1. Establish a set of encoding, tagging, and album art rules and save it as a text file in your top directory. For example: (downloadable version: musiclibarystd_revb)
   

   ==Music Library Standard Revision A.04==
   5/31/2009
   Grant Pitel
   Adam Pitel–CODING–
   LAME 3.90.3 Quality: 220 kbps VBR / 44.1KHz / Joint Stereo–TAGGING–
   (Rule 1) 
             General Folder structure
                  <Genre>/<Artist>/<Album>
             Special Folder structures
                  <Soundtracks>/<Album>(Rule 2)
   File Naming
             All files must cohere the following format
                  <track number> – <artist> – <song title>
   Exceptions:
             Compilations
                  The artist who performs the song goes in the composer tag
                  In the artists tag enter “Various Artists” and rename the file such that coheres to the following
                  <track number> – <album> – <composer name> – <song title>
             Soundtracks
                  Sound track songs contain “Various Artists” in the artist field. 
   The file name should neglect this field as follows.
                  <track number> – <album> – <song title>(Rule 3)
   Albums with multiple CDs
                   The album tag should contain the CD number so it looks like the following
                   <album (CD #)>
                   Folder structure and file naming remain the same
    
   – IMAGES –
   (Rule 1) All album art needs to be embedded into the music file
   (Rule 2) Each album directory needs to contain an image of the album cover “folder.jpg”

2. Download all your music to a temporary holding directory. This directory will be for all your untagged music. The music will automatically be added to the correct file/folder as you’ll see next.
3. Use Mp3tag to tag, embed album art, and automatically organize the file structure according to the above rules. After tagging the album from Amazon, you can then use that Tag to rewrite the filename and folder structure. Using the above ruleset, the following format string is used in Mp3tag to go from Tag to Filename: “D:\Music\%genre%\%artist%\%album%\$num(%track%,2) – %artist% – %title%” See example video below:
   
4. Disable unnecessary tagging features in iTunes and Windows Media Player such as “Retrieve additional information from the internet” and copy library to a new directory.

Please feel free to share any of your music organization methods in the comments below.

Our first attempt to replace the cat tree with a hardier, taller model proved to be out of our price range, with models starting at $250 going upwards of $500. So Nathan made me a deal. He would build a cat tree/condo when he got his workshop up and running and was able to buy a table saw. So 2 ½ years later, here’s the process:

The Design:

I started by browsing through websites that sell cat trees and condos. From these designs, we came up with several key elements that the tree should include:

1. Height. An interior decorator had recently helped us finish off our family room. On the left side of the mantle she had place a 7 foot high silk plant. To maintain balance in the room, we decided to build a 7 foot cat tree on the right side of the mantle.
2. Tail Chasing. Oscar loves to chase his own tail by hanging off ledges. So several ledges were included.
3. Hiding. Like most cats, Oscar likes to fit into small places, where he feels safe and warm. When he is a little unsure of things, he likes to climb to a spot as high as possible, allowing him to keep an eye on things. Right now, that spot is the cabinets above the fridge. We would like to go back to that point of blissful ignorance when he doesn’t walk around on the kitchen counters.

Materials:

After several trips to Menards for ideas, we came up with the following list of materials:

• 12 inch concrete form
• 3 2 foot x 6 foot 3/4inch plywood boards
• 16 ½ feet of junk 2×4s (already had from previous homeowners)
• 16 ½ feet of 8 inch PVC pipes
• 4 packages of sisal rope
• 60 feet of carpet (from remnant carpet section)
• 5 Long lag bolts (with end cut off to make double ended screws)
• 6 Lag bolts with large torx head
• 1 foot of fabric for cat hammock
• Lots of glue sticks and staples

The Build:

Nathan did most of this section.

1. Columns: Nathan cut the PVC pipe into 4 sizes: 3 – 2 feet, 2 – 2.5 feet, 1 – 3.5 feet, 2 – 1 foot. He then fitted the 2×4 pieces inside the PVC pipes and screwed them in. Then he drilled holes for the bolts. I wrapped each pole with either carpet or sisal rope which was attached with high temperature glue.
2. Platforms: Nathan cut the platforms into several shapes. Base platform – 2 ftx2 ft. Level 1 – 2 ft x 2 ft with one corner cut off. Level 2 and Level 3 – 2 ft x 1 ft. Level 4 – 1 ft x 1ft. Level 4 was originally going to be a concrete form cut in half and placed on the side like a half moon shape but due to stability issues this top level was transformed into a platform. Nathan predrilled holes into the boards.
3. Concrete form: Nathan used a protractor to trace a circle on the outside of the form. He also traced and cut two more circles out of wood to wedge into the top and bottom of the form. The inside floor and the outside of the form were covered in carpet.

Finished Product:

Oscar LOVES his new cat tree. He spends a great deal of time chasing his tail on the ledges. He sleeps inside the concrete form and play with the toys hanging off the ledges.

I have contacted some city council members in hopes of bringing these enviroment- and energy-friendly vehicles to public streets. Below I am documenting the steps we have gone through so far, and will update it as new events occur. I encourage you contact your city council members to support NEVs in your town. This gesture is just a small step in ending our dependence on foreign oil. Thank you and I hope you find the items below useful.

NEV JOURNAL

• (08-12-08) Sheryl called our insurance agent to see if they would insure an NEV. They confirmed that they insure NEVs but at a higher rate than cars due to their lack of safty features and limited availability of replacement parts.
• (08-15-08) I contacted Champaign City Council, whose ordinances define where NEVs are allowed. The e-mail addresses and photos listed on the city council website suggested the members were very appoachable, and I found this to be true. Champaign also has an extensive database that lets users search previous minutes and agendas–an excellent resource for finding existing NEV ordinances.
• (08-18-08) I recieved a reply from a member of the city council saying he was adding NEVs to the agenda. He stated that he personally supports allowing NEVs on public streets but expects opposition for their use outside the University District, and recommends that I e-mail the other council members.
  
• (08-22-08) City council study session schedule approved for next week.
• (09-08-08) City council is discussing expansion on 09-09-08.
• (09-09-08) City council passed in favor of Neighborhood Electric vehicles eight to one. Stay tuned. Read the meeting summary (taken from the City of Champaign website).

1. Choosing Your Subject

   This part is fairly subjective. For stop-motion films, just about any subject can be entertaining in stop-motion, but in limited quantities. Harping on the same location or subject for a long period of time will bore the viewer. I consider the jerkiness of stop-motion is best suited for fast paced themes. For instance, in “Passing By,” rather than dwell on the train for an extended period of time, I have it interspersed throughout the film. You’ll be able to get a better feel for this when you get to the editing stage.

2. Taking the Photo

   Your camera should be set to continuous (burst fire) mode, which depending on your camera and storage card speed, can offer 1.5 to 5 frames per second. Make sure you set your camera to manual exposure at a consistent exposure level. Nothing is more distracting than having the exposure change from one frame to next, a couple times a second. This may also entail avoiding natural light if you’re shooting multiple scenes indoors, as the change in daylight will seem amplified.

   If you wish to make your film in widescreen and your camera does not support it, don’t worry, the photo can always be cropped later—simply keep this in mind when you take the photo. I set the camera’s resolution to maximum possible, so if I wanted to do some cropping, the final image could still reach my target resolution of 1920 x 1080.

3. Editing the Photos

   This is the most crucial step to making your stop-motion look professional. Every single frame in “Passing By” was heavily edited before importing into the NLE. While this may seem like a daunting task, batch processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom makes it a breeze. Since each scene has approximately the same levels and lighting, each scene could be batch processed as a whole. I applied the desired settings to one photo from a scene, and then copied the settings to the rest of the photos in the scene. The process was repeated for each scene in the film. Below is a demonstration on how I batch processed the photos from the NYC scene.

   
   Lightroom Batch Processing Demonstration (Click for High-Resolution Video)

4. Importing into a Non-Linear Editor (NLE)

   This step is really going to depend on what NLE you use; I used Sony Vegas Pro 8. Before I even had a song picked out, I imported all the photos into Vegas. Then I pre-rendered all the footage (at very high video quality) with no audio, and then re-imported it back into Vegas. I did this simply because my computer played a rendered video better than thousands of pictures in the timeline. From this continuous video file, I created a bunch of sub-clips for each scene. Subdividing each scene into its own clip allowed me to put the scenes in any order and trim them as needed.

5. Editing

   This step is also fairly subjective. If you plan to use music, you should choose your song prior to editing. Choosing your song beforehand will allow you to edit based on natural divisions in the song (i.e. to the song’s beat). In “Passing By,” the first scene establishes a particularly length coordinated with the song. If you tap your foot, it’s about eight beats. Each subsequent scene is the same or a multiple of the first clip’s length, for example, the first train scene is sixteen beats. This allows you to maintain a desired consistency in throughout the film. Experimentation is key, try different songs, different orders, etc. until you get a feel for the direction you want.

6. Rendering

   I rendered the project at 1920 x 1080 progressive at 15 Mbit/s using the H.264 codec, as it’s pretty much the standard for HD video. I rendered the audio using PCM uncompressed, as I was had a FLAC source.

Click here for the results. Hope this is a good starting point for many of you. Reply with your results or some comments/questions.

Battery life is often measured by cycle life, the number of full charge/discharge cycles before the battery reaches 80% of its original capacity. Keeping the discharge current relative to the battery’s amp×hour capacity low and the discharge shallow improves battery longevity. Typical 12 V sealed lead acid (SLA) cells, like the ones found a Go-Ped, can be cycled 300 times. Here are a couple of tips about buying replacement batteries. Manufactures that do not advertise cycle life are probably not worth buying from, as they may use lower quality materials. Also, be wary of vendors that claim their cheaper batteries are “replacements for” and “perform similar to,” yet have no datasheets to back up these claims. As it turns out, Best Batteries (B&B) provides lots of data about their batteries, and come stock with Go-Ped Scooters. The ESR 750 contains B&B HR-9 batteries intended for high-discharge rates. The replacement battery should have the same width and length but a taller height and also be designed for high-discharge rates and high cycle life. Below is a summary for three different batteries meeting this size and discharge rate profile. All the data was taken from datasheets on the B&B website. I decided to get the EVP12-12 which I purchased locally from Brandt Services Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri, which had excellent customer service, reasonable prices, and dirt cheap shipping. The discharge rate was calculated from the Go-Ped’s specified distance, max speed, and from the stock battery’s discharge characteristics.

Scooter Cavity Extension

The Go-Ped scooter base needs modification if it is going to accommodate the larger batteries.  Much inspiration came from user Goped19 on GopedNation and battery discussions on V is for Voltage Forums.  The height was increased by stacking additional wood boards that mimicked the original base. I purchased one 24×24×0.75 inch thick piece of plyboard and drew two outlines using the original base as a template. Drill a large hole into each board and the cut the outline with a jigsaw, as shown Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Cutting the outline

The boards were stacked, carefully aligned, then locked into position with aluminum tension wire. The board’s height makes straight drilling difficult. Use a drill press to make mounting holes. When the holes are done, the boards can be clamped together with a screw, nut, and washer. This is handy for keeping boards together when sanding the edges with a belt sander a wood file, as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 Cleaning up the woodwork

Finally, I connected batteries as outlined in a previous post and screwed down the board with 3.5 in. long, 0.25 in. dia., 20 count thread screw. The first trip to work was 3.8 miles with a 170 lb payload in econo-mode. I arrived with 60% remaining capacity according to the state-of-charge versus terminal voltage chart found in technical manual on the B&B’s website.

Two months into the internship I could not get to work any more. I opened the scoot scooter top to find 4 sealed-lead-acid (SLA) batteries with a pack configuration shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Stock Go-ped battery pack configuration.

From previous work I did with laptop batteries, I learned that manufacturers typically tie together parallel cells such that they form a pack similar to the one shown in Fig. 2, Step 4, which has two advantages. First, it halves the number of sensors that measure voltage. Measuring two voltages, one across B_1A and another across B_2A is essential for determining when to end charge and discharge, major factors that affect battery life. Unfortunately, the scooter model only measured the stack voltage, the total voltage across B_1A and B_2A. The second advantage is that it provides a balancing effect. If a cell becomes weaker, the adjacent cell gives it charge. Having cells reach end-of-charge and discharge in unison is the most beneficial situation. After two months my batteries were significantly damaged. I parallel tied my batteries, which allowed them to die more gracefully and it also gave me about 20% more range, both which helped me get to work and back until the end of the summer.

Fig. 2. Steps to extend Go-Ped pack configuration

IMPORTANT: Do not reconfigure the battery pack if you do not know what you are doing, and expect to void your warranty too. However if you want to take preventive measures follow these steps.

STEPS TO MODDING GO-PED BATTERY PACK

1. Find a well ventilated area to work in.
2. Disconnect the scooter from the charger and open the board with a torx screw driver.
3. Remove the four quick-connects at the top and bottom of the batteries.
4. Remove the two metal tabs that connect B_1A to B_2A and the one that connect B_1B to B_2B.
5. Create a wire harness that replaces the function of the metal tabs and will tie together the cells.
   1. You will need two short pieces of stranded 12 AWG wire and four yellow T2 female quick connect terminals and one long 18 or 22 AWG.
   2. Strip the wires and crimp both an the 18 AWG and the 22 AWG terminal into the same terminal.
   3. Crimp the other terminals so that the harness forms an H shape.
6. IMPORTANT: you must balance parallel batteries before you connect them together. Otherwise you will cause a spark and damage your batteries.
   1. Connect small resistors, about 100 Ω, between parallel batteries, and let them balance for a few hours.
7. Once balanced you can proceed to reconnect your pack.

The final connected harness should look something like the one in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Completed wire harness

Once you have made these modifications to you scooter there are some other life extension options to consider. Re-configuring the pack was a simple form of cell balancing, where charge moves between adjacent cells. There are commercial active cell-balancing products such as BattEQ and Power Cheq that moves charge from different levels of a stack. Check your scooter dimensions for free space. Another option is higher quality, larger capacity batteries. Ultimately I choose the last option, which I will discuss in another article and describe other scooter modifications.

UPDATE:
My wife and I have been able to get a couple rides into work this summer. We have been very happy with the new pack. I am able to ride 5 miles to work all on turbo mode . I measured the pack once, which indicated that this distance depletes the pack by 50%. I live in Illinois, which is as flat as you can get. I recently added some packaging foam around the batteries as the bigger batteries were causing a lot of road vibration. This easy mod made our rides a lot more comfortable.

My chain was starting to get stretched out from use. I tried to use my bike chain tool to remove some links, but Go-Peds chains are much smaller. I the bought the chain tensioner add-on for the scooter which works like a charm. Looking back, I should have built my own. $40 for a piece for plastic is a bit pricey.

Fig. 1 Buck converter with DCR

The buck converter circuit was simplified for analysis purposes by replacing the input and output with arbitrary voltage sources as shown in Fig. 2. The input voltage V_in(t) is a voltage signal produced by switching a dc voltage source. The input voltage passes through an LC filter, where L₂ is the inductor and R₂ its winding resistance. The inductor and output capacitor produce a filtered output signal V_out(t). The components in parallel with the inductor, R₁ and C₁, is the DCR network, which is chosen in such a way that the voltage v_C across C₁ is proportional to the inductor current i_L.

Fig. 2 Simplified Buck circuit

The circuit is further simplified by combining the network into parallel impedance, Z₁ and Z₂ as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 Parallel impedance network

The following derivation shows the mathematical relationship between R₁, C₁, R₂, and L₂ how to choose the RC network.

The voltage across C₁ is

(1)

and total input current is

(2)

where the total input impedance is

. (3)

The voltage difference term in (1) replaced with according to (2) gives

. (4)

Looking at the parallel impedance as a current divider, the inductor current is

(5)

Substituting (3) into (4)

(6)

then (5) into (6)

(7)

The DCR capacitor voltage is proportional to inductor the current by a factor K when

(8)

Which is the same as

. (9)

Thus when

(10)

(11)

and thus

(12)

To validate this mathematical relationship, the buck converter in Fig. 4 was simulated in Simulink™ and the results plotted Fig. 5. The parameter values for the circuit are E = 12 V, R₁ = 1 kΩ, C₁ = 1 μF, R₂ = 1 Ω, and L₂ = 1 mH. The circuit ran at a switching frequency of 100 kHz at 50% duty cycle.

Fig. 4. Simulink Buck converter model

Fig. 5. Simulated output

I purchased a Dell 3200MP projector in 2003, fulfilling my undergraduate fantasy of a 60+ image in my living room. In 2007 the bulb expired and I was left with a difficult decision of buying a new bulb or replacing the projector.  I wanted to hold off buying a new projector until one with 1080p, +2000 lumens, and under a grand was available.  Yet, I really could not justify paying $350 dollars on a new lamp when a new XGA projector costs around $500. A new lamp consists of housing and a UHP (ultra high pressure) bulb. Leaving me with three replacement options:

(1) Salvage lamp housing and find the exact bulb. Cost – ~$100 dollars.
(2) Send the bulb out for refurbishing ~$250
(3) Buy a new lamp from the manufacturer ~$360

OPTION 1:
This was the option I eventually choose. After watching Ebay for a few weeks, my bulb showed up. You can find out what your bulb you have by removing the lamp from the projector (directions are probably in the projector manual).  My bulb was a Osram VIP 150/P16 (see attached picture).  I believe VIP is the bulb technology, 150 is the power rating, and P16 describes the bulb shape and size.  I only had to remove a few screws to remove the bulb from the housing.  When you refurbish the bulb, be careful not to get fingerprints on the new bulb. This creates hot spots which reduce bulb life.

OPTION 2:
Projector bulbs come in many different shapes and size and some are easier to locate than others.  If you can’t find your bulb, refurbishing services are also an option.  Users on missingremote and AVSforum recommend RelampIt for their decent prices and good service.  You email them your projector model and they will tell you if they can replace the bulb. Then you ship your lamp, they put in a new bulb, and ship it back with a 90 day warranty.

I hope these bulb replacement options wil help encourage wary customers into purchasing front projectors.  Once you have one I am convience that you will have a hard time going back to anything.

Design Process

In order to better under the digital design process with respect to real-world applications, a two-way traffic light controller was designed. The traffic light operated in two modes:

1. Timed signal changing cycle with weight sensor input
   The primary mode of operation is the standard timed signal changing. Additional logic was added to implement a weight sensor input (via push-button switch), causing a red light to change green faster when asserted.
2. Hazard Condition
   During hazardous conditions, one traffic light flashes yellow, while the other flashes red—disrupting the traditional timed cycle. This mode was implemented using a flip switch to signify hazard condition.

To simplify troubleshooting processes, the traffic light controller was built in stages. The initial timed cycle for one traffic light was modeled using a finite-state machine. After implementing and testing this initial design, the weight sensor feature was added for the sole traffic light. Finally, the logic for the hazard condition was added, which was fairly simple.

Once a single traffic light was fully implemented using a finite state machine, a second traffic light was added using identical conditions respective to the second light. The change between the two traffic lights’ logic was changing which light flashes in hazard mode: yellow for light1, red for light2.

To coordinate the two lights to work together, the logic for each light was changed for the transition from red to green. A timer (Q26) was added to allow for both lights to remain red shortly before one transitions to green—a pretty standard feature. Since the lights share the same logic for transitioning from red to green, a light enable bit was added to distinguish which light should switch. When the light enable is low, light2 changes, when the light enable is high, light1 changes. This light enable input is toggled whenever a light transitions from yellow to red.

The following are letter assignments for the different varibles:

RED1 – R1
YELLOW1 – Y1
GREEN1 – G1
RED2 – R2
YELLOW2 – Y2
GREEN2 – G2
RESET – Re
HAZARD – H
CLOCK – Q##
WEIGHTSENSOR 1 – W1clock
WEIGHTSENSOR 2 – W2clock

The complete logic for each of the 6 lights is below, with the assignments on the right:

Red1
1. (R1)(H) – If red1 is on and hazard switch is on, turn red1 off
2. (R1)(R2)(H’)(E)(Q26) – If red1 and red2 are on, and it’s traffic light #1’s turn, then switch red1 off and go to green1
3. (Y1)(Q27) – When yellow1 is done, switch to red
4. (R1’)(H’)(Re) – When reset is pushed, make sure red1 is turned on

Yellow1
1. (Y1)(Q27) – When yellow1 is done, switch to red1
2. (G1)(Q29) – When green1 is done, switch to yellow1
3. (H)(Q26) – When hazard switch is on, toggle yellow1 for every Q26
4. (Y)(Re) – If reset is pushed and yellow1 is on, turn it off
5. (G1)(W¬2clock = 1 sec) – If green1 is on and weight sensor 2 is pressed for one second, then switch to yellow in preparation for traffic light 2 changing to green

Green1
1. (R1)(R2)(H’)(E)(Q26) – If red1 and red2 are on, and it’s traffic light #1’s turn, then switch red1 off and go to green1
2. (G1)(H) – If green1 is on and hazard switch is on, turn green1 off
3. (G1)(Re) – If reset is pushed and green1 is on, turn it off
4. (G1)(W2¬clock = 1 sec) – If green1 is on and weight sensor 2 is pressed for one second, then switch to yellow in preparation for traffic light 2 changing to green
5. (G1)(Q29) – When green1 is done, switch to yellow1

Red2
1. (H)(Q26) – When hazard switch is on, toggle red2 for every Q26
2. (R1)(R2)(H’)(E’)(Q26) – If red1 and red2 are on, and it’s traffic light #2’s turn, then switch red2 off and go to green2
3. (Y2)(Q27) – When yellow2 is done, switch to red
4. (R2)(Re) – If reset is pushed and red2 is on, turn it off

Yellow2
1. (Y2)(Q27) – When yellow2 is done, switch to red2
2. (G2)(Q29) – When green2 is done, switch to yellow2
3. (H)(Y2) – If yellow2 is on and hazard switch is on, turn yellow2 off
4. (Y2)(Re) – If reset and pushed and yellow2 is on, turn it off
5. (G2)(W1clock = 1 sec) – If green2 is on and weight sensor 1 is pressed for one second, then switch to yellow in preparation for traffic light 1 changing to green

Green2
1. (R1)(R2)(H’)(E’)(Q26) – If red1 and red2 are on, and it’s traffic light #2’s turn, then switch red2 off and go to green2
2. (G2’)(H’)(Re) – If green2 is not on, hazard switch is not on, and the reset button is pushed, then turn green2 on
3. (G2)(W1clock = 1 sec) – If green2 is on and weight sensor 1 is pressed for one second, then switch to yellow in preparation for traffic light 1 changing to green
4. (H)(G2) – If green2 is on and hazard switch is on, turn green2 off.
5. (G2)(Q29) – When green2 is done, switch to yellow2

Light Enable
1. (Y2)(Q27) – When yellow2 switches to red2
2. (Y1)(Q27) – When yellow1 switches to red1
3. Set Light Enable Low – Whenever reset is pushed

32-bit Counter Reset
When any of the conditions are met for any light (i.e. all conditions for Red1, Red2, Yellow1, etc…)

The following is a block diagram of the design’s functional units:

Testing, Debugging, and Problems Encountered

There were several obstacles in the design, the first being how to implement the weight sensor. When someone stops at a red light and makes a turn on red, then the weight sensor should not trigger. Therefore, the weight sensor should only trigger the logic to change the light after it has been pressed for a period of time. To perform this timing function, the group deployed the Xilinx CB8CE counter macro with the weight sensor input tied to the counter enable (CE) of the macro. Therefore, the weight counter would only run when the sensor was pressed. When the output of the weight counter reached the desired value, it triggered the logic to change the light. The weight counter was reset anytime a light transitioned, so it always started at zero.

The second bug encountered occurred when the weight sensor was pressed half-way into the green light’s timed cycle, causing both the yellow and red light to come on at the same time. The only explanation for this bug was caused by a timing hazard, where two logic statements were being met at the same time when they shouldn’t be: (Y2)(Q27) and (G2)(W1clock = 1 sec). To solve this problem, the group added an additional logic statement to each red light: if yellow and red are both on, then turn red off.

Improvements and Conclusion

There are several ways to improve the design. First, the counters used for the light were for demonstration purposes only to display functionality. A real traffic light would likely operate much slower. This change in speed can easily be accommodated by using different values on the 32-bit counter and on the weight sensor. Additional lights can be added, such as a turn signal. A vision could replace the weight sensor as a lower cost alternative; it could easily be implemented with a photoresistor replacing the push-button as the input. Finally, a very extravagant feature would network the traffic light with the computer for remote control and activity monitoring.

Designing the traffic light adequately tested the group’s knowledge of digital design. The project gave insight into the digital design process in addition to just digital logic. The group learned that digital logic can be used to implement a lot of practical applications—not simply from the traffic light, but from all the projects designed by the class. There is surprisingly more logic involved in a traffic light than expected. However, by starting very early and following a modular design process, the project was very manageable. The project gave particular insight to finite state machines implemented with numerous counters. Overall, the design project was a very rewarding experience; a positive learning opportunity.

Pictures available here.

EDIT: 2/16/08 – I zipped the code and put it online to download. There’s a few macros in there. I believe the main program is called TrafficLightTwo