I've recently submitted a machine vision paper to arxiv (my first!), co-authored with Daniel Raviv and Juan Yepes of Florida Atlantic University, about an analytical method for measuring the angular velocity of rotating objects. If you can track one point on an object reliably you can estimate the rotation rate, given that you have an orthographic camera at your disposal. Okay, they don't exist in reality! But if the object is far enough away the approximation provided by a real camera is good enough to be useful. Please read “A Vision-Based Closed-Form Solution for Measuring the Rotation Rate of an Object by Tracking One Point” at arxiv.org.

At the beginning of the year I published to YouTube this video, in which I build a smart sprinkler controller using a Raspberry Pi and Open Sprinkler software. It's gradually becoming one of my most popular videos. Although I've been neglecting this blog somewhat, I have been making video content! Be sure and subscribe on YouTube if you'd like to be kept aware of those projects.

After a couple of years of thinking about it, I built a floating planter, similar to the ones at WDW's EPCOT, and set sail with it on the lake my parents live on. Disney was kind enough to provide instructions in a book titled Secrets of Disney's Glorious Gardens, but I departed from this book in some significant ways, for instance, by adding an anchor system that allows us to bring the planter to shore for maintenance. Also, in the video I build a hot-wire cutter to make the styrofoam circles of the planter, a cutter equipped with a motorized rotary stage that turns it into something like a foam lathe.

As part of my overall quest to push back the chaos in my kitchen and elsewhere, I made some lid hanger bars out of oak for my pot and pan cabinet. This represents something of a new beginning for me: it's a return to uploading videos to YouTube, but at a much higher level of quality, length, and I hope, entertainment value. This is also a sort of debut of my newly revamped home workshop; I was lucky enough to acquire quite a lot of new tools and machines early in 2020 and I've been integrating, improving, and setting those up ever since. Now it's time to actually make a few things, and hopefully get some interesting videos and other documents out of the experience. Enjoy!

Fed up with chaos around my kitchen sink, I designed and 3D-printed a storage tray for my cleaning supplies. It features three compartments for sponges or scrubbing pads and a stand for a bottle brush. I printed this in black PLA, which is probably not a great material choice or technique for long-term kitchen use (FDM-printed plastics have a rough, striated surface finish which probably encourages the growth of bacteria) but I'm considering this a successful prototype for now. I may continue experimenting.