Freeplay a success
The Freeplay event this weekend was a success. The arcade games at the lab that made it to the event were played non-stop, and came back mostly the same. The consoles and vintage computers were also a big hit.
A number of new events and good meetups are coming up in August. The hackerspaces in space balloon launch is coming up as well. More details on that once they solidify.
Will post some freeplay photos in Flickr soon.
Some new toys at the lab
In-counter barcode scanner has arrived and is setup for testing at the lab. This is for the self-checkout project. Erik has a dollar bill validator for us. Info on the wiki: http://www.757labs.org/wiki/Projects/selfcheckout
Our friend Lyman dropped off some older but fun toys for the lab, including two HID readers and some protocol converters. We've tested it, and we were able to read HID fobs and cards via RS232. This is going to be very useful! It will probably wind up as part of the lab's access control system.
Geoff dropped off a Motorola HC11 development kit. Bart in NYC gave us a Parallax Board of Education kit (Basic Stamp) and some accessories (along with other goodies.) While in NYC several of us bought some low cost arduino microcontroller development kits as well. In addition to the TI MSP430s that should be arriving. The lab is well stocked for microcontroller projects!!
Next HOPE preperation continues…
757 Labs is once again supplying the video distribution network for the HOPE conference in New York City. System consists of machines doing live encoding of video (DVD quality), transporting it across a network from the 18th floor to the 2nd floor, and then showing the video on various projectors and displays. And a management system, text overlay of anonymous comments, and more.
Travis versus Oracle LED sign by Sunrise Systems
The green 12' long (in 3 segments) LED scroller sign that Travis has been hacking on is looking AWESOME! He's got a half brightness feature implemented, and is now driving all 3 sign segments off of a single arduino microcontroller. The sign is neat in that there are 3 parts that plug together (it was some sort of expandable system.) The control software was DOS based, and the original control board set never worked right. Some mods were needed to each module to make it go. Overall though, it's looking great. The new code on the arduino controller will support using the sign as a frame buffer from another computer, and Enferex (Matt) has something wild in store for it!
Rock the Fail Crane!
Enferex and I had spent some time (along with others that were at the lab on various days) updating the Skill Crane to run on a more modern setup. It was fully streamed 24x7 via Justin.TV and had the ability to submit moves without page refreshes. Also, the player's name and coordinates of play were burned into the video real time. It was great. But then the hard drive in the computer randomly died. Not just a click of death, it's a clack of death.
Some of the information was saved, some of it is in svn. The system will be back in a week or so. Perhaps sooner with the long weekend.
www.rocktheskillcrane.com will be back shortly!
The internet connected skill crane is undergoing a major upgrade in internet playability, and is currently down. It will be back with live video of the crane combined with superimposed player names/coordinates in the video. Matt has already re-written the C program, the only stumbling block is a network bandwidth issue.
Sanyo PLC-XU86 projector, PJLink, automation
A few weeks ago I noticed the Sanyo projector at the lab has to be switched to widescreen to properly show a movie. Since the projector implements PJLink, an open TCP communication spec for automation system control of projectors, I figured it would be possible to pass all the remote control options through the network from the AMX system to the projector. I was wrong. PJLink seems to only offer power on/off, input, and some bulb info.
The projector comes with a utility to control the projector from a PC called PJControl. Sounds like PJLink, but it's not. Sam helped, and we logged it using a winsock logger. Here is what it takes to control the aspect ratio from an automation system or other software. The protocol is a bit annoying, each command is sent on a new TCP session.
Connect on port 10605, send PS(CR), disconnect. Connect on port 10605, send "CF SCREEN WIDE(CR), and disconnect. If you want Normal 4:3, change the 2nd command to "CF SCREEN NORMAL(CR)"
Sanyo does publish a list of all the other control commands, but I don't have the link handy.
Hackerspaces in Space (space… space… space…)
Thursday saw a rather last minute meeting. Attendance was light, but moving forward is always good. At least until we need to move up.
For those of you that couldn't make it, or didn't find out about it until it was too late, the mailing list is working. Please, show it some love. If you're part of the project, and not on the list, contact Ethan or myself to be added.
757Labs Updates
Some random updates as to what is going on:
We've got 4 official members now! Soon possibly 5. This is great news and means there is hope for making it to year #2.
Python group has formed (meetup.com group) and will have first meet at lab on April 21st. CNC mill project has started. "Hackerspaces in space" high altitude balloon contest project underway, mailing list will be fixed shortly. Bug in online skill crane game with website, will be fixed shortly. Lab now has high quality foosball (might be time for electronic scoring system for it). TJ has done great things with plasma display using microcontroller. No environmental sensor network yet, but Skhisma and others working on it.
We had a visitor from Houston's hackerspace, Houston TX RX as well.
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Links
User Groups
- 757 CCC Comic & Cartoon Creators
- 757 Objective C Group Objective C and Cocoa programming group.
- 757 Python Users Group
- 757.rb Ruby Users Group
- HR Geeks Hampton Roads Geek Community