My friend Eric and I both noticed that on each shower, we have to wait few minutes until water is hot enough. During all this time water is pouring directly to the drain. We agreed that we need to do something about it.Before taking action, I thought that I need first to measure how much water is actually wasted by my family (4 people). So, I did a little experiment presented in the video below. The process is simple ...
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Johann Dichtl successfully defended his PhD, that I've co-supervised with Luc Fabresse and Guillaume Lozenguez. The defense took place this tuesday July 2nd, 2019 morning. The jury members were: Prof. Ouiddad Labbani from Université de Limoges, Dr. Mikal Ziane, HdR, from Université Paris Descartes, and Dr. Laetitia Matignon from Université Claude Bernard, Lyon 1.Title"On 2D SLAM for Large Indoor Spaces: A Polygon-based Solution"SummaryIndoor SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) and exploration are important topics in robotics. Most solutions today work with ...
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One of my motivations to 3D printing is home repair and improvement. In this small project, I decided to use polypanels to make a flexible, yet robust hook for a sponge holder in my kitchen. Starting from polypanel snaps provided freely available online (Thanks Devin). STL design files are freely available on my thingiverse page ...
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Lightweight Observer is an alternative to Announcement, the default Pharo  implementation of the Observer Design Pattern. I started developing Lightweight Observer because I needed a small framework, with an implementation that can be easily converted to Javascript using PharoJS. I also wanted to be straight forward to use. I had in mind beginners such as my students who often struggle when faced with many concepts and entities. This is why by default, the Lightweight Observer generates code behind the scene ...
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In this selection of simple week-end projects, we target our furry friends. We provide a selection of three cool DIY projects using Arduino boards. Cats will love these electronic toys. They will cost you only few bucks, for hours of fun and laughter with your pet. Checkout the videos. They are hilarious!The first project is basically a ball hide and seek game. You hide some balls around and the cat has to go fetch them (see Video 1). Once a ...
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If you care both about the planet and your health, the Farmers Market app is for you! This app allows you to find nearby markets, where you can buy fresh food directly from farmers. Most of the produce are grown locally. This means less fuel for transportation. So, by buying locally grown food you contribute to reduce CO2 emissions. You can even exercise: just walk to the market or ride a bicycle! The Farmers Market app makes eating healthy rime ...
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Green websites is the way to go for a carbon free Internet. By going green, content providers will contribute to fight climate change. The impact will be significant since the Internet energy consumption is ever growing. The communications industry could use 20% of all the world’s electricity by 2025, hampering global attempts to meet climate change targets and straining grids as demand by power-hungry server farms storing digital data from billions of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected devices grows exponentially. -- ...
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Providing a clear location usage description is critical to have your iOS app approved. With the default settings of the Apache Cordova location plugin cordova-plugin-geolocation, your app is likely to be rejected by Apple. I experienced this first hand with the iOS version of the Farmers Market app. Apple reviewers sent me the following message: Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage We noticed that your app requests the user’s consent to access their location, but ...
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As a Pharo addict, making a 3D printed lighthouse is a fun week-end project. This idea is even more attractive. It's a project that goes beyond what can be done using a small 3D printer, with a single extruder. The requirement are the following:

• The lighthouse can be taller than the maximum printing height.
• The height should be easy to change, without a CAD sofware.
• Combine at least 3 colors.
• Minimize wasted  time and  filament in case of a ...
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A loft of plastic litter (bottles, bags...) end up in harbours, marinas and canals. WasteShark, a robotic boat by a Dutch company (Rana Marine) takes care of collecting this floating waste. The robot behaves the shark whale style to clean urban waters. Video 1 shows WasteShark in action. Video 1 shows WasteShark in action Plastic pollution is a very problem dramatic as shown in Video 2. Unfortunately, the WasteShark robot can't cope with rough waters. There is however another the ...
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