Standford University is at it again with another round of free (as in beer) courses! This time they’re joined by the likes of Princeton, Penn, and the University of Michigan!
Why should you care? Well, Hive76 is forming a study group to help individuals tackle this incredible and challenging opportunity to be found within Standford’s Machine Learning course, of course! Our first meeting will be held tomorrow night during Open House Hours (7-11 PM)! If you are interested in taking this course, please take the time to register with Stanford at the link provided here.
Folks considering this course should be familiar with programming concepts and linear algebra, for sure! Recommended linear algebra lectures can be found here, and for your open source alternative to MATLAB, check out GNU’s Octave.
We are proud to welcome Lea Rosen, Rutgers-Camden law student, researcher, and writer, to Hive76 to present a talk entitled, “Hacking Your Lawyer: A Primer.”
“Ever feel like your questions elicit boring and disappointing answers from lawyers? It happens all the time, and it feels counterintuitive – the stuff you are working on is complex and exciting, and you know the law is complex and kind of interesting. Your gut’s not wrong – your questions are. I’ll explain why we talk the way we do, and how you can learn a couple simple lessons to help frame your questions in a way that will draw out the information you really want. “
In addition to her main presentation, she will also be discussing some of the topics that were brought up on our mailing list, like the legal implications of hacking the things that you own. There happens to be a DMCA Rulemaking Session this year, so she will discuss how the DMCA works and what it takes to get legal protection for hardware hacking. There will be a Q&A section afterwards because I’m sure we’ll have some questions. 🙂
A little more about Lea:
Her big motivation is to break down the cultural boundaries between technologists, hackers, lawyers, human rights advocates, activists, and theorists. She provides research assistance for Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, and Greg Lastowka, Professor at Rutgers School of Law, Camden and author of Virtual Justice[pdf]. She has interned at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and in the Federal District Court in Newark, NJ. She volunteers with the Philadelphia ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild AnoNLG project, and she co-founded of the Rutgers Cyberlaw Society. She has written on the interpretation of software licenses by the 9th Circuit, encryption and border searches, and the privacy and liberty implications of domestic UAV deployment. She also had the opportunity to write an FAQ for the Yes Men! She has her BA in Humanities and will be getting her JD this May from Rutgers-Camden.
See you tonight!
UPDATE: Lea has informed me that Greg Lastowka’s book, Virtual Justice is available for free here[pdf]. It was released under a Creative Commons license! Nice! Hard copy available from Yale University press here.
If you happened to pass through the door of Suite 519 in the 915 Art Studios building this past weekend, you know what a busy time it was. Things kicked off early Saturday morning with the focused goal to start and finish a new 3D printer build, the MendelMax. A few folks started to filter in after a while: some to lend a hand, some to hang out, and some to work on their own projects. At around 2 PM, more people came in for our hosting of the monthly Philadelphia Star Trek meetup group. Afterwards, Dan was awesome enough to run through an impromptu class on how to develop your own Pong clone using the Unity 3D game engine with some of the Trekkie attendees.
Sunday also got off to an early start with the Ubuntu Bug Jam hosted by Hive76’s own jedijf. Jim was pleasantly surprised to have some Linux newcomers on hand and jumped at the opportunity to teach some command line skillz in a way only he can. In true geek fashion, they were rolling along on IRC by the end of the session! Shortly after the Bug Jam got underway, Jordan and Matthew were back at the MendelMax, determined to have it printing well, and packaged up to be shipped out by the end of the night. On the heels of the Bug Jam was the first installment of the Philadelphia Game Developer Collective which brought such a turnout that we actually ran out of chairs! This meant that our next meeting, the PAFA build group, had to get together in the lobby to hash out some last minute details and designs. While these two groups were meeting, and the MendelMax was being built, Brendan and Robert were plugging away at the hand-built custom control panel that they’ve been working on. It really looks awesome.
Flys like a dream!
Despite all of these things happening at the same time, everything could not have gone better. We were able to introduce some new people to our space, greet a few familiar faces, teach some new technical and mechanical skills, brainstorm new ideas and projects, and get some really great work done! I was pleasantly surprised with all of the spontaneity happening within and around the edges of these groups.
That said, if you missed all the action this past weekend or would like to come back for more, we’ve got some up coming events that you won’t want to miss!
Wednesday, March 7: Our ever popular weekly open house! This is the number one best way to meet the people behind Hive76 as most of our members are here on Wednesday nights. You’ll get a nice tour of the space, exposure to some of the projects that are in the works, and plenty of great conversation! Always FREE!
Thursday, March 8: PAFA After Dark: Turned On! Finally, come out to see the fruits of our labor! Hive76 and the Hacktory have teamed up once again to bring you some awesome interactive installations to play with in between checking out the excellent art of Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tickets are available for $10 (non-PAFA-members) here.
Saturday & Sunday, March 10 & 11:Art Hackathon @ Hive76! Come join Hive76 for an eight hour, two day art hackathon where participants will have a chance to really get creative under a common theme with recycled materials and various art supplies. A fee of $25 is being requested for supplies and food. Email smcbeth_at_hive76.org ASAP to RSVP.
Monday, March 12: Our March installment of MMMM is coming up! If you’ve got a soft spot in your heart for microcontrollers or are eager to learn a thing or two about them, this is the workshop for you! Designed to be beginner friendly, this workshop is open to everyone. This is a FREE event!
Be sure to keep an eye on the Calendar for upcoming events, or better yet… join our discussion list or hop in our IRC channel, #hive76 on freenode and have a chat! Hope to see you soon!
Come to Hive76 on January 21st 10AM – 4PM for a build hackathon focusing on this installation! Some of the things we’ll be focusing on include touch-sensitive light chimes inspired by these, a computer vision-based theremin using Sean’s html5 synth, and altering the brightness of lights based on radio frequency interference. We’ll be splitting up in to teams to work on these problems and have some working prototypes by the end of the day. Stay for an hour or six!
If you are at all interested in cognitive science, some theory behind it, or machine learning, I strongly urge you not to miss this! This will be geared towards folks without math backgrounds, and Josh will stick around to answer questions.
That time is once again upon us! This coming Monday, October the 10th, is our second installment of the Monthly Monday Microcontroller Madness series!
This month’s workshop will feature the concept of motion sensing in relation to microcontrollers. We’ll be taking a look at passive infrared sensors (PIR) for motion detection, ultrasonic range finders for distance measuring, and even looking at how to integrate a webcam into your Arduino project for motion analysis. These sensors and techniques are great for adding to your Halloween projects (wink, wink).
In addition to talking about motion, we will be offering our usual advice and guidance to those currently working on projects, or looking where to get started. All skill levels are welcome and we look forward to seeing you on Monday!
UPDATE: Here’s a link to the Arduino Reference page for the Parallax ultrasonic sensor and a code page for the Parallax PIR.
Manufacturer information can be found here and here, respectively.
Pile of Arduino things. by Andreas Wetterberg, on Flickr
Starting at 7 PM on Monday, September 12, Hive76 will be starting a new ongoing monthly workshop focusing solely on the wonderful world of microcontrollers.
“What’s a microcontroller,” you ask? Let’s take a quick glance at the Wikipedia page!
What to learn computer programming in a more tangible way?
Are you wondering where to get started?
“What if I’m familiar with microcontrollers, and I’m just looking for a place to talk shop, jump-start a stalled project, or help other folks learn a thing or two?”
Come on down!!! (up, or over also apply here)
Great! Now that you’re coming, what can you expect?
You can expect to be welcomed into a friendly environment and you are encouraged to bring your ideas, aspirations, projects, and most importantly, your questions! Individual projects, group projects, build challenges, basic skill instruction, hardware buying guidance, and experts on hand! I would like to emphasize that this workshop is open to complete beginners. No prior experience with electronics OR programming needed! We’ve all got to start somewhere!
PIC, Basic Stamp, MSP430, Arduino, etc… no microcontrollers will be turned away! This is an all-inclusive, open workshop to promote learning!
The Fine Print: Materials will be available for use within the space and a limited amount of hardware will be available for purchase. If you’ve got a laptop or netbook handy, please bring it along. Instruction and guidance will be available free of charge!
Hive76 is well known for sparking groundbreaking ideas. In the last year alone, we have been the home base for innovating products such as the USB Typewriter, Meatcards, Boomcases and Math Clocks.
We are proud, tonight, to continue this tradition. We would like to congratulate long time Hive76 member Adam Kaufman, also know as Adam[0] on IRC, for joining the ranks of our elite.
So, without further delay, I’d like to announce that Hive76 is going to be representin’ at our first all-day event, this Saturday, May 22nd!
“But what can I expect to see at booth #73?”
For starters, we’ll be teaching folks a little bit about electronic circuits and how to solder, so they can walk away with their very own, custom made in Philly, bike odometer/safety light!
“Seriously? Can it get any better?”
We’re Hive76. Of course it can! If the bike odometer isn’t your thing, how about a not-so-plain safety light? We’ll have an assortment of LED colors on hand to choose from to make a light that blinks at a rate related to how fast your riding!
“Cool! But I don’t like soldering irons, or batteries. What can I do?”
We’re going to have the amazing, vinyl-cutting Craft Robo! Custom cut vinyl stickers to make your sweet ride even sweeter?? Sweet! You’ll even have an assortment of colors to choose from!
“You all must really like bikes. Are you going to buy a 6 person bike with all our loot?”
We do like bikes! So much so, that all of the proceeds from this event are going to fund tech-centric bike classes for kids! This June, Hive76 and Neighborhood Bike Works are going to team up to offer cheap or free classes to kids where they will be making their own bike lights.
Originally designed to be a book study group, our introductory offering on the subject has morphed into quite the full-fledged intro course! Thanks to our resident gurus, the curious world of electronics has begun to unfold for some of Philadelphia’s creative minds. As a starting point, our students have learned about the relationships between charge, voltage, current, and power. We’ve since moved on to more complex topics and hope to finish out with learning about creating sensors!
So, if you’ve got some pictures of the space, or the the folks here at Hive76, and would like to share them with us, take a minute to hop on Flickr and join the group!
Hope to see you at our next [ open_house || class || event ] !
Disclaimer: These particular photos were taken with my phone, so please excuse the graininess for now. I’ll be sure to improve their quality with a better camera in the coming sessions.
