Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Using Sonar Sensor with the Raspberry PI

In this post I'm going to use the same Sonar sensor from the last blog post with the Raspberry PI and use python for measuring distance of objects. Just like interfacing with the Arduino you need to connect the Sensor to +5v and Gnd to the Raspberry PI. I'm using GPIO pins 24 and 25 to connect my sensor's trigger and echo pins. As a reference loook at the following image for the GPIO pinout of the PI.

The following code interfaces the sensor with the Raspberry PI. The original code can be found at (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=40479) and there is another excellent example with code at (http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2012/12/ultrasonic-distance-measurement-using-python-part-1/).


#Sonar interface with the Raspberry PI
 
#Import Python libraries
import time
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO


GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)

GPIO_TRIGGER = 18    #GPIO_24
GPIO_ECHO = 22        #GPIO_25

#Set Pins as output and input
GPIO.setup(GPIO_TRIGGER,GPIO.OUT) # Trigger
GPIO.setup(GPIO_ECHO,GPIO.IN) # Echo

#Set Trigger low
GPIO.output(GPIO_TRIGGER, False)

#Allow module to settle
time.sleep(0.5)

def sonar(n):
    #Send 10us pulse to trigger
    GPIO.output(GPIO_TRIGGER, True)
    time.sleep(0.00001)
    GPIO.output(GPIO_TRIGGER, False)
 
    while GPIO.input(GPIO_ECHO)==0:
        start = time.time()
       
    while GPIO.input(GPIO_ECHO)==1:
        stop = time.time()

    #Calculate pulse length
    elapsed = stop-start

    #Distance pulse traveled in that time is time
    #multiplied by the speed of sound (cm/s)
    distance = elapsed * 34000

    #That was the total distance so half it for reaching the object
    distance = distance /2

    return distance

while True:
    time.sleep(0.3)

    distance = sonar(0)
    print distance

   
Here are a few pictures of the work in progress. The arduino can be ignored. Its just sitting there on the breadboard from my previous experiment of interfacing the Sonar with it.





Proximity Detection with Sonars using Arduino

In one of my projects, the goal is to detect someone standing in front of an object. My sensors are mounted on this object. I went about figuring out the best way to do this. Turns out there can be several ways of detecting proximity, PIR sensor, IR sensor or Sonar sensor. PIR sensor is not recommended as it only works with moving objects. If the object in front of a camera stops, there is no way of detecting if it is still in front or not (Read http://www.robotoid.com/appnotes/sensors-passive-infared.html). The IR Sensor would require a receiver to be placed at the opposite end of the transmitter for a breach to be detected. In our case this solution won't work as our object could be located in the middle of a crowded space. The solution seems to be using the Sonar sensor. A single or a couple could be used with fine tuned settings to detect an object to within a couple of feet of the object.

So my next experiment is to simply connect a sonar proximity sensor to an Arduino and get signal readings. In order to do that I ordered an HC-SR-04 sensor from EVS Electro.  This is a pretty good distributor if you are based in Islamabad. They can deliver it to you for Rs 200 or you can order and pick it up from their office. I got the sensor for Rs 1200 which is a bit expensive if you compare it to its price on Chinese websites, but then it would be almost the same if you add delivery and tax if any.




This sensor works on the principle of Sonar where ultra sonic sound waves are transmitted which bounce back off an object. Since we know the speed of sound we can figure out the distance by measuring the time traveled by the sound wave to the object and back. The formula for speed is 

          speed = distance / time, 

we can find the distance by 

          distance = speed * time ; 

where speed is the speed of sound and the time is time  taken by the sound wave to travel from the object back to the sensor which would be the total distance of traveling and coming back divided by 2.

The sonar sensor used here has 4 pins. Vcc, Trig, Echo and Gnd. Vcc requires 5 volts so it is connected to the 5v source on the Arduino and the ground is connected as well. This module handles the triggering and the echo sensing on its own. In order to make it work the trigger pin is kept high for 5~10 microseconds, time stamp is taken, after which input is sensed on the Echo pin. As soon as the echo pin goes high another time stamp is taken. Difference between the two timestamps is the total time covered by the pulse transmission, bouncing and returning back. The following is the arduino code for the Sonar Sensor.  The original code can be found at (http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Ping). It has been modified to be used with our sensor which has two pins rather than one for the sensor.

/* Ping))) Sensor
 
   This sketch reads a PING))) ultrasonic rangefinder and returns the
   distance to the closest object in range. To do this, it sends a pulse
   to the sensor to initiate a reading, then listens for a pulse
   to return.  The length of the returning pulse is proportional to
   the distance of the object from the sensor.
    
   The circuit:
    * +V connection of the Sonar Sensor attached to +5V
    * GND connection of the Sonar Sensor attached to ground
    * TRIG connection of the Sonar attached to digital pin D10
        * ECHO connection of the Sonar attached to digital pin D11

   http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Ping
  
   created 3 Nov 2008
   by David A. Mellis
   modified 30 Aug 2011
   by Tom Igoe
  
   Modified Oct 25th 2013
   by Shamyl B. Mansoor
  
 */

// this constant won't change.  It's the pin number
// of the sensor's output:
const int trigPin = 10;
const int echoPin = 11;


void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(trigPin,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(echoPin,INPUT);
}

void loop()
{
  // establish variables for duration of the ping,
  // and the distance result in inches and centimeters:
  long duration, distance1,inches, cm;

 
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
  delayMicroseconds(2);
  digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(10);
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

  //Echo
  duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
  distance1 = (duration/2)/29.1;
  // convert the time into a distance
  inches = microsecondsToInches(duration);
  cm = microsecondsToCentimeters(duration);

  Serial.print("duration: ");
  Serial.print(duration);
  Serial.print(": ");
  Serial.print(inches);
  Serial.print("in, ");
  Serial.print(cm);
  Serial.print("cm");
  Serial.println();
   
  delay(500);
}

long microsecondsToInches(long microseconds)
{
  // According to Parallax's datasheet for the PING))), there are
  // 73.746 microseconds per inch (i.e. sound travels at 1130 feet per
  // second).  This gives the distance travelled by the ping, outbound
  // and return, so we divide by 2 to get the distance of the obstacle.
  // See: http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/acc/28015-PING-v1.3.pdf
  return microseconds / 74 / 2;
}

long microsecondsToCentimeters(long microseconds)
{
  // The speed of sound is 340 m/s or 29 microseconds per centimeter.
  // The ping travels out and back, so to find the distance of the
  // object we take half of the distance travelled.
  return microseconds / 29 / 2;
}

Once you run this sketch and test the sensor, it seems pretty accurate!. Here are some pictures of it measuring distance of an object in front of it.







Wednesday, October 23, 2013

From Russian to English

My friend is an MI 17 pilot in Army Aviation. MI17 is a huge thing which almost looks like an airplane rather than a rotary aircraft. 


His russian friend who proabably came to Pakistan at the time of handing over of the Russian built MI17s gave him a Garmin gpsmap 295 GPS. 

 
(Language converted to English)
Since it was being used by the Russian pilot, it was in Russian language; all menus and functions of the GPS were in Russian. Although my friend used it for basic navigation he couldn't use all the functions. Then one day my friend had to fly his helicopter to the place where I work! Have a look at a snapshot of his landing.




He asked me if I could change the language of the GPS for him and I thought, that should be the easiest thing in the world! Just go to the menus use a little bit of Google translate tool and figure out the menu where the language is changed to English! How foolish of me to think that my friend wouldn't have tried that! Anyway it turns out that you can't simply change the language directly, the firmware with English Language has to be installed and replaced by the Russian Language one. I did some Googling and managed to find the English version of the firmware file for this particular mode.

In order to update the firmware I needed a Serial cable that would connect to the GPS data port. Fortunately I had a similar but older model Garmin GPS with me whose cable I found to be the same for the new one. Now all I needed was a USB to Serial converter as most new computers don't have the old Serial port anymore and I should be able to update the firmware. I thought now it should be easy, except that the update software that was built ages ago in 2001 or 2003 would not work with a USB to serial cable. So I had to find a computer with a serial port. Fortunately again I have a very old IBM thinkpad lying around which I bought during my undergrad years for Rs 2000 only! It is such a rugged laptop that even with my nephew growing up playing games on it, it survived and still works!
It runs Windows 95! Anyway in order to get this to work after years of eating dust in my lab, I had to figure out a way to power it up. Not having an adapter with the required power rating and not knowing the pin configuration of the power port, I fiddled around with the battery input pins and figured out where to connect the ground and the 20 volts. I have a power supply which I used to power it up. 




Finally after powering it up I had to find Hyper Terminal for Windows 7. Hyper Terminal is a simple communications software that allows connecting to other devices using the PC com ports. It is a good software to debug a lot of devices that connect through the com ports via bluetooth or USB ports. Once that was done I transferred my Garmin new firmware and updater program via the serial port using Hyper Terminal. Once I had the files on my old ThinkPad I connected the serial cable of the GPS to the thinkpad and opened the updater application. 






 Voila! It worked and started updating with the new firmware file! And finally when it restarted I had all the menus in English. So we went from Russian to English! My friend is going to use it in his MI17! Mission accomplished.








Wednesday, October 2, 2013

OBD

I have always been a big fan of gadgets and with each passing year, gadgets are becoming cheaper and affordable for most people. Long Live the Chinese! Since the day I had learnt about OBD port in cars, I wanted to play with it. OBD for On board Diagnostics ports are present in most cars manufactured after 1993. These are digital ports that provide vital information from different on board sensors and sub systems of the vehicle. They provide with Diagnostic Trouble Codes which help in identifying the exact problem with the car. Moreover there is a lot of other information that can be used by the owner to see how the car is behaving. With the advent of Chinese made OBD connectors, playing with these ports or at least looking at information available from these ports has become really easy. 

I recently ordered an OBD II Bluetooth module from a guy who sells them on OLX. The bluetooth version only costs Rs 1800 and the Wifi version costs Rs 2800. There are many apps available for the PC, Android and IOS available for download. I have started with Torque which is available on the Android Play store. There is a free lite as well as Pro version available for purchase. The app is quite good with a lot of customization options. So after I received my OBD module, I kind of got busy and didn't really play with until yesterday. I downloaded the Torque app and connected the module to my OBD port in my car and Vola! Data started streaming in! I could see my RPMs, coolant temperature, Speed and a host of other things that I don't even know yet! Anyway now since I have this working, I'm thinking of utilizing my TV screen which is in my car and is hardly used since I don't watch TV or DVDs in my car. So my plan is to utilize that screen but till I get time to that I'm going to be using my Tablet for looking at my Car's data coming in Real time! Its really cool! Have a look at a screenshot of the gauges that I'm using on Torque! Its an image when it is not connected to the OBD of the car, will share one while connected as well later ....




I am using the following OBD scanner Bluetooth Module


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Playing with Python and OpenCV

For one of my products I need to work with Python and do some image processing. The goal is to do face detection. One of the best things about Python is the support available for it and the number of libraries ported for Python. It hardly took me a day to do face detection using Python and of course, it isn't because of me, but what is already available online. 

In this tutorial I'm going to take you step by step in setting up Python and then setting up OpenCV for python and running an example for loading an image and writing on it. Maybe in the next example I will explain face detection along with an example which by the way is available online from many sources.

Step 1: Downloading python for Windows

The first step is to setup python on your notebook / PC by downloading from the Download Page. In my case I have a 64 bit windows 7 machine so I downloaded the 64 bit version of Python 2.7.5. for windows. You can download for Mac Os or Linux as well. There are two current production versions of python which are 2.7.5 and 3.3.2. If you want to understand the difference between the both and decide which one to work with, have a look at this article


Step 2: Installing Python

The second step is to install Python. If you have downloaded the MSI package it simply installs Python in C:\PythonX where X stands for version number. In my case it is C:\Python27. I would recommend not to change this folder as many libraries that you may install look for this folder, but most detect the installation path of Python from the registry so changing the folder won't be that big a problem.

Step 3: Installing OpenCV

A good repository of python libraries has been maintained by Christoph Gohlke which have also been compiled for 64 bit architecture for windows. Although these are unofficial but they work fine, at least for me. So I downloaded the opencv-python 2.4.6 for python 2.7 compiled for 64 bit architecture (link). You can find your own link on the same page. The downloaded file is an MSI package so simply double clicking on it will run a setup which will automatically detect the Python installation path and install the opencv library in the appropriate directories. I ran into one problem while trying to run my first opencv example. You will see the following error if you don't have Numpy.

from cv2.cv import *
rtError:numpy.core.multiarray failed to import

It requires the Numpy-MKL 1.7.Once you install Numpy from the same repository, openCV will run just fine as it did for me.
  
Step 4: Writing the first example

 Here is a simple python example that will open an image file and write text on it. The example with more details is available (here)



  1. import cv          #Import functions from OpenCV
  2. cv.NamedWindow('a_window', cv.CV_WINDOW_AUTOSIZE)
  3. image=cv.LoadImage('image.png', cv.CV_LOAD_IMAGE_COLOR) #Load the image
  4. font = cv.InitFont(cv.CV_FONT_HERSHEY_SIMPLEX, 1, 1, 0, 3, 8) #Creates a font
  5. x = 10 #position of text
  6. y = 20 #position of text
  7. cv.PutText(image,"Hello World!!!", (x,y),font, 255) #Draw the text
  8. cv.ShowImage('a_window', image) #Show the image
  9. cv.Waitkey(10000)
  10. cv.SaveImage('image2.png', image) #Saves the images

Line 1 imports opencv into the program. If it hasn't installed correctly you will get an error at this line.
Line 2 creates a window which is named a_window. You can change it to any name and the second attribute of the function is self explanatory. It creates an auto sized window.
 Line 3 loads the Image image.png. You can either give the whole path or simply copy the image in the directory of your program. 
Line 4 initializes the font
Line 5 and Line 6 are two variables which contain the position of the text to be displayed on the picture
 Line 7 draws the text in double quotes onto the image. The first argument is the image source and the double quotes is the text, the thirst argument being the position, 4th being the font. 
Line 8 Shows this window onto your screen
Line 9 waits for a key to be pressed. If this line is missing the program simply exits.
Line 10 saves this image into a new file.



You can simply copy paste this code in a notepad application of Windows or I would recommend using  Notepad++. You can also use the IDLE IDE installed with python or there is another one called Pycharm which is licensed. You must save the file with the extension ".py". Windows automatically associates all ".py" extension files to be run with the Python interpreter. You can either run it by double clicking it or open the command prompt on windows, go into Python's directory (C:\Python27) and type "python progarm1.py" on your console (given you have saved the program with this filename). If you have added the installation path of python to your windows PATH variable then you can simple type "python programname.py" in any directory while in the command prompt window.

Once this example is run, the following image is saved as image2.png. Both the original and the modified images are shown below



Thursday, September 26, 2013

The week ends with a bang!

The week started with a bang when I broke my car's side mirror. And now the week is about to end with a bang as I found out today that my sabbatical application was not approved by guys who are supposed to approve it! I don't know what to make of it! The semester has already started, I don't have a course, so maybe I won't even teach this semester. But I'm not sure how this will work out! Do I continue my product development, but from my office, or am I given a course after one month of the semester start or maybe I'm supposed to perform other tasks! This brick wall just keeps on growing on me!

This time I'll have to figure out another way of jumping over this wall or breaking it. It seems like all the forces of the universe are keeping me from becoming a millionaire ;), but the amazing thing is I'm not worried! I don't know why because I should be! I feel like I'm starting to get worried on not getting worried! !@@#@$@ Maybe I am worried, anyway but I'm not! I enjoy challenges and I will definitely figure out a way to get my product out God willing In Sha Allah. Will keep posting though!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

LabMagic

So I got some good news today. I'm also the co-founder of LabMagic, an idea coming out of my lab (SMART Lab) that I founded back in 2009. It was the winner at 2012 ITU young innovator's competition. The CEO and co-founder is one of my research assistants from SMART lab. So she applied for Microsoft's developer program for the new KinectOne and got selected. There were thousands of applications from around the world and I feel proud that we were selected as well and our idea was praised!

You can read more about the idea and follow its progress at labmagic.wordpress.com.


This week

So its been five days since I last wrote a blog post! This week began with a bang! A bad bang! I banged my car on Monday! Broke my side mirror! The most funny part is I kept fighting and arguing but the traffic police judged it to be my fault! So I had to apologize to the other guy, even though his car wasn't even scratched and he did it on purpose! ( I know that!). I was overtaking him from the right side and his "Mardangi" suddenly woke up and he banged his side mirror into mine breaking it since he couldn't bear the sight of someone over taking him! Anyway, since the traffic police said I wasn't suppose to overtake on that particular space so I accepted it to be my fault! 

So, we are doing good with one of our products on which we are focusing at the moment. The goal is to get a skeletal prototype ready in two weeks. We're almost finished with week number one. The product has three parts. A web based user interface, a web service and a hardware. So employee number 3 has almost completed the databases for the web server and the front end web user interface. I have been busy in designing the hardware and figuring out the technology that would be required to implement it. Also I have been figuring out the business side of it! Seems like technology for me is a piece of cake but when it comes to business I have to think really hard! Anyway I'm thoroughly enjoying my days as an entrepreneur! Thinking of an idea and just going ahead implementing it is a great thrill! I'm pretty sure once we sell it we would feel out of this world! 

Meanwhile I've also been trying to finish up a product for a company that I have been working on for a few months. One of my students was helping me build it during the summer. It's almost complete and I think I can share a screenshot of it! The company plans to launch it soon! Let's hope it is successful!


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Building a product

So we have decided to build two products. One for the local/international market and one with a crowd sourcing model. I've decided to write a few technical posts as well. It would be nice to write about technologies that I'm working on and since I'm a firm believer in sharing of knowledge (which is obvious, coming from a teaching background), it would be nice to share my learning with others.

The first of these posts would be about the Raspberry PI which has now become the famous $35 computer. I've been exploring it for another product that I've been building for someone and will be sharing a few things from that project. I've also realized that many times, when I need to solve a problem, I find the solution which is spread at different sources and links. I'll write a few integrated posts so that one doesn't have to jump to other links and the problem is easily solved. 

Anyway, that being said, this entrepreneurship bug that has bitten me isn't letting me sleep. Most of the times I'm thinking about ideas that I could implement to make money. A few nights over it and I realize either it won't work, or it is already working somewhere! So the newest one is to solve the problem of my caffene dosage! The incubation center where I've located has no coffee, or even a cafe'. You have to walk or take your car to the nearest cafe' which wastes a lot of time. So I've decided to buy an espresso/cappuccino machine and make coffee available for everyone but for a price. I'll also be bringing in home made delicious cake (made by my perfectionist beautiful wife) and some other snacks as I think everyone would love to have some thing to eat without wasting any time. I have yet to figure out the business plan, but it seems simple enough. Keep the operating costs to a minimum, make a one time investment, and earn a little profit, while enjoying my own coffee without which I can't seem to work. I plan to work out the biz plan about this with my space sharing buddy over the weekend and implement it fast as winter is approaching. Let's just see how this one goes!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

And so it begins

After playing around with one kind of technology and failing early, we have decided to move on. I have used the word failing, but essentially we haven't failed, we are just investing too much time in this technology, which we think is not worth it, since working with this technology has a number of non-technical challenges which we are taking too much time to solve. 

So after having intense discussions we have decided to pursue another couple of ideas, out of which one will be built right away. Since I don't have enough time on my hands, we have decided to implement one idea right away, and work on refining the other one in parallel. We have learnt a lot during the past 6 months. It took us ages to decide on one idea after discussing many. This time we had already a lot of ideas and it did not take us a long time to narrow down our idea list to a couple. For one of the ideas, we already have the technology figured out as well. So now, the exciting part of building our product starts. 

Our strategy is to have one idea that is quick to prototype, solves a problem and is scalable. Our second idea is more of an innovative product which we will probably crowd source. So the goal is to make sure that by the time my sabbatical ends, I have a product that has started selling. This will allow me and my partner to come into this full time as both of us have our day jobs.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Another million dollar idea!

So it keeps on getting interesting everyday! The display technology that we have been trying to work with is patented and the only couple of companies developing these are not really interested in small companies like ours! So we tried sourcing similar technology from China! Turns out the Chinese are really helpful and claim that their technology is different from the patented one! But when asked for more information to verify this fact, couple of emails and two days later, still no reply on the topic! 

So I spent my yesterday brainstorming some new ideas and came up with one idea that we think could be another million dollar idea! My co-founder and employee number 3 of the company are pretty excited about it as well! I seem to be getting better at coming up with new ideas! If only I had the method figured out to get from idea to prototype in quick time! Just one discussion later the idea has transformed into something that we could build in the wearable computing domain! So I'm going to spend another few days in brainstorming the idea more and figure out the technical challenges. Let's hope no one has done this one before !!!


Monday, September 9, 2013

Designing the space

So while grocery shopping over the weekend I bumped into a guy who designs furniture! Well I actually did not bump into him, just saw his display shop and went inside to talk. His shop had mostly add-on fixtures (something similar to the one in the following figure). 


The only thing I didn't like that these designs haven't changed in ages! I remember we used to have similar study tables in our home when we were kids! They are exactly the same! NO Innovation at all!!!! Anyway so I started chatting with this guy, and turns out he is a business undergrad who has been working with furniture design since the age of 14. Amazing! How do I find such people! Just the kind of guy I was looking for! So we talked about a lot of things and I told him how work spaces like the Googleplex are, and he should also look at the facebook workplace etc I tried to explain him, of what I was looking for! A fun and practical work space that people would love to work in! The best part is, he was open to discussion and willing to learn! So I'm going to ask him to make me some Ikea looking furniture very functional in design! 

I also talked to him about my idea of fusioning furniture with technology. I think I can actually help him add value to his products by integrating functional electronics in his designs. I feel pretty excited about it! I hope he listens to me and we can create some very innovative furniture for the local market! Some ideas and furniture that I want him to design is....

Some interesting ideas for the work space that I googled and liked are...


Interesting Week and the end of it

So last week was the first of my entrepreneurial adventures! The week seemed a pretty normal one until the very last day! Friday turned into a good lesson learning day for us! We found out that one of the ideas that we had been working on for the past few months was actually launched by another company! We were a bit disappointed but on the positive side, we are now more confident about our ideas. It seems like we have excellent ideas of products that we think will work and they do work, as a couple of them have actually been launched by other companies. 

The second thing we have learnt over the past week is that it is very hard to compete with Big Companies and corporations. We are working in a particular display technology, and it seems like this Big company that is the market leader and owns the patent doesn't like small startups to work in its domain! Even talking directly to them doesn't help. Seems like they want to have a say in everything that is built based on this technology! So either you give them 100,000 orders for their display or you probably work for them. So much for innovation! So now it boils down to two things! Either we figure out a way of working with similar technology but sourced from somewhere else (China of course) or we go back to the drawing board! The only thing we need to figure out is that the Chinese technology doesn't infringe any patents! Finger crossed!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Foood!

What I forgot to mention yesterday was that I love food! I'm a self claimed Chatpata Food expert! When we visited College Road we had Biryani for lunch and Lahori Samosas for snacks! Yummy!

Today I worked on the design requirements of my product. Seems like we made a mistake in the initial design and have to re-order a few components! This part of waiting for the parts to get delivered is pretty boring and time wasting! I wish Teleportation was invented soon, so at least our deliveries would be instant! Anyway today I had long interesting discussions with a good friend who is facilitating us with the startup space! He is a great guy and we could not stop chatting! He shares the workspace with us! Actually its his workspace and we are the ones who are using it at the moment. Talking about work-spaces I have been pushing my brain for ideas on how to setup our space! Sometimes I think of Googleplex, sometimes I actually search for ideas and sometimes I just have no idea of how I want the space to look like. One thing is for sure, I want the space to be practical, well utilized, colorful and fun. Some of the ideas that I have been thinking about is to get a bean bag chair with an overhead lamp. We will consider this the thinking chair or the reading chair. I would also like a few vertical slim shelves for putting our books and stuff. Some intelligent storage space needs to be designed as we just have a 300 sq feet space! I'm also thinking of getting a coffee machine that can make espresso as well as cappuccino. We may even start selling this coffee from our office. The building where we are has a number of startups but the facilities are lacking! There is no central coffee shop or snack shop. Most startups keep their coffee thingys within their spaces. I would like to change that! I would want everyone to use our space to have coffee! For one, it will generate a bit of much needed revenue. Secondly it will allow us to interact with everyone and would encourage sharing of ideas! Lets just see how it goes....

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The 2nd day at work!

Today was a very very interesting day! I paid a visit to College Road which is "THE" place to be if either you are a student of engineering or if you are interested in electronics and are the "Maker" type. I was with my employee number 3 who interestingly is only 2 months old in the company and is already in his last month, going for his Masters now! But he is a great guy! A brilliant student who just graduated and was willing to join our start-up instead of getting a regular job, which he could have easily got! 

Anyway back to my College Road adventures! We had to buy a few things like PCB making material, etcher and stuff. We also bought a power supply for Rs 5000 with a rating of 30V and 5 amps. It should serve our purpose! I think we bought it quite cheap! Long live the Chinese! We also bought some tools, soldering iron, a multimeter and some other stuff. I've always loved this kind of shopping and now buying it for my start-up made it even more exciting! I just wanted to buy everything! Tools like soldering stand, power supplies, Oscilloscopes etc but unfortunately I could not! We're not millionaires! At least not yet! On our way back we took a trip to Metro which is a wholesale place. Bought a white board, a necessary tool for any start-up, some stationery and a crate of Coke! Coke is for employee number 3 who is a coke addict!  I'll get myself a Coffee machine, thanks to my Angel Investor friend who is a true Angel giving me a good no strings and deadline attached loan for my start-up adventures!

All in all it was a good day, except for one thing! My 5 month sabbatical application for which I had applied almost 2 months ago, was returned NOW, when I'm supposed to start with stupid comments! Its amazing to see, things people do, just because they are galatically stupid or have no common sense! So I can't get my earned leave because the "Research" office (the names of departments have been changed to save me from any stupid action) doesn't have any record of my research of the 4 years that I have been at my institution! Amazing! I have been here for 4 years and they have no clue, what I've been up to all this time! For me this shows what this department has been up to for the last four years! NOTHING!

The late Professor Randy Pausch said in his famous last lecture that Brick Walls are for only those who don't want it enough! I know for sure that I want this very much, so I'm going to find a way of climbing past this brick wall, or maybe breaking it to make way for myself :). I think this is enough rambling for today! Let's see how I get past this Sabbatical brick wall tomorrow!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Ooops

Oops!
I just broke my desk at the new space! Was trying to rotate it and one of the supporting bars fell off!

The Begining of the Banana Story

Today I have officially gone bananas. I have shifted to my new working space after working as a teacher for 4 years! For the next five months, I'll try to develop a product prototype and raise money for it. I'm hoping it stays this way even after 5 months and I don't have to go back as what I have started is something that I always wanted to do.

The first day has been exciting. Had an interesting chat with my co-founder. We discussed having another guy on board from a leading chip maker company! Let's see how that goes! 

I moved to the new space and I've already had an exciting meeting with Entaly which is another exciting startup in this incubation facility where I've moved. I'm already starting to feel more and more excited about this! Suddenly I've been thrown into this world of young exciting entrepreneurs who are merely 25 and running their own companies and making money! I feel old today! But at the same time I feel great at this exciting environment where you don't have to worry about the next call from your boss about a mistake in your result that you submitted for the 5th time! Aaaaaahhhh! Makes me want to scream even now! 

Anyway, I've reset myself for this newest challenge of becoming an entrepreneur! Starting my own company and making it successful! Through this blog I plan to share my daily thoughts of how my time was spent when I left my regular job and tried my hand at being an entrepreneur. Maybe this blog will turn into a best seller book 5 years down the road or maybe this will be just another blog that will remain mostly unread. I don't care! I will just keep on sharing my thoughts and my exciting adventures in the world of entrepreneurship!