Re: Holiday mail

[Joyce Poon <poonj@ecf.utoronto.ca>]

Welcome back Cindy.

I woke up from my nap & checked my email... only to be swamped by 5 new
messages (some are pretty long too).

I don't really feel like replying to them in detail at the moment.  But
just a couple of quick/top-of-the-head responses to some of Tim's
questions.

1) My catalog doesn't make any note of radio nor ultrasound sensors.  I
was looking for them before... Maybe they are harder to find?  I haven't
read the Seattle Robotics pages in a long time, but I recall that
ultrasound sensors tend to be more expensive than other sensors (like IR).
But I believe I have read stuff about how to make cheaper ultrasound
sensors.

2) I think the reason why there are all these discrepancies among the
ranges of IR sensors is that people use them for diff functions.  One way
to boost IR range is to increase the current going to the emitter, though
the webpage http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/nov98/billhir.html
talks about the dangers of having a signal that's too strong.  I hesitate
to "diffuse" the light (from our beacon or from the extra transmitters) 
since "diffusion" would cause a decrease in intensity thus decreasing
sensor range.

3) I follow MLA style... There was a time when I placed my periods outside
the quotations, but that habit was quickly squashed by my OAC English
teacher. :)

So much for now.

Happy New Year!

Joyce :)