A message from PJ …
DIY BOOMcase
Today Brendan and I bodged together a powered audio suitcase, aka a BOOMcase. It’s not quite the same as one by Mr. Simo, but it does rock pretty well. I cut the holes and Brendan did all the hard stuff like soldering and wiring.
Brendan asked to get more credit then me because he provided the big speaker and the amplifier. Go Brendan!
Details: The amplifier is from old computer speaker system. The suitcase is an American Tourister. I got 8Ohm speakers form a cheap stereo system. A 10″ guitar speaker acts as a passive radiator. The BOOMcase is plugin now, but a battery is in the works.
Video of it being awesome.
Pics:
Jack and Martha have a moment (!)
Help Hive76 buy a laser cutter
Hive76, like all hackerspaces, is in need of a laser cutter. The simple engraver I own is not nearly awesome enough. We have been talking about this for a while but I have finally launched a Pledgie to collect funds for a serious-bizness laser cutter.
There is some guidance on what to expect and purchase on Adafruit’s wiki about owning a laser cutter and there are a few members with direct experience.
This process will include some sort of awesome laser fundraising party. If you have any other ideas, leave a comment.
Oh yeah one last thing: DONATE HERE!
Light Graffiti with The Hacktory tonight!
Our favorite chums at The Hacktory have a cool laser graffiti event tonight, featuring art projections and a chance for the audience to play with light graffiti. It sounds awesome:
Tonight’s our big night as part of DesignPhiladelphia’s Kick-Off. Join us in the Design Lot on South Broad Street across from the Kimmel Center to explore space and time, video and graffiti, technology and art, and play with laser graffiti. More details can be found in city paper’s article.
ICM7228 Libraries in Development
Here’s a video of a preliminary version of PJ’s ICM7228 library for Arduino. The 7228 is an LED driver chip that is particularly suited to driving 8×8 LED matrices. We have a lot of these chips at the Hive, and plenty of 8×8 displays as well, so we’ll see what gets created as a byproduct of the library.
Microcontroller Class Getting Blingy
You can never have too many LEDs. One way to run a whole bunch of LEDs is using the MAX7221 or MAX7219 display interfaces. These devices allow you to run 64 LEDs per chip using an SPI interface. The demo below is showing an early prototype of an MSP430 library for the MAX chips that was developed here at the Hive. These particular displays have three MAX7221 chips on them — and we happen to have these displays in abundance due to some fortuitous dumpster diving (the secret — dive to the very bottom, and disregard the smell).
At any rate, the library is a nice introduction to the SPI protocol and MAX7221 chips, and it’s pretty useful besides. Here’s a link to a zip file that has the library and some demo code.
Also, I tossed in a video of the LaunchPad controlling a laser scanner mirror — just because it looks cool (the program is extremely simple)
Neighboorhood Bike Works Odometer Class
This summer, Hive76 embarked on a mission to teach more than 100 youngsters how to solder, and to promote making and inventing as a life skill. We teamed up with Neighborhood Bike Works, a bicycle co-op and youth program which we have a huge crush on, to offer a series of classes for their summer campers. After raising money by selling kits at the Trenton Arts Fest, and receiving some generous donations from our members, we bought a truckload of class supplies and recruited great teachers from Hive76 and the Hacktory. The classes taught basic soldering skills, some elementary electricity, and applied these ideas to building electronic odometers and safety lights, which were developed here at Hive76.
We had a blast, and hopefully we’ll be doing more events for young ones in the future. If you have an idea for a youth-outreach class, let us know!
OpenHatch at UPenn this weekend
If you aren’t already going to Maker Faire NYC, or setting up an antenna with Promethus Raido in Hudson, NY this weekend, there is also going to be a FOSS Hackathon in Philly this coming weekend.
If you use open source software and want to give back to the community, here is your chance. Or, if you have some UI, design, or human interface skill and want to work on a project used by thousands or millions, Open Source software *always* needs design, UI, and layout help. Always. I mean, have you even looked at GIMP?
Top Secret Rosies Premiere
What: Top Secret Rosies première
When: Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010, doors 6:30, film 7:00
Where: Franklin Institute. Call for reservations: 215-448-1254
A few weeks ago, our new friend LeAnn Erickson gave a great talk about the women who did the math and computer programming behind the scenes during WWII. Her film on that topic, Top Secret Rosies, is premièring next week at the Franklin Institute. Not only that, but she won a grant to take her film on the road and develop teaching materials for it, before it shows up on public TV. Come celebrate with her next week so you can say you knew her way back when. Tickets are free but you have to call for reservations which are running out, so don’t slack!
For immediate release:
In 1942, when computers were human and women were underestimated, a group of female mathematicians helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age. Fall 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII yet their compelling story has never been told, until now.
Filmmaker LeAnn Erickson announces the world premiere of her HD documentary *Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII*, RT 60 minutes, c. 2010. *Top Secret Rosies* shares the little known story of a group of female mathematicians who did secret ballistics research for the US Army during WWII, a handful of whom went on to serve as the programmers of ENIAC, the first electronic computer.
The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia will host the première screening of *Top Secret Rosies* on Thursday, September 23, 7pm in the Franklin Theater. The filmmaker will be available for a question and answer session after the film screening.
Free reservations can be made by calling The Franklin Institute ticketing center at 215-448-1254. Space is limited, so please make your reservations early. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
In war, math may be the most secret weapon of all.
*Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII*