Southwest Tour: Quelab In Albuquerque New Mexico

August 7, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

Our travels brought us to Quelab in Albuquerque New Mexico for the 2nd stop on our southwest tour. [Adric] agreed to give us a tour of this really cool space and a few other folks were there working on various projects. There were several things I really enjoyed that will hopefully be gracing our pages soon with full writeups.

The Quelab hackerspace has a small machine shop area as well as a few collaborative spaces. They occasionally hold events where you can come and learn different skills as well. While I was there, I saw some cool high altitude balloon projects, a teletype playing Zork, and a 3d printer spitting out some custom Quelab tokens.

The group seemed to be very a really cool bunch. Everyone was enthusiastic about their projects and their space. They even tried to feed us (but the timing just wasn’t right). If you ever make it by, be sure to go play with the phosphorescent wall in their bathroom. Easily one of my favorite simple projects.

[Hacker Dojo] Renovations Kickstarter

August 7, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 46 Comments

The [Hacker Dojo], as you might have suspected, is a California based hacker space that would like your money to help with renovations. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a little dust on the ground, but half of this space was apparently deemed unfit to use for it’s member hackers. For this purpose, they are running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $250,000 for renovations. If this seems a little steep to you, keep in mind that this looks like a pretty massive space by most standards, and land prices aren’t exactly cheap in that area.

If you’re not that generous, (Who can resist the sad faces around 0:35 in the video on their Kickstarter?) they are also offering some sweet prizes. Unfortunately, the original Super Pong Machine signed by creator Al Alcorn is already sold, but for only $2 you can have their eternal gratitude! For something a bit more tangible, they have stickers for $8, shirts for $32, and other prizes up to $10,000 for the most expensive of them, “creative input” on a mural.

Knock Lock Balks Knock, Uses CapSense Without Shock

August 6, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 42 Comments

[Rob Hemsley] sent in an update to an RFID-based door lock. Previously, if you wanted to enter the MIT media lab, a RFID-enabled card was required to get in. Now, with [Rob]’s update, you only need to tap the door handle in a ‘secret’ pattern.

The earlier RFID-enabled build used about $80 in hardware, not a very economical solution. The new touch-based solution only uses an Arduino and servo, making the build much cheaper.

The touch sensitive lock uses the CapSense Arduino library. By turning the door handle into a touch sensor, [Rob] allowed a secret code to be saved in the EEPROM. Repeating this sequence when the door is locked sends power to the servo, unlocking the door.

A very cool build that’s also a little more secure than the traditional, audible knock lock. Check out the video after the break.

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Southwest Tour: OhmSpace In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

August 6, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

OhmSpace in Oklahoma City is the very first stop on our southwest tour.

When we arrived it was around 2 in the afternoon and the temperature outside was nearly 110 degrees. It was HOT. [Stan] met up with us to give us a tour of the space. As you can see, the facility is huge. While at first glance it may appear somewhat disheveled, there is order to the madness. There is a nice community work area set up in the middle as well as several different stations throughout. Since the facility is almost just one giant room, storage is out in the open giving the illusion of a mess. We were there in the early afternoon, so there wasn’t anyone around working on anything, but you can see projects in various states of progress throughout the tour.

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Edison’s Cradle Is A Bright Idea

August 6, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 45 Comments

This interesting take on Newton’s Cradle is called “Asobi” and was created by [Yasutoki Kariya]. However, [Johnny] at Spoon and Tamago dubbed it “Edison’s Cradle”, which we think is a great name.

As you can make out in the video, it isn’t really a Newton’s Cradle. There is a solenoid pushing the bulbs at the end out at the correct time, but that’s fine. The overall result is quite brilliant. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the setup. Anyone have more information? Anyone want to take a stab at making “Tesla’s cradle”?

[via Make]

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Yet Another Arduino Blinkenlight Thing, Actually Pretty Cool

August 6, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 18 Comments

On the Tasmanian Linux User Group mailing list, [Hoolio] read someone complaining about the eventual downfall of their upcoming hackerspace as becoming a club of Arduino fanboys. [Hoolio] asked what was wrong with the Arduino, and this terrible, terrible Tasmanian replied, “there’s far too much boring blinkenlights and not enough actual cool stuff.” [Hoolio] took this as a challenge and created his own Arduino blinkenlight project that emulates Space Invaders on a 5×5 matrix of LEDs

The board is just a buzzer, 25 LEDs, 10 transistors, and a pot and button. Before the game begins, a LED chaser is traced out on the perimeter of the display, its speed controllable by the pot. When the button is pressed the game begins, allowing [Hoolio] to move his ship left and right with the pot and fire his lazor with the button.

Yes, it’s a game written for an array of blinkenlights for the Arduino. This doesn’t diminish the build, though. If this were put in a fabulous beige and transported back to 1978, we’d look on the LED version of Space Invaders as fondly as Mattel’s Football.

You can see [Hoolio]’s game demo after the break.

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Drawing Things Very Slowly, Very Easily

August 6, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 5 Comments

A while back, we saw [Euphy]’s polar pen plotter project. The mechanics of the build are very simple – just a pair of motors attached to a pen by a beaded cord. Even though the build is very simple, it’s possible to create awesome works of art albeit very slowly.

Since we featured [Euphy]’s polar pen plotter, a lot of improvements have been made. Now the Polargraph has an SD card slot for computer-less printing, a touch screen for manual control of the plotter, and a few new drawing styles that improve on the previous version a lot.

Right now the improved version of the Polargraph is set up in the front of a graffiti art supply shop in Edinburgh where it spends its time slowly drawing a window dressing. [Euphy] put up a few videos of what the Polargraph is capable of doing, very impressive and we hope he gets a few more PCBs in soon.

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