Back in December, I visitedNicolas Collinsat the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and got to see one of the latest creations that he is using in class. The beautiful traces wind their way into the classic LM386 audio amp for an expressive overdriven effect:
… provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making – as well as creatively cannibalizing – electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.
I will happen to be back in Chicago during the next Hardware Happy Hour on January 23rd, and I am looking forward to seeing all the projects people are working!
Some people will be in town for ORD camp so the January Meetup of Hardware Happy Hour Chicago will be on a Thursday this time to allow for people visiting to attend. As always bring projects, hack, and apparently giant LED signs.
Please bring your latest project with you! Anything you’re working on, electrical, mechanical or software works! We want to see the stuff that you’re interested in!
Bring all of your holiday gadgets and gizmos! Did you build a blinky Christmas tree ornament? Did you get a new scope from Santa? Did you take apart some toys? Bring it all to the meetup!
We’re trying out a new location for the new year! Come have a pint, show off your latest project and get to know your fellow Chicago tinkerers.
OSH Park and Screaming Circuits produced an electronic conference badges for the 2018 Open Hardware Summit. Hardware design by Alex Camilo based on concept from ESP trINKet by Mike Rankin. Features for the OHS18 badge: ESP32 microcontroller with built-in WiFi; E-Paper to display the badge wearer’s name; badge wearer can update the displayed text from phone, tablet or laptops. Powered by 2x AA batteries.
This project was developed by a team of wonderful people that came together on Hackaday.io, in particular, this badge could not have happened without Alex Camilo and Michael Welling!
To use the interactive Python prompt (REPL), press the menu button on the badge and select Serial REPL from the Available Apps menu. The terminal emulator connected to the serial port should then display the interactive Python prompt (REPL). You can type in MicroPython code to experiment.
REPL stands for Read Evaluate Print Loop, and is the name given to the interactive MicroPython prompt that you can access on the ESP8266. Using the REPL is by far the easiest way to test out your code and run commands.
There is an USB-to-serial adapter board which be used to access the REPL on the badge via the serial port. However, a simpler option is to use the WebREPL:
Alex Camilo created this wonderful programming jig! Drew was able to use it to program all 300 badges and provision the names of the 150 people that pre-registered in time. Thanks so much to Artisan’s Asylum makerspace near Boston for giving us a space to work on the badges before the Summit!
The boards were made through OSH Park, and Screaming Circuits took care of the assembly. Anyone who has ever built a badge will tell you it isn’t the assembly that gets you — it’s the programming and provisioning. This is especially true since the Open Hardware Summit badge is distributed with the attendee’s names already preloaded. That’s a few hundred badges, all with unique firmware. This is a nightmare by any definition.
However, there’s always a good solution to a problem, and [Drew] from OSH Park showed me the best programming jig I’ve ever seen during the Summit pre-game at Artisan’s Asylum.
What you’re looking at is a 3D printed box loaded up with a touch-screen display, a Raspberry Pi Zero W, and a few pogo pins. This Raspberry Pi does all the heavy lifting by connecting to the Internet, pulling down the current version of the firmware, and loading that firmware onto the badge. There are a few more options thanks to the touch-screen interface, including provisioning all the badges with the names of the attendees — this can be done by reading a list of attendees and uploading the next one to the badge in the jig. All of this is wrapped up with a nice laser-cut cover that securely holds each badge exactly where it needs to be for the pogo pins to make contact.
This is, without question, the best programming jig I’ve seen. Any badge makers out there should take note: this is how you program a few hundred badges. The badge, itself, is great and just as this post is published there will be hundreds of eager hackers futzing about with this remarkable piece of hardware. If you want to check out the current progress of the badge hacking, check out the updates on Twitter
Lesson Learned:
Badges should have built-in USB port:
USB connector makes it easy to multiple volunteers with laptops to flash firmware onto the badges in parallel, versus having just one programming jig
USB connector makes it easier for people attending the Summit to experiment with modifying the firmware and developing their own functionality
Pretend that the deadline is 1 month before the event
We originally had the goal of being ready on September 1st for the September 27th conference, but we allowed ourselves to push the deadline for final firmware release to the day before the Summit. That meant staying up all night to flash the updated firmware on to the badges
We should have identified the minimum feature set and simplified the functionality sooner in the design revision process
We should have planned that we would have 3 hardware revisions and allowed for it in the schedule
Chicago game developers and hackers! Come on out to our first meeting at the DePaul University Idea Realization Lab. We’ll have a few short presentations from local developers on the platforms and controllers they’ve developed, followed by an open show-and-tell and gathering for people to talk about current, past, and future projects.
This group is based upon the idea that you are interested in hanging out and discussing hardware. Please bring a piece of hardware to show off or talk about. Are you interested in hardware, but you haven’t built anything yet? Show off software you have built! Or come prepared to talk about the projects you want to build.
There are no organized talks, it’s literally a show and tell at a bar or restaurant. In case you missed it two paragraphs ago, bring hardware. Seriously, just bring anything to talk about 🙂
OSH Park 