Hackerspace challenge 2011

Howdy,

This excellent book just arrived for me today from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Hack-This-Incredible-Hackerspace-Projects/dp/0789748975

I had high expectations based on the author John Baichtal's work on the Make blog, and the book definitely lives up.  It is wonderful to browse through the large number of projects featured, and I also enjoyed getting a glimpse of all the different...

Howdy,

Pumping Station: One member Steve Finkleman recently gave a lightning talk on how he is using the laser cutter at the space in his method to quickly fabricate circuit boards:

If you have any followup questions, then you can find him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/IdeaPDish

Cheers,

Drew

Howdy,

I cracked open the lastest issue of Make magazine this morning and was pleased to see Pumping Station: One featured!

The article can viewed in the digital edition of Make:

http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol29?pg=86#pg86

Cheers,

Drew

Howdy,

Joe Born is a Pumping Station: One member and his company has just released a universal Android dock:

"The dock charges via USB and gets sound from the headphone jack. Licensing beta technology from Sonr it also uses the headphone jack for data, allowing the remote control (and dock buttons) to control all your music apps (Pandora, Google Music, Amazon Cloud, etc). No app necessary if...

So thought I forgot about this.

Anyway it is was really hectic here for a while as we had to expand or move. Well we doubled our space and nearly doubled our membership so that went well, but shifting and moving and running enough power to the new wood shop took a bit of time.

But I am back at it again.

So the coffee table board is first up.

Thinking about a table with lots of holes in it and...

Howdy,

Our biosensor array team was recently featured on the Make blog:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/05/gghc-semifinalist-profile-pumping-station-one.html

I really liked the answers that team member Shawn Blaszak wrote up but unfortunately they didn't make it into the Make post, so I figured I would post them here.

1. What was it like working on the GGHC challenge?

ANSWER:  Working...

Howdy,

Our biosensor team is honored to be selected a finalist and humbled to be in the company of fellow finalists, Hackerspace Charlotte's Feltronics & BuildBrighton's Phonicubes.

I had a total "WOW!" moment when I realized, while watching the Feltronics video, that the circuit on the white board was a radio transmitter!  I think Feltronics will be a big help to electronics instruction...

Subimssions are now closed

Here is a copy of the original request for submissions that kicked off the competition.

The short version:

Thirty hackerspaces around the world will be chosen to participate in the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge to create something cool and useful for education.  Each of the thirty spaces that complete their project will receive some nice soldering setups so that...

Although the Challenge is over the project goes on. I'll be updating this blog as time goes on at least until the next challenge.

The Big Board was a success. It was also a lot of fun. I did however get diverted into using just found material in order to make the project as widely buildable as possible. Now I'm going to concentrate on a higher quality process. Both with the board and with the...

Howdy,

The primary sensor I've been prototyping for the Pumping Station: One Biosensor is the galvanic skin response, or GSR, sensor.  GSR is a measurement of the electrical conductance of the skin.  Sweating causes changes in the conductance, which offers an indication of emotional excitement because the sweat glands are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.  GSR does not offer a fine...

Now that the GGHC build period is over, we've moved our "offical" News & Updates for the Sensing Platform to the sensingplatform.org "News & Updates" page

We just posted pics from our very late, but very fun final build night - click here to check them out...

Completed at 1:53 CST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Weather Window

Timezones and a slow E14 site conspired against us yesterday to get our submission in on time, so our final update was published by Kakeman on our own blog, but for completeness, here's another version:

Idea: The Story Box

During the brainstorming session, we conceived an idea of doing “The Story Box”. It’s a device with a button and an LCD display. When a user press the button, a random word...

Timezones and a slow E14 site conspired against us yesterday to get our submission in on time, so our final update was published by Kakeman on our own blog, but for completeness, here's another version:

Idea: The Story Box

During the brainstorming session, we conceived an idea of doing “The Story Box”. It’s a device with a button and an LCD display. When a user press the button, a random word...

Now that the final submission madness is over ... and this web-site is less stressed ... here is some content I tried (and failed) to upload earlier today ...

   OpenLab software design overview

   GitHub software repository

A companion piece is the hardware description posted by Luke previously ...

   OpenLab hardware design walk-though

   GitHub hardware repository

Now that the GGHC deadline...

There are many children's toys that make sounds and flash lights. Many teach pitch but few teach rhythm.

Jigsaw Renaissance Hackerspace supports kinesthetic learning of rhythm development and offers a cooperative environment for group performance and play.

A child picking up the Jigbox and shaking it will hear the sound of a maraca and see a colorful light flashing. The color of the light will...

((Fighting with Element 14   ))

The think|haus entry into the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge sponsored by Element14 is finished. Mostly.

think|tubes are an educational tool for use in a K-12 school setting.  They function as a multimeter for the real world. Learning concepts  such as mechanical advantage is much easier if students can see and  measure the effects of gears, levers, pulleys...