hackerspace

132 Articles

Tour Of Chicago Hackerspace: Pumping Station One

October 16, 2013 by 20 Comments

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As you may know I was on vacation in Chicago last week. I got a chance to jump on the blue line train from Chicago’s downtown loop for a short trip out to the Addison stop where I caught a quick bus ride over to one of Chicago’s hackerspaces: Pumping Station One. I was given a tour by some camera-shy members that were there when I popped in. The space had a large welding area with lots of equipment, metal lathes, metal brake and woodworking equipment. You name the shop tool, I think it was there. I even think I spotted a functioning scanning electron microscope! WOW!

The lower workspace was quite extensive. Yes, there’s a second-floor having sewing machines, vinyl cutters, 3-D printers and an entire room dedicated to electronics and robotics. Also, they are in the process of expanding to make the space even larger. If you’re in Chicago I recommend you check them out, it’s an amazing space and an easy commute from downtown.

I hope my iPhone video is good enough to show off their splendid space.
Follow along after the break to learn more and get a glimpse inside Pumping Station One.

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European Hackerspace Tour

October 12, 2013 by 48 Comments

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Wow! What a response we received on our Calling European Hackerspaces post! First off, thank you for such a warm welcoming to your hackerspaces. It looks like HaD is going to have to be way more active in touring and profiling hackerspaces!

Now unfortunately we’re just not going to have time to visit all of the ones suggested, but we’ve outlined a few of the ones we definitely want to check out!

We created a Google spreadsheet to help do this, so if your hackerspace has been mentioned, OR if it happens to be very close to the others and you really want us to come, please fill out some contact info on the spreadsheet so we can setup a time to visit! If you don’t want to put contact info in a shared document, send an email to the tips line instead with the subject [European Hackerspace Tour]. Because its unlikely our trip will coincide with any open nights, we’d love (need) to have someone to show us the space at potentially odd hours!

I will be writing an individual post for each hackerspace tour with lots of photos and details on all the juicy projects you guys are working on. And if we have time, we might even film the tour!

Once again, thank you for the amazing response and we can’t wait to meet all of you in person!

Calling European Hackerspaces!

October 2, 2013 by 108 Comments

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In a few weeks time, I will be in Düsseldorf on business for the world’s largest plastics and rubber industry trade show, the K-Show. That’s not very interesting for you, but afterwards a coworker and I will be traveling for a week in Europe, and being the geeks we are, we would rather visit you instead of the typical tourist attractions (mind you I have lived in Germany for half a year).

The majority of our Hackerspace Intro pieces thus far have been limited to North America, so we would love to visit your Hackerspace in Europe! Take pictures, ask a few questions, get a tour, and share it all here!

If you are part of, or know of a cool hackerspace in approximately the geographical doodle shown on Google Maps above, let us know in the comments! We will be traveling around October 19th to the 24th.

Project Thumper Walkthrough

September 29, 2013 by 29 Comments

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The Geek Group is at it again! Many years ago they built Project Thumper, a 1,600V @80,000A electrical impulse … well … “thumper”.

For those of you that don’t know, The Geek Group is the world’s largest not-for-profit Hackerspace. Lately they have been working on developing better videos for their YouTube channel, and have just released a stunning CGI animation of the build, operation, and explanation of Project Thumper.

So what is Project Thumper? In the simplest terms, it’s a giant capacitor, or more specifically, an entire server rack filled with capacitors. The Hackerspace uses it for experiments and demonstrations — but from the looks of their videos, they mostly just use it to blow things up, as shown in their 2008 Project Promo video. I think we would too. They even used it to blow up an iPhone! (Skip to 3:00 for the explosion). We think someone with a high-speed camera really needs to film Thumper in action!

The awesome CGI animation explanation of it is after the break.

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SNESoIP: It’s Exactly What It Sounds Like

September 14, 2013 by 16 Comments

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Here’s a cool hack for those of you wishing to play some retro multiplayer SNES games online!

[Michael Fitzmayer] is a resident hacker at shackspace; der hackerspace in Stuttgart. He’s come up with this clever little ethernet adapter network-bridge that can share local controller-inputs over the internet. The entire project is open-source, and readily available on github. It’s still in the early stage of development, but it is already fully functional. The firmware is small and will fit on an ATmega8, and by the looks of the component list it’s a fairly easy build.

He’s even integrated a switch mode (hold B and Y during boot), which avoids trying to figure out which controller will be player one! After all, don’t you remember untangling the controller cords, trying to figure out which one is which?

We know you had a favorite controller and would give the other “crappy” one to your guest.

Example video is after the break.

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A Bitcoin Vending Machine

September 13, 2013 by 21 Comments

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Accessibility is one of the biggest hurdles facing the Bitcoin revolution, so [Mathias] found a way to give BTCs some market penetration by converting an old condom vending machine. The machine was 30 years old and required some clean up. [Mathias] also worked in a plywood adapter that attaches to the mount on the back so it can install on a wider variety of surfaces. This is an electricity-free alternative to selling coins: the machine is purely mechanical and it vends custom-made vouchers rather than the coins themselves, which you then redeem on the Kondocoin website.

The transaction isn’t as instant or snazzy as the Bitcoin briefcase converter from Defcon this year, but it still provides the advantage of an up-to-date exchange rate, as the vouchers themselves are valued at amount of Euros spent rather than a set amount of coins. The exchange rate is consulted later, when you punch in your voucher key. [Mathias] wants to share the wealth, too, and offers up the server software on github along with a detailed explanation of the process.

Building An Ethernet Connected RFID Reader

August 26, 2013 by 14 Comments

For the last few years, [Lt_Lemming] was the president of Brisbane’s hackerspace. Until several months ago, access to the local was done using 125KHz RFID tags and an Arduino board with a prototyping shield. As the hackerspace gained members and moved to bigger facilities, [Lt_Lemming] decided to build himself a more compact and advanced platform.

His Simple NetworkAble RFID Controller (SNARC) is a platform which can be connected to an Ethernet network and different RFID readers in order to implement smart access control functionalities. Through hole components were selected so even solder apprentices may assemble it. The PCB was designed using Fritzing, and development can even be done inside the Arduino IDE as ISP and serial headers are available on the board. Finally, an N-channel mosfet controls the door locking mechanism.

The project is open hardware and software, and all the sources can be downloaded from [Lt_Lemming]’s github repo.