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]]>

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Announcements this week:

1. Ladies, it’s your turn, sign up for 3months at XinCheJian and get 1 month for free, starting.. now
2. sign up for the basics of Character Animation and learn the tricks that Pixar and Disney used to create some of the most long running cartoons to date.
3. Movie night this friday: Moulin Rouge – 730pm

Summary for Wednesday/本周三开放日综述

1. Paul – sha256({Human})
2. Enno – Character Animation
3. More..

Wednesday Presenters/本周演讲者介绍

1. Paul will be demoing sha256({Human}), a talk he wanted to do at barcamp but was unable to make it this year, this uses face tracking and recognition using opensource tools
2. Enno will give an introduction to the upcoming workshops this weekend at XinCheJian, A teacher, an Artist both in Design and Music, this is one cool cat!
3. Ad-Hoc.. this could be you

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 [email protected]),  Send an email to [email protected]  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!]]>

5月15日周三开放日 If you haven’t signed on for the workshop this weekend sign up now before it’s too late for stop motion animation and giving personalities to anything you can dream of! Rob van Kranenburg from the Council of Internet of Things is coming down next month and he’s bringing some people with him, keep an eye out on that one. Announcements this week:

1. Movie Night – 15th of May 7:30PM (friday) – Gunbuster Night!
2. Workshops for Month of Cinematography has been announced, sign up to what’s left.

Summary for Wednesday/本周三开放日综述

• Oculas Rift demo
• D Programming
• Ad-hoc presentation

Wednesday Presenters/本周演讲者介绍

• Oculus rift, you’ve heard so much about it but have you experienced it? tonight we have a hands on demonstration.. simulate falling from the sky in an intense hyper interaction.
• Lio is going to be giving an introduction to D Programming and why it makes sense to learn D instead of C++ where the programming paradigm is better suited. This will follow on later next month with a workshop to getting started with D.
• A Maker presentation is also scheduled for this evening with an introduction to who they are and what they want to achieve in the community for their first project, no mention on names just yet.

There will be Internet of Things China 2013 Conference & Exhibitionin Shanghai from June 4 to 5. More information about the conference here.

Rob van Kranenburg founded Council, a think tank for the Internet of Things, to bring this latter perspective into the heart of the debates. He is Chair of the Working Group Societal of the IOT Forum, member of the Expert Group on IOT for the European Commission, and Stakeholder Coordinator for IoT-A. Mr. van Kranenburg will travel to Shanghai for IOT 2013 China.

Rob is good friends of both XinCheJian and Xindanwei and we are happy to have him coming to XinCheJian for a night of Internet of Things on June 5th. The event will start at 7pm in XinCheJian (1035 Changle Lu, 2F) featuring these speakers:

• Rob van Kranenburg: Internet of Things
• Dr. J. (Sjaak) Wolfert: SmartAgriFood
• David Li: Makers and IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT); imagine a world where everything can be both analogue and digitally approached – reformulates our relationship with objects – things- as well as the objects themselves. Currently we can discern two main blocks of thought on IoT. The first is a reactive framework of ideas and thought that sees IoT as a layer of digital connectivity on top of existing infrastructure and things. This position sees IoT as a manageable set of convergent developments on infrastructure, services, applications and governance tools. It is assumed that, as in the transition from mainframe to Internet some business will fail and new ones will emerge, this will happen within the current governance, currency end business models. The second is a proactive framework of ideas and thought that sees IoT as a severely disruptive convergence that is unmanageable with current tools, as it will change the notion of what data and what noise is from the supply chain on to ‘apps’. Read more (PDF) for the lecture .