Mata Hari pinball gets a leg up (actually 4)
Ethan, MarkG, and Matt got the legs mounted on the Mata Hari pinball. Later, when DJ Mike arrived, we went to Cogan's Pizza for dinner, where we discussed plans for our upcoming MAGFest road trip. At MAGFest, we plan on setting-up a vendor table to promote the hackerspace, and maybe the radio station project.
There was also talk of a lab members-only meeting the following weekend (Saturday, January 22, 2011 around 6:00 PM EST), followed by an open hack night (8:00 PM EST until whenever).
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- Matt mounts rear legs on the Mata Hari pinball
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- Ethan mounts front legs on the Mata Hari pinball
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- Ethan mounts front legs on the Mata Hari pinball
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- Matt mounts rear legs on the Mata Hari pinball
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- Matt mounts rear legs on the Mata Hari pinball
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- Matt mounts rear legs on the Mata Hari pinball
Other plans include another electronic / MIDI music jam session, and another LAN party, both in February. Stay tuned.
Hackerspace vpn network
During my visit to FAMiLab space in Orlando, there was some talk of standing up some VPNs between spaces. I think this is an interesting idea, and think we should participate. But it raises a few issues regarding security. 757 Labs already has at least 4 separate networks, and I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce foreign traffic into any of them. But it would be possible to stand up a couple of new VPNs to help support the idea of a hackerspace network.
That talk with FAMiLab was a hostile network (for CTF type events) and a non-hostile network. I can see running some simple services on something small and low powered to contribute to the non-hostile network. Perhaps share video and audio content from our meetings and such. Any other thoughts on fun things that could be done with such a network?
Ruby/Python meetup videos
We recorded the last Ruby meetup, and it's on Vimeo for those interested. We recorded a most excellent presentation by Jeremy Demar about pcap processing with python, and unfortunately something went wrong and there is no audio. We've got things down to a science now, and in the future there should be many more presentations from the lab.
International visitor, MakerFaire NC, etc
Sorry we've been slow updating the blog. There is a bunch of stuff coming rapidly. This is one of many posts coming.
In November the lab had a visitor from the Netherlands who did a tour of hackerspaces around America. He did an interview of some 757 Labs members and spoke about it on his podcast. You can listen here. More info here..
We've got visitors coming in Febrary from Michigan to check out our space. They are bringing an interesting project.
June 18th is Maker Faire in NC at the State Fairgrounds. 757 Labs plans to be there representing Hampton Roads! If you have ideas of projects to build or bring, let's talk!
More updates coming shortly.
Open hack night, Saturday, December 18, 2010
We are having an open hack night on Saturday, December 18, 2010. It will last from the afternoon, well into the night. Everyone is welcome -- bring a friend!
For new visitors: we are located at the corner of Bute & Duke streets in Norfolk, VA. Free parking is located behind the building, and there is also a city parking garage across the street (the York Street Garage) which has paid parking.
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- left-to-right: Mike (guest), Harold, Ethan, & Mark (guest)
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- Harold & Ethan troubleshoot a flat-panel TV
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- Ethan samples a 1970’s-era drum machine
More updates
Kyle has successfully connected a real IGT slot machine to a computer running Linux. The computer plays the game (simulating quarters) and records the payout (if any) to a SQL database. Soon the game will be online for people to play (not for money), and more importantly to record and calculate the odds of winning. Pretty neat stuff, and the whole project has progressed very rapidly.
The co2 laser has arrived for the engraver.
Some work has started to build an online radio station that will play music from Hampton Roads. Right now things are being worked out with the automation system. Next up will be the streaming system and web page. Then soliciting for content.
Donkey Kong has been repaired, Ms Pac-Man has been moved to a switchmode power supply and will hopefully be stable.
Just checking in with some updates
At HRGeeks ][ Matt Crainer gave a presentation on the progress of a laser pong game being developed.
Our friend Ken Kurzweil donated a real, industrial robot arm to the lab. It's made by American Robot and is a Merlin model. We're a bit of parts from making it work, but we know where we have to go to make it run! This is an exciting addition to the lab.
The Lan party was a new diversion from working on projects. It was fun, but won't be an every-month occurrence. I'm thinking we had 14 people playing.
Also there are some new projects that are really active, props to Kyle! More public information on his work soon!
Open hack night follow-up
Open hack night was another success. Vex was working on the laser engraver controller. Matt made some great progress with the laser-driven pong game (should be able to do a large building game of pong when this is done) and some other projects were going on. New people visited, new project ideas were formed, and we march on!
Oh yea, it looks like the lab is getting a donation from a friend. An industrial robot arm. The real deal. Trying to source some needed components. More news on this in the very very near future. It's insanely cool.
Open hack night, tonight (Fri), 8pm till 12pm
Another open lab night is going on tonight from 8pm till 12pm.
757 Labs at TEDxNASA
from NASA's website
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_TEDxNASA2010.html
Thousands Show that TEDxNASA Matters by Denise Lineberry - Oct. 5, 2010
"In another area of the lobby, Ethan O’Toole, a former robotics mentor and Langley employee, circled up with members of 757 labs, a club of Information Technology professionals."
More info on this annual, one-day conference: http://tedxnasa.com/matters/
Location
Google Calendar
@757Labs
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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