Hydroponic Gardening

On Tuesday April 28th Chris Anderson will be instructing a lecture and demo on Hydroponic and Aquaponic gardening. If you are interested in learning alternative farming and gardening techniques this class will introduce a more environmentally friendly process for growing your own produce. Generally, the hydroponics approach is beneficial because although the initial costs are higher, on a long term outlook the process is exponentially less expensive. Hydroponics also takes up to 50% less land use, therefore is much less intrusive to the environment, minimizing clearing of woodlands and soil degradation. The soil-less process of hydroponics also uses up to 90% less water and up to 60 % less fertilizer and pesticide use.

Join Hive76 members to learn more about how you can build your own sustainable farming/ gardening hydroponic or aquaponic system. The instructor will be providing the Basic items for the wicking system being built but please bring any supplies you have that may enhance the design. Chris Anderson will help guide the class in how they can optimize their gardening system with their suggested materials, exploring the creative possibilities in using recycled products. That class will cost $8, CASH ONLY. For more information check out the class in the Hive76 Calendar. Please comment below if you are interested and will be attending. Can’t wait to see you there!

Take a tour of Chris Anderson’s classroom design.

The materials for the class are as follows:

Basic items:
2L or 3L soda bottle(s)
Old white t-shirts/towels (washed)
Encouraged items:
Aquarium/fish-tank air-pump, tubing, air-stone
tin-foil
Gravel (any size)
Geolite, Vermiculite, hydrocorals
plastic planter cups
empty plastic squeezable condiment bottles
plant seeds
zip-ties
caulk, silicon, caulk-gun
pipe cleaners
construction paper
aquarium lid with florescent light
power-strip; plug in timers
straws, tubing (any sizes)
Sources:
https://ecopostblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/the-environmental-benefits-of-hydroponics/

The Women of ENIAC: “Top Secret Rosies” Aug 18

What: “Hidden Herstory: The Top Secret Rosies of WWII”
When: Wed Aug 18, 2010, 7pm
Where: The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St, Phila

Did you know that the first electronic computer, ENIAC, was built in Philly at UPenn?  Bet you did.  Did you know that it was built to calculate ballistics trajectories for fighter pilots during WWII?  And did you also know that the first mathematicians and programmers to work on the new machine were women, mostly from the Philadelphia area?  Hive76 is really, really excited to invite you to a presentation about these “female computers”.

On Wednesday, August 18 at 7pm, Hive76 and the Rotunda are teaming up to bring an illustrated lecture and movie teaser called “Hidden Her-story, the Top Secret Rosies of WWII”.  Documentary filmmaker LeAnn Erickson will give this talk based on the research she’s done for her film “Top Secret Rosies” which is nearing post-production.

Wouldn’t you know it, one of our members’ grandmothers was part of the all-star math team that gave ENIAC its start. You know, before it went mainstream and sold out.

Flyer forthcoming for this awesome event.  Spread the word to the history, math, science, and engineering buffs in your life.

Trenton Ave Arts Festival

2009 Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby (51)
With all of the excitement and planning taking place in preparation for the Trenton Ave Arts Festival, we forgot to post about it…

Our bad!

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.

“Oh yeah? What else is going on?”

Well, there is a little something called the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby that will be right around the corner…

So be sure to come and check out the Hive76 booth this Saturday, May 22nd, at the Trenton Ave Arts Festival! Do it for the kids!

3 Hour Game Jam with GameDev.net

Next Saturday at Hive76 we will be hosting an international 3 hour game jam with gamedev.net. Contestants have 3 hours to complete a small game based on a secret theme, to be revealed at the beginning of the contest. This contest has a secondary requirement that all of the games have to be puzzle games.

Any programming language and API is acceptable, as long as it will run in some way (app or web app) on the judges 64-bit Windows Vista machine or their Mac Mini.

Third and second places are premium memberships (3 months and one year, respectively) to gamedev.net First prize is a $75 gift card for Amazon.com!

Organizer: Sean McBeth (Philip Fominykh at the assist)
More Information at : http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=566163
Saturday, April 10th, contest starts at 5:00PM

skipfish studygroup anyone?

Hey hackers, I (Far) have wanted to play with Skipfish for a while, but I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t know where to start. Skipfish is a web security scanner from lcamtuf . It allows it’s user/installer to scan domains for issues, and creates interactive crawl results, highlighting flaws, and more.

This is an outgoing call to see if anyone wants to have a ‘skipfish’ studygroup night in April to get together, and play with this awesome web-security tool. If you want to mess with skipfish for an evening, then pick a date you can join us. When we get 5 people for a specific date, I’ll let our Events Coordinator know, and we will have a studygroup for that night!

BarCamp Philly is this weekend

barcampphilly2Bar Camp Philly is Nov 14th (This Saturday already). It’s Philly’s version of the Bar Camp un-conference scene, and is going to be jammed with webby and invent-y people talking about what is going on in Philly.

Or if you just want to party on, you can just rock out at the Geekadelphia party. I think tickets are sold out, or close to it, so get your tickets (or not). I myself will be working the sign in table on Saturday, so if you are coming, say hi to the guy in the weird hat signing you in.