Servomotors

Hello in this third term. I have to write something about servomotors.

A servomotor is a rotary actuator which receives electric signals or orders and rotates with precise control of angular position, velocity and acceleration. It consists of a motor joined to a sensor for position feedback. It also requires a sophisticated controller.

In our case we controlled it through the Arduino software, and connected the servomotor to the Arduino board to make it recieve the orders. Once it has recieved the data from the computer, the board stores the information and makes it work when it receives an specific signal from the sensors. Then it turns the determined number of degrees in an specific direction, speed and strength, depending on what signal it receives and what you've programmed with the software.

We've been using these motors to make some Arduino robots work. Ours consisted on a rocking chair-robot which had a foil heart which, when being touched, activated those servomotors and lifted the arms and the legs. This was possible because the board received a signal from the capacitive sensor (the foil), which receives current from our skin, and then activated the servomotor, which rotated some degrees and pulled a piece of thread which was attached to it and to the arms and the legs, and with the pulley effect, those were lifted. It was hard to attach the thread to the servomotor and the lifts, and make the capacitive sensor work, but we finally made it and it was cool.

Arduino-Tickle Robot from Carmen Bueno Iglesias

I hope you liked, see you in the next post!

Internet of things

As in the project about the knowledge society I didn't expand much the concept of Internet of things, I'm going to devote this post to it.

The Internet of things (IoT) is the term we use to call the fact of having our gadgets and the things that surround us digitally controlled and interconnected through the net. This includes alarm systems, cell phones, printers, washing machines, coffee makers, blinds, headphones, lamps, wearable gadgets, machines components... And almost anything else you can imagine, so it's a huge network of connected devices and also people, which allows relationships betwen both groups.

It has the potential to impact how we live and work because of the great advances of the new technologies: broadband Internet availability, easy connection, new very capable devices, a great smart phone penetration, the decreasing technology costs... And in a short period of time we might be able to say that anything we want to be connected and controlled can be connected and controlled, and we'll live in smart cities and smart houses which interact with us.

For example we can change the temperature or the illumination of our house with a smartphone depending in our feelings, blinds can come down automatically when it's very sunny or at night; the trafic lights can control themselves depending on the traffic and the people waiting to cross the road...

So anything can be done automatically with IoT so life will be a lot easier as this is developped, locations will be known easily, economy would be more controlled, education will develop, what's turned on or off will be known, anything will be close to everyone even if it's on the other side of the world... And we should make this possible.

I wish you agree and you liked, I obtained some of this information at this webpage: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/

See you!

Knowledge Society

Hi blog readers. The first project we had to do this course was a Word document about the knowledge society. In it we talk about what the concept of knowledge society involves, its characteristics and its background. This society is a progression from the information and communication society that also allows the management of the information skillfully.
I also speak about the areas in which it is important; our personal development and the social factor that makes us being interconnected and learn dynamically.
Other important factors are the problems that it may suppose with the use of technological devices (the Digital Divide, the cybercrime and other security problems) and I have to tell you to be careful with what you post or upload on the Internet and to control the time you spend on the net and valore if you are really taking advantage of the resources and the time you have in a good way.

Sociedad del conocimiento from Carmen Bueno Iglesias

I wish it was interesting and you liked, you can also watch the document here. Thank you for watching.

See you at the next post.

Computer Networks

Hi everybody :) How is this term going? In computing we've started studying computer networks, so I'm going to explain you a bit.

# What's a computer network?

It's a set of interconnected technological devices which can share data, resources, information and services between them and allow economising and improving management.

# What kind of computing networks are there?

- According to administration: P2P(Peer to Peer) or Client-Server

- According to size of the area: WAN(Wide), MAN(Metropolitan), LAN(Local) or PAN(Personal)

- According to connection mean: Wired, wireless or mixed.

- According to topology: Bus, star, ring, tree, mesh or VPN(Virtual Private Network)

# What characteristics do computer networks have?

- They communicate computers through a protocol with unique numerical addresses called IP addresses, with four groups of numbers between dots and between 0 and 255.

- Each network device has a network card with an unique MAC address assigned by the manufacturer which works as interface between the device and the network cable, that can be a twisted pair cable or an optical fiber cable (faster and better communicator).

- Some devices as the hub, the switch or the router control the network traffic or distribute data between the network devices.

This is some of the information I can give you as abstract, but this is a broad topic so you'd never stop learning about computer networks. In addition, we continue developing IT's daily, so there's an infinite world of surprises and advantages for you to discover. Have a great weekend and see you at next post ;P

Computing Memories

Hi! I greet you for the fourth time to show you the third project we've made at computing. This time it's a presentation about Memories in computing (RAM & ROM), in which my partner Paula and me have explained a bit them and some types of them. We hope you like it.

I leave here the presentation and the link to my partner's blog, to visit her too.

Have a nice day, and a nice week!

Paula's blog: www.paula4bc.blogspot.com.es

Computing Memories from Carmen Bueno Iglesias

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You can also watch it here.

Computers' History's Timeline

Hello again! This time I show you the second project we've made at computing. It's a timeline about the most important events that have been happening through the history of computers, starting at Mark 1 (first electromechanical computer), and ending on the likely future, going over electronic vacuum tubes, ENIAC, EDSAC, EDVAC, LEO, UNIVAC, Apple II or Apple ][, IBM PC and first Macintosh (computers that had something new and different from previous computers), and the different ages of computers' history and their characteristics.I hope you like it!

You can also see it here.