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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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London Raspberry Pi Meetup, Thursday 26th April.
by Andrew Back 19 Apr '12

19 Apr '12

Hello, Those attending OSHUG #18 next Thursday evening may be interested in coming along to an informal Raspberry Pi meetup that is being hosted by C4CC earlier the same day. Details pasted below. Cheers, Andrew // London Raspberry Pi Meetup #01 On the 26th April 2012, 15:00 - 17:30 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) * Do you have a Raspberry Pi? * Perhaps you have a Raspberry Pi-based project in mind. * Or you would just like to find out more... The people behind OSHUG, and DesignSpark and the Centre for Creative Collaboration invite you to the first London Raspberry Pi meetup. Come along and meet other RasPi users and enthusiasts, share experiences and demo projects. Should we organise regular meetings or workshops? Here is an opportunity to get involved with shaping future events! Note: this will be an informal meetup with no particular structure or presentations, and so please set your expectations accordingly. - Registration: http://londonraspi01.eventbrite.co.uk/ //

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OSHUG #18 — Energy-efficient Computing, Thursday 26th April.
by Andrew Back 05 Apr '12

05 Apr '12

Hello, Just to let folks know that registration is now open for this month's meeting, which will also be our second anniversary! And with thanks to SK Pang for kindly sponsoring OSHUG this month. Cheers, Andrew -- OSHUG #18 — Energy-efficient Computing (Open Compute, BeagleBoard, Event-driven XCore) On the 26th April 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) // Sponsored by SK Pang Electronics: http://www.skpang.co.uk // - Registration: http://oshug.org/event/18 At the eighteenth OSHUG meeting we will hear how open source collaboration is being used to transform data centre design, and how open source hardware and software have been used to enable low cost ARM development. It will also be the OSHUG 2nd anniversary, and two years on we are delighted to welcome back XMOS, who will be giving us an introduction to event-driven programming with XCore. — The Open Compute Project Facebook uses a lot of servers, and those servers use a lot of energy. To minimise the costs associated with those servers and data center facilities, Facebook engineers came up with a fresh design. To build a community around that design it has been open sourced via the Open Compute Project (OCP). OCP is now involved in taking the requirements of many large data center users, and turning them into designs for servers, the racks that hold them, the facilities that power and cool them, and the management interfaces that control them. This presentation will give an overview of what Facebook have built, and how OCP plans to transform data centers elsewhere. Chris Swan has been an electronics hobbyist and software hacker since primary school. These days he's an IT guy at a large bank, focussed on security and innovation - including mobile, consumerisation and cloud computing. Alongside his day job Chris chairs the infrastructure working group at the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA), which is partnered with the Open Compute Project (OCP). — BeagleBoard.org Community - Open Hardware, Open Software, Open Platforms BeagleBoard.org has created a number of products since its conception a few years ago, from the initial 'BeagleBoard' single board computer, through to the enhanced 'BeagleBoard-xM' with more performance and connectivity, and its most recent and expandable platform, the 'BeagleBone'. All of these have set out to achieve a goal of bringing high performance ARM-based processing technology to a wide 'community' of developers and users, in low-cost 'open' platforms, giving access to as much of the system-on-chip features as possible. The recent launch of the 'BeagleBone' was a great testament to this vibrant 'community', key to Beagleboard.org, which enabled a wealth of advanced platform and application software to be immediately available, and a large amount of hardware expertise providing feedback and ready to start building add-ons and clones. This was exactly what was hoped for when the project was initially conceived by a couple of engineers discussing at the coffee machine about how their technology could be made more widely accessible. The community continues to grow each day, with more and more exciting and innovative uses for these low-cost, open platforms revealed on the various mailing lists and chat rooms - from 'football playing robots' to 'media servers', the list, expertise and imagination seems endless! This presentation hopes to give an overview of the BeagleBoard.org community project and how the products have been created and supported. There have been many exciting moments, many challenges and many lessons learned throughout this project - some of which will hopefully be covered during this presentation and discussion. Roger Monk is a System Applications Engineer for Texas Instruments, and has spent the last 10+ years working closely with customers to build hi-tech electronic products based around Texas Instruments Embedded Processing technology across a range of application areas. Roger is passionate about open-source technology and the ability for it to help deliver higher quality, more innovative products to market quickly. He has been closely involved with the BeagleBoard.org community project since its conception. — Event-driven Programming with XCore XMOS designs concurrent, event-driven processor cores. Because of the deterministic nature of the architecture both real-time algorithms and hardware interfaces can be developed as software. The event-driven nature of the processor means that all programs pause until they need to perform a task, making them inherently efficient. In this talk we will discuss events, concurrency, and how hardware interfaces can be programmed in software. We will then show the design of the slice-kit development system, which enables XCores to be easily attached to peripheral PCB's containing, for example, an Ethernet PHY. Henk Muller is currently the Principal Technologist at XMOS Ltd. In that role he has been involved in the design and implementation of hardware and software for real time systems. Prior to that, Henk worked in Academia for 20 years in computer architecture, compilers, and ubiquitous computing. He holds a doctorate from the University of Amsterdam. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. - Registration: http://oshug.org/event/18

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OSHUG #17: Practical System-on-Chip event preparation
by Julius Baxter 27 Mar '12

27 Mar '12

Hi all For those intending on coming along to OSHUG 17 on Thursday, can I recommend you visit the following page on OpenCores for some details on what you'll need to install to participate in some of the practical parts of the evening: http://opencores.org/or1k/OSHUG We don't have a nice, neat distribution of the OpenRISC cross-compiler readily available yet, so part of the process is to build the tool chain. Otherwise, the rest is just obtaining a copy of the OpenRISC repository so we can simulate things on the evening. Coming with these preparations will save a lot of time and hopefully allow those who want to play along to do so. If you have any questions, let us know here, or on the OpenRISC mailing list at http://lists.openrisc.net Thanks Julius

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Next Thursday and help at C4CC.
by Andrew Back 23 Mar '12

23 Mar '12

Hello, Just a reminder that next Thursday evening it will be OSHUG #17: http://oshug.org/event/17 And we'd be interested in hearing from anyone who might be bringing their own FPGA development board along to try out an ORSoC/OpenRISC build. Also, our generous hosts at the Centre for Creative Collaboration are in need of a favour. They've just picked up a couple of network switches in advance of a Pachube workshop that is taking place during the day next Weds & Thurs, and could do with a hand setting these up. I've not checked, but it might even be possible to attend the aforementioned workshop too. In any case, if you may be able to help out please contact Brian Condon (CC'ed) direct as he's not subscribed to this list. Cheers, Andrew

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OSHUG #17 — Practical System-on-Chip, Thursday 29th March.
by Andrew Back 01 Mar '12

01 Mar '12

Hello, Registration is now open for the March OSHUG meeting. Cheers, Andrew -- OSHUG #17 — Practical System-on-Chip (Program your own open source FPGA SoC) 29th March 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) // Sponsored by DesignSpark: http://www.designspark.com // - Registration: http://oshug.org/event/17 At the ninth OSHUG meeting we were given an introduction to FPGA development, and to the OpenCores community and the OpenRISC 1000 open source processor family. At the seventeenth OSHUG meeting we will be given a comprehensive introduction to the practicalities of programming your own open source FPGA system-on-chip. — How to Program Your Own Open Source FPGA System-on-Chip It is possible to buy a FPGA prototyping board like the Terasic DE0-nano, capable of running a complete 32-bit System-on-Chip for around £50. Even larger boards with the memory capacity to bring up a full Linux system on the design cost a few hundred pounds. In this talk Julius Baxter and Jeremy Bennett will present the OpenRISC architecture and OpenRISC Reference Platform SoC (ORPSoC), and show how to take this open source design and get it running on an FPGA board. This is a practical evening, aimed at users who have never done any chip design. Using a Xilinx ML501 prototyping board, Julius Baxter will demonstrate all the steps from obtaining the initial hardware design through to bringing up the board and booting a full Linux system. The following topics will be covered: * an overview of OpenCores and the OpenRISC project * an introduction to the Verilog Hardware Design Language * how to synthesize the design into a FPGA bitstream * what needs modifying to run on different boards * how to get software running * porting a simple (newlib) library to the board * demonstration of Linux booting // Note that this will be an interactive session, and participants are encouraged to bring their along own FPGA dev boards and laptops and to join in, should they wish. If you have a board that is not listed as having a preconfigured ORPSoC build, or you have any other questions concerning the practicalities of this, you should direct your question to the OSHUG discussion list. // Julius Baxter has been involved with the OpenRISC project for 4 years, and during that time he's worked on everything from processor Verilog RTL to the Linux kernel port. After finishing undergraduate studies in his native Australia, he then studied a System-on-Chip design Master's at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, while working at ORSoC AB - the owners and operators of OpenCores.org. Now living and working Cambridge, Julius maintains a role as an active developer and maintainer on the OpenRISC project, largely dealing with RTL, toolchain and architecture work. Dr Jeremy Bennett is Chief Executive of Embecosm which provides open source services, tools and models to facilitate embedded software development with complex systems-on-chip. He has been involved with OpenCores for the past decade, and is responsible for much of the software tool chain. Contact him at jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. - Registration: http://oshug.org/event/17

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jHome: Using JavaEE and open-source hardware to automatize your house
by Jim Holmes 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

This list may well be interested in this free presentation by Yara Senger at Skills Matter in London in a couple of weeks. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/java-jee/jhome EVENT DETAILS What:London Java Community:jHome: Using JavaEE and open-source hardware to automatize your houseWhere:The Skills Matter eXchange, London<http://skillsmatter.com/location-details/java-jee/1268/96> When:21 Feb 2012 Starts at 18:30 jHome: Using JavaEE and open-source hardware to automatize your house During this presentation we will be showing how you can use Java EE and open-source hardware, like Arduino, to automatize your house. Using jHome, a complete Java EE 6 API for home automation, you can control lamps, wall sockets, electric gates and doors using Web App and Twitter. We will not present a product! It's a complete solution that you can do it yourself with open-source hardware and software and you will have a lot of fun with Java EE 6 with this different usage context! This talk will cover: - Introduction to Home Automation and open-source hardware - Project jHome Cool demos: - Servlets controlling lamps - Controllling RGB with jQuery - Scheduling coffee-machine with EJB's - Using sounds and FFT(fast fourier transforming) to control your house This is a basic talk and useful for any developer professional level. I'm not sure about "automatizing" anything, and no doubt this will all be very basic for some here, but of interest I hope.

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Five open source hardware projects that could change the world.
by Andrew Back 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

Hello, I wrote an article for The H on five open source hardware projects that could change the world. Whilst many will know most of the projects covered, it may be of interest to some. http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Five-open-source-hardware-projects-th… Regards, Andrew

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OSHUG #16 — Manufacturing, Thursday 23rd February 2012.
by Andrew Back 06 Feb '12

06 Feb '12

Hello, Registration is now open for the February meeting and details are below. Also, there is room for a third speaker if anyone would like to propose a manufacturing related talk. Wouldn't need to be too long, and could be on any topic, experiences or challenges etc to do with the manufacturing of open source hardware. If interested drop me a line asap. Regards, Andrew -- OSHUG #16 — Manufacturing (Breadboard to Finished Product, Arduino Shield) On the 23rd February 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) Registration: http://oshug.org/event/16 At the sixteenth OSHUG meeting we will be hearing about first-hand experiences of taking an open source hardware design from being a project to a product. With insights into prototyping, some of the manufacturing options available and the challenges that may be encountered. — From Breadboard to Finished Product You have a cool project, people are sending you emails asking where they could get their hands on one and you find yourself googling "electronics manufacturing"... Should you get yourself a toaster oven and start a miniature production line in your living room or should you just outsource it? What challenges await you if you decide to go down the contract manufacturing route? This talk aims to give the audience an overview of the electronics manufacturing process, using a project recently completed by the speaker as a case study. 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. — Arduino Shield: From Design to Manufacturing The Arduino CAN-Bus shield gives the Arduino CAN-Bus capability. In this presentation we will learn about the design process from PCB layout and prototyping, to testing with a simulator and eventually testing with a real car. And about the perils of using a simulator, small scale production and outsourcing. Sukkin Pang is a design engineer and a director at SK Pang Electronics Ltd. He graduated from the University of Hertfordshire and has over 20 years of industrial experience. He is passionate about open source hardware and has four Arduino shields published. He used to tinker in assembler on the Z80, 6502, PIC and AVR, but nowadays he mainly uses C and C++. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the talks will start at 18:30 prompt. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/16

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Barcamp Canterbury
by Martin Ellis 28 Jan '12

28 Jan '12

Hi guys, Thought you might be interested in an event we are organising. Barcamp Canterbury[0] is an un-conference all about technology. Barcamps[1] are run all around the country for and buy technology enthusiasts, and what's better they are totally free! The event is going to run on weekend of the 28th and 29th of April. thank Martin [0]http://www.barcampcanterbury.com/ [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp

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OSHUG #15 — Wireless (Hacking Commodity Wireless, Practical Wireless, Contiki OS, CWIG) — Thursday 26th January.
by Andrew Back 05 Jan '12

05 Jan '12

Hello, Registration is now open for January's meeting. Regards, Andrew -- Event #15 — Wireless (Hacking Commodity Wireless, Practical Wireless, Contiki OS, CWIG) On the 26th January 2012, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG, (51.529049, -0.116436) ** Registration: http://oshug.org/event/15 ** At the fifteenth OSHUG meeting we'll be taking a look at wireless technologies. We will hear how you can repurpose low cost commodity equipment, we will be given an introduction to RF basics, we will learn about the Contiki operating system, and we will be introduced to Ciseco's new Wireless Internet Gateway. - Hacking Commodity Wireless Many people build their hacks from the ground up, but those short of time sometimes prefer to repurpose cheap off-the-shelf components that can be made to fit the bill. A good example being a wireless thermometer for external use, where an off-the-shelf device provides an inexpensive option complete with the requisite weatherproof packaging. However, such devices typically use proprietary protocols and good documentation is rarely available. This talk will look at how to interface such devices where a degree of reverse-engineering is frequently required. 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. - Practical Wireless Adding wireless connectivity to your latest open hardware project is not difficult, provided that you take the time to understand some of the principles of RF communication. In this talk we will learn about the basics of wireless propagation, and take a look at some of the low cost modules which now make adding wireless even easier. Ken Boak joined BBC Research Department after graduating and worked on digital picture processing of HDTV images, and coding algorithms for video distribution around studios. Since then, Ken has worked in laboratory instrumentation, telecommunications, low power wireless and consumer electronics produced in the Far East. With an interest in renewables, Ken now develops laboratory instruments to teach undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic and wind power. Outside of work, Ken is interested in smart wireless sensors, open source hardware and low cost solutions for the Internet of Things. - An Introduction to the Contiki O/S This talk is aimed to introduce the Contiki OS and some of the development hardware. We will learn about the process of bootstrapping the development environment and there will be a hands-on tutorial. Ilya Dmitrichenko was born in Soviet Latvia in 1985, grew up and attended a secondary school there, and moved to UK as soon as Latvia joined the EU. He attended the biggest university in London and was rather disappointed with the education, but nevertheless carried on and had fun working on a final year engineering project which served as an introduction to the topic of this talk. Ilya is interested in various aspects of hardware and software, spanning from WSN to DSP and several other random fields. - CWIG — The Ciseco Wireless Internet Gateway The CWIG is a new open hardware device that is designed to be the "one and only" platform you'd need for a wireless gateway. It employs the same ATmega328 microcontroller that is familiar to Arduino users and supports Ciseco's TI CC1110-based XRF module, XBee, Bluetooth, RFM12B, X10/HomeEasy, FRAM, SD, Ethernet and over-the-air programming with AVRDude. It's sized to be housed in a low cost, compact enclosure and to be cheap to build using through-hole components. In this talk we will be given an introduction to the CWIG and also to the XRF wireless UART and programmable RF module. Miles Hodkinson's twenty-odd year relationship with IT ended around six years ago when he decided that it was time to do something completely different. He had looked around without success for something to log and control his wind turbine, solar panels and Lister single cylinder engine, and found that nothing was flexible enough for the money he wanted to pay (tens of pounds per device), so he decided he would try and build it himself. After a number of years working on a human-focused method of networking originally built using XBee modules and now termed LLAP, his company developed the TI CC1110-based XRF module. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the talks will start at 18:30 prompt. ** Registration: http://oshug.org/event/15 **

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Free XMOS XC-1A dev kits.
by Andrew Back 16 Dec '11

16 Dec '11

Hello, Just in case anyone hadn't spotted this, XMOS are running a promotion where you can pick up an XC-1A dev kit for free: http://blog.solderpad.com/post/14114783567/free-xmos-xc-1a-development-kits For the sake of clarity: SolderPad blog link as we were asked to help promote this, and I couldn't see a link to the form on either xmos.com or xcore.com. Cheers, Andrew

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e-petition on programming in schools
by Jeremy Bennett 18 Nov '11

18 Nov '11

This e-petition to HMG asks to have programming taught in schools It is only tangentially related to the interests of OSHUG. However in general if you learn programming it will bring you into a range of tools and application that are open source. The understanding it brings also helps awareness of open source. And of course one of the best ways of learning real programming is with Arduino. https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15081 If it reaches 100,000 signatures, then it may be considered by parliament. Given the number of programmers in the UK that should be achievable. I believe that any member of the public can sign e-petitions, not just adult voters. In particular if you have children who care about this issue (mine do), then they can sign as well. 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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Hacker Day @ Oxford Instruments - 3rd December
by Paul Downey 10 Nov '11

10 Nov '11

Forwarded from the Oxford Geeks mailing list .. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jason Field <jason(a)jasonfield.com> Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 3:18 PM Subject: [oxfordgeeks] Hacker Day @ Oxford Instruments - 3rd December To: list(a)oxfordhackspace.org.uk, oxfordgeeks(a)googlegroups.com Hi all, My quest to open up Oxford Instrument's doors to the local hacking community has succeeded, and we're planning to hold an event on the 3rd of December for all who are interested! The theme for the first event will be 3D printing since it brings together a lot of different aspects of the open source hardware movement, but we'll be happy to welcome anyone who has a project they'd like to work on. On site we have; * Scopes/DVMs * Professional soldering stations * General tools * Miscellaneous electronic bits 'n bobs (SMD resistors & caps, wire etc.) * Space * Refreshments & lunch * First-class bodging skills See the attached flyer for address details. If you're interested in coming along then please let me know (either email or @iamjasonfield) so we have a rough idea of numbers. Thanks, Jason PS. Apologies for the cross-posting, and date conflict with the excellent-looking Random Hacks of Kindness. Maybe we can look at some random hardware hacks of kindness at OI? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Oxford Geeks" group. To post to this group, send email to oxfordgeeks(a)googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to oxfordgeeks+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/oxfordgeeks?hl=en. -- Paul (psd) http://blog.whatfettle.com

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OSHUG #14 — Open for Change Part 2 (Hexayurt, O + S, Onawi), Thursday 24th November.
by Andrew Back 08 Nov '11

08 Nov '11

Hello, Details are now online and registration is open for the November meeting. Cheers, Andrew --- OSHUG #14 — Open for Change Pt.2 (Hexayurt, O + S Project, Onawi) 24th November 2011, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049, -0.116436) Registration: http://oshug.org/event/14 Back in May at OSHUG #10 we heard about three projects concerned with effecting positive change. At the thirteenth meeting we'll be continuing with this theme, and hearing about the Hexayurt disaster relief shelter, documenting Appropriate Technology for the needs of others, and open renewables. - Free and Open Source Housing The Hexayurt is an award-winning replacement for the disaster relief tent which provides shelter at 20% the cost of a tent. It is designed to be manufactured anywhere in the world at any scale, from local materials, as Free hardware, to house humans in need. The Hexayurt Project maintains the designs and makes them freely available. An estimated $250,000 worth of Hexayurts were built at Burning Man this year. Vinay Gupta is one the world’s leading thinkers on infrastructure theory, state failure solutions, and managing global system risks including poverty/development and the environmental crisis. He works at both the theoretical level, building models and mapping tools and at the practical level, as the designer of the Hexayurt, he helped start the US National Defense University STAR-TIDES program on humanitarian assistance, consulted on urban resilience for Arup, and is an associate fellow of the UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies. - The Needs of Others One of the areas seeing heavy influence from the Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) movement is Appropriate Technology, and the O+S Project is working from the perspective of its documentation. It is investigating the difficulty in translating from F/OSS to Appropriate Technology at both a practices and principles level, and how we must go further to meet the goals with the world’s poorest people. Al Razi Masri is a recent Manufacturing Engineering graduate and founder of the O+S Project. In addition to which he is working on documentation for the Hexayurt Project and instructional documents for other Appropriate Technology. - Open Hardware and Renewable Energy Onawi is a non-profit organisation promoting open hardware for the development of non-domestic wind energy systems. Open hardware is becoming increasingly popular, as we can see in the recent initiative by Facebook to open up the technology behind their data-centres. However, most open hardware projects are targeted at hobbyists or those looking for custom do-it-yourself alternatives to mass market products. While this is a very positive aspect, at Onawi we believe that open licensing and collaborative development could have a far reaching impact on industrial production. In particular, Open Hardware could provide the horizontal technology transfer of renewables required to fight climate change in developing countries. Javier Ruiz is a UK based digital activist and social entrepreneur promoting open data, open standards and open licensing as the basis for a better future based on transparency, participation and collaboration. His practical work cuts across various spheres ranging from citizen journalism, archives to renewable energy. His background is in anthropology and technology management, and you can normally find him at the Open Rights Group. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the talks will start at 18:30 prompt. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/14

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Open Source Hardware Camp, Thursday 27th October.
by Andrew Back 01 Nov '11

01 Nov '11

Hello, Registration is now open for the inaugural Open Source Hardware Camp which will take place on Thursday 27th October. Further details should be added to the event page in due course. Cheers, Andrew -- Open Source Hardware Camp 27th October 2011, 09:30 - 18:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG, (51.529049, -0.116436) http://oshug.org/event/oshcamp Join us at the inaugural Open Source Hardware Camp for a hands-on day of three parallel workshops, with short plenary sessions in the morning and afternoon. - Practical 3D Printing A hands-on session in which we will use OpenSCAD (an open-source, code-based, 3D parametric CAD software system to design simple 3-dimensional objects), and other freely available tools, to turn the resulting designs into files that can be used to drive a RepRap 3D printer, or similar rapid prototyping device. Further details TBD. Graham Klyne has been a software developer since the late 1970s, during that time having been involved in projects and products ranging from industrial process control, 3-D motion capture, network infrastructure, home automation, semantic web technologies and research data curation. He has also been involved in the development of IETF and Web standards. More recently, he has been pursuing a personal interest in 3D printing - which neatly complements his earlier work in motion capture - and has constructed a RepRap machine (which he hopes to use for making specialist parts for model aircraft) and has been learning a little about 3-D parametric CAD. As a member of the pif3D project, David Flanders helps coordinate the parts, materials, tools and skill required for people to build their own 3D printers. This is all done for free, so long as you promise to help someone else build their own printer as well! David enjoys hacking code in his spare time and working on designing new 3D models, currently he is working on prototype 3D models for: a rollerblade frame (for off road inline skating), a flowerpot that has a water reservoir (so it doesn't dry out when you are on holiday or forget to water it) and lighting fixtures (including translucent lamp shades, candelabras and chandeliers). David's day job is working with technology innovation projects in Universities throughout the UK. - Building the Internet of Things with Nanode and Pachube In this workshop we will be given an introduction to Nanode, the low cost open source Arduino-like board that has built in web connectivity, and Pachube, the web-based service "built to manage the World's real-time data". Following which the workshop will split into two groups and build a real world IoT application for the Centre for Creative Collaboration. With one group focusing on Nanode development and the other using Pachube to develop the online part of the application. Ken Boak joined BBC Research Department after graduating and worked on digital picture processing of HDTV images, and coding algorithms for video distribution around studios. Since then, Ken has worked in laboratory instrumentation, telecommunications, low power wireless and consumer electronics produced in the Far East. With an interest in renewables, Ken now develops laboratory instruments to teach undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic and wind power. Outside of work, Ken is interested in smart wireless sensors, open source hardware and low cost solutions for the Internet of Things. 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. - Collaboration in Open Source Hardware Whilst the development practices associated with open source software are now reasonably mature and understood by many, the same cannot be said of open source hardware and with it come specific challenges. For example, in terms of collaboration across design tools, managing contributions, licensing and project presentation. In this workshop we will be given an introduction to Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and the process of documenting a project, licensing and other challenges, before looking at the current options available for presentation and collaboration. Further details TBD. Paul Downey is a doodler, a maker and a veteran communications software developer. He has been hacking embedded systems since the late 1970s. Formerly BT's Chief Web Services Architect, and lead W3C representative, he was until recently a member of Osmosoft — a small team building open source Web collaboration systems. Paul is co-founder of SolderPad, a place to share, discover and collaborate on electronic projects. Andrew Back is an artist, electronics hacker and open source advocate. He acted as BT's Open Source Strategist, establishing company-wide open source policy and process and representing them at a number of bodies including The Linux Foundation and ATIS. Andrew co-founded the Electron Club in 2006 — one of the UK's first hackerspaces, and is co-founder of SolderPad, a place to share, discover and collaborate on electronic projects. Note: * Please aim to arrive for 09:30-09:45 as the event will start at 10:00 prompt. * A light lunch and refreshments will be provided. Please ensure that you make any dietary requirements clear when registering. // With thanks to sponsor DesignSpark — http://www.designspark.com //

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Talk on OpenRISC at the BCS OSSG
by Jeremy Bennett 12 Oct '11

12 Oct '11

You will recall that I gave a short talk on OpenCores and OpenRISC 1000 to OSHUG earlier this year. I will be giving a fuller version of that talk, including a hands-on demonstration at the BCS Open Source Specialist Group in London on Monday 17 October. We'll have real hardware there, plus anyone with a Linux laptop will be able to join in using the OpenRISC architectural simulator. http://ossg.bcs.org/2011/10/ Although run by the BCS, the meeting is open to all. Just email Mark Elkins (mark_elkins(a)bcs.org) if you would like attend. Jeremy Bennett -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com

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Re: [oshug] Talks for November OSHUG.
by Paul Tanner 12 Oct '11

12 Oct '11

Hi all. I think this would be a good topic. Maybe several people who've done different things with Jeenodes and home-made ones and a discussion of protocols used or desired. I would appreciate discussion of Zigbee too but that might be too much for one session (or cut into drinking time). Regards, Paul At 09:54 PM 10/10/2011, you wrote: >There has been suggestion of "wireless" as a theme for the OSHUG >meeting on Thursday 24th November. So, this could be licence free >short-range/low power, e.g. 433 MHz and 868MHz and wireless sensor >nodes etc. Perhaps someone has done something interesting with >JeeNodes or EZ430/OpenChronos. Or perhaps something on the radio >amateur side... Any offers of wireless talks? Or failing that, another >theme or general suggestions? Paul Tanner - Virtual Technologies - http://www.virtual-techno.com Tel: +44 1494 581979 Mob: +44 7973 223239 mailto:paul@virtual-techno.com

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Talks for November OSHUG.
by Andrew Back 10 Oct '11

10 Oct '11

Hello, There has been suggestion of "wireless" as a theme for the OSHUG meeting on Thursday 24th November. So, this could be licence free short-range/low power, e.g. 433 MHz and 868MHz and wireless sensor nodes etc. Perhaps someone has done something interesting with JeeNodes or EZ430/OpenChronos. Or perhaps something on the radio amateur side... Any offers of wireless talks? Or failing that, another theme or general suggestions? Cheers, Andrew

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