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Parallella countdown.
by Andrew Back 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Hello, As you know Jeremy will be doing a talk at the next OSHUG meeting on the pretty amazing Parallella project, which is currently live on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for… The campaign has started gathering a bit more pace over the last ~24 hours, but it's currently just under $150K off the funding target and with only 32 hours to go. So, if you fancy a dev board with 16x or 64x Epiphany cores, dual-core ARM A9 and programmable logic, and were thinking of making a pledge now is a good time! Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #22 — Embedded (Erlang, Parallella, Compiler Options and Energy Consumption).
by Andrew Back 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

For the benefit of anyone that's not on oshug-announce and that may have missed this... Cheers, Andrew // OSHUG #22 — Embedded (Erlang, Parallella, Compiler Options and Energy Consumption) 15th November 2012, 18:45 - 20:30 at Erlang Solutions, New Loom House, 101 Back Church Lane, London, E1 1LU, UK. Sponsored by Electronics, Sensors, Photonics KTN: http://www.espktn.org — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/22 Embedded systems continue to grow in importance as they play an ever-increasing role in everyday life: more computing is done on the move as smartphone functionality catches up with desktops and services move to the Cloud; the Internet of Things is set to herald an age in which networked objects create and consume data on our behalves. These, and many other applications, are driving an insatiable demand for more powerful and energy-efficient embedded solutions. At the twenty-second OSHUG meeting we will hear how Erlang can be used to bring concurrency to multi-core embedded systems, we will learn about the Parallella project which aims to make parallel computing accessible to everyone, and we will hear about vital research into optimising compiler options for energy-efficiency. - Erlang Embedded — Concurrent Blinkenlights and More! Managing the resources and utilising the increasingly popular multi-core and heterogeneous aspects of modern embedded systems require new sets of tools and methodologies that differ from the traditional C/C++ flow. Erlang provides features that are highly relevant to solve these issues and yet it is pretty much unknown in the embedded domain — which is surprising considering that it was originally designed for embedded applications at Ericsson! This talk aims to provide an overview of Erlang and the current state of its usage in the embedded domain and talk about our plans to help speed up the adoption rate of Erlang in embedded projects. Omer Kilic works on Erlang Embedded, a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project in collaboration with University of Kent. The aim of this project is to bring the benefits of concurrent systems development using Erlang to the field of embedded systems; through investigation, analysis, software development and evaluation. Prior to joining Erlang Solutions, Omer was a research student in the Embedded Systems Lab at the University of Kent, working on a reconfigurable heterogeneous computing framework as part of his PhD thesis (which he intends to submit soon!) Omer likes tiny computers, things that 'just work' and real beer. - Parallella — Supercomputing for Everyone The Parallella computing platform is based on the Adapteva Epiphany processor. Implemented in 65nm or 28nm silicon, Epiphany offers 16 or 64 cores and delivers up to 50 GFLOPS/watt, and the entire Parallella board complete with a dual-core ARM A9 host will consume around 5 watts. This talk will present the Epiphany architecture and explore the challenges of developing an effective GNU tool chain, and discuss the use of open source, and an approach to engineering that developed one of the fastest chips in the world from concept to second generation silicon for just a few million dollars. Dr Jeremy Bennett is the founder of Embecosm, and an expert on hardware modelling and embedded software development. Prior to founding Embecosm, Dr Bennett was Vice President of ARC International PLC and previously Vice President of Marconi PLC. In his earlier academic career, he pursued academic research in computer architecture, modelling and compiler technology at Bath and Cambridge Universities. He is the author of the popular textbook "Introduction to Compiling Techniques" (McGraw-Hill 1990, 1995, 2003). Dr Bennett holds an MA and PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University. He is a Member of the British Computer Society, a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Information Technology Professional and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. - Measuring the impact of compiler options on energy consumption in embedded platforms Energy efficiency is the highest priority for modern software-hardware co-design. The potential for compiler options to impact on power consumption of running programs has often been discussed. However there has never been a comprehensive analysis of the magnitude of that impact, or how it varies between processor architectures and compilers. This presentation will describe a project undertook during the the Summer of 2012 at the University of Bristol Department of Computer Science and funded by Embecosm, to explore the effect of compiler options on energy consumption of compiled programs. The talk will discuss the accurate measurement of power consumption on a range of small embedded systems. The whole setup was under control of an XMOS board, making it possible to run the tens of thousands of tests needed for statistical robustness in just a few weeks. The results of these tests will be discussed, the implications for compiling embedded systems, and the potential for future research in this area. This research was unusual, in that it was funded as a completely open project. A wiki detailed progress from week to week, the relevant open source communities were kept regularly informed, and the results will be published in open access journals. The talk will also cover the issues around funding and running an academic research project in this manner. James Pallister is a graduate of the University of Bristol, where he achieved joint First Class Honours in Computer Science and Electronics. During the summer of 2012, he led Embecosm's research program into the impact of compilers on energy consumption in embedded systems, which was a development of James' work at the University of Bristol with the XMOS multi-core processor. Mr Pallister has returned to Bristol in October 2012, where he is studying for a PhD in low-power multi-core system design. He remains a Technical Advisor to Embecosm. Simon Hollis is a lecturer in the Microelectronics Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol. His interests lie in the creation of energy-efficient embedded systems, processor interconnects and parallel languages and run-times. He is the creator of the RasP and Skip-link Networks-on-Chip, and is currently working on the Swallow many-core system, which targets 480 processing cores in under 200W. A main aim of the research is to re-investigate the memory/communication balance in large scale computing systems. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:45 or shortly after as the event will start at 19:00 prompt. — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/22 -- Andrew Back http://carrierdetect.com

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Re: [oshug] The Parallella project
by Jeremy Bennett 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

On Fri, 2012-09-28 at 19:30 +0100, Alan Wood wrote: > Wow this is an interesting and very cool kickstarter project. > > I am a little puzzled though that there are not any good languages for > Parallel/concurrent development in their open source suite or even > listed, I would expect to see something like XC (C extensions for > concurrency) at a low level and maybe OCCAM/Go or Erlang at a higher > level, surely this is crucial for success, the hardware is only a > small part of the story (I know this from my own work). Hi Al, XC and Occam are very much for a transputer/XMOS model of computation. Not clear they apply to an Epiphany architecture. But other parallel languages sound like a good idea. Omer Kilic is the local Erlang expert. Go should not be difficult, given we already have a GNU back-end. Best wishes, Jeremy -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com

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An other free platform ?
by Roland Laurès 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

Hello, I'm new here, I worked before only in the proprietary world. I started to think about a project in my new company (called Gnuside) that could increase the open source hardware world (not meaning it will be a huge advance, but it will (I hope) contribute) : We are about to design a hardware containing those general characteristics : - a ~1GHz dual-core CPU (here is he main node of my question) - 1 or 2 GB of DDR2/3 - 16 GB of flash for the system - SATA controller (which will be populated by 2 hard-drives in the public delivered release) - 2 or 3 ethernet 1 Gbps ports - COM port - a programmation/debug port. Why I'm talking about that ? We plan to put a Freescale processor of the family of P102x, from what I heard this processor has it's documentation available for everyone, and seems a good choice for an open source hardware platform. From what I heard ARM processors which are in the center of many open source hardware platforms are not that easy to use for open source community. Are PPC better ? I was at first thinking about the future T2080 which put back the Altivec solutions and a new architecture and packet engines that seems promising, but everything about them are under NDA. Even if this could be circumvented by writing some open source test programs around the basic functionalities of the CPU, would it be a big problem for the community ? What do you think about all this ? I'm asking that to better know how to manage an open source hardware project, without messing things up. Regards Roland Laurès PS: The project using this platform will be Firstbrick and has a hardware and software part, and I'm managing the hardware part.

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The Parallella project
by Jeremy Bennett 29 Sep '12

29 Sep '12

Hi all, If you haven't seen it, the Adapteva Epiphany low-power multi-core processor is going open source, funded by a kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for… The Parallella board will cost $99 and offer 50 GFlops/Watt, consuming a maximum of 5 Watts. We've been heavily involved with the Epiphany project since 2008. The team at Embecosm built the GNU tool chain and more recently we've funded research at Bristol University looking at the impact of the compiler on energy consumption. I'll be talking about Epiphany at the next OSHUG meeting. It is revolutionary, not only in its design and performance, but in the founder's commitment to open source and the way it has been funded right from the beginning. We'll have one there for you to look at! My colleague James Pallister, will be talking about how compilers can influence the power consumed by a processor, and sharing the results of his open research project at Bristol. He'll have the results for the ARM M0, M3 and A8, XMOS and Eiphany processors. Look forward to hearing people's ideas of what might be possible with a $99 board with this sort of horsepower! Best wishes, Jeremy -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com

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The openness of the RPI
by Sevan / Venture37 26 Sep '12

26 Sep '12

http://whitequark.org/blog/2012/09/25/why-raspberry-pi-is-unsuitable-for-ed… I must admit this is why I kept away, but after playing with one at oshcamp thanks to Omer, I ordered one as I can run FreeBSD on their currently, not fussed about GPU support as im running the pi headless but I was unaware that the GPU is critical to system initialisation & support is mandatory. If I can have a functional userland with a headless pi it means I don't have to have bigger box using lots of electricity for testing/dev. Sevan

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Agenda timing OSHUG Camp 2012
by BAGLEY SIMON 11 Sep '12

11 Sep '12

Are there details of the talk times, and the finish time on the Saturday? Simon

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OSHCamp 2012 update.
by Andrew Back 10 Sep '12

10 Sep '12

Hello, I just wanted to let folks know that OSHCamp is now at half capacity with 50 people registered and over a month still to go. So if you are planning to attend it may be advisable not to leave it to the last minute to book. With regards accommodation, for those that prefer the comforts of a B&B or a hotel: The Angeldale is very central and quite reasonably priced: http://www.angeldale.co.uk/ The White Lion Hotel is perhaps a bit more upmarket, the food looks great and I can vouch that the beer is well kept: http://www.whitelionhotel.net/ And groups may wish to consider booking an apartment (although you could also book a 4 bed room at the hostel): http://www.croftmill.com/ As ever, happy to answer any questions direct or via the list. Cheers, Andrew PS. We have a 10th talk confirmed for the Saturday, on the OpenRelief CTOL open source UAV airframe (which will be brought along!)

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Porting FreeBSD to embedded hardware
by Sevan / Venture37 09 Sep '12

09 Sep '12

MIPS specifically but mentions of ARM & PPC too, talk is by FreeBSD commiter Adrian Chadd at the NYC BUG. http://www.fetissov.org/public/nycbug/nycbug-09-05-12.mp3 Sevan

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OSHCamp registration.
by Andrew Back 09 Sep '12

09 Sep '12

Hello, It would be a great help if anyone who is planning to attend OSHCamp next weekend and has not registered yet could do so today, as I'll be putting the catering order in tomorrow. Best, Andrew

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Call for OSHUG October meeting.
by Andrew Back 30 Aug '12

30 Aug '12

Hello, Does anyone have anything they would like to present, or perhaps an idea for a theme, for the meeting in October (back in London, of course) ? I remember discussing some ideas with someone at the last meeting, but forget who and what ideas! Best, Andrew

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Printer PCBs with a modified epson printer
by Sevan / Venture37 25 Aug '12

25 Aug '12

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/direct-pcb-printer Sevan

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[OT] Ohm's Law badges.
by Andrew Back 25 Aug '12

25 Aug '12

Hello, At the last OSHUG meeting a couple of folk mentioned that they'd like one of the Ohm's Law badges [1]. Well, I finally got round to getting some more made and if anyone would like one (they're not free, I'm afraid) they can contact me off-list. Cheers, Andrew [1] http://andrewback.net/works/VIR

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OSHCamp tenth talk added.
by Andrew Back 17 Aug '12

17 Aug '12

All, Pleased to announce that Edward Strickland will be giving a talk on developing a heavy lift UAV for OpenRelief and plans to bring the airframe with him. Details of his talk are now on the website at: http://oshug.org/event/oshcamp2012 I've also added a few more details on the workshops. Cheers, Andrew

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Re: [oshug] oshug Digest, Vol 29, Issue 1
by Mark.itto 10 Aug '12

10 Aug '12

is there any other option for accommodation less comfortable and/or cheaper? Regards. On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:00 PM, <oshug-request(a)oshug.org> wrote: > Send oshug mailing list submissions to > oshug(a)oshug.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > oshug-request(a)oshug.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > oshug-owner(a)oshug.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of oshug digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. OSHCamp 2012 update. (Andrew Back) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:25:20 +0100 > From: Andrew Back <arback(a)computer.org> > To: Open Source Hardware User Group Discussion List <oshug(a)oshug.org> > Subject: [oshug] OSHCamp 2012 update. > Message-ID: > < > CADj1OPD-FcFr-aP9Noi_Gn4cEUL4w0HUtDh_jHA25EFzUY50WQ(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Hello, > > I just wanted to let folks know that OSHCamp is now at half capacity > with 50 people registered and over a month still to go. So if you are > planning to attend it may be advisable not to leave it to the last > minute to book. > > With regards accommodation, for those that prefer the comforts of a > B&B or a hotel: > > The Angeldale is very central and quite reasonably priced: > > http://www.angeldale.co.uk/ > > The White Lion Hotel is perhaps a bit more upmarket, the food looks > great and I can vouch that the beer is well kept: > > http://www.whitelionhotel.net/ > > And groups may wish to consider booking an apartment (although you > could also book a 4 bed room at the hostel): > > http://www.croftmill.com/ > > As ever, happy to answer any questions direct or via the list. > > Cheers, > > Andrew > > PS. We have a 10th talk confirmed for the Saturday, on the OpenRelief > CTOL open source UAV airframe (which will be brought along!) > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > oshug mailing list > oshug(a)oshug.org > http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug > > > End of oshug Digest, Vol 29, Issue 1 > ************************************ >

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Open Source Hardware Camp 2012.
by Andrew Back 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

Hello, Registration is now live for this year's OSHCamp, details of which are pasted below. The cost for attending is £10, but this includes lunch and tea/coffee on the Saturday, and there will be an OSHCamp goody bag kindly supplied by SK Pang and Oomlout. For those that require accommodation the Hebden Bridge Hostel (http://www.hebdenbridgehostel.co.uk/) adjoins the venue and looks pretty good. Most of the dorms are 4 bed and discounts are available for group bookings, plus they also have double/twin rooms. And for those on a very tight budget a dorm bunk can be had for £12.50, although this does require that you bring a sleeping bag. Further local information will be posted here and/or to the website in due course, and there will be some sort of social event on the Saturday evening (a round about way of saying the pub!) Please post any questions to the list, or to me direct if you prefer. Cheers, Andrew // Open Source Hardware Camp 2012 On the 15th September 2012, 09:00 - 16th September 2012, 16:00 at The Birchcliffe Centre, Birchcliffe Road, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 8DG, UK — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/oshcamp2012 Open Source Hardware Camp 2012 will take place place in the north of England in the Pennine town of Hebden Bridge. Building on the success of last year's OSHCamp, it will be a weekend long event with nine talks on the Saturday and four parallel workshops on the Sunday. Hebden Bridge is approximately 1 hour by rail from Leeds and Manchester. Budget accommodation is available at the Hebden Bridge Hostel which adjoins the venue, with discounts available for group bookings. - Practical Experiences with the Google Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) The ADK is an exciting development platform that makes it possible to easily combine Android applications with custom hardware built around Arduino. Such combinations have the best of both worlds by enabling the creation of a mobile phone application with access to peripheral devices that is only limited by your imagination. This talk will cover two projects that extend what the phone can do by integrating both input and output devices. And will cover some of the dos and don'ts of using the ADK and associated IDEs. If time permits there will also be a demonstration with a quick run through of the code. Paul Tanner is a consultant, developer and maker in wood, metal, plastic, electronics and software. His day job is IT-based business improvement for SMEs. By night he turns energy nut, creating tools to optimise energy use. Paul graduated in electronics and was responsible for hardware and software product development and customer services in several product and service start-ups, switching to consulting in 2000. If you can't wait to get your hands on the ADK software browse to http://developer.android.com/tools/adk. - The Internet of Things and Arduino As connecting hardware to the network becomes cheaper and cheaper we're seeing the rise of what is being called the Internet of Things, or “IoT” for short. This talk will give an introduction to the Internet of Things and explain how open hardware platforms such as Arduino are helping it grow. With plenty of examples of IoT projects, from using sensors to map global radiation levels to bakeries that tweet when the bread is fresh out of the oven. Adrian McEwen has been connecting odd things to the Internet since the mid-90s. Starting with cash registers, and then as part of the team who were first to put a web browser onto a mobile phone. As the mobile phone and set-top box work became more mainstream he dropped down a level to Arduino which led to Internet-enabled bubble machines and chicken-food silos... Adrian has been working with Arduino since 2008 — which is when Bubblino, the aforementioned bubble machine which watches twitter, was created — and is charge of the Arduino Ethernet library. He is based in Liverpool, where he runs MCQN Ltd, a company that builds IoT devices and products. - Developing Linux on Embedded Devices This talk will provide an introduction to developing Linux on embedded devices. Firstly we will look at the capabilities of popular boards such as the BeagleBone and the Raspberry Pi. Then using the example of a BeagleBone controller for a 3D printer the talk with explain how to develop for an embedded device. It will consider what comprises an embedded Linux software stack. The talk will discuss boot loaders, kernels and root filesystems. We will discuss what are the minimum software packages required in a root file system. The talk will then go on to consider the tools required to develop for an embedded target. It will look at what tools are available to help the embedded developer and speed up this development process. Once you have developed your software you need to debug it. The talk will look at what debugging tools are available for debugging embedded devices. Melanie Rhianna Lewis started a life long love of electronics as a child when her Dad helped her make a "crystal" radio with an ear piece, a coil of wire, a diode and a radiator! At the same time the home computer revolution started and she would lust after the "build your own computers" advertised in the electronics magazines of the time. She never got one but did end up the proud owner of a BBC Micro. Melanie learnt everything she could about the machine and including assembler, operating systems, drivers, interrupt, and, thanks to the circuit diagram in the Advanced User Guide, digital electronics. After the BBC Micro came the Acorn Archimedes and so started a long relationship with ARM processors. In the 90s Melanie became interested in Linux and then developed one of the first ARM Linux distributions running on an Acorn RISC PC. The hobby became a job and Melanie currently works for an embedded device consultancy near Bradford where a lot of her work is still with ARM processors. - Interfacing the Raspberry Pi to the World — Everything you need to know about P1 You've received your Pi, set up a web server on it and maybe played a few rounds of Quake. You're looking for a new challenge and suddenly the header on the corner of the board catches your eye. A quick Google search for "P1 Raspbery Pi" gets you to the eLinux wiki page on Low level peripherals, and you suddenly realise that you can do all sorts of fun stuff by adding extra bits to your Raspberry Pi using this magical expansion port. Where do you start? Is it safe to connect a motor directly to the pins? What sort of interesting components are out there? In this talk we will look at the ways we can communicate with the outside world using the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi. We will explore the mechanical, electrical and software side of things and talk about a few example projects you can try at home, and the hardware limitations will be covered and workarounds provided. Omer Kilic is theoretically still a research student at the University of Kent, although he intends to submit his thesis (which is about a reconfigurable heterogeneous computing framework) pretty soon. He likes tiny computers, things that 'just work' and beer. He currently works for Erlang Solutions in London, exploring the use of Erlang programming language in the Embedded Systems domain and develops tools and support material to help the adoption of this technology. This talk will also serve as an introduction for the Raspberry Pi workshop on the Sunday, where we will explore the example projects covered in more detail. - Sensing Wearable Technology An introduction to wearable technology that will include examples which incorporate sensors, plus work which makes use of the LilyPad Arduino, an open source, sewable microcontroller. Rain Ashford creates wearable technology & electronic art, her most recent work involves investigating physiological sensing technologies and how they can be applied to wearable artworks to measure and interpret moods, health and lifestyle data. Rain also creates fun, interactive and aesthetically pleasing works that include gaming and musical elements. She is keen to demonstrate that electronics, components and circuitry doesn't have to be regarded as cold, boring, hard and boxy and instead can be fun, colourful and elegant, plus be integrated into an overall design of a work. Rain’s background is in developing online activities for the BBC as a Senior Producer at BBC Learning and also as Technologist at BBC R&D, co-running BBC Backstage. She currently works as a freelance consultant for the Open University and for Technocamps designing and leading workshops in coding and electronics in the form of wearable technology for 11-19 year-olds, plus is a PhD researcher, peering into wearable electronics & art. - Running OpenBTS in the Real World This talk will explore the OpenBTS project and describe how it uses software-defined radio and open source Internet telephony to create a small but complete GSM mobile phone network. Experiences of operating OpenBTS installations on the Pacific island of Niue and at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert will be covered, along with how OpenBTS has been integrated with other systems for use in disaster relief. Licensing permitting there will also be a live demonstration. Tim Panton is a software engineer with a particular interest in projects that blend web applications and person-to-person speech into an integrated user experience. He has many years hands-on experience with the OpenBTS project, working closely with the core development team on numerous installations. Tim is currently working on the Phono.com, Tropo.com and Rayo.org products at VoxeoLabs, producing web developer-friendly APIs by using XMPP protocols to drive innovative telephony applications that can be used anywhere by anyone. - The 3D Printed Revolution Over recent years Open Source 3D printers have quickly developed alongside their commercial counterparts offering affordable and accessible alternatives. This talk will cover experiences using commercial printers and how the speaker's interests have moved to open source designs and how the two compare. Examples will be shown of projects using these technologies, such as "Fable", a clock manufactured by Selective Laser Sintering, and a wrist watch designed to be printed on a RepRap. There will also be a run through of the design considerations and how files were created, fixed and sliced in preparation to print on a RepRap. Mark Gilbert graduated in 2000 from Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in Industrial Design Innovation. After several years working as a design engineer, Mark started working as a freelance industrial designer for several companies in the Northwest. Over the last 6 years he has also worked closely with the Bolton Science and Technology Centre as the "Designer in Residence" where he has developed workshops around the centre's 3D printing and CAD facilities. In 2008 Mark set up the design studio Gilbert13 with his wife Angela where they design and develop products inspired by experimentation into digital manufacturing processes, 3D printing and additive manufacturing. Recent projects have taken their experience from rapid prototyping to use 3D printing as a manufacturing tool that can change the way people design, co create and distribute objects. - The Bots are Coming In the last two decades we have seen software and data change the fabric of economics, and the advent of personal computing and the Internet enable many new business models. However, the next two decades will be even more radical as that wave of innovation shifts from the virtual domain to a physical manifestation. Atoms are the new bits and the open sourcing and democratisation of bot technology is allowing us to enter into an era of personal production. And this talk will explore how 3D printing and additive manufacturing are revolutionising production as we know it. Alan Wood originally trained in systems engineering, got lost in software engineering and open source for a decade, before returning back to his hardware roots via the open source hardware and makers movement that has gathered momentum over the last few years. - DIYBIO - The Next Frontier DIYBIOMCR is an public group based at MadLab dedicated to making biology an accessible pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists and biological engineers who value openness and safety. This talk will give an overview of the movement, and what is going on at MadLab involving not only biology but also diverse fields such as hardware-hackers, artists, journalists and the open-source movement. Hwa Young Jung is a co-founder and a director of MadLab, a community centre for creative, tech and science based the Manchester. Over 50 user groups meet once a month, including DIYBIOMCR, initially a joint funded project with MMU and the Wellcome Trust. ** Sunday Workshops Workshops will be reasonably informal and shaped by the participants, and details are subject to change depending upon the level of interest expressed. Please feel free to bring along equipment and components provided that you are able to take full responsibility for your own personal safety and that of others. Common sense should be exercised! - Practical IoT Applications with the Google ADK and Arduino Hands on IoT building sessions that follow on from Saturday's ADK and Arduino talks. - Interfacing the Raspberry Pi to the World - Here you will learn how to connect a selection of devices to your Raspberry Pi utilising the methods discussed during Saturday's talk. We will have a few Raspberry Pi boards available for the workshop but please bring your own if you were one of the lucky ones to have received one. - Building GSM Networks with Open Source A look at the practical steps involved in creating a low power GSM network using open source technology. Note: this workshop will be subject to a spectrum licence being granted. - Practical 3D Printing Details TBC. Note: * Please aim to arrive for 09:00 on the Saturday as the event will start at 09:30 prompt. * A light lunch and refreshments will be provided on the Saturday. Sponsored by: Capital SCF: http://www.capitalscf.com DesignSpark: http://www.designspark.com Cosm: https://cosm.com OSHCamp kit bags provided by: SK Pang: http://www.skpang.co.uk Oomlout: http://oomlout.com

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OpenBSD on the Pandaboard
by Sevan / Venture37 11 Jul '12

11 Jul '12

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20120711142958 Sevan

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OSHUG #20 — Drones (UDB4, OpenRelief, ARDrone + Kinect), Thurs 21st June.
by Andrew Back 08 Jun '12

08 Jun '12

Hello, The next OSHUG meeting will be on Thursday 21st June. Details and registration link below. Regards, Andrew // OSHUG #20 — Drones (UDB4, OpenRelief, ARDrone + Kinect) On the 21st June 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) Sponsored by Embecosm: http://www.embecosm.com — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/20 Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are increasingly making the news, but when they do so it's usually because of their use in warfare. However, drones can be put to use in many other, far more positive applications. And at the twentieth OSHUG meeting we will hear talks on an experimental attitude and heading reference system (AHRS), using open source technology to build drones for use in disaster relief, and on a fun and novel method of flying drones via gesture control. - Using UDB4 for an Experimental AHRS The UAV Development Board is a very versatile development board that has been around for the past five or so years, and which has been supported by small team led by William Premerlani. The board comes with a dsPIC30F4011 microcontroller, an MMA7260 three axis accelerometer and two dual-axis Inversense IXZ500 gyroscopes. It has supported various forms of platforms ranging from inverted pendulums to multicoptors. It has primarily been a development platform for experimenters and it is in its fourth major revision. The talk intends to give a high level view of the MatrixPilot firmware as a general introduction to autopilots, with a demonstration of the Hardware in loop simulation to show how it behaves in flight for a fixed wing aircraft. Anish Mohammed has been an electronics hobbyist and software hacker since his early teens. He spent almost a decade in research and development in security and cryptography, and these days he works for the Big Five in consulting. He is a confirmed UAV addict who owns a dozen AHRS/Autopilots, both open and partially closed, with interests in multicopters, fixed wings and rovers. - OpenRelief — Open Source Software and Open Hardware For Frontline Disaster Relief This talk will explore how the OpenRelief team, inspired by challenges seen during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, is using Open Source Software and Open Hardware to create disaster relief tools. The first step is to develop a small drone that can take off from anywhere, recognize roads, people and smoke while also measuring weather and radiation. It can be built for less than 1,000 USD, and easily shares information with Open Source and proprietary disaster management systems. The goal is to gather critical information for relief workers on the ground, and contribute to getting aid where it is needed. Karl Lattimer is an engineer who started early with electronics and programming, and has worked on all kinds of projects for many companies developing software to solve a wide variety of problems. He currently works for Codethink Ltd, an engineering firm based in Manchester, UK. Karl is enthusiastic about Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Robotics and related engineering disciplines. He is a firm believer that we can engineer a future that is more sustainable, adaptive and integrated. His interest in OpenRelief stems from a desire to engineer solutions to the problems faced in disaster scenarios, and the desire to drive the permeation of robots into our everyday lives. - Flying an ARDrone Like a 7-year Old Child Controlling a Parrot ARDrone using URBI, python and an MS Kinect camera, allowing people to fly it by holding their arms out and pretending to be an airplane like a small child. This was in truth an exploration in how to couple independent projects and to explore and exploit the APIs presented by the kinect and the drone's software. Ben O'Steen is a freelance developer with an interest in the fuzzy divide between physical and digital spaces, such as how we perceive and use objects differently based on how they are (re)produced, presented or controlled. Currently, he can be found working on digital library and archive projects for academic institutions, art installations and his newly completed 3d printer. — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/20

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OSHCamp 2012 planning.
by Andrew Back 21 May '12

21 May '12

Hello, As many of you know the plan is to hold this year's OSHCamp in the north of England in Hebden Bridge, which is a pretty town (I might be biased!) in the foothills of the Pennines and roughly half way between Leeds and Manchester and easily accessible (<1 hour by train) from both. It will also be a two day event and will take place over a weekend, with provisional dates of 15th & 16th September. I've uploaded a few photos of the venue to Flickr (more/better ones to be uploaded in due course): http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrierdetect/7234510996/in/set-72157629815372… The venue also has a hostel on the site and I'll see if any sort of group booking deal can be arranged. http://www.hebdenbridgehostel.co.uk/ Of course there also hotels and guests houses, or should you wish you could even hire a canal boat. http://www.bronteboathire.co.uk/ Although this might be a bit of a waste if you're only returning to sleep on it... I think the plan will be to host talks on the Saturday, with hands-on sessions on the Sunday. But obviously I'm keen to hear any suggestions that people might have as to the structure, as well as themes and talk topics. And as always, offers to present or run a workshop are most welcome. Discuss here or e-mail me direct — whichever suits. I'll provide updates to this list as and when plans develop. Best, Andrew

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open source airborne wind generator
by Rod Read 18 May '12

18 May '12

I've got a fancy kite design. It's proving to be pretty useful. I've done loads of online research and would like to give something back with the design being Open Source. Cern license the best one for me? Rod Read http://kitepowercoop.org http://www.youtube.com/user/roddyread <http://www.roddys-photos.com>roderickread (skype)

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OSHUG #19 — Kits (Homesense, Quick2Wire), Thursday 31st May 2012.
by Andrew Back 16 May '12

16 May '12

Hello, Registration for OSHUG #19 is now open, details below. Best, Andrew // OSHUG #19 — Kits (Homesense, Quick2Wire) 31st May 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG, [map] (51.529049, -0.116436) Sponsored by DesignSpark: http://www.designspark.com/ — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/19 For those that are new to hardware development it can prove a daunting prospect, and kits that address the needs of those with little or no experience in this area have a vital role to play. At the nineteenth OSHUG meeting we will be hearing about two such kits, one that was designed to support user-led smart home innovation and that was based around the Arduino platform, and an experimenters kit for the Raspberry Pi that is currently in development. - The Homesense Project The Homesense project was a European user-led, smart-home development project employing open source hardware. The project was led by Tinker London and EDF and engaged households supported by local experts in the design and development of smart home concepts. The project was developed as a reaction to top-down design approaches commonly observed in technological development and home building. Most early research viewed smart homes as a single complex system that is designed and constructed from the ground up, and assumes that most aspects (physical building, digital infrastructure, furniture, appliances) are under the control of a single smart-home developer. (Kortuem et al. 2010) In the contrasting reality however of multi-vendor development and retrofitting this is rarely the case. Inspired also by an argument that smart homes are developed by experts in a top down approach subsequently living with a smart home is acknowledged to be problematic to non-experts who lack control over respective technologies. The Homesense project was therefore designed to enable user-led innovation within the home environment, building alongside existing environmental and social conditions allowing end-users to address their own concerns in their physical and ‘lived in’ space. Homesense sought to bring the open collaboration methods of online communities to physical infrastructures in the home. Designing a toolkit to support this approach is explored as a topic of this presentation. Natasha Carolan is a PhD student at HighWire Doctoral Training Centre, Lancaster University where her research considers commodification of design and production processes in the digital economy. A product designer by background, her research explores open and user innovation, service design and value co-creation in areas of NPD and manufacturing. Natasha co-designed the Homesense toolkit by situating the toolkit as a cultural probe a strategy that Natasha believes is important in placing open source hardware in a democratic system as a tool for learning and empowerment. - Quick2Wire Quick2Wire Limited is a start-up that is developing a range of OSH/OSS add-on products for the Raspberry Pi. The first product is an experimenter's kit, contaning an expansion board, a set of components with which to experiment, software to drive the Pi, and an instruction manual. This will be followed by a series of expansion kits, using I2C and SPI to add capabilities like ADC, DAC, PWM and stepper motor drivers. All the hardware and software will be released under open source licences. The presentation will conclude with a demonstration using hardware prototypes driven by a Raspberry Pi. Romilly Cocking spent the ten years before his 'retirement' as an agile software developer, coach and trainer. He spent the first two years of retirement experimenting with robotics. Then Raspberry Pi came along, and now Romilly works full-time running Quick2Wire. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. — Registration: http://oshug.org/event/19

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MusicTechFest 17-19 May in London
by Nils Hitze 08 May '12

08 May '12

Hi there, i am new to this group (and based in Munich, Germany not London) but nevertheless a friend of mine is organizing an event in London that you might find interesting: http://www.musictechfest.org/#register A three day, free Music Hack Day/TechFest. Be fast, there might still be some tickets left Kind Regards Nils -- Nils Hitze Email: nhitze(a)gmail.com Mobil: +49 179 9429701 Blog: silberkind.de <http://www.silberkind.de> G+: silberkind.de/+ Twitter: @kojote <http://twitter.com/kojote>

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Wikipedia entry for OSHUG
by Jeremy Bennett 04 May '12

04 May '12

I have created a stub Wikipedia entry for OSHUG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSHUG Perhaps others would like to expand this. More information on the origins, and a list of meetings would be useful. Best wishes, Jeremy -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com

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Microsoft infiltrating the Cabinet Office Open Source consultation
by Jeremy Bennett 27 Apr '12

27 Apr '12

It seems big business will try anything to stop government's supporting open source. This government announcement is of interest - not least because of them doing the right thing about it! http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/04/26/open-standards-consultation-… Although we are an open source hardware group, many members overlap into the open source software world. You may like to respond to the consultation and your MP. Best wishes, Jeremy -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com

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Modular OpenChronos firmware
by Sevan / Venture37 22 Apr '12

22 Apr '12

Hiya, The OpenChronos devs have announced a modular firmware for the Ti EZ430 watches, details on whats new & how to obtain the code are covered here: http://groups.google.com/group/openchronos/browse_thread/thread/5ba4b073ea5… Sevan

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