leucht.com

Kurt's Misc Projects

Here are some misc web and other software projects that I've worked on that I'm proud of. This is just a place for me to brag a bit about myself and my accomplishments.

Misc Web Projects

Leucht.com Obviously I created and maintain the leucht.com site. Most of the site is static HTML pages, but there are quite a few PERL programs running behind the scenes. This static HTML page actually has some variable content that is filled in on-the-fly by a PERL script. The page view counter and the modification date/time are both calculated as the page is downloaded. Some other scripts that I wrote to make maintenance easier is an administrative script that is used to modify all of the "lists" pages on the server. The PERL script uses a web interface to allow Sam and I to modify our multiple "links" pages from anywhere in the world. I wrote these web page maintenance scripts back in the late 1990's before the wide use of web based applications and maintenance tools.

AcmeCatapult.com I created and still maintain this simple website for my Stepdad and his buddies. It doesn't look like it, but I implemented the site as a blog. I chose a blog so that multiple people, including myself, could make changes and additions to the site content. It works pretty well. My Stepdad and his buddies designed and built a very impressive catapult that is capable of shooting small pumpkins over 2000 feet. Heavier booms are used on the catapult to allow it to hurl much heavier items, such as refrigerators, stoves, riding lawnmowers, etc. They've been featured on a TLC special, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and on the short-lived variety gameshow My Kind of Town. They're getting all kinds of business from the website.

Production Visualization & Streamlining Tool (PVST) (Restricted Access) I created and still maintain this web program for the Technical/Video Ministry at my church. I designed the program to allow the Technical Ministry Team to better visualize their video production process and the tool has allowed the process to become smoother and more streamlined, hence the name PVST. Here's how it works: All church members can access a web page that allows them to submit a request for a video production. The request is automatically entered into a database and an email is sent to the Technical Ministry Team to let them know it's there. The Team members go to a special restricted web page that allows them to assign a submittal to a production date and then organize maintain multiple production dates. The program is pretty specific to the team's needs, and is kinda hard to explain, but it has been a tremendous help to everyone involved.

Natalie McKnight's website (Archived 2011 site) I created this simple website for my Cocoa Village Playhouse friend, Natalie McKnight. The website link is actually an archive since the original site is no longer active. It's a pretty simple site that I created from an online template. Natalie is using the site for marketing purposes. She is a very talented actress & singer & dancer.

MiniBajaEast.com (Archived 2003 site) I created this simple static website for some friends of mine who help organize and run the Mini Baja East engineering design competition over at UCF every 4 years or so. The website link is actually an archive since the original site is no longer active. It was online for less than a year and received over 37,000 hits. That's over a hundred hits a day, which is pretty respectable for such a narrowly focused site. On this site we put up important info for all the event participants, like notices, rules, schedules, maps, etc. I also put up hundreds of photos of the actual event in near real time.

Mini Baja East (Archived 1999 site) I created this simple static website for some friends of mine who help organize and run the Mini Baja East engineering design competition over at UCF every 4 years or so. The website link is actually an archive since the original site is no longer active. On this site we put up important info for all the event participants, like notices, rules, schedules, maps, etc. They liked the site so much, they asked me to do it again in 2003.

Apollo11.org (Archived 2000 site) I created this website for a friend of mine who was trying to save the original Apollo 11 Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) from destruction. The website link is actually an archive since the original site is no longer active. On this site, guests could donate money to the cause using a secure web program that I developed. Sadly, there was not enough interest or funds to save the LUT and it was destroyed in 2005.

CLCS Gateway Maintenance User Interface (MUI) This particular software was written for work and is Copyright NASA. Click on the screenshots for full-sized versions. I designed, developed, and deployed a web based maintenance interface in the Checkout & Launch Control System (CLCS) Project. The CLCS Gateway Maintenance User Interface (MUI) was designed to allow maintenance personnel to view health and status of major subsystems and also allow minor maintenance activities to be performed from a standard desktop system. The MUI server was implemented on the VxWorks Gateway subsystems using a JAVA applet that showed data and statistics changing in real time. The server also included a telnet relay that was used to show a read-only display for multiple processor boards in each subsystem along with limited command capability using buttons, text boxes, and drop-down choice boxes. The MUI client was the standard JAVA enabled web browser. We used Netscape since it was installed on the UNIX workstations by default. There was a really nice magazine article written about the CLCS MUI in EE Times Magazine. It's Issue 1006, Monday May 11th, 1998, page 108. The article was titled "Web server targets shuttle operations". Sadly, the EE Times web articles don't go back that far.

Misc Software Projects

Video games that I have written I'm starting to get into writing video games and puzzles. This is just for fun. It's a fun hobby.

NASA's RASSOR Low Gravity Regolith Excavation Robot This is an IEEE produced video showing the RASSOR robot that I am helping to create. RASSOR is a digging robot that is designed to be light weight and to be able to excavate regolith in low gravity.

NASA's Ant-Inspired Swarmie Robots This is a NASA produced video showing the Swarmie robots that I helped create. These robots were programmed to search for and collect resources in the same way that ants search for and collect food.

Automated Translation of Safety Critical Application Software Specifications into PLC Ladder Logic This is a technical research paper I wrote after solving a complex problem out at work. I wrote some software that automatically generated ladder logic in a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) computer from an Excel spreadsheet representation of the desired application.

External diff Tool (Eclipse Plugin) Myself along with a few other developers on the SourceForge.net Open Source software development website had complained in a Feature Request issue that someone should write an Eclipse IDE plugin that allows a user to launch their own file comparison (diff) program rather than the feature lacking (and even buggy) Eclipse Compare tool. Well, after about a year of sitting on the idea and hoping that someone else would write the plugin, I finally bit the bullet and learned how to write Eclipse plugins and came up with a small and simple solution to the problem. I wrote it on my own time, so NASA doesn't own this particular software. The plugin I wrote is hosted on the SourceForge.net Open Source (free) server, so we'll be able to easily see how many other software developers find this tool useful. Here's the download link for the External diff Tool (Eclipse Plugin). Just click on the latest file release to download the plugin. SourceForge.net also allowed me to upload screenshots of the tool, and they also have user Forums and a feature-rich Bug Tracker and Feature Request system. Writing the plugin was fairly simple, so I can see myself writing more in the future.

NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent (NESTA) This particular software was written for work and is Copyright NASA. I helped design, develop, and deploy an important product to the NASA Shuttle Engineering community. The NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent (NESTA) is a rule-agent based server that processes the Shuttle processing/launch data stream and allows users to write rules to monitor the data stream for events, milestones, failures, etc. This tool has also been used by various NASA Public Affairs officials in order to be better informed about major Shuttle Launch Countdown events and milestones. In this project, I mostly work on JAVA code to decode the measurement databanks, and I also integrate, test, and deploy the product on a regular basis. Glenn S. Semmel, Steven R. Davis, Kurt W. Leucht, Daniel A. Rowe, Kevin E. Smith, Ryan O'Farrell, Ladislau Boloni, "NESTA: NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent," AAAI AI Magazine, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 25-35, Fall, 2006 Glenn S. Semmel, Steven R. Davis, Kurt W. Leucht, Daniel A. Rowe, Kevin E. Smith, Ladislau Boloni, "Space Shuttle Ground Processing with Monitoring Agents," IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 68-73, Jan/Feb, 2006 Semmel, G.S.; Davis, S.R.; Leucht, K.W.; Rowe, D.A.; Smith, K.E.; and Bölöni, L. July 2005. "NESTA: NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent," Proceedings of the 20th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 17th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference. pp. 1491-1498. AAAI Press. Menlo Park, CA, USA. IAAI-05 Deployed Application Award

Launch Commit Criteria Monitoring Agent (LCCMA) This particular software was written for work and is Copyright NASA. I helped design and implement a prototype or demonstration version of a product that we wanted to build for the NASA Shuttle Engineering community. The Launch Commit Criteria Monitoring Agent (LCCMA) was to be a rule-agent based desktop application that processes the Shuttle processing/launch data stream and notifies the user of Launch Commit Criteria warnings and violations. This tool was never funded and withered away. In this project, I mostly worked on JAVA code to decode the measurement databanks, and I also integrated & tested it. Also I came up with a pretty impressive (if I do say so myself) User Interface for this project. LCCMA Article, International Conference on Autonomous Agents, 2005

CLCS Data Recording Processor (DRP) This particular software was written for work and is Copyright NASA. I designed, developed, and deployed a major subsystem in the Checkout & Launch Control System (CLCS) Project. The CLCS Data Recording Processor (DRP) was designed to record locally and remotely all network traffic on two critical networks. The DRP was implemented on a VME chassis using the VxWorks Realtime Operating System. All the DRP software was written in C. This software basically got archived and put into a large vault after the project got cancelled. It probably won't end up getting used at all in any project.

Thanks for visiting, Kurt & Sam Leucht Titusville, FL

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This website was originally created by Kurt Leucht in July 1999.
The current design was created by Kurt Leucht in November of 2014.
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