Category: Events

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We are running a 3D printer race at Makerfaire

At Makerfaire in NYC this Saturday, Hive76 will be running a race to test the quality and speed of any 3D printers that would like to participate.

We will have an announcement and official start in the 3D Printer village at noon on Saturday. But the basic premise is this:

  • We will announce and post a 3D model on this page.
  • Racers will download and print the model in any material
  • The model will need to fit on a metal part and hold water
  • The first part to hold water without leaking for 5 minutes wins!
  • The prizes: a Math Watch by eagleApex (me) and a file to print your own trophy!
In summary, printing an accurate, water–tight part quickly will be a good balance of those three 3D printing goals.

Besides this 3D printer vs Man race, I think this is the first race of it’s kind! I hope you participate and I’ll see you there.

Update:

Here’s the file for the race!

 

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Software Freedom Day @ PACS

Hive76’s own PJ Santoro will be doing the “Main Presentation” at

the Philadelphia Area Computer Society‘s kickoff meeting, Saturday,

September 15th.

His topic will be “Arduino: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Headed, and Why You Should Care”.

After the main presentation, a beginner class will be taught in the Linux SIG.

PACS Schedule available here.

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Hive76 Welcomes Raspberry Pi Developer, Rob Bishop!

Rob Bishop, a developer with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is going to be taking a short tour of US hackerspaces. We are pleased to announce that Hive76 has been included on that list!

Because we are expecting a very high level of interest in this event, we have decided that our studio space is a little too small to accomodate the number of people we are expecting to attend. Philadelphia’s University of the Arts has  graciously offered up some space for us to meet in. There are only 30 spots available, so act fast; this will sell out. Ticket purchased are limited to 2 per person. You’ll find the link below.

If you’ve been wanting to get a taste of the Raspberry Pi (:P), you will not want to miss this event. The event is free to the public, but space is limited! Rob will have Pi(s) for sale at $35 per board. They are still on back-order from major  distributors, so now is your chance to grab one!

Here is what to expect:

Rob Bishop from the RaspberryPi Foundation is touring popular hackspaces in the US throughout September 2012 with the aim of giving talks and workshops about the RaspberryPi to both the hackspace members and also RaspberryPi users in the local community.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charitable organisation founded with the aim of promoting the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level. The Foundation is responsible for the design and sales of the popular RaspberryPi single-board computer. You can find out more about the Foundation and the RaspberryPi here.

The event at each hackspace will informally consist of the following;

  • Talk:
    • RaspberryPi: Past, Present & Future – An introduction to the RaspberryPi, including an overview of its history and development, details on the technical specification and an outline of future developments with many cool tech demos along the way. Followed by a Q&A session.
  • Tech Demos:
    • A chance to demonstrate various OS’s and other demos
  • Workshop:
    •  A chance to play with the RaspberryPi hands-on.
  • Show & Tell / Prizes: 
    • An opportunity to display RaspberryPi projects from the community with prizes for notable projects.

The tour will be blogged/vlogged on the RaspberryPi website and we hope to attract RaspberryPi enthusiasts and hackers/makers from across the areas we will be visiting, allowing us to meet and support our community.

Here are the details on where we are meeting and at what time:

University of the Arts, Terra Hall, 5th floor

211 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Monday, September 24th, 7:00PM-10:00PM

 

Update: Corrected UArts address
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Intro to Game Programming with JavaScript: Update

Only 5 Tickets Left!

Wow, these things are selling a lot faster than I expected. There is still a week left and most of the tickets are gone. If you’re still interested, you should hurry and buy one to secure your place. If you are interested but can’t make it to Monday, August 6th, leave a comment on what dates would work better as I’m looking to have an alternate class schedule as well.

Some Q/A

A few questions came up in the last post, so here are some answers summarized for anyone who doesn’t read blog-post comments.

  • What time is the class? The class starts at 7pm on Monday, August 6th, 2012.
  • Can I just show up? I would prefer if you signed up for a ticket first, so I know how many people are coming.
  • Is there anything we should have/know before the class? You’ll need your own laptop computer, we don’t have enough public computers to go around at Hive. I will briefly cover some options for text editors in a blog post or at the beginning of the class, but if you already have a favorite text editor like Notepad++, Gvim, or TextMate, then by all means use that. Also, it would be advantageous for you to setup some sort of webspace. There are some free places like 110mb.com, or you could even use the Public folder if you have a Dropbox account, which is quite convenient.
  • Is it just JavaScript in general, or does it include HTML 5 and Canvas? Various HTML 5 techs will definitely be covered, eventually. You can’t really do much graphically without it. JavaScript, HTML 5, and CSS 3 all go hand-in-hand. While there are some Dynamic HTML stuff that can be done (and we will certainly cover it just because DOM manipulation is a good skill to have), eventually Canvas and Audio are a necessities.
  • Why not do <insert language> instead? That’s a really big question…
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JavaScript games

Just wanted to let everyone know that we’re about two weeks away from the class. You can still register for tickets at the Eventbrite page: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3943958486?ref=elink

In the meantime, check out some of these games that other people have written to play directly in browsers with JavaScript and HTML 5 http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-20-html5-games

In particular, if you can read code already, check out the source on Runfield. It’s not commented at all, but the code is fairly well structured.

These should give you an idea of what is possible; basically anything, really. There’s even one game that’s in 3D, *without* using WebGL. We’re not going to go that far (and honestly, I haven’t written a software rasterizer in more than 7 years), but that is quite impressive. When I started learning to program and playing around with little games in JavaScript many years ago, you couldn’t even write a full clone of the original Dragon Warrior and expect it to run at a reasonable frame-rate.

Here are a couple of more links to some game lists
http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/browsers/10-html5-games-paving-the-way/
http://www.casualgirlgamer.com/articles/entry/28/The-Best-30-HTML-5-games/

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Intro to Game Programming with JavaScript

Programming is a lot of fun, and games are one of the best ways to get exposed to a variety of different programming tasks. My name is Sean McBeth and I’m versed in many ways of programming, having been working as a professional software developer for over 10 years. In that time, JavaScript has always been there for me. It is a language that everyone can run in some shape or form, thanks to the ubiquity of Web browsers; it is the BASIC of the modern computing era. Sharing that knowledge is important to me, so I am offering a class where everyone learns (or polishes) an extremely useful scripting language (JavaScript, aka ECMAScript, but NOT Java) in a very compelling medium (ahem, games).

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Oolong, and Thanks For All The Mitch!

Zen and the art of soldering …

This Friday, we were able to inaugurate our newly completed class space with a most auspicious visitor — Mitch Altman!

PJ, Brendan, Robert et al were working until the wee hours the night before making sure that the space was ready to rock — and it was — literally.

Mitch arrived a bit before the appointed time, snapped a few photos, schmoozed, chowed down some local Chinese food etc. and, while documenting our stash of Elephant Heads,

Even this Diavolino was glad to see Mitch

anointed Hive76 as the most organized hacker space he’s seen. Quartermaster Brendan took appropriate pride in the observation.

Mitch basically talked about the Maker/Hacker movement in general, showed some of the kits that were keeping him company on the train, and weaved it all in a thematic web reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie’s is-this-guy-rambling-no-holy-shit-he’s-a-genius-because-it-all-makes-sense-in-the-end style.

After that, everyone bought a kit or two and lost themselves in the task of soldering.  I don’t know whether it’s the solder fumes or just the act of soldering itself, but I felt pretty good at the end of it all.

The new space is completely awesome and turned out to be nearly perfect for the event. Hats off to Brendan, Robert, PJ and Jordan!

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Meet Mitch Altman!!!!


Next Friday (July 6), Mitch Altman’s nationwide AMTRAK tour of hackerspaces rolls into Philadelphia, and Hive76 will be welcoming him in style. Stop by our space on Friday night for an free lecture and electronics hacking workshop officiated by Mitch himself.  There will be food, drink, merriment, and of course the opportunity to swap ideas and stories with a living legend in the DIY community.

If you haven’t followed Mitch Altman’s career, you probably still know of some of his very cool projects, like his TV-B-Gone remote, or his Brain Machine glasses, and his many cool articles for Make: Magazine. Despite the great commercial success of his inventions, Mitch helped pioneer the Open-Source Hardware movement by publicly refusing to patent his ideas, and continues to inspire the maker community by advocating the free exchange of DIY electronics knowledge.

Come by on Friday, July 6, as Mitch demos his latest inventions and kits, and leads a fun hacking workshop suitable for everyone from total novices to advanced solder-smiths! Its guaranteed to be a great time!

Date: July 6, 2012
Time: 6:00
Location: Hive76 (915 Spring Garden St.)
Price:  ADMISSION IS FREE! (kits for the workshop start around $10)

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Pentesting Wargame On Sunday

Sunday, May 20th at 6 PM we’re hosting a pentesting wargame. Players will learn how to use common security tools such as Medusa, and John the Ripper, and identify server misconfigurations and administrative carelessness.

Come and join in on the fun! Bring a laptop!

 

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Announcing New Security Group

We’re starting a new group at Hive 76 called “Scheduled Sunday Security Sessions” (an homage to PJ Santoro’s Monthly Monday Microcontroller Madness). S4 will focus on computer and electronic security. We’ll have demos and presentations on security related topics, as well as group penetration testing challenges each month.

The first meeting will be on June 10th, at 6 PM.

See you there!