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/
CNC parts, Video, TF2 lanparty, ROV
ROV (underwater remote operated vehicle) project is underway. Check out the mailing list for more information.
CNC routing mill parts have arrived. The 60" axis and 35" axis parts should be ready to be built out.
Vex is working on the laser engraver controller.
There is talk of a TF2 lan party. Ping Mark G if interested!
New video recording system parts are mostly in. Still waiting on a few connectors and the final cameras. Will be programming the AMX for it this weekend.
Skillcrane is rocking (www.rocktheskillcrane.com.) It did close to 1000 plays yesterday.
Members-Only Cookout
The members-only cookout was a success! And by success, I mean, we managed to not burn-down anything.
The lab now has its own mini-grill, so we can look forward to future cookouts. The next one will probably in a few weeks, on a Saturday in the late afternoon. Also being planned is a LAN party, probably featuring Team Fortress 2, and possibly open to a small number of guests / non-members.
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- Mike assembles grill, Harold starts fire with heat gun
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- Mark & Mike set-up the grill
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- Mike cooking, TJ eating
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- TJ, Caroline, Ethan, & Brandon eating
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- Charles compliments the condiments cart
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- Ethan & Charles find Mike passed-out
First recorded presentation goes live
The first recorded presentation at 757 Labs has been posted to YouTube. A short talk on jUnit (Java Unit Testing) by Geoff from HRGeeks. The recording quality should be seen as a test. New (but used) cameras are being added at this moment as well as a direct feed from the projector into the video switching system. The new (but used) cameras can store positions in them and be commanded under computer control. It's a glimpse of what is to come and should give the lab a great capability.
Also, we've made improvements to the audio setup and will be testing settings with regards to better encoding of the videos for youtube and other free distribution.
Skillcrane is back in it’s glory!
The internet connected skillcrane is back, complete with full time internet video feed and player overlays. There is still a few small tweaks coming, but it's been running flawless (and non-stop) for a 4+ hours now.
I'm planning to make it so that when meetings are going on, the crane automagically goes administratively offline with a notice to users to return in a few hours.
Location
Google Calendar
@757Labs
- No public Twitter messages.
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