Vancouver Hack Space

come one, come all to the first^H^H^H^H^H second^H^H^H^H^H^H third evar vhs horticultural night. i will be bringing supplies and instructions on how to make seed bombs. i have the red clay powder, compost and an interesting selection of westcoast non-invasive seeds. i will also bring some seedling racks on which we can dry the bombs.

what:
seed bombs are one half inch diameter models of the living world. they can be made by anyone anywhere in the world where there is clay, soil, seed and water. seed bombs work on all scales, small to large, and can be air dropped over broad areas, or scattered by hand into vacant lots! hundreds of kinds of mixed seeds, soil humus and dry powdered red brown clay, form the solid components of seed bombs.

We have 3 Ham Radio nights planned for the next few weeks at VHS

• Thursday March 14th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm - William Graham
• Monday March 25th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm - Karl Brown
• Thursday April 4th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm - Karl Brown

These nights will be forced around getting you people ready to take the HAM radio licensing test. Vector is running a basic class on HAM radios starting March 16th and is running over the next 4 consecutive Saturdays. The source costs $95 and includes the HAM radio licensing test. If you want to get your licence I would suggest taking this course.

The next VECTOR Basic Class starts March 16, 2013 and will run for 4 consecutive Saturdays. Classes are held in the E-Comm Media Room from 08:00 to 12:00. The course fee of $95 include an Industry Canada examination and course materials. For further information or to register, please contact the VECTOR Training Coordinator.
http://www.vectorradio.ca/training.htm

Who:
Anyone that wants to learn about HAM radios and prepare for the HAM radio licensing test.

Where: 
VHS (45 west Hastings)

What:
Learning about HAM radios and preparing for the HAM radio licence.

When: 

• Thursday March 14th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
• Monday March 25th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
• Thursday April 4th, 2013 @ 7:30 pm

Why:
VHS needs more HAMs for awesome projects!

Resources for preparing for the HAM radio licence

• https://www.rac.ca/en/amateur-radio/beginner-info/exhaminer/ - A self-test program for candidates to the Canadian Amateur Radio certification. Runs under Microsoft Windows (reported to work flawlessly on Ubuntu 9.04 + Wine 1.0.1).
• http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/h_sf05378.html - Industry Canada is pleased to introduce an exam generator software package to facilitate the amateur examination process that our accredited examiners have taken on our behalf.
• http://dode.ca/basic/ - Mobile web exam

The Ottersoft.ca “Tiny” is a fantastic new printer coming soon. It can print 700mmx400mmx300mm and can move at 500mm/s and print at 300mm/s. It has a resolution of 9 microns X and Y and less than 1 micron in Z. What would you print with that kind of size and accuracy?

This and many other great things are always going on at the Vancouver Hack Space. This was filmed on our Tuesday open night and it was so busy! We were dissecting a printer, hacking Minecraft on a Raspberry Pi, capturing Ingress nodes, laser cutting, and so much more. We had shadow boxes, we had startups looking to hire, we had new friends, we had walkers, we had talkers, we had purple-haired fizz boppers. Don’t take my word for it – Peruse our calendar and then come down to check it out for yourself.

Continuing from our previous Raspberry PI workshops.
VHS is going to host another Raspberry PI workshop.

What: 

In this workshop we will be covering these two topics.

• Intro to the Linux command line by goldfish
• A workshop on how to connecting and controlling a Arduino with a Raspberry PI using the Firmata protocol and python. by Steven Smethurst (funvill)

Things you will need

• A Raspberry PI
• A Arduino
• USB Cable A to B 

More information about this workshop can be found here.
http://www.abluestar.com/blog/raspberry-pi-controlling-an-arduino-via-the-pyfirmata-protocol/

Raspberry PI cases, GPIO cables and SD cards with the Raspberry PI OS pre-installed will be available by donations.

Where: 
VHS (45 west Hastings)

When:
7:30pm Thursday Feb 21st, 2013

Who: 
Anyone that is interested in the Raspberry PI no matter what your skill level.

Why: 
Because the Raspberry PI and Arduino are awesome.

If you have ever wanted to use Houdini, or create procedural 3d models for printing, then this night is for you.

We will be going over how to do basic modeling in Houdini Apprentice, a free version of one of the world’s most advanced visual effects programs. We will go from opening the program for your first time all the way to holding an object created that night! If you wish to follow along, please be sure to download, install, and open (at least once to make sure everything is set up) Houdini Apprentice from www.sidefx.com.

Come on down to VHS on Wednesday, February 20th.  Doors open at 7:00pm and the magic begins at 7:30.

Photos from Raspberry PI + Python + WebIDE + GPIO pins = Blink sketch – Tuesday Feb 5th

Online tutorial can be found here Raspberry PI and the GPIO pins, Blinky Script

Come one, come all to the first second Vancouver Ingress cross-faction Meetup on Tuesday, February 12th at 7:30PM.  This event will be held at the Vancouver Hack Space – 45 West Hastings St.  Instructions on how to get to VHS are on the website.

Ingress is spreading in popularity, and has a very strong base of experienced and newb Vancouver players.  Let’s take the chat out of Comms and IRC and bring it into the real world in a cool tech/hack environment.

I propose that we have speakers from the group talk about the following topics:

• The Niantic Project storyline: and how it relates to what we are doing in the field
• Summary of game dynamics and item usage
• We can talk about some of our IRL Ingress setups: bike mounts, extra batteries, external chargers, gps tricks
• A few of us were talking about making stencils on the laser cutter of the faction logos – maybe we could have some pre-made for the evening and do t-shirts or chalktagging portals in the city
• Later in the evening we could split into two factions and have a turf war?  See which side can gather the most AP or the most MU in a set period of time.

Bottom-liner: fishboy51:L4_EN

I have been playing around with Raspberry PI (http://www.raspberrypi.org/), Python (http://www.python.org/), Adafruit WebIDE (http://learn.adafruit.com/webide/overview) and RPi GPIO pins recently (http://www.abluestar.com/blog/raspberry-pi-and-the-gpio-pins/)

The Blink sketch is the most basic sketch for an Arduino http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/blink Its a very simple sketch that just turns on and off an LED. You can do the same thing on the Raspberry Pi and the GPIO pins. Its a good start up tutorial for getting you started with Adafruit WebIDE, Python on the Raspberry PI.

Here are some pictures from the TV-B-Gone workshop held at VHS last week

Hey everyone,

What/When: 
Just wanted to let you know that I’m planning to run a workshop on Thursday 31st Jan where you will be able to:

• Bring your own TV-B-Gone kit (if you got one for Christmas) and get help with it.
• Build your very own TV-b-Gone from a kit available on the day.
• Upgrade your TV-b-Gone to the latest and greatest v2.0 firmware
• Upgrade from alkaline to lithium power (but only choose this option if you have a proper charger for lithium batteries)

If you want to attend please email me directly to reserve a space and/or a kit.  My kits will all be based on the v2 firmware, meaning you will be at the cutting edge of the TV-b-Gone movement !!

Please note that if you have never done any electronic soldering at all, you should get down to VHS to practice this skill before the workshop. It’s not hard to do, but just like tying your shoelaces it takes a little practice before it clicks. It’s not good to be learning a new skill while trying not to ruin your project ! Non-members can come on any Tuesday or Thursday evening and just ask a member for help.

Cost:

The cost for the workshop + kit is $25. Workshop only is $5 suggested minimum donation.

Where: 

VHS. 45 W. Hastings (access from alley, Abbott St end. Phone 778 330 1234 if you require a destroyer escort through the alley)