The camera will make line drawings too
We had a nice Hardware Meetup today. I took the Custard Cream Camera along and turned a few folk into Lego. I’ll have it at the next meetup, maybe by then I’ll have made the printer work reliably.
Here are some flowers in place of hardware meetup pictures
I’ve done it again. Taken a camera to the Hardware Meetup and totally failed to take any pictures. So there is no evidence that we had a great time (despite me bringing the wrong robot parts along). Nice to see new folks turning up and we did manage to get robot wheels fitted and turning, which is a great start.
Next time we will be adding a distance sensor so that the robot can move around without bashing into things.
We had a very select gathering at the Hardware Meetup tonight. But fun was still had. I managed to get my robots moving forwards rather than backwards (always a good thing) and Simon was preparing FreeCAD designs for 3D printing at the MakerSpace.
Incidentally, I’ve set up a Discord server for the group where we will give out details of meetings and chat about hardware and whatnot. If you’d like an invite get in touch (hardware at robmiles.com) and I’ll send you one. I’d put the invite link in a blog post, but that ways lies madness and an awful lot of spam.
We had a splendid hardware meetup this evening. I found out three more things that my robot software doesn’t do but should, and a great time was had by all. I really must take more (or at least some) pictures of these events.
Walter brought along an Apple Newton 2000 which is one of the last (and most powerful) handheld versions. I’d not seen one before and it took me a while to actually open the front of the device. But once it was open we popped out the battery and rather than finding a proprietary and no doubt broken rechargeable unit we instead saw a holder for AA batteries. So, thank to the generosity of the folks at Hull Makerspace we got hold of a set and fired it up. It worked fine. Even the backlight.
I don’t know what components they were using 30 years ago when the Newton was made, but they must have been pretty good ones. I’m going to bring along some of my Newton devices to the next meetup, which will be on the 24th of June. If you’ve got a “blast from the past” device that you want to bring along and show us we’d love to see it.
Sumo going well
We had a special Hardware Meetup last night. We had some special guests and the idea was to have them writing programs that would allow two robots to sumo wrestle.
It didn’t quite work out that way though. My software was a bit more buggy than I thought. Mind you, most first versions of software don’t survive their collision with real life. I left with a lot of things to fix and a determination to not let out any wobbly software ever again. I wonder how long that will last?
A rat on a spit
I love Hull Makerspace. I particularly like the way that it lets people take an idea and a big chunk of determination and then make something amazing. One of the folks that looks after the place fancied building a “rat on a spit”. So they did. This was the cue for laser cutting, circuit building, mechanical construction, 3D design of a rat, painting, finishing and finally a working artifact. If you’ve got any ideas that you fancy making real, you should take them down there.
There was a lot of stuff on show at the hardware meetup tonight.
Brain had brought a 3D printed skull (roll on Halloween), a demo of his person tracking software which spots actors in scenes and his spinny thing with lights which is getting a new propellor.
Ross had brought along his press detection testing rig which taps a piano key and then monitors the response from the sensor array on the keyboard. Ian had his audio MIDI magic (which I didn’t get a picture of) and I was trying to take portraits with the old camera, this time using a rubber bulb and tube to trigger the shutter remotely.
It turns out that we can trigger the shutter OK, but we need to work on framing the shots. The Instax film that we are using doesn’t fill all the frame and I kept adjusting the camera to point the wrong way each time. Although I did manage to get the fire extinguisher in the picture rather neatly. Ho hum.
The next meetup will be on Wednesday 7th May in Hull MakerSpace. I’m going to try a different camera for portraits for this one.
I had all these plans for the Hardware Meetup today. I was hoping to persuade folks that the camera I was using to take portraits was so old that it only took black and white pictures. What a wizard April Fools joke that would have been. But then I found that the Instax back I was using to “process” the pictures was full of colour film. So that ended that.
But we did manage to get some good pictures though, along with some glorious failures. I was very concerned about focus. So I adjusted the bellows on the camera until I had a subject in focus at a particular distance. Then I cut a piece of string to that length. Now, to get a sharp picture I just had to put the bellows at my known position and then use the length of the string to set the distance of the subject from the camera. Worked for me, and the subjects. I did manage to lose a few shots. A couple were under exposed and two more went through the processor the wrong way. But I was able to hand out a few nicely sharp and well rendered prints, which was nice.
The next hardware meetup will be in three weeks on 22nd of April. I’m going to be further improving my portrait action then.
For the first time ever we are having a meetup on April Fool's day. With that in mind I can definitely confirm that we will not be taking your portrait with a 130 year old camera, playing with googly eyes or creating 3d printable picture mosaics. And there will be no Furbies present whatsoever.
Come along on Wednesday 1st April from 5:00pm in Hull MakerSapce in Hull Central Library to find out who the fool is. And bring your own foolish creations too.
We were all busy making things at the Hardware Meetup today. I took along a Googly Eyes kit that I found. A four hour print and six servos and we might have eyes that follow us around the room.
Fun was had, and then we went our for a meal. Our next meetup is in two weeks on the first of April. Which doesn’t sound foolish at all.
Took the big bellows camera to the Hardware Meetup and took a few portraits. Most of them came out and were taken home by their subjects. I didn’t take any other pictures of the event, despite having at least three cameras with me. Oh well. If you are having too much fun to take pictures, I reckon that counts as a win all by itself.
We had more Furbies at the hardware meet-up tonight. Brian had some software that got them all kind of singing together, which was fun. The next thing to do is try to turn them into a choir. We’ll be getting them together again at the next hardware meetup in two weeks, on the 4th of March.
Sharing a joke together
We didn’t have a quiet hardware meetup, the Furbies saw to that. Brian had three of them under the control of his software. We’re looking into downloading extra assets into them so that we can build a “Furbie Orchestra”. Code was written, bugs squashed and the Furbies sang a duet. Good times.
The next meetup will be in two weeks.
Great fun was had on our first Hardware Meetup field trip today. We we started with a look through the proud possessions of an accomplished engineer who is sadly now no longer with us. There was some amazing stuff there at very reasonable prices. I’ve got no particular need for a “CRT Tester/Rejuvenator” although I was tempted, particularly as it has a setting marked “Super Rejuvenate”.
I picked up some soldering hardware and everyone else found something interesting. Then it was back into the cars and over to Ross’s (is that the right number of sses?) place for a look at his latest piano hardware.
Player Piano plus mechanism
This manual piano has been made automatic by adding a mechanism underneath the keys that pushes up the back of the key and plays a note. The piano also has keyboard lights that can show which keys are playing, or help teach you keyboard skills.
Driving the notes
These are the solenoids which drive the keys from underneath the piano.
The two pianos are linked together
Baby Grand
Ross and his team have been making pianos that play themselves for a while now. They’ve branched out into keyboard sensing too, so that they can change any piano into a MIDI device by simply laying a sensor bar across the top of the keys. Tunes played on the otherwise unmodified baby grand are duplicated on the receiving piano.
Finally we headed for dinner at the Helal Tandoori in Louth which was excellent. After that it was time to head home. The next hardware meetup will be on the 5th of February, back in Hull Makerspace.
I feel that I should make it very clear that my blog has not been, and will never be, a place where you will encounter “AI Slop” which seems to be everywhere on the internets these days. In other news, this evening’s Hardware Meetup was Viking themed.
We’re having a Hardware Meetup in Hull Makerspace (top floor of Hull Central Library) starting at 5:00pm on Wednesday evening (10th December). You can arrive later if you like, but don’t arrive after 7:00pm because that’s when library shuts and we all go for dinner.
There’s a prize for whoever brings along the best Christmas Lights display. And everyone gets a mince pie and a chocolate. Please note that I’m not just doing this because I’ve found a great long string of neopixels. Oh no.
Please note that the time is not six past sixteen. And always wear shoes.
We had a very pleasant evening at the Hardware Meetup tonight. I was showing off the Connected Little Boxes Micro Python framework which is powering a couple of clocks that I’ve made. They worked great right up to the point where the input parser broke. Oh well.
Then it was off for dinner, which was great. Conversation turned to a study which has discovered that the brain has five ‘eras’ with one (a precipitous decline in the amount of “white matter” - whatever that means) starting at around my age. Then, when I got back to my car I discovered that I’d left my backpack in the restaurant. Perhaps the study is onto something….
There is a lot of detail in the gloom, Thanks to Ben for arranging the elements in this shot
We had great fun taking pictures and developing film at the Hardware Meetup tonight. Ian’s film, taken on a 100 year old camera, looks really good. My shots suffered from serious underexposure/developing, but I’ll have some scans tomorrow.
Update: By using a magical power called “Posting From the Future” I’ve added a picture. It seems that I seriously overestimated the power of the flash I was using. I think it looks good and properly atmospheric.
Im quite pleased with how this picture looks as well.
I’m getting bits and bobs together for the Film Processing Hardware Meetup on Wednesday this week (12th of November). We’ll have 120 and 35mm film plus some cameras to play with, along with some cameras to play with. We’ll take some pictures and then develop them. If you fancy having a go at analogue photography (or just want to see how it works) then come along to the MakerSpace at the top floor of Hull Central Library on Wednesday evening from 5:00pm. We’ll develop a few films and you’ll be able to take your negatives home with you (although they might be a bit wet).
Another fun meetup. With working, wandering robots. But at the next meetup the focus will be on photography (see what I did there?). I’ve been playing with “one-shot” developer, which makes developing black and white photographs as easy as it can be. At the next meetup I’m hoping we can take some pictures on film and then develop them during the evening. Should be fun. That will be on the 12th of November.
These folks are all coming…
We're going to have a mass robot rampage (well, at least 6) at the next Hardware Meetup in Hull Makerspace on the top floor of Hull Central Library on Wednesday 29th October. If you've always fancied controlling your own robot army this might be a chance to start.
I'm bringing 9 robots along to improve the odds of having 6 working. I'm also going to bring a bucket of bits for anyone who fancies building their own. But I’d like to keep the bucket if that’s OK.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
