Ghostbird – Portfolio

Scientific

My bachelor's thesis: LoRa Passive Positioning: Analysis of the effects of various parameters on performance

Graphical

Besides the design for this website I have done some other minor graphical projects. It is not my main focus, nor my strongest point, but it is the easiest to showcase.

DeviantArt

I do have a DeviantArt page. Some of my more artistic graphical work is uploaded there.

Blender

I have some experience in working with Blender and completed the course Graphics and Virtual Reality during my study. The works below demonstrate a basic knowledge of various aspects of 3D modelling.

This is a concept I made for a national fair of our church in 2012. We organised games for the youngest children around a field, the pavilion in the centre would allow parents and children to stay within sight of each other while the children played and the parents talked and had coffee. The one departure from the chosen design was the decision to use a lower platform, and leave out the guardrails and the stairs.

A view of grass on some small hills, created and rendered with Blender.

"Grassy Hills was made in 2010 while I was trying to learn how to work with the blender particle emitter. The grass consists of gradient textured particle trails. In retrospect I should have increased the particle emissions near the camera to keep the apparent level of detail consistent."

Archery range

Note: This file is offered as a download.

For a Robin Hood themed church fair in 2011 I made this concept short of an archery range. I experimented with the physics engine of Blender, and applied what I learned from Grassy Hills to create two off-screen particle emitters that spawn the arrows. The range was built on the fairground and became a big crowd pleaser when people started to issue challenges to their friends and hold impromptu competitions.

Tombstone Shapes for Dia

For the course Compiler Construction I had to construct several compiler bootstrapping diagrams using tombstone diagrams. My default program for drawing formal diagrams is Dia, which is very extensible but lacked Tombstone diagrams. Therefore I decided to write the necessary shapes myself, since they are essentially SVGs. I released the shapes into the Public Domain through a Github repository.

Software tools

Most of the interesting software I have produced is either property of the University of Twente or of my employers. The work that may be useful to others, and is fully mine to publish is available from my Github page.

Hardware projects

Lego rover

This is a small Lego rover I made in my spare time. I own a LEGO MINDSTORMS 1.5 box with an RCX programmable brick, but at some point the RCX apparently had died. I decided to replace it with an Arduino Leonardo clone. For the motor drivers I chose to use an L293E IC, which can control the rover's two motors bi-directionally.

The Arduino clone board I got through a crowdfunding project proved to be a first step to gather goodwill for a long-con – something I only discovered years later. It was pure luck that I was not interested in the follow-up projects where the creators disappeared with the money.

The rover uses a standard LEGO MINDSTORMS 1.x microswitches for each half of the bumper. These allow it to drive around obstacles when it bumps into them.

The front of the rover contains an HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor. This allows the rover to observe the surface in front of it. When the rover drives on a table towards the edge, it will stop at the edge, turn around and drive back.

Note: LEGO, MINDSTORMS and RCX are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group, usage here is deemed fair use.