Westport Mini Maker Faire is the first for Connecticut

If you’re in Westport CT, or within day-trip distance, you might want to check out the Mini Maker Faire happening there this weekend. Being held at the Westport Library & Jesup Green, there are going to be several interesting planned events, on top of the usual gathering of makers and hackers. Local hackerspaces will be in attendance as well.

Some of the planned events include a battle of the home made bands, rube goldberg events, and jam sessions with the home made bands. Check out the guest speakers as well, there are a few names there that we would love to see.

Modeling an object with internal IMUs

[Joseph Malloch] sent in a really cool video of him modeling a piece of foam twisting and turning in 3D space.

To translate the twists, bends, and turns of his piece of foam, [Joseph] used several inertial measurement units (IMUs) to track the shape of a deformable object. These IMUs consist of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and a 3-axis magnetometer to track their movement in 3D space. When these IMUs are placed along a deformable object, the data can be downloaded from a computer and the object can be reconstructed in virtual space.

This project comes from the fruitful minds at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Lab at McGill University in Montreal. While we’re not quite sure how modeled deformable objects could be used in a user interface, what use is a newborn baby? If you’ve got an idea of what this could be used for, drop a note in the comments. Maybe the Power Glove needs an update – an IMU-enabled jumpsuit that would put the Kinect to shame.

[Read more…]

Hackerspaces and Hackaday

It should really go without saying that Hackday LOVES hackerspaces. We want to support hackerspaces to the best of our ability. There have been many ideas tossed around, like a hackerspace directory, or hackerspace calendar of events, project lists, tool exchange programs, etc. For the short term, we can’t implement either of those in a smooth enough fashion that we think it would beneficial. There are several Hackerspace directories out there, with hackerspaces.org seeming to be the most up-to-date. We even have an “events” area in our forums, though we feel there could be a much better format or delivery device than a forum for that kind of information.

So what can Hackaday do to start helping? Well, the first small step could be to share more information about hackerspaces. We would like to do video tours of your hackerspace. Unfortunately, we don’t have a budget to travel around with a film crew and visit you all. I really wish we did, since I would probably be the one doing the traveling.  So what we can offer for now is that you film a tour, showing off some cool projects going on in your hackerspace, and we’ll share the video.  Contact me directly at Caleb@hackaday.com to work out the details. Your hackerspace doesn’t have to be a huge one in a big city. We want to help everyone here. If you have a few people gathered and a couple cool projects, we don’t care if you meet in someone’s basement. We want to see what the hacker community is doing!

Toward the end of May I will be spending a few days in Huntsville Al, then a few days in Hilton Head Island SC. I’d love to visit a hackerspace or two while I’m there to do a quick video tour. Again, contact me directly if you’re in those areas.

Report from RoboGames 2012

Last week we reported on the upcoming 2012 Robogames competition would be held in San Mateo, California. Nobody from the Hackaday staff could make it this year, but luckily [Sabrina Merlo] from the Make: blog was able to provide a full report of the spectacle of fire, sparks and pierced metal this year.

For anyone who remembers the wonderful Battlebots TV show from 10 years ago, the main event is very familiar: two competitors face off with the remote-controlled extensions of themselves in a Lexan enclosed arena. The resulting battle is an orgy of flames sparks and mortally wounded robots. Yes, there are a ton of wedge robots, but most of them had very interesting weapon designs.

Off the main stage, there are also more traditional robotics competitions. Sumo robots try to push each other out of a ring, robot soccer tries to demonstrate a mechanistic Pelé, and foot-tall MechWarriors battle in the streets of a miniaturized city.

There were also a lot of not-really-battling robots like a robotic foosball table. It sounds like everyone had a blast, so we might be hitting up the bay area this time next year.

Build your next robot with Amazon supply

If you’re a home hardware hacker in the United States, chances are most of your electrical components come from Mouser or Digikey, your hardware and tools from Grainger, and your raw materials from McMaster-Carr. This setup is great – we’d hate to locally source parts for a robot – but organizing larger orders can be a bit of a pain. Enter Amazon Supply, the new place to buy business and industrial equipment.

Right now the selection is a little thin, but if you’re looking for a single place to buy a quality soldering iron, a 0.005″ endmill or a set of brass balls, now you’ve got a one stop shop with the insanely fast shipping Amazon has won our hearts with.

While Amazon Supply isn’t selling even the most basic electrical component, the service was just launched, and if there’s a market, [Bezos] will go after it. Time will tell if our beloved vendors have a serious competitor on their hands.

Thanks [Vasili] for sending this in.

Kits to fund Hackerspaces

[Overflo] recently tipped us about HackerspaceShop; his plan to help fund the Viennese and European hackerspaces by creating a marketplace for electronic kits. The idea is to not only sell kits, but to also create an easy way for others to sell their own kits through the platform, which is pretty awesome if you ask us.

Their kit they sent us to play with is a sun tracking flower developed by [daniel schatzmayr] in the metalab hackerspace. All and all, it’s a pretty awesome kit that’d be perfect for any geeky girlfriend, and of course, it’s arduino controlled. Whether or not that is a good or a bad thing is up to the hackaday trolls to decide, but it does have an FTDI header; something we’d personally like to see on a lot more of these electronic kits.

Currently there’s not to big a catalog on their site but hey, wickedlasers started out as a guy selling modified laser pointers and Hewett Packard started out as two guys selling a better function generator. It’s always awesome when a hacker uses their skills to become an entrepreneur, especially for a good cause.

Good luck [overflo]!