CNET Review

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
Kirby vacuums are made entirely of metal, they are real tools instead of your plastic toy vacuum.

The truth:
For past models this was a very accurate statement, the new Sentria model does have a few plastic (aluminum plated) parts that they have used to help lower the overall weight.  The belt on/off release knob, for example, is not entirely metal and Kirby repair-shops have reported that piece as less reliable.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
All Kirby vacuums come with a lifetime warranty.

The truth:
The Kirby Sentria model actually only has a complete warranty for 3 years (belts, light-bulbs, back wheels, and roller brush are not covered).  So during the first three years you can take it in to an authorized repair-shop or pay to ship it to Kirby for covered warranty issues.  They do, however, also offer a lifetime rebuild program.  At any time you can pay to ship your vacuum back to Kirby and for a price of $175 (adjusted according to the new Consumer Price Index number) they will completely rebuild the entire vacuum. A rebuilt vacuum comes with another 1 year warranty. Also, if your Kirby vacuum is accidently destroyed by fire, Kirby will also honor the rebuild program or replace the vacuum if needed.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
Financing the Kirby vacuum for 3 years is a great idea.

The truth:
We paid for our vacuum in cash.  Financing the vacuum will require a check on your credit, and the 3 year loan does have interest built into the monthly payment.  If you decide to finance your Kirby vacuum make sure you understand exactly the terms of the loan and make sure the settled total price you decide with the salesperson is really all you be paying for the vacuum, interest included.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
Buying the vacuum now is urgent!  We will not be back again soon!

The truth:
False, maybe this specific person won’t be able to come back.  But you can always request an in-home demo from Kirby.com and get the exact same offer.  One person online even reported that they had a salesperson at their door within one hour of having requested a demo.  (hint: Schedule your appointment for the end of the month, end of the week, or at least the end of the day, they do seem to have quotas they try and hit, so you’ll be able to talk the price down a bit more)

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
You can only buy Kirby vacuums from an authorized distributer through an in-home demonstration.

The truth:
This is true, according to Kirby.com this is the only way to purchase the vacuum with a warranty.  Distributors are not supposed to sell them online.  If you buy one used or refurbished, the warranty only applies to the original owner, so you will be responsible for the full cost of any repairs, replacements, or rebuilds.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
I am a nice guy, I like you guys, I like my job.

The truth:
Kirby salespeople have gained some of the worst door-to-door salesperson reputations.  Of the 30 BBB complaints currently registered online almost all of them are related to the distributers tactics and not the product itself.  Though Kirby strives to only keep distributors with good customer skills.  You might end up with a dishonest jerk at your door — but most are great people.  They are paid on commission, so every time you talk the price down, it does come out of what the salesperson (and his boss) will earn.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
This Kirby Sentria is the best vacuum in the universe.

The truth:
Like any product, this can be debated forever.  Consumer Reports and many other reviews I read online only gave raving reviews for the results of this vacuum.  Is it really better then other high end vacuums like Rainbow and Simplicity? Many say yes.  This vacuum will suck and clean better then any low to mid level vacuum that you can find at wal-mart or home-depot.  Reviews online sound like you will never regret the cleaning ability of this vacuum.  If you can afford a high end deep cleaning vacuum, this is a great choice.

Kirby Vaccum Salesperson Statement:
The Kirby Sentria is easy to use.

The truth:
Well, more or less. It does come with a 30 minute DVD explaining how everything works.  It is definitely more complicated then simply an on or off switch. There are many belt and brush adjustments, accessories, bags, and more that do require some time to learn how they work.

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A fundamental piece of the project was actually controlling the steering angle and driving speed of the robot in order to successfully navigate the complicated pylon courses. After deciding early in the semester that we would drive directly towards the pylon we simply had to build an algorithm that could use the vision data to perform that principle action. First we created a few principle parameters that would be used throughout the control code. This including the parameters for driving straight speed, turning speed, number of encoder ticks to count per radian, and the distance before pylon to start turning. We were able to first successfully run the control code through the given simulator. Which allowed us to do some initial adjustments to our design and test our idea of driving directly towards the pylon.

We implemented this design with a simple state machine. During iterations through the main loop it would call the control state machine after analyzing a new frame of data from the camera. The state machine consisted of 6-7 states that the truck could be in at any given moment. The states included:
1. Pylon searching. During this state it was assumed that the pylon was in the given view. However it would only move out of this state when the vision software successfully recognized a pylon. If no pylon was currently recognized our final design simply had the truck continue straight at a slower speed while giving the vision algorithm more passes to analyze the data.
2. Pylon following. During this state the truck would make simple steering adjustments in order to maintain the pylon x-coordinate plus the width of a pylon in the center of the truck. Bigger distances from the center of the screen would mean larger adjustments of the steering angle during this state. The truck would continue in this state until the distance from the pylon was calculated to be less the threshold set in the global parameters as the distance before the pylon to turn.
3. Setting up the turn. There were two hard coded states that depended only on the parameters set for the truck. These two steps including turning slightly away from the pylon in the opposite direction then needed to be turned around the pylon and then driving straight a set distance in order to line up with the pylon nearly perpendicular from the line at which it was driving towards the pylon. If the vision consistently gave accurate values for the distance of the pylon these state worked perfectly every time. We assumed during this state that we would lose site of the pylon and we therefore did not use any of the vision calculations while in these states.
4. Dead-Reckoning turn around the pylon. Upon entering this state we simply saved the current Encoder value plus the number of ticks we needed to travel to complete the turn. This extra number of ticks was calculated by the angle given in the course description. When we approached a pylon of the same color as the previous pylon we added an extra 10 degrees to every turn due to the manner that we were entering the turns from an angle slightly less the perpendicular to the line straight from the previous pylon. When the truck approached a pylon of a different color then the previous pylon we added an extra 45 degrees to the turn in order to compensate for the fact that in this case the truck was crossing over the straight line between the two pylons and actually entered the turn much further back in the turn. The number of ticks per radian was set by a global parameter that we also could change through our gui. This variable of the ticks per radian needed to be adjusted when we tested new faster speeds navigating the course. When the calculated number of ticks had been completed the truck then moved back into the pylon searching state.

Full Chronological Review and other files

To create custom ringtones using only iTunes:

1. Right click on the song you are going to make into a ringer and select “Get Info.”
2. Go to the options tab and go down to the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringer to start/stop. The ringer has to be 30 seconds or less. Click OK when you’re done.
3. Right click on your newly “clipped” song and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” The song will be re-encoded using the start and stop times determined (If your menu item does not read “Convert Selection to AAC” and reads “Convert Slection to MP3? (or some other format) please go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > Importing and change the “Import Using” drop down menu to “AAC Encoder”).



4. After the song is done encoding navigate to your iTunes Music folder, locate your song, and drag it to your desktop. After the song is on your desktop go back to iTunes and delete the clipped version from you iTunes library (It won’t delete it from your desktop, it will only remove it from iTunes).
5. Go back the song on your desktop and right click on your song and chose “Get info.” Go to the name and extension section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r (or you can just change the extension right from your desktop)
6. After the extension is changed simply double click on the file to add it to your iTunes library under the ringtones section. Sync your phone with iTunes and you’re done!

Remember to go back into iTunes and uncheck your custom start and stop times for the original version of your song.

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