor) surroundings based on the sonar/ir data. After letting the rover roam/explore the area for a certain time (hours, days, ...) the rover should have an internal map of the places it visited. It would be nice if the robot was able to find it's own charging dock when the battery is low. As robot hardware can be very expensive, money is the major drawback here.

Cost: ~1000 EUR