Episode: 1058
Title: HPR1058: OggCamp12 Hardware Hackers
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1058/hpr1058.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 18:06:59

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Hi, this is Ken with Hacker Public Radio and we're up here at the exhibition area and we're the hardware hacking village and I'm talking to
Jan Harper and Jan what are you doing here today?
You know I'm just looking after this lovely stall and this stall is for Raspberry Pi
and a gentleman called Pete Lomas is here today and he is one of, well basically he's the inventor of the Raspberry Pi
He did the board and all circuits and we've got a future sale and Pete's not here because he's actually giving a talk to a group at the moment so he'll be back soon
I'm sure you can speak to him then so that's what I'm doing
I know you're enjoying the show
I am actually because this is my first time and I'm not really technical, I'm here because the day I saw the Raspberry Pi I knew I wanted it in primary schools
so that's why I got involved in this, I think this is the cheap accessible way to get kids into programming
so that's why I got fired up, I can't program myself so apparently I'm going to be taught really soon
and I'm going to learn from scratch and do scratch just like all the children in the school
and I'm going to go on that journey with them but I just think this has the potential
to move children away from just being simply consumers of products to creators themselves
so one of the things I'm looking at is seeing if we can get some sort of a virtual European library of games and programs that children have created
so that they can exchange from themselves and get some ownership of the knowledge that they can have
Are you a teacher yourself? What's your interesting kid?
No, I'm not a teacher but I work in ICT in education so at the moment I'm working with newly converted academy schools
that have moved away from local authority funding and management who now have their own funding
and can look at their ICT strategy in a different way, in a more open way
I'm not combined with the government now looking at the curriculum in a wider way
so that's where I'm coming from with the pie, so my sort of day job is I would look at a school strategy
see what they're spending, where they need to put this spend, how it matches up with their educational needs
and where the value is and that kind of stuff
Thank you very much for being here and thank you very much for supporting the Raspberry Pi community
Hi, this is Ken here I'm wandering around upstairs in the hardware section and I've come across
Ben, who's I am building the Prusa Mendel 3D printer
Wow, it looks essentially like a, it looks like it's got an e-frame
Can you basically describe it for a listener please?
If you think of a Toblerone that's been squished up, has that same shape of a triangular prism
it's mostly metal rods connecting together with plastic on the joints, lots of nuts and bolts everywhere
and it's actually a very simple machine when you get down to it
it's just something that moves in several directions and squeezes plastic out like a squeezing toothpaste out of it
The components seem to be just regular threaded rod
These brackets here holding the things together seem to be extruded from a, or could be a 3D printer
Was once upon a time yes
So this is the idea of you make a printer to make a printer?
Yes, there's lots of work going on to refine the build so that fewer and fewer bought parts are used and more and more printed parts are used
so that we can get to a point where the printer works comfortably
but with most of the parts just being second hand from someone else building them for you
And how much would a printer like this cost you?
If you source it yourself you can probably get it cheaper but if you buy an entire kit
you're probably not looking at more than 500 pounds
Okay and if you buy the kit do you get an instruction manual how to put it together?
You get everything that we've got here today which is the instruction manual, all the parts, all the pieces, the electronics
Wrote a small reel of plastic and basically enough to get going with
Okay so what's your motivation for doing this?
I think that it's an excellent tool to have nowadays
because we don't really do woodworking much anymore we don't have metalwork as a core subject
People will take it up but these can be used without having that level of skill required to make something
It's about making something digital into the real world, making it physical
And I think getting these into the hands of especially children but of anyone to understand that this is how simple it can be
Because I think that this printer should be able to be built over the course of a weekend just by me
So with people helping we should get it finished even quicker
I must say it's causing quite a stir around people coming down to our booth have been using it as an excuse to go upstairs and see how far you are with this printer
Well it's basically I'm just standing here as a mechanical engineering student myself
There's nothing too scary that I see it seems to be an instruction manual
He's got the requisite beard that you need for constructing something like that
So where would somebody go if they want to order one of these? Are you running a company yourself or?
I don't, I'm trying to do more of a pay it forward motif where I'll go and help someone build it with the knowledge that, well, with the mandate on them for them to go and do exactly the same for someone else
Kind of similar to our own thing here in HackerbubbleGradio if you're listening we expect one contribution a year no pressure
Yes, it's a very positive thing and I don't have any part or say or financial gain in this
I just think it is something that people need to get hold of and just know it exists and can be attained by anyone really
Where should you send our listeners to? What's the website?
The key problem is that there are lots of people selling different kits
This particular kit was done by next day reprap I believe
Next day reprap and the kit seems to be fairly complete, plastic parts seem okay
We've yet to test the electronics but it seems like it's a complete all-in-one box
Okay, and it's got a new logo on the front and the GPL V3 so that can't be bad
The entire design is good
Okay, I might drop around later on during the week to see how you're getting on
Thank you very much for the interview, bye-bye
Hi, this is Ken, I'm up at the hacker space I think on the third floor at Ogham 12
And I've just come up to talk to Lee about?
About digital embroidery, digital embroidery, please tell me what I'm looking at here
Well what you're looking at at the moment is a brother embroidery machine at PR650
which is a six needle multi-colour machine
It is running proprietary software at the moment but I'm here hopefully to meet up with people
who may know other people or get into the realms of an open source version
for digitising images and turning them into embroidery patterns
Can you walk me through what it looks like?
Essentially it's a sewing machine I see three different six different colours at the back
They're all fed through warp down through six different feeders and essentially 60 different needles
That would be correct
That's exactly right and then it takes a hoop arrangement which you put the garment into to position it
And it's got a programmable touchscreen
You can also plug into it with a laptop or USB
And essentially the whole machine just moves its arm arrangement around to make the stitching of the pattern
So you could then upload some sort of image, what sort of formats does it take?
Well it will take any graphical format, give PNG, JPEG etc
But they do need converting into stitch patterns
Which is I have some proprietary software for that but that's the link I'm looking for
Is to have that open source version of something that will take ordinary graphics files and turn them into stitch patterns
I'll tell you what you need to do is get Linux linus's wife to buy one
You heard about his sewing machine
His wife had his sewing machine and it wouldn't work with Linux so he rolled drivers to get a working one
So that's the key, make sure
That's probably a yes
You need to find out what's one season
Okay
And the image doesn't have to be a particular quality or anything?
No not especially but it does sometimes take a lot of touching up to get the stitch pattern right after you've got an image
So it can take a bit of am manipulation
Okay and I'm looking at now cam t-shirt and it's got the words mic to be and so yeah half a word
And test pattern and basically it's for stitching logos
This will be ideal for doing if you had t-shirts to do embroidered on it
How much would the machine like this set you back?
They're not cheap
I suspected that outright
About 6,000 pounds
Wow
My sister-in-law has one but it's only got one needle in it but you can change the color and it continues to go over
So that was considerably cheaper but obviously more work
Right
Exactly that's the thing
This is a sort of semi-industrial version in a sense you can make more complex patterns without having to keep stopping change in the colors
Yeah
And do we have any idea of the proprietary nature of the device?
Has anybody helped you to check the interface
Whether between the programming device and the device itself that we can see what the controller is?
No they haven't but I'm really interested in it does I'm not so worried about the brother part
Because the brother will take open digital pattern types
So the key is to be able to convert any form of graphic into any pattern form
Which this machine will load
And is there any information so you see there's an open format for that it will accept
And is that specification as known?
It is known there's an open-stitch format
But I just don't have the software at the moment that will create that open-stitch format
So what you're looking for is somebody will take a JPEG image and convert it into a stitch format
And that's both of those standards should be available
So if there's any hackers out there especially listen to the hacker public radio
And feel the need to contribute back to the community could do so by writing that piece of software
And gaining the fame and fortune that goes along with it as well
Not so much for fortune but definitely the fame
Definitely a bit of the fame and of course I'd be willing to take part in that development as well
As a software developer but it's just not something that I could do entirely on my end
Yeah gotcha
Tell me what is where can I find this for information about this format so I can put it into the show notes
Where can I find more information about this whole project in actual fact?
Okay well the website for my project at the moment is just a basic one which is stitch digital.co.uk
That's STITCHDIGITAL.co.uk
Yeah and essentially that's just a small website at the moment which is to promote the purchasing of garments and having them customized
But I intend to expand that website which will have information about what I'm looking for
And what I want to get involved in with the file formats and the stitch formats and so on
But essentially the net is your friend and you can just go in and look for stitch formats and open formats and so on
Okay
Hi this is Ken again here up at the hardware section of Ogham 12 and I'm talking to Beth
Beth what are you doing up here?
I'm helping people to do upcycling or recycling so reusing old t-shirts that you don't want to wear anymore or that maybe don't fit you
But you actually still really like the design so we're changing those t-shirts into bags
Isn't it very nice? Can you take us to sort of what the process might be bearing in mind this is an audio podcast?
That's fine, yes no problem
They had some variety of t-shirts left over from last year's Oghamps so they've let me use them
So we have a normal t-shirt and what we do is we cut both sleeves off then we cut the neckline off
But you want to go a little bit lower than your actual t-shirt neckline because remember you're putting stuff in a bag
So it's not going to leave a lot of space
Then if you've got a long t-shirt you can always chop a bit off the bottom
One thing I do say to people is don't put tentans of beans in it
Jersey stretches, you'll be dragging your t-shirt behind you
Then we turn them inside out
And we pin and then stitch along the bottom with a zigzag stitch
Because a zigzag stitch has a bit more give like your t-shirt does
We do two layers and then you turn it back the right way around and you've got a bag
Fantastic any strap on this bag
Oh yeah, and here's what we met earlier
And of course the shoulder straps I guess would be the handles of the bag
That's very very nice
The combination of the sleeve and the fact that it's already stitched by the manufacturer
At your shoulder seam
Means that all you have to stitch
It takes longer with the cutting than actually the stitching of the bottom of the bag
It's a regular stitch so pretty much anyone can do it
Yeah, it's ideal to do it on a sewing machine because of the strength of the stitch
You could do it by hand but you'd need to probably do about four layers and it would take longer
But you could do it in front of telly I suppose
Why are you here?
Because I like the fact that you can do things for free or for very little money
And I don't see why people should be spending a fortune and throwing old clothes and throwing things out
What's your name? Paul Freeman
Hi Paul, how's it going?
Who are you and what are you doing?
I'm one of the organisers at Dusliverpool
We're a co-working space and maker space based on Hanover Street in the middle of town
So it's a space where we, during the day, mostly we have a space where you can even have a permanent desk
Or just do a whole day's hot desk in where you have a group of people who do that
So mostly freelancers and creative sorts
And we also run events like Make-A-Night
Where people can come along and start playing about what things like 3D printing, laser cutting
The internet of things type technology like as we know
And people can come along and even work on their own projects if they've got some in your mind already
Come along and just see what other people are doing if they've never encountered it before
And trying to really just build that community and get people to do exciting things
And get people excited and give them a space where they can take advantage of that
And there's a many people in your community at all?
Yes, so we have, in the actual workspace, we have about 9-10 people with permanent desks
And another sort of 10 or so who turn up to do hot desk in
And then we have probably around 30-40 people who on and off come to the event
So it's slowly going, it's trying to get more people interested and to know about us and spread that awareness
But we're getting them over time, we do have a diverse group of people who are coming in
How much is their membership fees, how much is it to join?
So the events who run specifically AFV, anybody can come along
And then from using the space outside the events, we have a workshop membership
Which is 30 pounds a month and you can come in and use the tools and equipment
The hot desk in is 8 pounds a day and that lets you also use the laser cutter and the 3D printer and stuff as well
And then those of us who have a full-time desk, it's 150 pounds a month
Which gives you an address and a space to come in
And all your tea and coffee and electricity and wifi and all that stuff as well
That's quite interesting actually
It sounds a lot, but if you compare that to a parable, awful space
Yeah, and it depends on how you balance it because we get decent coffee from the bowl street coffee
We get really nice coffee
So I mean for a day, if you spend, you know, by free coffee then a coffee shop
Then that covers that
So yeah, so it depends on what people are looking for
But for most of us, because we're mostly like mostly freelancers who are doing it
So just having somewhere where you can get out the house
And sort of sit down and work somewhere in a space where other people are working as well
And have some sort of human contact
It's really sort of...
So even if you were around and you were doing a website design for instance
Just get out of the house, do that 9 to 5 feel rather than come in
Exactly!
Get in up with your pajamas and sit in on your kitchen table
Can you start at the other side?
Can we walk through the desk here and try to describe to our audio-only listeners what's going on?
Okay, so on the end is Bubbly know, which is Adrian Micheal
Adrian's
Divide, so it's basically it's a bubble machine which listens to the internet
So he listens for Bubbly know
And today, anytime anybody mentions the hashtag oggcamp
He blows bubbles
It is so funny
It is
There will be a picture of all of these things in the show notes just by the way for this episode
And he's definitely a cloud pleaser, I really love bubbles
How's that run out?
I see it's just got some power and an internet cable
Yeah, so inside is one of these little devices which is an Arduino
An Arduino, yes
And so inside that he has an Arduino which listens to, and Adrian's a bit in a service in the back end basically
And because there's about 10 I think exist in the world, different people have bought them
And he connects this web service and basically says it's a new tweet
And to the new tweet he blows bubbles
Fantastic, okay the next one, whichever one you want to be
So this is the RFID drum
And basically every time you give it an RFID card
So your bank card if it's contactless or an oyster card to say
That's a public transport card for people on the state
It will play a unique tune to that card
So every card it gets will play
If you represent it and you come back a month later it will play your special tune
Do you want to try it there?
Yeah
Where's the audio come on?
That and that
And that noise is made by a little mechanical spring mechanism that jumped on a biscuit tin on a wooden box and on the table top
So they're called solenoids
It's a solenoid which is basically, it gives a ping when a charge goes over it
Super, moving on
And then so these are some freely printed sort of artifacts
So we've got a freely printer which we've used
So some of these, you better get a freely model
And it looks remarkably like a castle
This was a castle, yeah, we've also done things though
When we did the office, we've easily expanded into a workshop
So we have scale models of our furniture and a laser cut flower plan
And we could rearrange the furniture to work out where it was going to go to scale
Okay, now you've justified it to me right up until that
It was like you guys have too much time and money
Yeah
And then so moving on to the next one is John McKayle's wear dial
And this is a...
Just a little one second, I'll try and describe this
It's a circular disc with cogs on the inside
And there's a small collage on the top which obviously rotates it
And we've got airport, cafe, pub, station, etc, etc. going around
And what does that do?
That plugs into the service map me out
So map me.at
And it looks up somebody's location and displays it in the wheel
So very much like the weirdly fucking Harry Potter
Excellent, just going there, yeah
So yeah, it's one of those examples which if you read the book
That's exactly what it does
If you've not, does it help?
But yeah, it's a visual way of plugging into the internet
And telling you where somebody is
Was that done with the laser cut?
Yes
So all laser cut, sort of layout
And you're not afraid of laser cutting wood?
Oh, laser cutting wood is beautiful, it works really well
And it looks pretty but you're not worried that it'll go on fire around
It does occasionally catch on fire
We have a very sophisticated fire suppression system
Which is a drug or water underneath it
What is...
I...
Yeah, laser cutting
Laser cutting is basically insulating stuff
Very quickly
But actually things like wood and plastics are much more tolerant
And corrugated cardboard is the one which we've had the biggest problem with
Because the corrugation traps air quite nicely, which makes it combustible
combustible, hmm
There are a few stories behind that one
But you're doing a very small act and it's in a...
People building laser cuts are very well aware of the fact that in Minecraft fire
So it's mostly metal
But it does look very, very pretty
You know, it's like a brown and kind of graded brown sort of...
Yeah, and that's actually something which...
Some people, if you can put like masking tape on
And the masking tape will take the scene and you can get a much cleaner cut
But actually most people don't bother with that
Because if you like the sort of the burnt...
Yeah, the burnt sort of aesthetic
Okay, walking on
And then a fruit ball by the looks of it
And this one uses a technique called living hinge
Which I think we take this one
I'm assuming this is
Basically, yeah, you're taking something solid, cutting it a lot
And that gives you the early nights bending effect
So if I can describe that to the listeners on the podcast
It's a bit like an accordion
So we've got lots of slits but there is interjoining...
Not, you know, interjoining hinges in between
That isn't describing it very well
It's a bit like loads of haches one after the other
Okay, cool, very fantastic
So this and the fruit ball is basically a
Flash piece that's been wedges and been cut out of it
And there's those interleaving leaves
And it's folded up on each other to form a fruit ball
Very, very pretty
Oh yes, and...
Yes, so then there's...
What's this joint called here?
The key joint, I think
So we've got a key...
Again, the interlock to each other
Two different pieces we've been put together to form a three-dimensional shape
More like a...
Sort of little box
Actually, that falls over
Which you could note out super, you know, wood lute together
Photos for all this will be in the show notes in the episode
Yeah, that's very pretty
And then...
And then...
So we're looking at here a little design of two birthday cakes
The outline of the birthday cake is done with a candle in it
But engraved into that is the pattern of the cake
I didn't think it was possible to not cut the whole way through
Oh no, so you can do what engraving
And so basically when you're setting up the software for it
You control two things, one is the speed it moves out
And one is the intensity of the cut
And so you can move either by moving very quickly over the surface
Or by doing very low power
You can basically get the software to fill in the space
And that's where it becomes a bit of a blackout
Because every material is a bit different
So the actual...
The cutting of the shape is absolutely millimeter per size
But the how much you cut
And the intensity you cut is a bit of a blackout
You get a feeling, you think, this our cut really quickly
At a 50%
And see how that turns out
And that's where it gets to...
I guess the artistry in sort of taking something
Yeah, I want this to be really dark
So I'm going to go really...
Really strong
Fairly slow, but you know that one setting cuts it
So you say, well I'll go twice at speed
So hopefully it'll only go half the way through
I must say that we're now entering into definitely the realm of art here
None of these pieces would be out of place in somebody's house
We get the people who are interested in using the kit
It's definitely much more artists wanting to produce their artwork
Rather than, I guess, techies wanted to be artistic
It's definitely people that are sort of seeing...
Yeah, I've seen these techniques used somewhere else
And an artist, I've got an idea
Help me do it
And that's where we're really sort of finding the more interesting
I think techies...
Techies turning to artists is quite difficult
Because as a techie, once you know how it works, you're happy
Yep
Whereas artists actually always have grand ideas
Which could be realised really simply
Because it's like, even things like bubbly
You know, it's a very simple example of
The technology is switching something on and off
With a really nice enclosure
And that whole smoke and mirrors of
If you've got a simple idea, let's scale it up big
Lots of artists get that
And can sort of hook into that really easily
You can see some really basic skills
With the sort of available technology
And they can do something really grand with it
It's fantastic
And this big LED strip thing
It reminds me a bit of
An LED strip or one for the house
Yeah, so basically this is
They're individually programmable LEDs
So each one of those could be programmed separately
Is that normal or if I was to buy one of these
And the hardware store just as a lighting
Is that normal that you can individually program them
It gives you a lot more options
Because the actual strip itself has the circuitry in it
It saves you a lot of what manually way
You could produce the same thing with an Arduino
And a big pile of LEDs
But then you could get to the point where
How much solder in do you actually want to do?
A lot of Mr X has done a good episode on
Introduction to soldering here on Hacker Public Radio
But yeah, but it's one of those things
Yeah, this is what a really good example
Sometimes you just want lots of lights to work really simply
And so it's
And it looks nice on another desk
And is this like one I want to know
Is if I go down to the local hardware store
Is this what I get if I ask for a strip of LEDs
I think this is a bit more intelligent
And I think you can
There's a lot more control over the individuality of them
Oh, sorry
And for the listeners listening
It's a strip
About two meters long
About two yards or so
And it's every inch or so
25 centimeters
There's a LED
And essentially the blue box at the end is controlling different colors
And what's the deal with this other than just displaying nice colors
Yeah, they just display nice colors sometimes
Sometimes that's all it takes
Yeah, it's one of those things
It's like that's just what it says on the tin
It is fantastic
And listen if somebody wanted to become a member of your community
Get involved
Where do we send them
So we have two websites
DoesLivapool.com, DOESLivapool.com
And what does that stand for?
Do you epic shit?
You heard it here folks
And the other website is makeenact.co.uk
Is that in any way linked to a Riley's and their thing?
No, no, it's our alone brand
And what's this thing on
It's just completely forgot here
On the corner there appears to be a pencil or a pen
On a whiteboard that has a piece of paper on it
And there are two pieces of
Yeah, two wires essentially
Pulling it up and down
The left one pulls it up
The right one pulls it down
And it is drawing from
It's basically drawing a picture
This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen
There will be a picture of them to show us
Talk to me
Okay, so this is a drawbot
It is actually, we've assembled
Of course it is
I can't remember the guy who made it
We've got it as a kit
And other people can buy them
We'll have some links on the website about it
But we'll get the drawbot is
The strings attach to them
And by moving those strings
It has a little raft and the pen comes down
And takes the image
An image uploaded into the program
And it draws things
And it looks suspiciously
Like as if the components were manufactured using a laser cutter
I believe they were yes
Listen, this has been absolutely fantastic
Have you found that
Like recently there seems to be a massive move
Into the whole
Hardware hacking place
Especially 3D printing people
There's some really nice 3D printers coming out
People are really getting
Getting excited by it
I guess it's the thing
And people are starting to be able to play with it
So everything is always known
It sounds cool
But now people can actually buy something
Of reasonably affordable
And put it on their desk and play with it
And especially as a group you can get something
And actually get your hands on it
It's fantastic
Thank you very much for taking the tour
It's going to take some photos of everything
So we have it for the show notes
Thank you very much
Okay, hi, my name is Ken Thalon
I'm up here at the hardware section of on-cam 12
And I'm talking to
My name is Zachary Desentos
How are you doing? And what are you doing here?
I'm playing thank you
I'm very excited
I'm trying to get as much data from this kite today as I can
I've bought various methods of getting data
I've got the focus for this weekend of these
Strait sensors
So let's take a walk back
Because this is an audio podcast
I'm sitting at the bench
You've got a whole goal of wires in front of you
And what should I be looking at?
Right, this piece of elastic
Yeah
I had this idea three years ago
And I looked up Strait sensors online
And I got a lot of corporations
And it was...
What's a Strait sensor?
Strait sensor
And what does a Strait sensor do on why would you need one?
This is measuring displacement
Or stretch
So
This is a piece of elastic
Just like a broken elastic band
And if I hold both ends and pull
It stretches
And it's conductive
So if I put it into a simple circuit with another resistor
When I stretch this piece of elastic
It lets voltage through
Okay, where are we going with this?
Send it to the computer
And then I can then send
That wire
A XB radio transmitter device
Through a serial port
Into a Python script
Which then sends the data
Into another module
Which sends OEC open sound control
Which I can listen to on my
Sound software
Essentially turning this piece of elastic into a slider on the music software
Okay, why would you do this?
What I'm building is
I fly dual-line delta codes
And I've got two handles
You fly a kite
It's a sports kite
It's a stunt kite
So we're talking about a physical thing
That a child might fly in the air only more complex
It's the thing
That a children are fascinated
And then adults come back to
After they retire from their busy
Crazy jobs
They remember their childhood
And then they go back to their quits
I don't know many people that have
Been on quits their whole life and not had a break
But a lot of people go back to it
After they had a childhood
Beautiful childhood experience
And then I realise that
Quits is way forward
So on the table
There will be a picture of all this stuff in the show
So on the table there's a kite
So what we've got is a piece of
Stretchy elastic band that broadcasts to the kite
Am I right?
Yeah, essentially
The elastic band
Is built into my kite handle
There's a spring on that
So that it doesn't stretch too much
There's a limiting rope on it
So it doesn't overswitch
I'm getting data
Which is based on
Is the kite pulling
Or am I
When I add a pulse to the kite by pulling my hand
It will give me a spike in the data
That data is going on the XB Series 1
It's configured as a wireless cable
So it literally sends the voltage data
From analog to digital converter
It sends the signal to the other XB Series 1
Which is plugged via USB into the computer
And then the Python script reads the
The serial monitor of the data
And looks for two strings
Quite line 1 and quite line 2
There's two float data floats
What do you do with those?
So far
Like I've got a few modules that I've built
I'm using a bit of software called
TX Modular
Which is written within SuperCollider
SuperCollider is open source
Massive piece of software that people use to make various interactive things
And the TX Modular has been written to make it easier for people to
Code without being able to use coding language and programming language
So you've got quite low level modules
And in a way you're coding still but you're using
Things like sequences to sequence events
Analyzers that analyze your data and give you
And convert that into
Other floats
Such as sliders that you can control
Simplers or they can control
Via OSC open sound control
They can control graphical
Minipulate graphical controls
So I see it as like puppeteering on the software
You're sending a lot of different floats
So I've got two strings on my kite
I'm trying those two strings or like two puppet strings
That I can control loads of stuff on the computer
Okay so you're actually finding a kite in the process of flying a kite
You're doing something on the computer
Yeah what's that something on the computer
Today I've got a grid of 25 squares
If you imagine a grid five by five
In each square there's a sample
So you can navigate those five squares
Like you would navigate a map
With a simple dot
So if you move the dot to the top left you're in square one
Yeah
So it's like having a joystick
If you had a joystick you could move around the squares
You could move your position
You could essentially build the world's biggest mouse
Yeah it's a flying mouse yeah
Like it's not going to be a flying mouse in the future
Yes that mouse could do interactive things
I actually built the sampler for having a weak control on my head
The reason why I built that grid is so I could move my head forward slightly
And I would go to the beach
Move my head backwards
And I'd go to the trees, virtual with all of the trees
Move my head left and I could go to the shopping center
So I'd put samples of a map in this grid
And I had a weak controller with its accelerometers
And if I move my head left it would be action sequence
Or would tell your position on the map to move slowly to the left
So it's like a slow mouse for your head
So I've grabbed those modules in that code
And I'm going to rearrange it for the kite
What I've got here
Looking at a pair of old-fashioned goggles that one might
Seriously the more I'm talking to you
I'm wondering are you a genius?
Are you completely insane?
Or both
Anyway it's a pair of old
Reting severe mental illness, yes appropriate
I see a pair of 1920s goggles that someone might ride with a sports car
With some sort of webcam type of thing in the front
Is it a webcam?
It's a simple webcam
This is like with elastic bands, by the way
Clunky, clunky thing
I actually got these goggles in an anime conference
My girlfriend took me to my first anime conference
And it was loads and loads of people
And they were all dressed up in anime costumes and things
And they had a marketplace and I found these goggles
And I thought you know what I'm looking for
Because they got foam in them
And I can cut into the foam and add a webcam
So that's why I got them
So there's a problem with webcam outdoors
When there's sun shining, in fact there's a lot of problems
Because the variables are massive because the sun changes throughout the day
So essentially this camera is the software that is analysing this camera
And it's looking for a particular colour
That colour is lime green
Because my main quality is completely lime green
And I had it customised in totally lime green
I shouldn't have chosen lime green because
It's like nearly the colour of grass, it's nearly the colour of the trees
But I just chose that colour
I need to get a black one
I added this red lens to this webcam
Out of 3D glasses
Because I read online that it would get rid of some of the glare
And it does
You see a great picture, but everything is lime green
So my kite is invisible
Kind of defeats the purpose, unfortunately
If I had a black kite, that would be ideal
Because everything else is lime green
So that would turn the kite into the joystick that I've shown you
That would navigate my map
And that's why I built that map
But I've got to kind of hack my own program
Because I've got two straight sensors instead of a joystick
The toe is totally different
And also when you fly a kite and you do stunts
This is a stunt kite
You're doing a lot of jerky fast movements
Where it's a massive range of movements
And what I'm hoping to do in the future is get my data so clean
That I can record a palette of different things I quite can do
As a signature, a bit like voice recognition
And I'm using Bruno Zambuli from Aircam University
I'm hoping to, I've got his patch that recognises gestures
And when you repeat a gesture, the computer will follow you
So it sets a timeline to your gestures
Say I do a circle with my hand
And it's following my hand
It will say, right, you're doing a circle with your hand
It normally took you 30 seconds to move your hand in a full circle
So we've got 30 seconds and we'll follow you as you move your hand around
And the computer will follow you
So hopefully I can get the computer to follow the kite as it moves around
And I'll have some significant recognition patterns
This is not going to happen this weekend, this is a long-term project
But the idea is to make a palette of all the different movements that kite can do
And then that palette will have a set of actions that can control sounds and visual things
It is amazing what you do
Thank you
It is someone to completely pointless
But no, actually I think you're wrong or something
Thank you
I think what it is
Well, I grew up in Southeast London near Black Keybed
Cut Black Keybed kite festival
And they do a lot of choreography for these kites
And normally they fly the kites to music
So this is within that community
It's making the music fly to the kites
Very, very nice
Okay, now I get it
Finally I see it
I see the vision of we're always
Congratulations, thank you very much
Hi, this is Ken, again, up here at Odd Camp 12
We're up at the Hardware Hacking section
And as I walked along, this gentleman was waving a piece of electronic aperture in the air
Hi, how are you? What's your name? What are you doing here?
Hello, my name is John Chamberlain
I'm from Blackpool, next to you as a group
And I meet today with my fellows
Just because like, Arduino is an interest to me
And not recently
Not long ago I bought one of these kind of Arduino
It's the Nanode, which is a UK built Arduino clone
And I'm building that with my son
And I was just looking to get some ideas today for projects that we can kind of work on
Okay, as I'm looking here I see a Arduino
As you'll know from Hacker Public Radio previous episodes
And on one side and on the other side you've got a breadboard of some sort
With the LEDs sticking out
So what's the plan?
What this is, there are various kind of projects for Arduino
And the simplest one is just a flashing LED
And that's fine, that's kind of a test
It's like the hello world of the Arduino
And there are various variations on that
But what this is is what's called the persistence of vision circuit
And what it is
And when you've seen those things that people attach to their bike wheels
And as the bike wheel spins it writes out a message like hello or whatever
And I see some of the airports and stuff as they spin around in the disk
Exactly, so this is the Arduino take on that
So it's a very hand-rolling one because you kind of...
This is great for radio, but I've got a piece of breadboard with a whole bunch of wires and LEDs
Just inserted into holes
And then wired lashed up to the Arduino that's next to it
And then I've got a USB cable going from the Arduino into the back of my laptop
And then I've got the code running on here
And essentially it downloads a program that displays a message in the persistence of vision format
Which means that you actually have to move the LEDs to see the message
Because all you'll see when it's static is a bunch of flashing LEDs that don't show you anything
Okay, let's try it out
I have to say my wire is full on it
So I'm just going to go back and plug my wire back in
And while you're doing that, I'll turn on the videos
So we have some video to go along with this
If nothing else, there's going to be an element of comedic value associated with this
He's looking at me
Yes, no, I said a look
Oh, there we go
So
One of them is not working actually
But I've got six LEDs flashing
So you see they're kind of what looks like when it's static randomly flashing
And you just come to me as I've just finished building it
So this is at the alpha stage
Okay, nothing excuses, make a work
No promises
Okay
So to introduce the element of motion into it to make it a persistence of vision
You have to move the circuit board because on the board
Can you see something?
I think
Oh, there you go
This is the prototyping phase
The next stage is when she proved the concept
The soldering stage, we transfer these bits of wire on a breadboard
To some actual, it's gone there, a bit of circuit board and sold it
So that you can wave it around and the wires don't fall out
But I think if I go fast enough, you'll see there's a word there
S-E, it's a poor letter word, it's S-E-O-C or something
Let the two words, let's have a look
Two words, two words, sounds like
There's one to take, this snoot lab is one that's connected and the other is rules
Snoot labs rules, right?
Yeah
I'm desperately trying to, I see rules, I definitely saw rules, yeah
As we were watching that, one of the wires were flying across the room
Enjoy your project timing
So thank you very much for taking the time, I appreciate it
Thank you, thank you
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and up here is the hardware section
And I've come across somebody that you might know
What's your name and what are you doing here?
It's Pete Lomas from the Raspberry Pi Foundation
And I'm here because this is a hardware hack day
I'm an engineer, I've been involved in engineering all my life
And it's absolutely fantastic to be here and see so many young
And not so young people getting involved in hacking hardware
And when you say you're involved in Raspberry Pi, can you be a little bit more clear to our listeners?
Yeah, I took the reference designs that Broadcom had actually given us
And I ended up turning out the final design of Raspberry Pi that you now can buy
So you're one of the team who are physically working on the Raspberry Pi project
Yeah, I'm one of the trustees and we work probably a day a week on Raspberry Pi
I have a day job as well which you have to do
But yeah, no, we're actively working on it
I'm based up here in Warrington
The rest of the team are over in Cambridge
But hey, that's not a problem with modern communications
So what happened, you had a dream one morning you woke up and decided you wanted to change the face of computing for everybody
Well, now it was really for me, it was to change the face of hardware hacking
Actually getting something that kids could get involved with
And they could actually try and make things that would involve electronics
Now I've been to Imperial College to actually see a demonstration of a product that my company had built
And I bumped into Alan Microsoft who is also now one of the trustees of Raspberry Pi
And the rest I think we say is history
We just had a total synergy of objective of what we were trying to do
Which was to get children from all walks of life to actually fire the imagination into electronics and computing and programming
And get them involved and really try and make that a career for them
So then they would consider a career in computer engineering or computer science or electronics at university
Have you been kind of floored by the phenomenon that is the Raspberry Pi?
Yeah, I think there was a comment that said my gas has never been so flabbered
I mean, we planned to make a few hundred initially and then maybe a few thousand
And I won't say we had tunnel vision but we had a very good focus on what we were trying to achieve
And then it just exploded, I mean that's highly thanks to Liz who did some sterling work on our website
And publicized what we were doing and Evan seemed to get his face almost on every TV program
And it just escalated from there
But I think in a good way because not only is it promoted Raspberry Pi
I think it's promoted the whole concept of small computers
And the ability to actually build things with small computers and achieve something novel
And some of the things that we've seen are just absolutely fantastic
Now I absolutely take my hat off to some of the people who've designed things
They're so inspired and that's what it's all about is inspiring people to do things
And if in some small way we've achieved that, that is absolutely brilliant
I think we said it before and we said it again here when I was talking to Clashander in episode on the Raspberry Pi
It's all about the connectors, it's all about the connectors
It is, I mean, it's all about, I think for me, it's all about having that access to the GPIO
And being able to get into the heart of the system very, very easily
You know connecting something to the USB is all read very well
It's not quite as immediate and as I've said in my talk, you know, a massive ecosystem has now evolved
To actually support those connectors to build things onto those connectors
And so, as I was also saying, it now gives me a bit of a legacy problem
If I start moving things around, you know, it's going to corrupt the ecosystem
So we're going to have to be very careful how we go forward
And it just adds another challenge to the...
And what does it say, you know, do you have any scoops?
What's the plans that you're going to evolve the board?
The plan is, I mean, we're going to evolve the board in terms of doing the educational release
That is something that we are very focused on
But as I've said, you know, there's possibilities that once it all becomes completely open source
Then other Pi-esque ecosystems will occur with other board designs
Not necessarily done by the foundation, but that doesn't matter
What really matters is that it's galvanized people into action
And they're actually doing something
Because whatever they do, whether it's, you know, with a Pi, whether it's with an Arduino, a Nano-Bone
I don't think that makes any... The fact that they're doing it is the most important thing
I must say, as a mechanical engineer who's slaved over a board for my final thesis project
He was working up in the lab and then moved it down today to the main hall
And wires went loose and it never worked afterwards
You are a god to all of us who has met this whole thing so simple
And from everybody here, thank you very much
Is there anything else you'd like to say?
No, I think it's great, I'm looking forward to this is obviously day one of old camp
I'm looking forward to day two
Hopefully we can meet a lot more people and that'll be great
But I've, so far, I've really enjoyed it
And I've got no reason to think that that's going to stop
So I just say thanks for having me and thanks for the invite
And just, was it a conscious decision to go with your distributors?
The fact that it goes through RS and was the other supplier?
Yeah, far now, was that a conscious decision?
Did that kind of...
It was a conscious decision, it was a hard decision
We sat there and we were talking on the telephone and we sat there and we thought about it
I mean, we were in a situation where we had 100,000 people wanting a Raspberry Pi
Beating the path to the website and say when can we have it? When can we have it?
So we had two choices, we could have kept it in the foundation
We could have worked at it as best we could
We could have kept it completely open source
We could have delivered the product probably a thousand a month, two thousand
There may be four thousand because we've had to get funding, we've had to make arrangements with suppliers
All that sort of detail that you props don't think about
We've also had to set up a worldwide distribution
So we looked at it and we thought, well, now why are we doing these guys?
You know, they are at the top of their game
But what do we have to give away?
And reasonably, we have to give away something
And that was give them some exclusivity to actually get back some of their investment
No big deal
Well, no, I don't think it is a big deal
I said, you know, without them, I don't think Raspberry Pi would be on the planet in the way it is today
And I don't think what the ecosystem is now created as a result of them being there would be there today
So they're absolutely instrumental in what we've achieved
And they know that ultimately we want to take it open source because that was always the aim
And they're fully behind that
But you know, they're just going to say, well, come on guys, let's do our bit first
That's only fair
None of the problem
By happy coincidence, you know, that every school, college, engineering workshop in the world has one of these
You know, has an account with these guys and the technicians can simply order this as they're ordering the resistors and the capacitors
And just making it easier for the students to buy it
Without having to get any budget signed off
Well, that's right, I mean, it probably would come, you know, they're so cheap they are under the radar, I guess
But I mean, I couldn't possibly suggest that people buy them that way
What they need to do is put their own money on the table and buy them
And the other thing, of course, is they are cheap enough to break
You don't worry really about breaking a Raspberry Pi
And you try not to, when they were really, really rare
You didn't go near it, people were handling them with kid gloves
That wasn't the intention
The intention was to get there, get stuck in
And if the worst happens, it's only the same cost as a trip to the Pizza Hut or something
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