Master’s Update

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So after an amazing three months in Germany, I had to come back to the real world and finish off a Master’s Dissertation.

I got back to PE mid-December and had a week to finish off my testing before I left for the Cape for two weeks. I then had five more days in PE before I had to hand in my dissertation. Final hand-in date to still qualify for April graduation was 11 January, handing in after that date would mean I’d have to reregister for another year of studies, and would probably result in me doing a whole lot more work, not necessarily a bad thing.

But with 3 days to go I was still doing testing. Below you can see a clip I compiled of said testing. In the end I handed in a dissertation in time. Most of it had gone through a round of editing by both my gran and girlfriend, with slight input from my supervisor. I wasn’t completely happy with what I’d handed in, and could have done with another month to neaten up the report, read through it properly and get some proper feedback from my supervisor, but such is life, and what is done is done.

In any case, the following week I did a demonstration for the project initiators who were quite happy with the results and it will most likely be taken forward. There’s a second master’s project on the table which will be extending on my work, but the company in question are going to take the design to contractors with the plan of getting a commercial unit up and running. Exciting stuff, my supervisor was also quite happy and said from his side he doesn’t think there’ll be any problems, so know I just sit and wait for results from the external. If I hear before the end of March I’ll be surprised, but don’t know when I should start bugging my supervisor for answers :)

In the mean time I’ve moved another step further from the Cape to the city of East London where I’ve got an appointment at a large manufacturing plant for the next year. The work ought to be quite interesting as the factory’s busy with a rebuild, but it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

Once I’ve had feedback on my master’s and have made any necessary changes I’ll put my full thesis up. I also have to write up a journal type article on the project so will post that whenever I get round to finishing it. In the mean time you can see my previous post on the project here.

Squash Clubs In Port Elizabeth

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After a year in Port Elizabeth I think I managed to find most of the squash clubs the City has to offer. They are listed below with the amount of teams entered in the 2012 season in the following format [Mens 1-5 | Mens 5-12 | Ladies 1-4]. So crusaders have 8 teams in the men’s first to fifth league, seven teams in the men’s sixth to twealth league and four lady’s teams. Teams marked with an asterisk are indicated in the map below.

Crusaders [ 8 | 7 | 4 ] *
Londt Park [ 9 | 13 | 9 ] *
NMMU [ 3 | 2 | 1 ] *
Old Grey [ 6 | 6 | 3 ] *
Walmer [ 3 | 6 | 3 ] *
Westview [ 6 | 10 | 8 ] *
Woolstaplers [ 3 | 4 | 3 ] *

Collegiate [ 0 | 0 | 2 ]
Gelvan [ 1 | 2 | 0 ] *
Grey High School [ 0 | 3 | 0 ]
Jokers [ 0 | 1 | 0 ]
Profiles [ 1 | 0 | 0 ] *
SAP [ 0 | 1 | 0 ]
SA Breweries [ 0 | 1 | 0 ]

Other Clubs that play in the EC league that I know of are

Rhodes (Grahamstown) [ 1 | 0 | 1 ]
Swifts (Uitenhague) [ 3 | 3 | 0 ]
Humansdorp [ 0 | 3 | 0 ]
Jeffrey’s Bay [ 2 | 2 | 0 ]


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Traffic Department in East London

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Update: Included Vehicle Licensing & Registration offices at end of post. Also added Gonubie Traffic Department.

I recently moved to East London for work, my first day here I had to go sort out some things at the traffic department. But I really battled to locate the traffic department.

The Buffalo City website was less than helpful. Listing several numbers and services but no address. No amount of Googling helped, and not even the Yellow Pages website could help. Alas I didn’t have a hard copy of this, although I don’t know how helpful that would have been.

I did phone the department and after being put through to the right person, was told they don’t have a physical address, they were just located at ‘Ziphunzana’, note, I heard something similar to that and Googled it without result.

So eventually I phone a friend who grew up here. After a bit of umming and ahhing he had to go on Google Maps and then direct to where it’s located. I did eventually find it, and the service was acceptable, slightly less waiting than what I experienced in Port Elizabeth, but it felt more disorganised with multiple disjointed rooms and corridors.

So for anyone looking for the Testing Centre in East London, also known as Braelyn- or Buffalo City Traffic Department, it’s located at the Ziphunazana Bypass in Braelyn, East London. See the map below for reference. At this centre you can book for driver’s (all codes) or learner’s licences, renew driver’s licences and pay traffic fines as well as do vehicle roadworthiness tests.


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I believe the building below, in Oxford Street, is the location of the Vehicle Licensing centre. The windows to the right of the streetview image now have large signs in them saying Vehicle Licensing.

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Gonubie Traffic Department. You apparently can’t do everything at this traffic department, mainly for testing. Give them a call if you’re unsure.


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And Wilsonia Traffic Department while we’re about it:

Research Work

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As part of my time spent in Reutlingen I did some reasearch work for Prof. Dr -Ing Gruhler of the Mechatronics Department of the Hochschule Reutlingen. I ended up compiling two reports. The first was a purely research based one and the second included some practical work on a mobile robot. The work on the second report was used in a journal article available here.

Summary of Omni-Directional Drive Choices

This report briefly introduces the concept of an  omni-directional drive. It then proceeds to give overviews of many of the the currently available and in use methods of achieving omni-directional drive. Both units which have received commercial use, and those restricted to hobby robotics have been listed. Because no specific application was in mind, no recommendation towards a specific drive method was made. The appendix includes some further information and links to a design report and video demonstration of most of the drive methods listed in the report.

Drive types mentioned include: Omni-Wheels, Anisotropic Wheels, Omni-Ball, Mecanum Wheel, Swerve Drive, Ball Drive, Vuton Tracks, Omni-Crawler, Hemispherical Gimbaled.

The report can be downloaded here (4.5 MB PDF)

Notes on Robot Odometry

In this report a pre-built omnidirectional robot is  modified to allow for better odometry as well as control. The report investigates several possibilities for odometry, and then making use of available equipment adds a proximity sensor to the robot for accurate tracking. In addition to this the movement control code is replaced with PID controllers for both directions of movement. Slight adjustments are made to the visual interface with the robot and a Wi-Fi connection is re-established.

The full report can be downloaded here (2.1 MB PDF)