- oshug - lists.oshug.org

Open Energy Tools & Interoperability : Kite Airborne Wind Energy Results
by Rod Read 31 Jan '16

31 Jan '16

Hi oshug, Here are some links to my open hardware Airborne Wind Energy project results. My report on Kite Networks for Harvesting Wind Energy <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qQxFlXu7t-RGpqRk1ZYXNISkU> Files for making a ring kite turbine <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qQxFlXu7t-SHBvNUdQQVBRN00> part 1 more on instructables, wevolver, hackaday and youtube. All interaction and welcome on this project. Gutted I likely can't attend the London BCS event on Open Energy Tools & Interoperability this Feb. Rod Read Windswept and Interesting Limited 15a Aiginis Isle of Lewis UK HS2 0PB 07899057227 01851 870878 https://twitter.com/rodread http://www.youtube.com/c/RodRead http://windswept-and-interesting.co.uk

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Re: [oshug] OSHUG #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability.
by Andrew Back 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

As has been pointed out, the title should have been OSHUG #45 :o) Also, we will have a fourth talk: — OpenEnergyMonitor 5 years on OpenEnergyMonitor is a project to develop open-source tools to help us relate to our use of energy, our energy systems and the challenge of sustainable energy. This short talk will provide an overview of what has been achieved so far, what has been learnt and outline the project roadmap for the future. Topics will include: running an open-hardware business, local manufacture and electronic carbon footprinting and sustainability. Glyn Hudson is co-founder and full-time developer of the OpenEnergyMonitor project. // Cheers, Andrew On 29 January 2016 at 11:43, Andrew Back <arback(a)computer.org> wrote: > Hello, > > Registration is now open for the February meeting — and preceding hack > day! — details of which can be found below. > > Cheers, > > Andrew > > // > > Event #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability (Open Inverter, > OpenTRV, Heat Pump Monitoring) > > On the 18 February 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The > Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. > > Registration: http://oshug.org/event/45 > > For the forty-fifth meeting we will return to a topic which has been a > recurring theme and of much interest at previous meetings, open energy > platforms. There will be talks on Open Inverter, OpenTRV and heat pump > monitoring, with a focus also on interoperability. The evening meeting > will also be preceded by an interoperability hack day for project > contributors. > > — Low power DC conversion using open source hardware > > The Open Inverter is a micro inverter designed to produce an AC power > output of up to 250 VA. It uses modular, open source PCB designs for > both it's controller and power boards — and is extendible to larger > power outputs or for other power electronics projects, such as battery > charging, DC ring mains and DC power transformation using buck-boost > DC/DC converters. > > Open Inverter will provide an AC output from a single 250W > photovoltaic panel, micro-hydro turbine. It also has applications in > electric bike charging and DC power storage. The key PCBs are > currently at either the layout or manufacture stage. The > microcontroller board features an RFM69 low power wireless, making it > compatible with the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem. > > Ken Boak started his professional career at BBC Research Department in > 1986 working on digital signal processing systems for HDTV and > subsequently over 30 years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, > both UK and US based, in the fields of instrumentation, automation, > telemetry telecomms. > > Ken has been interested in energy monitoring since the early 1990s, > when he constructed a 4 seater electric car, and provided rudimentary > energy analysis of the battery charge and discharge cycles. In 1998 he > joined a South London company and designed a low power wireless, > monitor device for automatic, remote gas and electricity meter > reading. > > In 2009 Ken worked on the Onzo Energy Monitoring Kit, a commercial > device that was ultimately distributed to Southern Electric customers. > Then in 2010 he produced a series of educational devices to teach > engineering undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic energy > systems. > > Ken has continued his interests in energy monitoring, working > collaboratively with Megni on the OpenEnergyMonitor project, the open > Inverter Project and also for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, > where he was involved in power monitoring of wood gasifier generator > sets. He tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian > house in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics. > > — OpenTRV > > OpenTRV have a vision to make carbon cutting and energy saving easy > and cheap for everyone, with a mission to take 8% out of the EU’s > carbon emissions and in the order of £300 out of a typical UK home’s > heating bill every year. Achieving this using a device that doesn’t > need an instruction manual or a smartphone to operate. > > OpenTRV aim to eventually be managing 400 million home radiators > across Europe. Their journey so far has taken them from “scratching an > itch” with open source, to injection moulded plastics being made in > Shenzhen, and attempting to build a growth business around their > ideas, that could really make a difference to carbon and climate, > while improving householder comfort and health. > > As part of their aim to make the world a better place, OpenTRV will > keep as much as possible of their work in the public eye and liberally > licensed, while interoperating with existing equipment and protocols > so that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and the end user > doesn’t get “locked in”. To that end, interoperability with > OpenergyMonitor and OpenHAB are high on their wish list! > > Damon Hart-Davis is lead on the OpenTRV open source project created > following his 2012 presentation to DECC's smart heating workshop. He > has freelanced in technology for over 30 years, delivering > mission-critical products from design to BAU in the City for more than > 20 of those, and has founded and been involved in several start-ups > over that time with his creations seen on TV, the Web, and his > pioneering Internet Service Provider helping crack open that market > more than 20 years ago. A previous virtual/on-line credit-card company > start-up that he co-founded as CTO, Ixaris, turns over ~£10m. > > Mark Hill spent 15 years in the City after a solid grounding in IT at > the chip level at the microprocessor manufacturer Inmos, designing and > delivering highly complex systems. Project management, direction and > governance are all part of his toolkit. He now speaks regularly about > innovation, collaboration and IoT. Recently he founded a mobile phone > software start-up and is now OpenTRV Ltd's co-founder. > > — Heat pumps and heat pump monitoring > > Heat pumps are a key part of zero carbon energy plans, making it > possible to provide heating from renewable energy in an efficient way. > Heat pumps have a rocky track record in the UK and there are numerous > stories of poorly performing systems, giving householders unexpectedly > high electricity bills. However, there are also many systems that have > been designed and installed well that do work effectively. > > This talk will give an example of using open source hardware and > software tools to monitor and evaluate the performance of heat pumps, > using the speaker's own air source heat pump system at home as a case > study. > > Trystan Lea is co-founder and core developer on the OpenEnergyMonitor > project. He is also testing out through his own life how it is > possible to provide for our energy needs from sustainable sources, > while using and developing open source energy modelling and monitoring > tools, to understand and evaluate what is possible and how we might > better design zero carbon energy systems. Trystan is currently testing > heat pump heating, along with electric vehicle and solar photovoltaic > at home. > > — Interoperability Hack Day > > The 18th February meeting will be preceded by a hack day, running from > 09:00-17:00 and also hosted at the BCS offices in Covent Garden. This > will aim to to foster collaboration between open energy platform > projects, in support of a greater interoperability. > > There is a separate registration page for this part of the day, but > please note that participants are expected to have experience of > developing for a relevant platform, such as OpenEnergyMonitor, > OpenHAB, OpenTRV, or some other open source energy or home automation > etc. system. As such hose without suitable experience would not > benefit from attending. > > https://events.bcs.org/book/1886/ > > Please note that the link at the top of the page should be used for > registering for the evening talks. > > Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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OSHUG #44 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability.
by Andrew Back 29 Jan '16

29 Jan '16

Hello, Registration is now open for the February meeting — and preceding hack day! — details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability (Open Inverter, OpenTRV, Heat Pump Monitoring) On the 18 February 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/45 For the forty-fifth meeting we will return to a topic which has been a recurring theme and of much interest at previous meetings, open energy platforms. There will be talks on Open Inverter, OpenTRV and heat pump monitoring, with a focus also on interoperability. The evening meeting will also be preceded by an interoperability hack day for project contributors. — Low power DC conversion using open source hardware The Open Inverter is a micro inverter designed to produce an AC power output of up to 250 VA. It uses modular, open source PCB designs for both it's controller and power boards — and is extendible to larger power outputs or for other power electronics projects, such as battery charging, DC ring mains and DC power transformation using buck-boost DC/DC converters. Open Inverter will provide an AC output from a single 250W photovoltaic panel, micro-hydro turbine. It also has applications in electric bike charging and DC power storage. The key PCBs are currently at either the layout or manufacture stage. The microcontroller board features an RFM69 low power wireless, making it compatible with the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem. Ken Boak started his professional career at BBC Research Department in 1986 working on digital signal processing systems for HDTV and subsequently over 30 years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, both UK and US based, in the fields of instrumentation, automation, telemetry telecomms. Ken has been interested in energy monitoring since the early 1990s, when he constructed a 4 seater electric car, and provided rudimentary energy analysis of the battery charge and discharge cycles. In 1998 he joined a South London company and designed a low power wireless, monitor device for automatic, remote gas and electricity meter reading. In 2009 Ken worked on the Onzo Energy Monitoring Kit, a commercial device that was ultimately distributed to Southern Electric customers. Then in 2010 he produced a series of educational devices to teach engineering undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic energy systems. Ken has continued his interests in energy monitoring, working collaboratively with Megni on the OpenEnergyMonitor project, the open Inverter Project and also for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, where he was involved in power monitoring of wood gasifier generator sets. He tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian house in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics. — OpenTRV OpenTRV have a vision to make carbon cutting and energy saving easy and cheap for everyone, with a mission to take 8% out of the EU’s carbon emissions and in the order of £300 out of a typical UK home’s heating bill every year. Achieving this using a device that doesn’t need an instruction manual or a smartphone to operate. OpenTRV aim to eventually be managing 400 million home radiators across Europe. Their journey so far has taken them from “scratching an itch” with open source, to injection moulded plastics being made in Shenzhen, and attempting to build a growth business around their ideas, that could really make a difference to carbon and climate, while improving householder comfort and health. As part of their aim to make the world a better place, OpenTRV will keep as much as possible of their work in the public eye and liberally licensed, while interoperating with existing equipment and protocols so that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and the end user doesn’t get “locked in”. To that end, interoperability with OpenergyMonitor and OpenHAB are high on their wish list! Damon Hart-Davis is lead on the OpenTRV open source project created following his 2012 presentation to DECC's smart heating workshop. He has freelanced in technology for over 30 years, delivering mission-critical products from design to BAU in the City for more than 20 of those, and has founded and been involved in several start-ups over that time with his creations seen on TV, the Web, and his pioneering Internet Service Provider helping crack open that market more than 20 years ago. A previous virtual/on-line credit-card company start-up that he co-founded as CTO, Ixaris, turns over ~£10m. Mark Hill spent 15 years in the City after a solid grounding in IT at the chip level at the microprocessor manufacturer Inmos, designing and delivering highly complex systems. Project management, direction and governance are all part of his toolkit. He now speaks regularly about innovation, collaboration and IoT. Recently he founded a mobile phone software start-up and is now OpenTRV Ltd's co-founder. — Heat pumps and heat pump monitoring Heat pumps are a key part of zero carbon energy plans, making it possible to provide heating from renewable energy in an efficient way. Heat pumps have a rocky track record in the UK and there are numerous stories of poorly performing systems, giving householders unexpectedly high electricity bills. However, there are also many systems that have been designed and installed well that do work effectively. This talk will give an example of using open source hardware and software tools to monitor and evaluate the performance of heat pumps, using the speaker's own air source heat pump system at home as a case study. Trystan Lea is co-founder and core developer on the OpenEnergyMonitor project. He is also testing out through his own life how it is possible to provide for our energy needs from sustainable sources, while using and developing open source energy modelling and monitoring tools, to understand and evaluate what is possible and how we might better design zero carbon energy systems. Trystan is currently testing heat pump heating, along with electric vehicle and solar photovoltaic at home. — Interoperability Hack Day The 18th February meeting will be preceded by a hack day, running from 09:00-17:00 and also hosted at the BCS offices in Covent Garden. This will aim to to foster collaboration between open energy platform projects, in support of a greater interoperability. There is a separate registration page for this part of the day, but please note that participants are expected to have experience of developing for a relevant platform, such as OpenEnergyMonitor, OpenHAB, OpenTRV, or some other open source energy or home automation etc. system. As such hose without suitable experience would not benefit from attending. https://events.bcs.org/book/1886/ Please note that the link at the top of the page should be used for registering for the evening talks. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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OSHCamp 2016, 3rd & 4th September.
by Andrew Back 25 Jan '16

25 Jan '16

Hi All, Just a heads up that this year Open Source Hardware Camp will be taking place over the weekend of Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th September, returning to the Birchliffe Centre where we hosted OSHCamp back in 2012. Since we were last there the Birchcliffe has been subject to extensive renovation, but still retains most of the pretty cool features of an old Methodist Chapel. The main differences being that it's been smartened up somewhat, is in a much better state of repair and has more effective heating etc. Those who came along in 2012 may recall that there is a hostel adjoined to the Birchcliffe, with both shared dorms and private rooms. If you're thinking of coming along this year and would like to stay there, it's advisable to book early as rooms tend to go fast. http://www.hebdenbridgehostel.co.uk/ The plan is once again to have up to 12-13 talks on the Saturday and 6-8 workshops on the Sunday. A call for participation will go out in Feb or early March, but suggestions and offers for talks and workshops are very much welcome before then! Other events running as part of Wuthering Bytes which may be of interest: - Wuthering Bytes Festival Day, Fri 2nd Sept at the Town Hall As with previous years, talks on a diverse selection of technical topics, looking to the past and the future, with unique insights and personal journeys etc. - Open for Business, Mon 5th Sept at the Town Hall This event organised by the BCS OSSG and Open Source Consortium ran for the first time in 2015. For details see: http://wutheringbytes.com/days/openforbusiness/schedule.html https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOGTP9W1DX5U9za_jJzqpipcX02-K7jp1 - GNU Tools Cauldron, Fri 9th - Sun 11th Sept at the Town Hall One really for GCC and GDB etc. hackers (and certainly not the faint hearted!) For details see: https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2016 Cheers, Andrew

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Re: [oshug] "The audio genius who vanished"
by Jason Flynn G7OCD 17 Jan '16

17 Jan '16

I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.

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"The audio genius who vanished"
by Andy Bennett 15 Jan '16

15 Jan '16

A bit tabloid but an interesting article about open hardware licensing issues none-the-less: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-va… Regards, @ndy -- andyjpb(a)ashurst.eu.org http://www.ashurst.eu.org/ 0290 DA75 E982 7D99 A51F E46A 387A 7695 7EBA 75FF

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OSHUG #44 — Security, Thursday 21st January.
by Andrew Back 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

Hello, Registration is now open for the January meeting, details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #44 — Security (Hardware RNG, PGP key signing party) On the 21 January 2016, 17:30 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/44 The theme for the forty-fourth OSHUG meeting is security and it will feature a talk on hardware random number generation, plus a PGP key signing party. — Hardware random number generation In this talk we will take a look at what makes a good random number, why you might want a reliable source of them and some methods of generating random numbers in hardware. Mark Longstaff-Tyrell has a degree in Electronic Engineering and a masters in Intelligent Systems from UCL. He has extensive experience in app development and as well as working at several blue chip companies was part of the team that launched the BBC's flagship iPlayer app for Android in addition to leading the teams that delivered the mobile apps for BBC News. He has designed electronics kits under the Denkimono label, and has recently co-founded and launched a tech-fashion brand in the UK. Mark is also a consultant for small businesses and start-ups on apps, mobile and hardware development. — PGP key signing party There will be a quick introduction to PGP, The Web of Trust, public/private key cryptography and key signing. Following this there will be a key signing party and everyone is invited to participate! The idea of a key signing party is to help build and strengthen the "Web of Trust". The PGP Web of Trust is used extensively in Free and Open Source communities in order to verify the authenticity of software distributions and e-mail. Participating in the Web of Trust by having your key signed and by signing other keys, establishes your identity as a member of the community and increases the likelihood that you will be able to verify the signatures that are often included on messages sent to mailing lists. In order to take part in the key signing party you need to: 1. Have a PGP key. If you do not have one already and need assistance, please e-mail Andy Bennett (a(a)jpb.li) and he will help you get started. 2. Submit your key to Andy Bennett (a(a)jpb.li) before Friday 15th January 2016, so that he can compile the key list. 3. Be physically present at this meeting! 4. For keys containing your real name, bring government issued photo ID. For pseudonymous keys please bring appropriate evidence that you are allowed to use that name and assert that identity. 5. Have details of the key you submitted: key ID, key type, key fingerprint and key size. You can get this information from GPG by using the following command: gpg your.email(a)address.dom. 6. Bring a printed copy of the key list that will be circulated between 16th and 20th January. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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Volunteer opportunity
by girish m 10 Jan '16

10 Jan '16

Please check this out! Volunteers required for open source hardware prototype ... | | | | | | | | | | | Volunteers required for open source hardware prototype ....I am currently working on a prototype based on open source hardware. This is based on my idea for a new startup company. Since I am from non-technical background I... | | | | View on www.linkedin.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | |

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Open Hardware at FOSDEM
by Jeremy Bennett 30 Oct '15

30 Oct '15

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, FOSDEM has had a number of hardware oriented tracks in recent years. This year Javier Serrano from CERN is organizing another EDA devroom in FOSDEM this year: http://www.ohwr.org/projects/ohr-meta/wiki/FOSDEM2016 OSHUG members might like to - - Considering submitting a request for a talk. - - Considering coming and joining in the fun in Brussels. - - Passing this to other people you think could be interested. If/when I hear of other open hardware related devrooms I'll post details here. Best wishes, Jeremy - -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iEYEARECAAYFAlYzwPcACgkQvvWBcvtHVOE4LwCeNKURileLXAk36B/rVPCUXrxE VtQAn17Ic2m5jA9k7Z2MQWJqRTkeZX5e =6nuz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Fwd: Fwd: H2020 funding for maker spacers - photonics equipment maybe
by Jeremy Bennett 21 Oct '15

21 Oct '15

Hi all, This may be of interest to any OSHUG member involved with photonics. Best wishes, Jeremy -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Fwd: H2020 funding for maker spacers - photonics equipment maybe Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 07:50:20 +0200 From: Nigel Rix <nigel.rix(a)ktn-uk.org> To: Jeremy Bennett <jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com>, Andrew Back <andrew(a)abopen.com> CC: Anke Lohmann <anke.lohmann(a)ktn-uk.org> Hi Perhaps you could spread the word round the maker community. Nigel (sent from iphone) Nigel Rix Head of Electronic Systems The Knowledge Transfer Network 079 123 70752 Begin forwarded message: > *From:* Anke Lohmann <anke.lohmann(a)ktn-uk.org > <mailto:anke.lohmann@ktn-uk.org>> > *Date:* 21 October 2015 at 07:47:28 CEST > *To:* Liz Corbin <elizabethdcorbin(a)gmail.com > <mailto:elizabethdcorbin@gmail.com>> > *Cc:* Nigel Rix <nigel.rix(a)ktn-uk.org <mailto:nigel.rix@ktn-uk.org>> > *Subject:* *H2020 funding for maker spacers - photonics equipment maybe* > > Hi Liz, > > I just want to let you know that there is a CSA call in the > ICT-29-2016 call that is directly related to maker spaces: > > *Photonics enhanced MakerLabs* : The objective is to raise awareness, > support hands- on learning and enhance skills of students, technicians > and young professionals interested in photonics by extending existing > facilities in order to provide access to photonic components, > photonics-based equipment and related support services. > > This sounds like that it would be quite relevant for you. I would be > interested in helping with that (but more from a personal interested > than a official KTN interest) We have an event next week on the 27 > October in London, not very far from you which would include this > call. We managed to get someone from Brussels to attend and explain > the content of the call. Would you or someone from your team be > interested in attending? > > The link to the event > is: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/h2020-funding-briefing-event-photonics-related-… > > Let me know if you would like to come. > > All the best > > Anke > > *Anke Lohmann * > Head of Photonics and Quantum Technologies > @AnkeLohmann • M: 0 <tel:078901231234>755 744 6362 • > > > > @KTNUK • T:01403 251354 • ktn-uk.org <http://ktn-uk.org/> > Bailey House, 4-10 Barttelot Road, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1DQ > > > This email is confidential and may be privileged and is intended only for the addressee: if you have received it in error please notify the sender and delete it. We strive to make our systems secure but cannot accept any liability for viruses or any other security issue. The Knowledge Transfer Network. Registered in England and Wales with Company Registration Number 8705643. Registered office: Bailey House, 4-10 Barttelot Road, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1DQ, United Kingdom, Tel +44 (0)1403 251 354 Please consider the environment before printing this email. -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20

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BCS OSSG Meeting: 6:30pm, 22 October 2015
by Jeremy Bennett 20 Oct '15

20 Oct '15

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, There is no OSHUG meeting this month, as is traditional following OSHCamp (gives us time to recover). However all OSHUG members are very welcome at the regular BCS OSSG meeting, which focuses on widening participation in open source communities. More details and registration here: http://ossg.bcs.org/2015/10/13/widening-participation-in-open-source-commun… Best wishes, Jeremy - -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iEYEARECAAYFAlYmW+cACgkQvvWBcvtHVOFPzACfc0ihgFWzpEfwNn+rOQOHTkVD V2sAn2kWz6zf7rj4be+fZmfdHUkuj/3p =UbkS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Experience of PIC or FPGA programming?
by Michael Dorrington 20 Oct '15

20 Oct '15

If you have experience of Free Software workflow on PIC microcontrollers (particularly assembler and upload) or FPGA (particularly place-and-route) then please could you let me know on or off list. Thanks, Mike. -- FSF member #9429 http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429 http://www.fsf.org/about "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users."

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MFS Meeting. Tue, 20 Oct. Talk: "PIC, Arduino/AVR and FPGA with Free Software"
by Michael Dorrington 15 Oct '15

15 Oct '15

Please feel free to forward this to those that would welcome it. * Event: Manchester Free Software's October Meeting * Talk: PIC, Arduino and FPGA with Free Software * Speaker: Michael Dorrington * Date: Tuesday, 20th October 2015 (3rd Tuesday of the month) * Start time: 19:00 * Finish time: 20:30 (and then on for drinks) * Location: Madlab. (Manchester Digital Laboratory). - http://madlab.org.uk/ * Address: 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester. M4 1HN. - Opposite "Common" on Edge Street, Northern Quarter. - http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.48413/-2.23639 == Details == The purpose of Manchester Free Software is to promote the Free Software philosophy. Every meeting we start with an opportunity for informal key signing. For an explanation of what this is about see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party The main part of the meeting will be a talk. The talk will be on the PIC, Arduino, AVR and FPGA. These are electronic devices that are often programmed to do a specific task. The workflow is a program is written to do the task in a language/form that then needs to be converted to the binary form that the device accepts (even assembler is assembled into machine code). After this binary has been produced it then needs to uploaded to the device. Additionally, the device itself might require an alterable software bootloader to be installed on it so that it then accept programs. The talk will investigate each device type as to whether it has the required Free Software tools. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIC_microcontroller * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel_AVR * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array If you have experience of programming PICs, Arduinos, AVRs or FPGAs with Free Software then please consider giving a lightning talk at the meeting. == After-meeting == The meeting will be followed by informal discussion and socialising in the Terrace (which is next door to Madlab). There are soft drinks available and there is no pressure to consume alcohol. == Location == The meeting will take place at the usual venue of Madlab, details above. == Transport == === Parking === Around the venue there are parking meter bays that become zero cost after 8pm on Tuesday so you will have to pay up until then and the maximum stay is 2 hours BUT MAKE SURE YOU VERIFY ALL THIS on parking. There are paid parking lots around the venue, they are marked by a blue P in this OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Most of those parking lots are owned by NCP <http://www.ncp.co.uk/>. If you can’t decide otherwise then park in Manchester Arndale <http://www.manchesterarndale.com/directions.aspx>. === Public Transport === Manchester Victoria (MCV) train station, Shudehill tram and bus station, and Manchester Piccadilly bus station are all fairly close to Madlab, see OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Manchester Piccadilly (MAN) train station and Manchester Central Coach Station are not too far away either. == More Information == Information about Manchester Free Software can be found on the Manchester Free Software pages on LibrePlanet <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Manchester>. Regards, Mike. MFS Chair. -- FSF member #9429 http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429 http://www.fsf.org/about "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users."

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BCS Open Source Specialist Group Committee - help needed
by Jeremy Bennett 25 Sep '15

25 Sep '15

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, As you know we have been largely co-hosting OSHUG events with the BCS Open Source Specialist Group (OSSG). The OSSG has a small steering committee, of which Andrew Back and I are members, responsible for organizing meetings. You don't have to be a member of the BCS to be on the committee (Andrew is not). We'd be very interested in hearing from any OSHUG member who might like to join the committee. The AGM when we elect a new committee is on 20 October (it will be combined with an OSHUG meeting again, to be announced shortly). If this is something you'd be interested in, or you have questions, please drop me an email. Best wishes, Jeremy - -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iEYEARECAAYFAlYFNo4ACgkQvvWBcvtHVOG3VwCgjbnqkdk0EwBp4ioevRdH/+Q3 XZcAn26PWhNNptIHeEXOg44luaSY0X7g =+lBt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Full Wuthering Bytes programme now up.
by Andrew Back 15 Sep '15

15 Sep '15

Hi All, We now have a 7th workshop on the Sunday of OSHCamp, run by Ken Boak and entitled, "Climbing Bare Metal Mountain - A Hardware Engineer's Approach to Bare Metal ARM programming". http://wutheringbytes.com/days/oshcamp/workshops.html On the Monday the BCS OSSG and Open Source Consortium are hosting Open for Business, with some great speakers lined-up: http://wutheringbytes.com/days/openforbusiness/talks.html On Friday 2nd October there will now be a closing keynote from Eva Pascoe, who founded the world's first cybercafe back in 1994. http://wutheringbytes.com/days/festival/talks.html Plus details are now up for the 3 days that Calderdale Council are hosting between 29/09 and 01/10. The Tues in particular should appeal to those with an interest in open data. http://wutheringbytes.com/ Cheers, Andrew PS. There's also talk of having a bit of a bring and buy / free technojunk / swaps table(s) on the Saturday. So, an excellent opportunity to bring along that interesting $WIDGET that you've never done anything with, to swap it for something else that you may or may not do something with.

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Bluetooth sniffing
by Paul Tanner 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

Hi all, I'm doing quite a lot with Bluetooth LE at the moment and I'm looking at available sniffers to help me sort out the odd oddness. Has anyone tried the <http://greatscottgadgets.com/ubertoothone/>Ubertooth<http://greatscottgadgets.com/ubertoothone/> One? It's open hardware and software. I'm inclined to buy one ready-made but just checking if there are any tales good or bad about it? Any other approaches that I should look? Thx. Paul 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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MFS Meeting. Tue, 18 Aug. Talk: "Novena demo"
by Michael Dorrington 14 Aug '15

14 Aug '15

Please feel free to forward this to those that would welcome it. * Event: Manchester Free Software's August Meeting * Talk: Novena demo * Speaker: Michael Dorrington * Date: Tuesday, 18th August 2015 (3rd Tuesday of the month) * Start time: 19:00 * Finish time: 20:30 (and then on for drinks) * Location: Madlab. (Manchester Digital Laboratory). - http://madlab.org.uk/ * Address: 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester. M4 1HN. - Opposite "Common" on Edge Street, Northern Quarter. - http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.48413/-2.23639 == Details == The purpose of Manchester Free Software is to promote the Free Software philosophy. Every meeting we start with an opportunity for informal key signing. For an explanation of what this is about see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party The main part of the meeting will be a talk. The talk will be on demonstrating the Novena, a free hardware computer that has some interesting features including FPGA and Software Defined Radio (SDR). The talk will include describing the assembly and tweaks that the end user has to do. * https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena * http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena_Main_Page * https://myriadrf.org/projects/novena-rf/ If you have experience of FPGA programming or SDR on free software then please consider giving a lightning talk at the meeting. == After-meeting == The meeting will be followed by informal discussion and socialising in the Terrace (which is next door to Madlab). There are soft drinks available and there is no pressure to consume alcohol. == Location == The meeting will take place at the usual venue of Madlab, details above. Ring the bell on the right of the door to be let in. The venue provides Wi-Fi. == Transport == === Parking === Around the venue there are parking meter bays that become zero cost after 8pm on Tuesday so you will have to pay up until then and the maximum stay is 2 hours BUT MAKE SURE YOU VERIFY ALL THIS on parking. There are paid parking lots around the venue, they are marked by a blue P in this OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Most of those parking lots are owned by NCP <http://www.ncp.co.uk/>. If you can’t decide otherwise then park in Manchester Arndale <http://www.manchesterarndale.com/directions.aspx>. === Public Transport === Manchester Victoria (MCV) train station, Shudehill tram and bus station, and Manchester Piccadilly bus station are all fairly close to Madlab, see OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Manchester Piccadilly (MAN) train station and Manchester Central Coach Station are not too far away either. == More Information == Information about Manchester Free Software can be found on the Manchester Free Software pages on LibrePlanet <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Manchester>. Regards, Mike. MFS Chair. -- FSF member #9429 http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429 http://www.fsf.org/about "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users."

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Open Source Hardware Camp 2015, Sat 26 & Sun 27th September.
by Andrew Back 10 Aug '15

10 Aug '15

Hello, Registration is now open for OSHCamp 2015. This year we will have 13 talks and 6 workshops, details of which can be found below. The Wuthering Bytes Festival Day programme has also been published and details can be found at: http://www.wutheringbytes.com/days/festival/talks.html Cheers, Andrew // OSHCamp 2015 — 26th & 27th September at Hebden Bridge Town Hall, St. George's Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 7BY. Registration: http://oshcamp2015.eventbrite.co.uk/ Open Source Hardware Camp will take place in the Pennine town of Hebden Bridge. For the third year running it is being hosted as part of the technology festival, Wuthering Bytes. Note that a social is planned for the Saturday evening. Hebden Bridge is approximately 1 hour by rail from Leeds and Manchester. Budget accommodation is available at the Hebden Bridge Hostel, with private rooms available and discounts for group bookings. Details of other local accommodation can be found at www.hebdenbridge.co.uk. Any questions should be directed to the Discussion List. — Saturday :: Talks * Research led reality – how rhetoric and research shapes the maker movement Over the past 10 years there has been an exponential rise in research about makerspaces, alongside rhetoric about the ‘maker movement’ going mainstream. This talk will give a sweeping overview of the past decade, focusing on the relationship between rhetoric, research and reality – (is there more to it than alliteration?) It will attempt to answer these three questions: What are the promises of the maker movement and does the evidence built up by the research so far prove them? What does the research tell us about the differences between the UK and USA maker movement? Who is funding all the research and what are their motivations and agendas? Hannah Stewart is a Research Associate at the Royal College of Art and an independent researcher. Alongside Andrew Sleigh she was commissioned to produce the UK Makerspaces Open Dataset for NESTA. Her Phd research with the Creative Exchange focused on the values and practices of the makerspace, indieweb and open data communities. * Confusion of Things — The IoT Hardware Kerfuffle While the definition of the term IoT (i.e: Internet of Things) is as cloudy as the “cloud”, everyone seems to be doing it. With excitement levels reaching stratospheric levels, the amount of buzzword-driven articles and colourful (and oh so unnecessary) abstract vector drawings that depict toasters communicating with cars have essentially made lives of many engineers who just want to build things a living hell. This talk will strip back the layers of marketing and aim to answer the question: “Which hardware platform should you use for building connected devices?”. With the plethora of chips/single board computers and specifically IoT-branded offerings out there, the platform choice does get a little difficult at times. By breaking down the application at hand into certain key requirement categories, this process could be simplified. There will also be mention of some of the most popular hardware platforms and how they differ from each other. Omer Kilic is an embedded systems engineer who likes tinkering with small computers of all shapes and sizes. He works at the various intersections of hardware and software engineering practices and likes good beer. * Disrupting the IoT by leveraging the ESP8266 for big data The ESP8266 is as a cheap, self-contained WIFI module; for £3 you can add WIFI to your microcontroller project. Recently, the toolchain for compiling custom firmware for the module's SOC has been ported to the Arduino IDE, making it possible for beginners to deploy the ESP8266 as a complete IoT wireless sensor/actuator. This talk will cover: ESP8266 capabilities, the rest of the ESP8266 family members, using the module as a WIFI gateway with AT commands, uploading your own firmware using the recent Arduino port, and projects utilising the module. Matthew Venn is a freelance engineer and workshop facilitator. As a qualified electronic engineer, he has worked with Arcola Energy, BOC, RS, Sustrans, Bristol Braille Technology and others on various projects ranging from bicycle powered cinemas to fuel cell theatre lighting. Matthew's hands-on STEM workshops have proven successful with over 5,000 children taking part worldwide over the last 3 years. Recent workshops include the London School's Hydrogen cell Challenge, an aerial photography project for Island Hydrogen and building solar mood lamps for the Abu Dhabi Science Festival. When he's not inventing new ways of getting people excited about engineering, Matthew plays music, invents puzzle boxes, practices martial arts and is a director of Bristol Hackspace. * Controlling a CNC milling machine with a BeagleBone Black and Machinekit A journey into the wonderful world of CNC machining. This talk will look at the modification of an old milling machine, retrofitting it with new electronics for improved performance and open source software control. Also covered will be things learnt along the way and how to take an idea through to machined part. Stuart Childs enjoys designing and building physical projects, has exhibited at every Maker Faire UK event and worked at Arduino specialists, oomlout. He is a supporter of Open Knowledge and has helped in running their annual OKFest and OKCon events in 2012, 2013 and 2014. * Speculative Hardware in Abstract Culture Derek will talk about open hardware as a speculative practice in abstract culture. Derek's talk will be grounded in his experience with the Arts Council England R&D projects at the Digital Research Unit 10 years ago that commissioned innovative DIY/open hardware and audiovisual software tools and software art released under a free/open licenses. His talk will work with the design-fictional concept of noise to explore the function of open hardware in abstract culture. In the talk Derek will give a brief account of abstract culture in contemporary practice where artists are directly involved in making hardware and software works realised by the use of free and open source technologies. Derek Hales is an independent researcher in the field of abstract culture. He has worked in academic and para-academic contexts of artist-led R&D and cultural production. He co-founded the Digital Research a semi-autonomous art-technology research facility based at the media centre Huddersfield and at Bates Mill, Huddersfield until 2009, where he worked on projects with the universities of Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield. He has previously been funded by Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council and the Higher Education Innovation Fund. His pataphysical take on speculative hardware in abstract culture was recently published as a chapter in the book ‘Deleuze and Design’ (2015) by Edinburgh University Press. Derek is currently completing his Phd with the Royal College of Art. He is a director of Bridge Rectifier, Hebden Bridge Hackspace. * How to Openwash Your Product and Make Your Millions! Open Hardware has sparked a home brew electronics revolution. The current wave of 3D printers, drones and development boards are in the most part built on Open Hardware. As a result Open Hardware or Open Source Hardware have become terms with which many new products would like to be associated with, it’s rare to see an electronics Kickstarter project without the claim of being Open Source. It would seem however that in some cases the understanding of what constitutes Open Hardware is different to the original definition. Openwashing is a term that refers to dubious vendor claims about openness, and assumes, perhaps wrongly, that the misunderstanding of the Open Source definition is intentional. Benjamin Gray is a proponent of Open Hardware, founder of MeArm, an open source robot arm manufacturer and phenoptix, a now retired maker business. Ben graduated from the University of Exeter with a chemistry degree and a fledgling phenoptix before moving to Nottingham to complete a PhD in theoretical physical chemistry. With 11 years of Maker business experience under his belt he's set out on a new adventure manufacturing the MeArm, a pocket sized robot arm. * Simulating and benchmarking the Adapteva Parallella board The Adapteva Epiphany is a fascinating combination of old and new: a brand new, energy-efficient SoC processor that makes use of an old idea in concurrency: communicating sequential processes. This talk will be a deep-dive into the design of the Epiphany from the point of view of a software developer. We will look at the design of the Epiphany through the lens of a new simulator for the chip, and explore the SDK through a series of new benchmarks. Sarah Mount is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Wolverhampton, with particular interests in concurrency, parallelism and dynamic languages. * Introducing a fun documentation standard to share your project DokuBricks is a new open source hardware (OSH) documentation software we developed to make it easier for you to document your project well. After all, sharing instructions in a way that is useful to others is the whole purpose of OSH! With the tool, you click together your documentation in a descriptive and modular fashion and create dependencies. An associated database allows to easily reuse functional modules of projects, which in turn grows the impact and recognition of the creator of the original project. The ideas behind this free and open source documentation standard will be presented along with other OSH projects of ours in the Cambridge network. Our vision is to make OSH development and sharing easier and specifically more attractive to scientists - a group that develops a large amount of functional devices on a routine basis but rarely shares that insight. Tobias Wenzel "Tobey" is a Winton Scholar at the University of Cambridge who channels most of his enthusiasm into his Bioengineering work. He has build a range of equipment but is generally more involved in meta-projects that enable greater community impact to further technological development and access to it. He is a passionate promoter of hands-on education and loves to socialise with people sharing his can-do attitude. The DokuBricks project is a collaborative effort involving the IRNAS institute, OpenPlants, Tobey's colleague, Johan Henriksson, and more enthusiastic helpers. * C88 — possibly the world's lowest spec PC What happens when somebody designs a CPU simply to prove to themselves that they can? The result is minimal and has few practical applications but could be a great learning tool. C88 is an 8 bit computer with only 8 bytes of memory, it represents a bare minimum computer architecture. It was inspired by the world's first stored-program computer, the SSEM, more commonly known as The Manchester Baby. It's fully open source and there is even a simulator that runs in your browser. Daniel Bailey is studying electronics at the University of York, has a scholarship with ARM and is a member of York Hackspace. * Using open source processors and fabrics for scale-out compute Using open source processors and fabrics for scale-out compute systems. This talk will give an overview of the challenges faced by the industry and the technical approach we are taking. Rob Taylor has been working commercially with Linux and Open Source technologies since the late 90's. He founded two Open Source consultancies, Collabora and Codethink, and is now founding a new company to bring Open Source Hardware to the enterprise market. * WSPR, You Versus the Atmosphere: Pushing the limits of radio with minimal hardware WSPR is a transmission protocol designed to test the radio propagation properties of the atmosphere using very low powered transmission. This talk will describe the problem of unpredictable atmospheric propagation, give an overview of WSPR, and show some of the ways to set up a WSPR station as both a transmitter or a receiver. * Jenny List is an electronic engineer and radio amateur who has worked in the is an electronic engineer and radio amateur who has worked in the start-up, Language Spy, aiming to democratise access to language corpora and lexical data. * Low level Ethernet on micros and FPGA Forget about ISO 7 layer abstractions, Berkley sockets, huge APIs and even operating systems. This is about taking direct control of Ethernet hardware with a micro or even an FPGA and finding that it’s not that hard. Standard C code running on an ARM CortexM4 micro supporting ARP, UDP and enough ICMP to PING ! And a quick tour of doing the same thing in VHDL on a low cost FPGA. Michael Kellett is an independent Electronic design engineer with analogue and digital hardware experience starting with HiFi audio in the 1970s, though designing microphones, accelerometers, test gear and active suspension controls. Now he’ll design anything electronic (nothing evil) for anyone but with a preference for low power analogue, small micros and things with FPGAs in them. * Open Hardware Licensing - it’s easier than you think There are several hundred different free and open source software licences making licence compatibility a nightmare, but at the moment only a handful of open hardware licences (and let’s hope it stays that way). Andrew explains why licences are important, how to select a suitable licence for your project, and how to avoid getting too ambitious about what a licence can actually achieve. Andrew Katz is a lawyer with 21 years' experience in technology law. He has advised a number of open source software projects, and more recently has become active in open hardware licensing. He’s been involved in drafting the Solderpad Licence, and the CERN Open Hardware licence and has published and lectured widely. Andrew is Managing Partner of Moorcrofts LLP, a boutique corporate/tech law firm based in the Thames Valley. * Compered by: Dr Jeremy Bennett is founder and Chief Executive of Embecosm, a consultancy specializing in the development of open source compiler tool chains. — Sunday :: Workshops Some workshops will provide tools, boards and components etc. However, subject to demand this may involve an element of sharing and please feel free to bring along equipment and components, but note that you must be able to take full responsibility for your own personal safety and that of others in respect to these. Common sense must be exercised! * 3D modelling with Node.js Come along and learn how to use the open source Frameworx library and some simple Javascript code to quickly build beautiful and intricate 3D models ready to send to your printer or favourite 3D print agency. Fractal trees, structural trusses, jewellery, molecular models - if it's made of sticks Frameworx can model it! Ben Jefferson is a software engineer who initially trained as an architect (as in buildings not Ben was tech director at Leeds based web agency Sense Internet for 10 years and is now a freelance software engineer and IT consultant. His combined interest in structures, fractals, computing and innovation set Ben on a mission to model and 3D print a "Fractal Truss". After trying many different open source 3D modelling packages Ben found that none of them leant themselves to fast algorithmic generation of multi-million facet 3D models - thus Frameworx was born. Frameworx is now used all over the world including in labs working at the cutting edge of 3D printing technology. Workshop notes: bring along a laptop which has node.js and MeshLab (or similar STL file viewer) installed. A basic knowledge of Javascript coding is required. * A hands-on introduction to ESP8266: Sensors for the Home This workshop will introduce attendees to the popular low-cost WiFi enabled ESP8266 platform and go through a series of practical exercises focusing around a sensor device for the home. The device will get temperature/humidity, PIR activity and ambient light readings from the sensors on the purpose built demo board and report them back to the local “hub” and/or a cloud service. The exercises will run on the NodeMCU firmware, which is based on the Lua programming language. Before we get to the sensor readings part, there will be a quick introduction to the language and the platform with trivial exercises such as controlling GPIOs, using timers and various other fundamentals. Run by: OmerKilic. Workshop notes: bring along a laptop (Windows/Linux/OSX), your charger and a Micro USB cable. Please have your root/admin credentials handy in case you need to install any required software components during the workshop. * Learn KiCad by building an ESP8266 sensor board The ESP8266 is a WIFI gateway for microcontrollers. It can also have its firmware replaced with custom code that makes it even easier to build distributed sensors. KiCad is a free, open source, electronics CAD tool for designing circuit boards. It's recently undergone a rapid expansion and change due to CERN funding. Consequently lots of documentation is now out of date. In this workshop you'll learn how to use the new KiCad by building a circuit board that provides the ESP8266 with 3.3v regulated power from a 5v input (easily powered with a phone charger), headers for serial programming and a temperature or light sensor. Thanks to our workshop sponsors OSHPark, each participant will get vouchers to have their board made free of charge. Run by: Matthew Venn. Workshop notes: please bring a laptop computer with KiCad installed. Note that installation can take quite a while as it needs to be compiled from source code. * A £100 3D printed digital microscope, anyone? 3D printing brought incredible examples of Open Labware to life. My personal favourite (to be published soon): My colleague Richard Bowman's Raspberry Pi driven digital microscope, about the size of two fists, which allows a sample positioning of 1micrometer for X,Y and Z axis with its 3-printed flex-structures. Fun for you and Christmas for your kids! The kit (3D printed components and other bits including an optional raspberry pi) will be made available. The exact cost will depend on the 3D printing contractor I will use but should lie significantly under £100. At home you can extend the microscope in order to automate the three axes, if you wish. Run by: TobiasWenzel. Workshop notes: please bring a laptop and, if you like, your own raspberry pi. A steady hand will be beneficial for the assembly! * Arduino-based wearable electronics with the Seahorse The Seahorse is a flexible kit based on the Shrimping.it breadboard design and Cuttlefish PCB. The kit allows you to create a fully functional Arduino compatible computer, powering two LEDs and an IR receiver and transmitter. The board is fully extensible, making it easy to connect to a range of other peripherals via conductive thread. During this workshop, which lasts for the complete afternoon, you will solder up the circuit board, program it, and then sew it to a T-shirt. Run by: Dr Jeremy Bennett. Workshop notes: please bring a T-shirt or other item of clothing to which you wish to attach the seahorse. * Assembling the OSHCamp kit Get help with assembling this year's kit. Chelsea Back is a trainee engineer and is working towards a degree in Electronic Engineering. She enjoys building microcontroller projects and teaching people how to solder, and is currently getting to grips with schematic capture and PCB layout. Workshop notes: bring along the OSHCamp 2015 kit. NOTE: - There are separate tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. - A light lunch and refreshments will be provided each day. - Please aim to arrive between 09:00 and 09:15 on the Saturday as the event will start at 09:20 prompt.

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OSHCamp 2015 sponsorship.
by Andrew Back 29 Jul '15

29 Jul '15

Hi All, Just a quick note to say that I'm looking for sponsors for this year's Open Source Hardware Camp, which will take place over the weekend of 26th & 27th September in Hebden Bridge. Boldport is working on another special PCB-based kit for this year, we have 13 great talks lined up and 6 workshops (room for 1 or 2 more if you're interested in running one). Should anyone have any suggestions please drop me a line and/or forward my details. Cheers, Andrew

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Simple article on Innovation through Open Source
by girish m 08 Jul '15

08 Jul '15

Hello, Please check out a simple article on Innovation through Open Source, and provide your valuable inputs. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/innovation-through-open-source-girish-maiya?… Thanks,Girish

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Galactic Fete
by Andy Bennett 05 Jul '15

05 Jul '15

Hi, Hi, A friend is organising this: http://www.galacticfete.org/ ----- A Summer Festival Celebrating the Mix of Space, Art and Maker Culture, Hands on. 18/19 July LONDON. ----- I thought it might be something that some of you peeps might be interested in. Under 13s go free. Regards, @ndy -- andyjpb(a)ashurst.eu.org http://www.ashurst.eu.org/ 0290 DA75 E982 7D99 A51F E46A 387A 7695 7EBA 75FF

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FabLab/RS DesignSpark PCB + Mechanical workshop, 15th July.
by Andrew Back 02 Jul '15

02 Jul '15

Hi All, RS and FabLab London are hosting a workshop on 15th July which may be of interest to some, which will provide an introduction to the — not open source, but free-to-download — EDA and CAD tools, DesignSpark PCB and DesignSpark Mechanical. http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fab-lab-master-3d-cad-pcb-design-in-one-day-r… Cheers, Andrew

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OSHCamp 2015 CFP.
by Andrew Back 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

Hello, This year Open Source Hardware Camp will be taking place over the weekend of 26 & 27th September and once again hosted at Hebden Bridge Town Hall (HX7 7BY). Proposals for talks and workshops are invited. There is no theme and topics may include, for example: * Open source hardware projects * Open development practices and principles * Novel/interesting/fun projects built using open source hardware * Tools (hardware and software) * Skills and techniques, e.g. PCB fab, DIY SMT assembly * Relevant technologies, e.g. SPI/I2C bus programming * ...something else relevant to the community! If you would like to give a talk on the Saturday and/or run a workshop on the Sunday please contact me off-list. **** Note that the deadline for submitting titles and abstracts is Saturday 27th June. If you would like to discuss ideas etc. please get in touch sooner, rather than later. **** Cheers, Andrew

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OSHUG #42 — Chips Pt. 3, Thursday 18th June.
by Andrew Back 28 May '15

28 May '15

Hello, Registration is now open for the June meeting, details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #42 — Chips Pt.3 (BERI, Do we need separate Hardware Construction languages? OpenTransputer) 18 June 2015, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/42 This will be the third OSHUG meeting exploring the topic of silicon chip design, with talks on the Bluespec Extensible RISC Implementation, another asking whether we need separate hardware construction languages, and a third talk on an open source implementation of the Transputer. — BERI: An open RISC softcore for research and experimentation BERI (the Bluespec Extensible RISC Implementation) is a softcore processor jointly developed by SRI International and The University of Cambridge. It implements a superset of the MIPS III ISA in Bluespec, a high-level HDL and supports a fully open source, permissively licensed, software stack comprising the FreeBSD operating system and the LLVM compiler suite. This talk will describe the design of the BERI processor and its use. BERI was created to facilitate experimentation at the boundaries between CPU architecture, operating systems, and programming languages. It runs in Altera and Xilinx FPGAs, including the NetFPGA 10G board. At 100MHz, it is fast enough to use as a real computer (albeit a fairly slow one). The talk will discuss the BERI softcore, jointly developed by The University of Cambridge and SRI International and the associated open source software stack. BERI, the Bluespec Extensible RISC Implementation, is a 64-bit MIPS implementation in Bluespec, a high-level hardware description language. It implements the instruction set that debuted in the MIPS R4000 core in 1991, and therefore a set that is free of patents owing to its age. In spite of this, it is a relatively modern 64-bit architecture and is well supported by open source systems. The FreeBSD port to BERI required minimal changes, which were shipped as part of the FreeBSD 10.0 release, and runs unmodified userland 64-bit MIPS code. BERI can run in simulation at a speed acceptable for testing but not for general usage or in an FPGA at 100MHz. The BERI design supports multiple cores on a single FPGA and work is ongoing to support multicore across boards connected with a low-latency interconnect. Jonathan Woodruff received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and Masters and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Jonathan is a key developer of the BERI open-source research processor and its CHERI extension for memory safety. Jonathan is interested in hardware prototyping in FPGA to support full-system design exploration and has implemented a variety of flexible hardware components, including a many-core cache emulator, a multi-threaded ARM core, and many components of the BERI ecosystem. — Do we need separate Hardware Construction Languages? Modern Hardware Construction Languages, including Chisel, HML and the functional subset of Bluespec, provide powerful circuit description facilities for netlist printing in the style of the generate statements found in RTL. The earliest mainstream example was perhaps Lava. They do not support data-directed control flow, and so differ greatly from both conventional RTL and C-to-gates or scientific acceleration HLS (high-level synthesis) tools such as LegUp and Kiwi. In this talk, Greaves will illustrate the essential differences between these styles and discuss the motivation for separate languages, which is a surprising departure when one considers that a major selling point of Verilog and VHDL was they almost seamlessly integrated simulation, generative constructs and algorithm expression. He will also discuss the need for higher-level concurrency primitives and how they might be provided in hardware construction languages. David Greaves, PhD, MIET, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge with interests in compiler and hardware design. He has considerable industrial experience at the CTO/Chief Scientist level and has led the design of many hardware systems in areas such as professional audio and broadband access. His current research area is tooling for high-level simulation and energy instrumentation for system-on-chip based on transaction-level modelling (TLM). These enable new hardware architectures to be rapidly explored under real-world workloads, including accelerators for scientific workloads. — OpenTransputer: Reinventing a parallel machine from the past The OpenTransputer is a re-implementation of the Transputer, a pioneering microprocessor architecture first released in the 1980s. The original Transputer was considered revolutionary at its time for its integrated memory and serial communication links intended for parallel computing. Including memory and external links on the same chip made the Transputer essentially a computer on a chip. This allowed information systems to be designed at a higher level – the Transputer functioning as a building block for parallel computing networks. Over the last few years, with the shift to cloud computing there has been a trend in the world of computing of building large clusters of powerful computers that serve data to an ever-growing number of client devices, which themselves only feature tiny and low-power processors. These include mobile phones and tablets, but will soon also comprise every other device that connects to the internet, ranging from washing machines to cars. We think that the Transputer and its unique feature set make it an excellent processor for the emerging Internet of Things (IoT), specifically for the connected homes and wearable computing applications. The OpenTransputer maintains all the ideas of the original device for concurrency management and interprocess communication. However, the serial links that were used to connect multiple Transputers are replaced by a switch that routes messages between cores. Furthermore, we introduce a new I/O interface that is compatible with the vast majority of hardware components such as accelerometers and gyroscopes. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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OSHUG #41 — Wiring the Internet of Things with Raspberry Pi & Node-RED, Thursday 21st May.
by Andrew Back 26 Apr '15

26 Apr '15

Hello, Registration is now open for the March meeting, which will take the form of an afternoon workshop providing an introduction to Node-RED. if you are planning on attending, registering sooner rather than later is highly recommended. However, please don't register if you there is a chance you won't make it, as spaces are limited and it would be a terrible shame if some miss out due to the event being booked up, then on the day we end up with empty chairs. Cheers, Andrew // Event #41 — Wiring the Internet of Things with Raspberry Pi & Node-RED 21 May 2015, 12:30 - 18:30 at Fab Lab London, Off Old Jewry, 1 Frederick’s Place, London, EC2R 8AE. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/41 Node-RED is a visual tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. Used together with Raspberry Pi it provides a compact, powerful platform that is able to read sensors, control outputs, and send and receive data to and from the Web and other systems. This workshop will provide an introduction to Node-RED and integrating simple sensors and outputs, applying basic processing and publishing data to the Web. No prior experience with either Node-RED or electronics is required. However, while not strictly necessary, some experience of JavaScript would be beneficial as this is used to implement custom functionality within Node-RED. The introduction to Node-RED will be presented by Andy Stanford-Clark. Andy Stanford-Clark is a Distinguished Engineer in IBM's global Internet of Things team. He is an IBM Master Inventor with more than 40 patents. Andy is based at IBM's Hursley Park laboratories in the UK, and specialises in the Internet of Things, remote telemetry, energy monitoring and management, Smart Metering and Smart Grid technologies. He has a particular interest in home energy monitoring, home automation and driving consumer behaviour change. Andy has been working on what we now call the Internet of Things for more than 15 years: he co-developed the MQTT messaging protocol in 1998. Andy has a BSc in Computing and Mathematics, and a PhD in Computer Science. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Newcastle, an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society. Please bring a laptop and, if you have a Raspberry Pi, bring this along with any useful sensors and LEDs. However, note that boards and sensors etc. will also be made available for use by those who do not have these. An SD card image will be provided with Node-RED and associated software pre-installed. Note: Please aim to arrive by 12:15 as the workshop will start at 12:30 prompt. Jointly hosted by the BCS OSSG, IBM UK and OSHUG. With support from the Knowledge Transfer Network and hardware sponsored by RS DesignSpark.

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