Hull Raspberry Pi Jam

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Today I was in Hull doing a bit of shopping. As you do. I also dropped into Hull Central Library to give Matt a pixel for his Hull Pixelbot. He's written a lovely blog post about building a robot last Thursday, and I thought I'd give him something extra to work with.  Matt was helping at a Hull Rasp Jam event.

Libraries have changed a bit since we used to take the kids every week to swap their books for different ones. There are still books there, but you can also find crafting sessions, people playing chess and  Raspberry Pi events too. Great stuff. 

I wasn't able to stay long at the jam, but it was great to see lots of people engaging with technology and having fun doing it. I'll try and make a bit more time for the next one. 

Hull Pixelbot Code Version 3.0

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The latest version of the Hull Pixebot Code engine is now available on Github. You can use this to download little programs into your robot where they are stored and interpreted. It makes controlling your robot a snap (said the man who wrote it). 

You can get the latest version of the code here

You can get the latest documentation here.

This is a stepping stone on the way to a full scripting language which will run inside the Hull Pixelbot. This version provides support for variables, simple expressions and conditional execution. It is designed to provide the execution engine for the script that I'm working on.

I'm quite proud of it. 

Build a Robot in One Day

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The team at the start of the day. Click through for a 360 degree view

Well, that was fun. By the end everybody had a robot moving around and using a distance sensor to notice things. Thanks to c4di for hosting, Robin for providing invaluable support and everyone for getting so absorbed in their building that they forgot two coffee breaks and I had to order them out of the room for lunch.......

Intense concentration....

Washed Up Car-go

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One wonderful thing about Hull being City of Culture this year is that lovely little artworks are springing up around the city. You have to look quite carefully in the car park of The Deep to find these ones. Based on perfectly ordinary cars (which will be driven away and sold at the end of the exhibit) the Washed Up Car-go is a musing on just what you find if you go down to the beach today.

I don't think these are factory fitted options

The installations contain projected video and sound effects which come from sea-shell speakers. Well worth seeking out.

Sea shell speakers by the sea shore...

Hull Architecture

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I must admit that I've never really thought of a place like Hull as having architecture. It's just got lots of nice buildings.

However, I've found out a lot more about the area from this book, which even told me who designed the place I'd spent nearly 40 years of my life working in at the university.

This version was published in 2010, which means that it was just in time to be able to give the low down on places like The Deep.

It's a great reference and even has guided walks around the city. If you're coming to Hull for something City of Culture related, and you want a well written, well researched and good to read guide to where we live then it is well worth a look. 

Fast and Furious 8

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I've no idea how we ended up in the audience at one of the first showings of Fast and Furious 8 tonight. I think a Meer cat with some half price cinema tickets had something to do with it, but even so....

Anyhoo, it is a fun film. With some jaw dropping car sequences and a fantastic sequence involving a child in a baby seat plus a bunch of gunmen. And the usual mix of former enemies joining together to face a larger foe. Etc etc. It seems to me that this time the franchise has turned its attention to the GI Joe style of movie, with cyber crime and super soldier antics on top of the car mayhem. 

If you're a fan of daft films made in a universe where the laws of physics don't actually apply properly, and you like a big helping of cheese with your dialogue then you'll love it. 

NASA Space Apps Challenge at c4di Hull

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I love hackathons. I actually won a prize at one once. And at another I was part of a team that won a special "most ambitious failure" award (perhaps less impressive). I also love hackathons because they are so good for those that take part. They broaden your skills, let you try out new ideas, meet new people and stretch yourself a bit. They look good on your CV, you can talk about them at interviews. And you get to eat pizza. Lots of pizza.

I'm helping to run a hackathon at the c4di at the end of April. It's in partnership with NASA, and the winners of the Hull heats are entered into the NASA round of the competition for consideration for worldwide acclaim. There'll be a bunch of space related themes that we aren't allowed to tell you about just yet, and all kinds of fun things to do.

It's over the weekend of the 29th-30th of April. You can work all night, or you can nip home for a few hours sleep (which is what I'll be doing). We'll be working at the c4di down at the waterfront, so if we are lucky we should get a nice sunset and sunrise over the water to spur us on.

You can sign up here, and you really should. I'm after team members; get in touch if you fancy working with me.

Sorry about this

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I was gardening today. As you do. Got to thinking about the mad scientist who tried to clone himself. He used a new technique, where you start at the top of the body and work your way down. Everything was going fine until he'd just finished the neck, but when he tried to do the shoulders it all went wrong, with arms and legs in all the wrong places. Ugh. He turned to his assistant and said.....wait for it....

"I knew I should have quit when I was a head".

Goldilocks Gas Struts

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I think I'm the first person ever to write a blog post with the title "Goldilocks Gas Struts". Not that it's a first I really want. I've been improving the guinea pig cage to give it a "lift off roof". The problem with a cage that has doors at the front is that if your pigs have a sprightly nature (and ours do) then you can open the door and then find that the hairy monsters have made a break for freedom.

They quite enjoy the process of being caught. We don't enjoy the process of catching them.

I've fitted the hinges and the cage lid now opens rather nicely. That way we can do stuff in the cage without any risk of escaping pigs. And I quite like the god like aspect of removing their sky.

Anyhoo, next I need to find something to hold it open. It turns out that you can buy gas struts to do this thing, and they are very reasonably priced. They are calibrated in Newton's, which is interesting, but not particularly useful to me. I bought a couple of 120 Newton ones, figuring that the lid of the cage is quite heavy.

Not that heavy. I couldn't get the darned thing to shut. So I bought a pair of 60 Newton ones.

Which of course are not heavy enough. The lid won't stay open. What I need is the "Goldilocks" ones, which I think will come in at around 80 or so.....