With music:
Without music:
Saturday, 15 March 2014
Powered Exoskeleton: Video
Here is the final video about my internship. Enjoy!
With music:
Without music:
With music:
Without music:
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Dubai
January 21th. After five months of extraordinary awesome adventures, I sadly had to leave New Zealand. While life was beautiful there, my heart really belongs in The Netherlands.
Considering the differences in time zone (-12:00) and in temperature (from NZ summer to Dutch winter means a -15 degree difference at least), I decided to split acclimization up into two parts: first flying to Dubai and staying there three nights to get accustomed to the European time zone, and then the journey back home to handle the temperature difference. It was not a bad decision, also because Dubai on itself is an interesting city.
The metro system is cheap and cool, it mostly runs above the ground, and being fully automated, you can enjoy the views through the frontmost window. I travelled to the furthermost endpoint outside the city, and when going back I could see the city emerging out of the desert.
I also took a ferry trip, sailing along the artificial islands, beaches and very expensive hotels. Had a walk along the beach and streets, watched the Burj Khalifa fountain show twice. There are many luxe sports cars around there; I walked around at the parking place of the Hilton hotel for fun, and yes: Ferrari's, Porsches, top-range cars from most other brands.
There is an enormous mall in Dubai, by certain criteria it is the largest in the world with over 1,200 shops! Inside the mall is an aqua zoo, which is worth paying a visit. There is lots of wildlife to see, and you can walk through the tunnel in the giant aquarium for spectacular views of the sharks around there. Impressive!
Photo gallery here!
Considering the differences in time zone (-12:00) and in temperature (from NZ summer to Dutch winter means a -15 degree difference at least), I decided to split acclimization up into two parts: first flying to Dubai and staying there three nights to get accustomed to the European time zone, and then the journey back home to handle the temperature difference. It was not a bad decision, also because Dubai on itself is an interesting city.
The metro system is cheap and cool, it mostly runs above the ground, and being fully automated, you can enjoy the views through the frontmost window. I travelled to the furthermost endpoint outside the city, and when going back I could see the city emerging out of the desert.
I also took a ferry trip, sailing along the artificial islands, beaches and very expensive hotels. Had a walk along the beach and streets, watched the Burj Khalifa fountain show twice. There are many luxe sports cars around there; I walked around at the parking place of the Hilton hotel for fun, and yes: Ferrari's, Porsches, top-range cars from most other brands.
There is an enormous mall in Dubai, by certain criteria it is the largest in the world with over 1,200 shops! Inside the mall is an aqua zoo, which is worth paying a visit. There is lots of wildlife to see, and you can walk through the tunnel in the giant aquarium for spectacular views of the sharks around there. Impressive!
Photo gallery here!
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
The powered exoskeleton
Many people wondered if I did anything else than making great trips in New Zealand. Yes, my mission was to help with work on a powered exoskeleton. On October 11th I already wrote a blog post about the exoskeleton of the undergraduate group that I was supposed to use, but unfortunately it had too many problems to be used in further research. So I made a different one by myself, simpler and lighter, and below you can see the result!
Yeah, it looks pretty awesome. My colleagues in the lab started calling me "Terminator". The black tubes along my legs are pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs). These can be inflated by externally supplied air pressure going through a system of electronically controlled valves. When PAMs are activated, the endpoints are pulled together, applying forces to the human joints, in this case my ankles and knees.
A critical part is how the system knows when to activate the PAMs, as it must be synchronous to human muscle movements to provide effective assistance. This is done with sEMG sensors attached to several locations on the skin. When human muscles are activated, very small electrical currents are measured (from microvolts to about one millivolt). These weak signals are amplified and recorded with data acquisition devices, then it is sent to my laptop where a software program filters these signals in three stages. Next, the setpoint pressure for each PAM is calculated according certain formulas, in which the parameters can be adjusted realtime by five dials and two switches on the exoskeleton itself. The setpoint pressure is then compared to the currently-measured pressure, and the valves are controlled in such a way that each PAM gets to the setpoint as quickly as possible. Sounds difficult? Yes, it is pretty complicated stuff! But I like it :)
The mask is for measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide levels to determine my energy expenditure during predefined exercises, such as walking on a treadmill at 3 km/h for five minutes, or going up and down on a flight of stairs. The breath analyzer system used here is the Cosmed K4b2 device. While doing exercises, I could feel significant assistance when performing many movements. But did it also reduce energy expenditure?
So I did measurements on my energy expenditure when doing exercises without exoskeleton, with passive (unpowered) exoskeleton and with powered exoskeleton. Unfortunately, the system did not register a decrease in oxygen consumption when the exoskeleton was powered on; it remained approximately equal. But that is fine, we knew in advance that it would be very hard to get ideal results, and we were already happy that wearing my exoskeleton did not increase energy consumption!
After finishing the measurements, I wrote a paper for a conference. Luckily, in science you can still write a good paper if research results are not perfect. If the paper is accepted, I may (and will) present it at the Mechatronics conference in June in Sweden. Let's hope that it will indeed be accepted, as it would allow for some really great trips in Sweden!
Yeah, it looks pretty awesome. My colleagues in the lab started calling me "Terminator". The black tubes along my legs are pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs). These can be inflated by externally supplied air pressure going through a system of electronically controlled valves. When PAMs are activated, the endpoints are pulled together, applying forces to the human joints, in this case my ankles and knees.
A critical part is how the system knows when to activate the PAMs, as it must be synchronous to human muscle movements to provide effective assistance. This is done with sEMG sensors attached to several locations on the skin. When human muscles are activated, very small electrical currents are measured (from microvolts to about one millivolt). These weak signals are amplified and recorded with data acquisition devices, then it is sent to my laptop where a software program filters these signals in three stages. Next, the setpoint pressure for each PAM is calculated according certain formulas, in which the parameters can be adjusted realtime by five dials and two switches on the exoskeleton itself. The setpoint pressure is then compared to the currently-measured pressure, and the valves are controlled in such a way that each PAM gets to the setpoint as quickly as possible. Sounds difficult? Yes, it is pretty complicated stuff! But I like it :)
The mask is for measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide levels to determine my energy expenditure during predefined exercises, such as walking on a treadmill at 3 km/h for five minutes, or going up and down on a flight of stairs. The breath analyzer system used here is the Cosmed K4b2 device. While doing exercises, I could feel significant assistance when performing many movements. But did it also reduce energy expenditure?
So I did measurements on my energy expenditure when doing exercises without exoskeleton, with passive (unpowered) exoskeleton and with powered exoskeleton. Unfortunately, the system did not register a decrease in oxygen consumption when the exoskeleton was powered on; it remained approximately equal. But that is fine, we knew in advance that it would be very hard to get ideal results, and we were already happy that wearing my exoskeleton did not increase energy consumption!
After finishing the measurements, I wrote a paper for a conference. Luckily, in science you can still write a good paper if research results are not perfect. If the paper is accepted, I may (and will) present it at the Mechatronics conference in June in Sweden. Let's hope that it will indeed be accepted, as it would allow for some really great trips in Sweden!
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Fishers Track & Timber Trail
January 11th. Yes, this was a long time ago, because I wanted to finish my report first before posting new messages here. Alright. I drove north to Taumarunui, where I picked up Tom from the bus.
Tom is a study friend from mine, currently doing an internship in Auckland, and we decided to do some trips together in this weekend. We settled at a motor lodge and with help of its owner, we travelled to the start of the Fishers Track.
It is a nice 23km ride, mostly going downhill over grassy farmlands, single track, 4wd and gravel roads.
The next day we did the Timber Trail, or actually the second half of it (43 km). We enjoyed this very much too! It mostly travels through forests, occasionally crossing bridges like the one above.
Tom is a study friend from mine, currently doing an internship in Auckland, and we decided to do some trips together in this weekend. We settled at a motor lodge and with help of its owner, we travelled to the start of the Fishers Track.
It is a nice 23km ride, mostly going downhill over grassy farmlands, single track, 4wd and gravel roads.
The next day we did the Timber Trail, or actually the second half of it (43 km). We enjoyed this very much too! It mostly travels through forests, occasionally crossing bridges like the one above.
Sunday, 19 January 2014
Old Coach Road
January 9th. A shuttle bus dropped me&my bike at the Turoa skifield, located at the slopes of Mount Ruapehu.
The road is just 17 km long, but the vertical ascent is 1020 metres! The highest point offered nice views over the surroundings, of which some parts were used in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.
From the mountain road, some side tracks were available for good walks. This waterfall is famous, as Gollum caught a fish in the pool in one of the Lord of Rings movies.
Another waterfall, further down the mountain.
Back in Ohakune, I proceeded with the Old Coach Road. It has a very interesting history! A long time ago, a railroad was constructed from Auckland to Wellington. In 1906, the railroad was all completed, except for a small section between Ohakune and Horopito. At these two places, the train passengers and goods would be transferred to no less than ten coaches, each pulled by five horses, which moved along the Coach Road, made of cobblestones in the earth, and then loaded into the other train again.
By 1908, the railroad was completed. It could not be too steep, so it curved around a lot. The Coach Road itself was no longer needed. It became forgotten, and forest quickly took it all over.
And later in the century, new trains had much more power allowing to traverse much steeper slopes. So the railroad was straightened, new bridges were built and old bridges got out of service. Also the old railway became forgotten.
Only few people still knew about the existence of the Coach Road. By 2002, they thought it'd be cool to walk/cycle over the road again, and began reconstructing the original road. Combined with parts of the original railway, the Old Coach Road was re-opened, with a number of signs along the way to show parts of the history.
It was fun to travel all way of the Old Coach Road, and back to Ohakune again!
Full gallery here!
The road is just 17 km long, but the vertical ascent is 1020 metres! The highest point offered nice views over the surroundings, of which some parts were used in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.
From the mountain road, some side tracks were available for good walks. This waterfall is famous, as Gollum caught a fish in the pool in one of the Lord of Rings movies.
Another waterfall, further down the mountain.
Back in Ohakune, I proceeded with the Old Coach Road. It has a very interesting history! A long time ago, a railroad was constructed from Auckland to Wellington. In 1906, the railroad was all completed, except for a small section between Ohakune and Horopito. At these two places, the train passengers and goods would be transferred to no less than ten coaches, each pulled by five horses, which moved along the Coach Road, made of cobblestones in the earth, and then loaded into the other train again.
By 1908, the railroad was completed. It could not be too steep, so it curved around a lot. The Coach Road itself was no longer needed. It became forgotten, and forest quickly took it all over.
And later in the century, new trains had much more power allowing to traverse much steeper slopes. So the railroad was straightened, new bridges were built and old bridges got out of service. Also the old railway became forgotten.
Only few people still knew about the existence of the Coach Road. By 2002, they thought it'd be cool to walk/cycle over the road again, and began reconstructing the original road. Combined with parts of the original railway, the Old Coach Road was re-opened, with a number of signs along the way to show parts of the history.
 |
| The cobblestones are still there, in the road. |
 |
| One of the bridges, now accessible for walking and cycling. |
 |
| Another bridge, fully made of steel; not accessible. |
It was fun to travel all way of the Old Coach Road, and back to Ohakune again!
Full gallery here!
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Climbing Mt Doom
Jan 7th. In the central region of North Island lie the Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro volcanoes. The latter two are close together, and the day walk across the saddle connecting the two is known as the Tongariro Crossing.
Mt Ngauruhoe made its film debut as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. The fields around it are dark and rocky; even though it is summer, very little plants would grow on it. Yes, Morder, no surprise of course.
Two interesting side trips are possible from the saddle: the one going to the Tongariro summit, and the other to the top of Ngauruhoe, Mt Doom himself. I made for the Tongariro summit as this had the best views over Mt Doom (and was the easier one), and indeed reached it.
Geology also became increasingly more interesting. The rocks have many different colors: besides black, gray and white, I also found red, yellow, blue and even purple stones. And the lakes around here are not only in blue, but also in dark yellow. And one crater rim was almost entirely colored dark red, quite creepy.
From several places, kind of white smoke was coming out of the earth. Yes, this represented volcanic activity and boiling liquids. There were warning signs everywhere, and my campsite also was in an increased lahar risk zone. If one volcano would erupt, the campsite could be devasated by it. I was not impressed, though, and completed the crossing and stayed two nights at the campsite.
Back at the car, I found out that the double-V belt had slipped of again! For the second time in seven days. The next day a mechanic fixed it, and suggested that one pulley's bearing was getting weary and needed to be replaced. But replacement parts for French cars are scarce, and a new pulley bearing would have to be ordered from France, taking three weeks! Panic, crisis? Not for me, I'd rather call it a challenge.
I knew I was taking risks when I bought my car, and was determined to finish the journey with it anyhow. So I drove to an engineering shop in Ohakune and bought the tools necessary to mount the belt myself. I also needed a bolt with certain dimensions that the shop didn't have, but they were kind enough to wield one bolt specifically for me. Now I could put the belt back and adjust its tension, if necessary. Hoppa, keep on rollin'!
Photo gallery here!
 |
| Mt Ngauruhoe, also known as Mt Doom |
Mt Ngauruhoe made its film debut as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. The fields around it are dark and rocky; even though it is summer, very little plants would grow on it. Yes, Morder, no surprise of course.
 |
| On top of Mt Tongariro, looking over Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu |
Two interesting side trips are possible from the saddle: the one going to the Tongariro summit, and the other to the top of Ngauruhoe, Mt Doom himself. I made for the Tongariro summit as this had the best views over Mt Doom (and was the easier one), and indeed reached it.
 |
| A dark yellow, cursed lake. Sulphur? Better not drink it! |
Geology also became increasingly more interesting. The rocks have many different colors: besides black, gray and white, I also found red, yellow, blue and even purple stones. And the lakes around here are not only in blue, but also in dark yellow. And one crater rim was almost entirely colored dark red, quite creepy.
 |
| White smoke rising from one of the craters |
From several places, kind of white smoke was coming out of the earth. Yes, this represented volcanic activity and boiling liquids. There were warning signs everywhere, and my campsite also was in an increased lahar risk zone. If one volcano would erupt, the campsite could be devasated by it. I was not impressed, though, and completed the crossing and stayed two nights at the campsite.
 |
| A helpful tour operator looking at my car |
Back at the car, I found out that the double-V belt had slipped of again! For the second time in seven days. The next day a mechanic fixed it, and suggested that one pulley's bearing was getting weary and needed to be replaced. But replacement parts for French cars are scarce, and a new pulley bearing would have to be ordered from France, taking three weeks! Panic, crisis? Not for me, I'd rather call it a challenge.
I knew I was taking risks when I bought my car, and was determined to finish the journey with it anyhow. So I drove to an engineering shop in Ohakune and bought the tools necessary to mount the belt myself. I also needed a bolt with certain dimensions that the shop didn't have, but they were kind enough to wield one bolt specifically for me. Now I could put the belt back and adjust its tension, if necessary. Hoppa, keep on rollin'!
Photo gallery here!
Sheep shearing
After some adventures with the car (the double-V belt slipped off) and taking the ferry to Wellington in the midst of the night, I finally arrived in Taihape on Jan 5th.
Chris welcomed me at his "little" sheep farm. 1200 sheep he has, on a piece of land 4 km in diameter. And this is called "little"?!
Sheep are ever unmanageable creatures, except when they are lying on their back with all legs sticking into the air! So the first step is to turn the beasts upside down. A lamb can be handled quite easily with one hand, but the bigger monsters need some pressure to get them in the right position. First you had to grab the head with your left hand and bend it 180 degrees to the right, then push your right knee to their back and at the same time pull the body downwards and towards you; if necessary kicking their back legs out; next you had to grab his long breast hair and pull 'em upwards, idling the upper legs as well and now even the fiercest orc becomes tame as lamb!
In the afternoon we visited Mike and Adele's place, who had built a group of beautiful little houses and sheds all by themselves. They also grow a number of vegetables.
Mike lets the bees (and the worms) work for him. Good craftmanship, I'd say!
Thanks Chris for the very interesting experience out there!
Photo gallery
Chris welcomed me at his "little" sheep farm. 1200 sheep he has, on a piece of land 4 km in diameter. And this is called "little"?!
Chris riding on the quad, flanked by one of his dogs.
My friend Karolin planted these threes a few years ago. They are growing well, Chris said. He built a fence around the trees and expects they will become beautiful big trees in 20 years.
We like to have clean wool, but sheep can be dirty at times, with poop sticking to the wool. So we were going to "clean" them, i.e. shave the mess off their butts. First we whipped a flock into a shed, from which smaller groups were led to a smaller room and finally to the torture room one by one.
Sheep are ever unmanageable creatures, except when they are lying on their back with all legs sticking into the air! So the first step is to turn the beasts upside down. A lamb can be handled quite easily with one hand, but the bigger monsters need some pressure to get them in the right position. First you had to grab the head with your left hand and bend it 180 degrees to the right, then push your right knee to their back and at the same time pull the body downwards and towards you; if necessary kicking their back legs out; next you had to grab his long breast hair and pull 'em upwards, idling the upper legs as well and now even the fiercest orc becomes tame as lamb!
Here you see Chris doing the actual job. I also mimicked shaving one sheep for the picture (see gallery). I am a sheep farmer now, says Chris. Awesome!
We also visited one of the sheep wool shearing barns. This one is next to his house; the sheep are actually his neighbour's, but a sheep is a sheep, right?!
Mike lets the bees (and the worms) work for him. Good craftmanship, I'd say!
Thanks Chris for the very interesting experience out there!
Photo gallery
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