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--- newsletters:2025-01 [2025/02/03 03:15] – [New parallel evaluator] osnr
+++ newsletters:2025-01 [2025/02/03 03:46] (current) – [Portable Folk gadget] osnr
@@ Line 93: / Line 93: @@
 ==== Portable Folk gadget ====
-All the components are in. This revision uses the Orange Pi 5.
+Omar: I've been working on a new portable Folk gadget that uses off-the-shelf parts, so anyone will be able to build/buy one, along with some other improvements: built-in battery, trigger button you can press with your finger, built-in speaker.
+All the components are in place and I'm starting to fix up the software to make Folk work on the platform.
 {{:newsletters:pasted:20250131-194410.jpeg?250px}} {{:newsletters:pasted:20250131-194400.jpeg?250px}}
+This revision uses the Orange Pi 5 instead of the Raspberry Pi 5, and a stereo USB camera instead of Pi wide-angle camera, which has caused various random issues.
 === Network setup ===
@@ Line 104: / Line 108: @@
   * Still struggling to make it do ad-hoc or access point mode by default
     * (ideally it would work in concurrent mode, so could both get on known existing networks and make its own for wild environments:)
-      * {{:newsletters:pasted:20250131-200028.png?300px}}
+      * {{:newsletters:pasted:20250131-200028.png?400px}}
 === The stereo camera ===
@@ Line 112: / Line 116: @@
 {{newsletters:foooo.jpg?400px}}
-Added crop support to just take the center part of the left image for now so we don't waste time processing the rest and can start trying to calibrate right away.
+[[https://github.com/FolkComputer/folk/pull/189|Added crop support]] to just take the center part of the left image for now so we don't waste time processing the rest and can start trying to calibrate right away.
 Haven't been able to calibrate yet, though; I think I'm having issues with exposure so I can't read enough tags to calibrate.
@@ Line 118: / Line 122: @@
 === Current state & next steps ===
-really heavy
+Overall, the new gadget revision is in OK shape, although not done yet:
-button works
-battery works
-sound not working yet
+  * It has a working trigger button! That'll open up a lot of fun point-and-drag and lasso interactions. Here I'm having the 'marching ants' rectangle turn from white to green when I press the button down:
+    * {{newsletters:img_7370.mp4}}
+    * This is the program that implements that (I just put it in setup.folk, since we don't have physical programs here yet):
+      * <code>
+exec gpio mode 7 up
-need to figure out how to calibrate.
+When display /disp/ has width /w/ height /h/ {
+    When the clock time is /t/ {
+        set pressed [expr {![exec gpio read 7]}]
+        set color [expr {$pressed ? "green" : "white"}]
+        Wish to draw a dashed stroke with points [list [list 0 0] [list $w 0] [list $w $h] [list 0 $h] [list 0 0]] \
+          color $color width 10 dashlength 40 dashoffset [expr {fmod($t, 10)*-120}]
+    }
+}
+</code>
+      * it basically just sets a pullup resistor on GPIO 7 (where I plugged the button in) & shells out to [[https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/wiringOP|wiringOP]] every frame to read that pin; to avoid the multi-ms overhead of shelling out, would be good to make a Tcl-C library to call into wiringOP and do this (I think the C header and library is already on the device anyway!)
+  * It has a working battery, so you don't need to plug it in & carry a long extension cord! I haven't tested battery life but probably at least an hour? And I can even get live reports over serial about battery percentage, just like a phone or laptop shows battery percentage:
+    * {{:newsletters:pasted:20250203-034338.png?600px}}
+    * (will be fun to get this info into Folk and display it ambiently in the corner or on the marching ants border or whatever)
+  * It's really heavy and kind of big, notably heavier than the older gadget (because it has 3 18650 batteries and a heavier mini projector with a full chassis). Not sure what to do about this. Maybe go back to the concept of the detachable battery pack (a standard USB-C battery pack would be ideal, but I don't think I could quite get that to work without more custom power stuff).
+  * It has a speaker! I haven't gotten this to work yet (I haven't gotten the Orange Pi 5 3.5mm audio jack to work at all. Linux audio struggles). Also curious how loud it'll be without an amplifier.
+  * The biggest issue is that I haven't been able to calibrate it yet, but I just need to spend more time on that...
-need to do some physical revision
+Finally, need to finish physical design (I want to put on the back panel so people feel more comfortable handling it, less wires poking out, fix the speaker in place, maybe use a different camera, make the grip feel less precarious since it only has 1 bolt) and publish on GitHub.
 ==== RFID localization ====