Mon, 18 Feb 2008
Hardware Into Art: TVIC/Geekosystem Crossover
What will this become?
Come to The Valley in Christchurch this week (Tuesday!) and don't just find out, make IT/ART happen!
Here's some of the details, check out the event announcement for more details:
The Valley In Christchurch February dinner and hack events
When: 6:00pm Tuesday 19th February 2008
Where: The China Kitchen, on Hereford St, opposite the Flight Centre
And then join us post-dinner for a special TVIC-exclusive Geekosystem session:
When: ~7:00pm—10:00pm-ish
Where: The Physics Room, Second Floor, 209 Tuam Street, Christchurch
Rumour is that some pizza and beverages will be provided while you work on your hardware hacking masterpiece.
Thanks to Adam and the Physics Room for organising this special after-hours session for us!
The photo above (courtesy of Adam Hyde) shows some of the "raw materials" that will be on hand.
Tending Networks: The 5th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium
As it happens, the Geekosystem coincides with the The 5th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium produced by The ADA Digital Arts Network.
Self-described as "New Zealand/Aotearoa's only digital artists' network. ADA was born of the observation that although new media artists were often highly networked in terms of both their own practice and their professional relationships, there was no national organization drawing together those with a common interest in digital art."
The symposium is an opportunity for New Zealand's digital/new media artists to meet face to face. Check out the upcoming weekend's programme.
I've actually been invited to present a brief overview of some of my Arduino hacking to the group during their "lightning talk" session on Saturday afternoon. A pleasant parallel to the symposium topic is my most recent project has been an ethernet expansion shield for the Arduino. I must write some more on that.
Foo Fruition
Speaking of needing to write more... My presentation at the ADA Symposium and the TVIC/Geekosystem crossover are a direct result of my attendence earlier this month at Kiwi Foo Camp 2008 (a.k.a. Baa Camp) and some people I met there. I must write some more on that. :-)
Posted at: 06:12 | category: / | | Comments ()
Thu, 10 Jan 2008
Summer hacking
Last week I caught up with Marek and the elusive Phillip (finally!) and showed off my Arduino connecting to IRC:
It turned out jandals and shorts weren't actually the best wear for the weather on the day but still good to catch up.
Posted at: 11:10 | category: / | | Comments ()
Tue, 27 Nov 2007
Swapping, Meeting and Buying
I've read for ages that Ham Radio Swap Meets are great places to get good deals on various electronics bits and pieces (and, admittedly, junk too). A while back I discovered the website of the local Christchurch, New Zealand Ham radio branch. Unfortunately their most recent events page mentioned a swap meet in March but with no indication of which year!
Until a couple of weeks ago I hadn't followed up on the idea any further but on a whim I decided to email them. In a happy coincidence it turned out that their next annual swap meet was to be in two weeks time (this past weekend).
The shopping list
Although I got to the event later than intended I still picked up a few interesting items. Indeed, it was probably easier on the wallet having less temptation in purchase choice. :-)
Among a few other bits and pieces I managed to pick up three oscilloscope probes and related items for $NZ1, a partially used wirewrap set for another $NZ1 and some small project boxes. It will be interesting to see if having proper probes makes any difference when using xoscope—the Linux sound-card oscilloscope.
Also purchased a box of assorted ICs for $NZ5 which may turn out to be both a convenient and reasonable deal. I'm around halfway through cataloging the contents of the box and about two-thirds of the 70+ ICs seem to be useful with a good assortment of 7400 series, 4000 series and op-amps amongst others. It's taken ages to do the cataloging (Octopart and similar sites have been very helpful) but hopefully it'll pay off in the long run—if nothing else I'm learning things along the way. Looks like there's a few "historical" items dating back to around the late 70's/early 80's too.
Acquiring vices
My largest purchase (something approaching "real money" :-) ) was a PCB Soldering Vise which I later found advertised here at a price that made my purchase price seem reasonable.
Described as a "Mark III Circuit Card Fixture" seemingly made by Technical Devices Company of Torrance, California it's like a PanaVise circuit board holder but presumably cheaper and less well made...
The device looks like this, but less shiny:
It's likely to be larger than what I need but should hopefully be a useful addition to the tool chest. I even found a scan of Mark III Circuit Card Fixture assembly instructions (original image source) in case I unassemble it accidently...
All up it was an interesting time—I ended up stopping in at the SuperShed and a few garage sales on the way home but only added an ethernet cable to the purchase pile. :-)
Posted at: 01:30 | category: / | | Comments ()
Mon, 19 Nov 2007
TVIC : Six geeks, Seven CD-ROM drives, One Pub—The Movie
Seth's blogged and uploaded the video from this month's The Valley in Christchurch tech dinner and CD-ROM hackfest.
Here's the finale, just in time for the Christmas lights season:
Links to all the videos on YouTube:
- Deconstruction getting started
- Morris risking his cell battery on the tray eject (Not shown: Successful drink delivery mechanism. :-) )
- Tim trying out the cell battery on a handy motor
- Another "bright" idea
- The result! CD-ROM Christmas Lights!
Thanks Seth!
Posted at: 13:50 | category: / | | Comments ()
Thu, 08 Nov 2007
TVIC : Six geeks, Seven CD-ROM drives, One Pub
I've just got back home from this month's The Valley in Christchurch (TVIC) tech dinner. It was goood... Real fun.
After dinner at our now usual haunt we ended up at our (fast becoming usual) follow-up haunt.
Last month—after visiting the recycling oasis Supershed—I had brought along an old CD-ROM drive and dismantled it during the post-dinner conversation. (Hey, why not? ) Apparently inspired by the fun I had had, this month Marek had organised to bring along seven old cd-rom drives supplied by Morris. By this stage we had six people at the table, various beverages and enough screwdrivers that we could all attack the task of drive dissasembly with gusto. And we did.
The highlight of the evening (warning: non-geeks may not understand) was when—following a comment I made—Morris managed to hook up a tray-eject motor to a pair of green and red LEDs (salvaged from a drive), making them flash alternately when he pulled the tray in and out. Seth took some photos and video so hopefully it'll be online soon.
In spite of all this frenzied electrical activity the bar staff never asked us to leave or stop, so I apparently mass cd-rom drive disassembly counts as an acceptable activity at the Bohemian.
Next month: printers!
Update: Check out the CD-ROM hackfest videos.
Posted at: 23:20 | category: / | | Comments ()
Fri, 07 Sep 2007
BarCamp Christchurch links
While I think of it, here are some links to items I mentioned during my hardware/gadgets spiel:
- Planet NZTech
- The Valley in Christchurch monthly tech dinner
- KiCad electronic design software--schematic, pcb etc (My KiCad notes, Mac OS X etc)
- Arduino "a [mostly] open-source electronics prototyping platform" (My Arduino notes)
- Skannerz Racerz (My Skannerz Racerz notes)
- My personal wiki/lab notebook (Uses modified pwyky)
Posted at: 23:30 | category: / | | Comments ()
BarCamp Christchurch
Today I'm at BarCamp Christchurch. Great turn-out I think—about 30-40 people at various stages. Very cool to see an event like this in Christchurch.
Posted at: 16:30 | category: / | | Comments ()
Tue, 31 Jul 2007
A winning streak
I seem to be on a bit of a winning streak lately...
- A couple of weeks back I won tickets to the Christchurch preview of The Simpsons Movie. A chorus of "Spider-pig" has been heard around the house by various singers since...
- Then last week I entered a "Name the Thing Contest" contest on the Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog and won a Aryca D-pod mini camera tripod like this. The D-pod gets a good user review:
...little tripod - an aryca, very lightweight and strong. It is actually an extremely well designed bit of kit and folds flat into 15x5x1.5cm, so that it is easy to carry in ones pocket. Again I find it extremely useful...
I've recently acquired a Black and White parallel port QuickCam without a base so until it gets absorbed by a project the D-pod can serve as a base. - And then of course there's this Saturday... :-)
Posted at: 21:40 | category: / | | Comments ()
Sat, 21 Jul 2007
Event
Posted at: 00:40 | category: / | | Comments ()
Tue, 10 Apr 2007
The Valley In Christchurch April dinner, tonight!
A reminder that if you're in Christchurch, New Zealand, you should attend tonight's dinner meeting of The Valley in Christchurch.
OLPC
If it gets delivered in time and I get it set up ok I'll see about bringing the (hopefully) newly arrived OLPC to tonight's dinner...
Posted at: 11:30 | category: / | | Comments ()