Some geometry

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Bar Sport
1

I was playing around with a sun-tracker idea (arduino operated, of course) a couple months back, but seeing as the project flopped, I made the best of a bad situation and derived an interesting geometrical equation for a sunflower-esque geometrical shape (well, the equation solves for one side, but the rest is either given or irrelevant when constructing the model in real life):

http://www.rustechstudio.com/etcetera/geometric-sunflower/

...and yes I am sneakily promoting my blog instead of reposting the whole article here :sunglasses:

2

Yeah, a new math formula equation to learn! :smiley:

3

I feel like a dunce using the word formula over and over. And so my bilingual side shows :frowning:

4

I'm bilingual, I wanted to say formula badly...

5

On a separate note, your user profile is my background.

6

was playing around with a sun-tracker idea (arduino operated, of course) a couple months back, but seeing as the project flopped

Did you see my code for this? :slight_smile:

http://www.mowcius.co.uk/files/sunposition.pde

Mowcius

(Sneakily promoting his website too ;))

7

Yea I think I've seen that before - wasn't there a thread about suntracker ideas floating around earlier?

8

wasn't there a thread about suntracker ideas floating around earlier?

Yep there was. You have no excuse! Get it done! ;D

9

Mine flopped because of hardware limitations - well, you can't really blame the sensors, it was also the fact that the idea was a proof-of-concept, and the concept failed :frowning:

10

Mine flopped because of hardware limitations

Well that's basically why I haven't done one yet. I don't have two servos lying around! :stuck_out_tongue:

11

Mowcius - granted it is a link to a file on your site, fairly unsubtle. What is less subtle still is the first line of that file reads:

//Sun Position Calculation by Mowcius (mowcius.co.uk)

:stuck_out_tongue:

12

Mowcius, wasn't yours a mathematical approach though?

13

Mowcius - granted it is a link to a file on your site, fairly unsubtle. What is less subtle still is the first line of that file reads:

Hehe

Mowcius, wasn't yours a mathematical approach though?

It is a mathematical approach...
Not sure if you could have one without it being mathematical :-?

14

Well yours actually calculates the sun's position using some data - ergo mathematical

Mine was a "use some sensors to find the shiniest point in the sky and then get the relative angle to that point from the servos' position", which isn't really mathematical

15

Mine was a "use some sensors to find the shiniest point in the sky and then get the relative angle to that point from the servos' position", which isn't really mathematical

There is still some calculation involved :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Yea, I suppose there is, but I was referring to purely mathematical vs. mainly mechanical :wink: