Hack-a-weekend PM2.5

This weekend Valentin wanted to do a little hack-a-weekend as a surprise, he had ordered parts throughout the week and unveiled the weekend plan on wednesday to a few people, what he wanted to do was represent the PM2.5 data we’ve all heard about in some fun way. His initial idea involved those push button dolls that collapse when you press them from the bottom.

So with all the different PM2.5 sensors he could find the challenge began saturday. first was how do these things work! not exactly rocket science but they do mean looking up the datasheets to get the schematics and a little trial and error. then it was deciding what form it should take, perhaps a representation of a tree would be ideal! so with 3d printed parts the tree was assembled with rubber bands, unfortunately both the bands and 3d printed parts just were not working very well.

The 3d printed parts were scrapped in favor of Ping Pong balls just because we had (100′s) left over from a little prank on Lucio’s locker, and string!

Finally the little thing was built, hooked into the pachube/cosm/xively (or what ever you want to call yourself today) and data is starting to flow, we also had built a 2nd one so we can contrast the information and see which one is accurate to whats being captured (outside) just 800m from us at the US embassy in Shanghai.

so without further a-du meet the tree! well its version 1 of the tree sitting on top of burty, so we can spend some time understanding it’s readings before making a permanent one with the choosen sensor.

if you’re looking for the data, you can find it here, we’re not stating any facts and not guaranteeing the data either as we have nothing to calibrate against: https://xively.com/feeds/135383882

the code can be found on https://github.com/xinchejian/pm2.5-arduino

The pm25-tree is the data from the tree using a seeedstudio dust sensor – which doesn’t seem to be there accurate, where as the pm25 is test data from a sharp sensor which so far is accurate but blowing smoke across it did not change it where as the seeedstudio one did change, only time will tell.

stay tuned for more from Valentin

There’s a group buy happening right now! and a competition going on!

Dagu electronics has announced a competition: use a doodlebot to make the most awesome drawing to compete for prizes, plenty of prizes to be won! read about it here: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/37126

Lutz a long time member of XinCheJian has contacted them since we’re in china and negotiated a great deal if we do a group buy, our target.. at least 20 pieces and our price.. 198rmb/each

if you want to get a doodle bot and not participate in the competition instead that’s fine! but if you want to get in on the competition, then it’s even more awesome!

here is more information about the competition: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/37175

Sign up to the XinCheJian google group (email xinchejian+subscribe@googlegroups.com),  Send an email to xinchejian@googlegroups.com  titled “programming competition” with the words “i Pledge to buy X amount of Doodlebots if we succeed in our group buy” then get ready to send 198rmb to a group buy alipay account or drop into XinCheJian and hand over the cash to a staff member!  Lets put a deadline of May 22nd on this so we can hack the doodlebot sooner than later. Do not transfer or pay until Lutz gives us the word via email and verify it by checking http://xinchejian.com website.

Once the pledge is made, you’re on the hook for the cash!

Bragging rights, well deserved, the winner of this years Autonomous racing championship is EdwardRF with his entry XHD, a 10 second car that flew around the track, sticking like glue to the ground, nimble and hightech in one.

5 competitors competed for best time in time trials on the track for 2012, but only one would win. first up on the track was “Icecream Breaker” which unfortunately didn’t make it off the starting track.

The second contestant was Charlie “wallbanger” famed for it’s uncanny desire to hit every wall in the past, for this year it had an upgrade, 2 Sharp IR range sensors a powerful microservo, a high current motor driver all on top of an arduino nano built right into the original platform, he was no longer a wallbanger but a high powered racing car which clocked in at 7seconds in testing on the same course but different surface. Charlie set the time to beat at 14.62 seconds

XHD time to roll around, with a tough 14.62 seconds to beat, it started out on the track for 1 flawless lap, unfortunately the second lap was not as great, but it did clock in at 10.25seconds. this was the highest tech vehicle to race, PID controllers, wickedly expensive racing platform, 3 Sharp IR range sensors, 1 nano, 1 703n, 1 micro servo, 1 high power motor for the quad wheel drive-shaft with differential driving allowing it to take corners like no ones business.

With a little intermission Cherokey was ready to try again, this 4 wheel drive platform from dfrobot needed a little more time to work out the bugs but it was a great start, it could turn 360° on the spot! equipped with 4 Basic IR sensors, 4 powered wheel drive shaft and a nice base, unfortunately it’s fastest time on the track was 25.02 seconds with 1 collision making it 35.02 seconds.

With man behind the wheel in the only entrant into the User controlled group Stanley clocked in with Loader Shovel with 31.96 seconds, not a good start for human controlled. anyway he won by default.

Lio finally entered in with the Lone Ranger – unfortunately time and a new platform didn’t work out for him, it was a good show of walloping wall-banging!.

in winner takes all, EdwardRF took home the prize of 500rmb congratulations to EdwardRF, if you would like to challenge him, make sure you have a 10 second car or you’ll be paying the price of loosing to the champion.

Congratulations to those that built a 3D printer on the weekend, Lucio was excited and nervous to host this workshop, being his first ever one! You’ve all done very well and not given up! Look out for more improvements and more workshops from High Energy – i don’t sleep – Lucio!

Summary for Wednesday/本周三开放日综述

胡介鸣 – BlackBoxlab
Alex Cureton-Griffiths – SpaceGAMBIT

Wednesday Presenters/本周演讲者介绍

胡介鸣 will be presenting blackboxlab and some of their installation work done previously and how you can also get involved. Using art, electronics, design, interaction, any action! check out http://www.blackboxlab.org

Alex from SpaceGAMBIT will hopefully be presenting this evening, it’s been hard to pin him down, so we just tied a rope to his rocketship!

who else? *your name here* it’s also adhoc, so get ready, just keep it to 9 minutes plus Q&A afterwards

A few of us have gotten together to organize a Robo race on the 16th of December 2012 at 1pm, we’re racing autonomous, it’s purely for fun but also bragging rights for the end of the season.

If you would like to join us to race (you can be a spectator but its more fun to join in) then sign up for the event, to enter Autonomous racing you’ll need to drop 100rmb into the robo racing box, the ultimate winner will take the winnings, if there is no winner, then the money goes into XinCheJian’s donation box.  We’re doing it for fun with a little incentive.

If you would like to race a line follower please sign up, there is no prizes for that category and is free to enter (for now, but if you want an incentive then we can put an entry fee on this). Who knows, there might not be a robo racing season next year, so build and join in!

1: autonomous course – entry 100rmb winner takes all

http://wiki.xinchejian.com/wiki/RoboRacing (Challenge track)

2: line follower – entry ???rmb winner takes all?

http://wiki.xinchejian.com/wiki/Analog_line_follower

http://xinchejian.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/track-201204.pdf << track

Register here: http://xinchejian.com/event/?ee=156

Summary for Wednesday/本周三开放日综述

Andy Shum from BASF will be in tonight announcing the new global product design competition which has been opened up to hacker spaces to participate, with 6,000 Euros on the line and a paid for trip to France for the winners – dont miss out, we’re also opening up the floor for ad-hoc presentations of 9 minutes, all are welcome, surprise us all.

Wednesday Presenters/本周演讲者介绍

Andy Shum participated in a spaghetti bridge building competition previously, he’s going to talk about the product design competition and why they opened it up to Hackerspaces around the world, get the scoop and ask some questions. http://stinkybad.com/quiet

who else? *your name here* it’s adhoc, so get ready, just keep it to 9 minutes plus Q&A afterwards

Upcoming Events/近期活动安排

Saturday 27th 1:00 to 5:30pm http://xinchejian.com/event/?ee=149 Build your own award winning swarm robot and help the team out, they will continue to develop the swarm robot platform and your contributions during the workshop will help them do so, build your own 10dollar robot for only 300rmb, act now and register and pay only 280rmb

Just announced at World Maker Faire New York 2012 are the winners of the AFRON $10 robot challenge. There were three categories: Tethered, Traditional (Roaming), All-in-One (Self-Contained).

The winners Traditional (Roaming) Category, which Xinchejian entered it’s SwarmRobots in are:

1. Kilobot: Harvard, USA
2. SwarmRobot: China
3. SEG: MIT, USA
4. DiscBot: USA

That’s Xinchejian in second place, behind Harvard University’s funded research group and ahead of the MIT University!

Since entering the competition SwarmRobots we have been adding more capability including object detection, communication and wireless charging. If you would like to be part of Xinchejian or the SwarmRobots team, come to Xinchejian’s free Open Night, every Wednesday at 7:30PM to find out more or start with these videos!

A successful workshop to build SwarmRobots with ten attendees was held last Saturday. There were some minor hiccups with part changes and delivery, but the batteries and chargers have now arrived. Workshop attendees can be collect these at the Wednesday Open night and presentation night or at Thursday nights SwarmRobot makers night, or by arrangement.

The SwarmRobots have also been entered into a worldwide educational competition, see our entry here.

A few updates from projects in XinCheJian at the moment, Edward, Lutz and the rest of the swarmbots team have been working late in the evenings on a daily basis and producing good results! Stephany helped to print the swarm player designed by Valentin (without the e).

Valentin has been working on the Reprap over the weekend and this week, keep an eye out or an ear out for it printing.

Paul has been working on the CNC mill, the computer has 8GB SSD thanks to Edward, which means its quite fast!

Resistors are now available sorted by resistance, cut into 10′s and hung on the wall near the kitchen, that’s 10 resistors for 1rmb

=Wednesday Presenters=

David Li, the Foreman of XinCheJian And Roger Mu king of the jungle, will be kicking off the Hydroponics corner, a group is forming around Hydroponics, Areoponics – lets see what seeds they will plant first.

Li Xiang a Ph.D Candidate from Shanghai Jiao Tong University will be presenting his project and also seeking help in an experience involving machine learning and robotics along the lines of Factory Automation for Docks.

The rest of the evening will be met with discussions and people working on projects

XinCheJian will be holding a young maker faire on June 2nd, if you would like to help out or show your projects then please contact us.

Lio and Gilbert won the first place with total load of 7.65kg! The winning team got an Arduino UNO board and some components!

Sherry and Min Lin won the second place with total load of 5.48kg!

CSTD team won the third place with total load of 3.61kg!

Congratulations to first 3 winning teams and thank you all for participating! A Special thank you to the people at TechYiZu for sponsoring the event.

Spencer from the new website Usable Devices (“Devices that work, those that don’t and those that need to be created!“) has already some interesting writing on its blog with both technical articles such as an attempt to build a robot for the next roborace, a flattering article towards XinCheJian with a profile of two out of the three founders (the other being of course Min Lin Hsieh) and a report on the presentation from MakeSense at the last Wednesday Open House. Always interesting for us to get an outsider perspective to our space and insights in more of the local projects!