NASA SpaceApps Adelaide 2013

A few weeks ago NASA hosted its second annual space apps challenge. I did not manage to participate on the first day and only managed to struggle in on the second day to witness the finale. The Adelaide Hackerspace provided the venue this year and Simon has very nice write-up on their blog.

 

There were a few more entries from around Australia including a slinky based greenhouse suitable for use on the moon and a meteor tracker integrated with Google sky. It was a couple of days of pizza and coffee, ending with beers by the time we finished.

 

Everybody went home pretty tired, but happy. I will definitely try to put in a couple of days of participation next year. Meanwhile feel free to use Mearth and look up all those cold place in Russia, Scandanavia and Hokkaido which have Mars like temperatures. Whoever is considering applying for Mars-One should visit one of these places and film on location.

Adelaide Mini Maker Faire, Zoo and Indian Mela

I have been involved with the Adelaide Hackerspace on and off. Lately my attendance has dropped a lot due to work commitments and a casual addiction to photography. A few photography related hacks are stewing in my brain, so I might go back there. Anyway a few weeks back I went to the Adelaide Mini Makerfaire and it was great opportunity to see all the different things going on in Adelaide, from Dalek making, Metal working to 3D printing and Electric cars. I had a great time catching up with people and learning about new groups. The airstream guys had some hacked wireless AP's on display, including the Minitar on which I cut my teeth in cross-compiling and writing kernel modules to interact with the wifi-stack. There are a lot more photos.

I had planned a busy day, so I headed off to the zoo to attend the local photography group session and check out some pandas. It was my first time at the Adelaide zoo, so it took a while to get oriented. We covered a fair bit of ground in the hour and a half before closing. Managed a few shots of hippos, birds, otters and mountain goats. Lots of other animals which hardly stood still enough to compensate for my nascent photography skills.

We were trudging and hobbling back to the car when we noticed the bright lights and steady stream of people heading to Elder park. The local indian community was throwing their annual mela. So we headed there for a meal and to feed our cameras with some colour. The movement and low light made photography pretty difficult from the back of the crowd. It was a great day overall.

Conceptualizing the YouCharge - Solar + Bike powered Charging Station

Last night Derek and I put our heads together and finally came up with costing and timing for the human powered mobile device charging station, temporarily dubbed YouCharge (uCharge , iCharge and WeCharge are also feasible). We decided that we can't rely on people to keep our battery filled and a set of solar panels was added.

I provided basic system design in terms of major components required and Derek did some skillful spreadsheet manipulation and timing estimates. Overall we came in just over the small grant threshold. The station will sit somewhere in Rundle Mall and attract people with energy conserving bright colours (as opposed to music and flashing lights) and possibly sweaty gym rats. There will be opportunities to competitively sustain high power generation ( high scores) and have live competitions as a spectacle sport. The data from the generator output, battery charge levels and devices being charged will be logged using an arduino + embedded linux ( let us say hawkboard). This data stream will be published live via city lan and visible  to all.

We are not breaking fresh ground here. Suitable machines in hongkong gym were converted to produce electricity. ABC had a show on PedalPower. In China outdoor gyms with free excercise equipment abound. May be Adelaide can slowly switch from energy hungry fitness facilities to energy producing ones. Adelaide Hackerspace will lead the system integration and we should be ready for the Format Festival next year.

HackerSpace Adelaide - Flying Crates and Hawkboard Screen

Today at hackerspace we got carried away a bit with helicopters. There were attempts to even get a crate to fly. Instead of flying the crate nudged along the ground. By the end of the night the radio control had come out of the said helicopter and the motor controlling PWM was being viewed on an Arduino oscilloscope.

We also managed to get the Hawkboard up on a VGA monitor and all the way to showing the Ubuntu login screen. We are planning to pool and buy a few more HawkBoards, everybody is dreaming up stuff to do with them. I have mentioned RADAR on a small UAV before, now it seems to be a real possibility with the ISEE RADAR. Time will come when there will be drones flying around giving out speeding tickets.