新车间 [XinCheJian]

Flamingo EDA brought to the Xinshanzhai talk is the Lego compatible sensor block! This is very awesome. I WANT ONE! Actually, I want a DOZENS and a bucket of Lego blocks! ]]>

Xindanwei end to end. Ricky kicks off the event with A.R.T. and gave a short introduction to how he got started with the project and how ART was built. Then we have the introduction to the HCR robots by the presenter also named Ricky. HCR is an open source robot built to for home caring. And some random photos from the events. ]]>

As I was trying to hook up the motor to Arduino, I realized that there wasn’t any H Bridge and it was way too cold to go out and get it. Hmm… I figure there must be some H Bridge on the control board I just rip out of the car. As I located the two H bridge on the board, I notice the RX-2 chip. Out of curiosity, I decide to google for this chip. To a pleasant surprise, I found RX-2/TX-2 Datasheet in Chinese and guide for exactly the board in the car and remote. Decide to replace RX-2 in the car with Arduino so the H-Bridge on board can be reused and the RF for the remote can still work. Still trying to figure out what I am going to do with those remote control signal. A few facts about RX-2/TX-2 chip I found is that the RC frequency can be adjusted by different resistance from 100K to 500K Ohm between OSCI/OSCO pins. ]]>

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OpenSourceCamp Shanghai上有很精彩对开源和山寨的讨论，王江川写了这篇相当有趣的文章。 — 这两日，看到大家在坛子里炒得确实很开锅，不时冒出一些新颖的单词来，什么云计算、创新工厂、开源商业模式，同时又似乎总被一个土的掉牙的词—“山寨”时不时搅和着。 耳边被山寨这个词浸濡许久了，今天，抽空进行点思考和梳理。 “山寨”，究竟何方神圣也？ 从一开始的莫不关注，到身临其境，再至醍醐灌顶。不断地清晰和觉悟到，山寨本质上就是一种自然界创新精神与文化的代言。 国人发明各种辞藻的本事的确很强，乍一听，山寨，直愣愣就往水泊梁山108将而去。仔细寻思来去，竟然，极其地精准和绝妙，缘来，这背后其实是一回事情儿。 之前，看到一段探索频道的节目。 说的是一群勇于探险的科学家经过生死经历在刚果河考察而得出的一些发现。他们在刚果河中发现了很多之前不被人类所了解的不同鱼种，其中有些可能是新物种。我看到那些奇形怪状的鱼儿，有巨大凶猛的虎鱼，有像小手指那么大小的没有视力且出水就死的不明鱼种，有一种长着像大象鼻子模样的鱼儿，总之是稀奇古怪，像来自外星球。那群科学家似乎很兴奋，因为他们发现了新的基因宝库。对此奇异现象，他们做出了科学的分析：刚果河可能是世界上最深的河流，有一处地方居然深达230米，同时其深度和水流变化多端，形成很多个隔离开的区域。快速的流水和强大的急流制造了小型鱼类不能经过的天然屏障，而这恰恰是鱼类多样性的温床，因此在自然隔绝并经过了千万年的演化后，现实世界中就形成了刚果河物种工厂。 其实，再仔细想一想，其实分布在全球不同地理位置上的任何一个文化或民族或物种，以至于，你能想到的任何一个创新的、不同于其他事物属性的东西，是不是都要有一个或者是地理位置上，或者是文化领域里，或者是虚拟现实里，都相对割裂，同时又不乏与外界能完成各类不同交换的体系呢。看看，祖国的西南，横断山脉那些沟壑和激流造就了植物群落的丰富性，动物种类的多态性，以至于少数民族的多样性。 如果要我来这些个割裂的体系起个名称，我认为就可以是“山寨”。 仍然拿梁山泊占山为王的绿林好汉来说事，至于解释他们是为了占山为王建设自己理想中的桃花源也好，还是被社会分割淘汰逼到走投无路也好，反正，我认为，实际情况是他们在自己都闹不清楚的缘由下，给自己圈了一个山寨，打上替天行道的大旗，摇身一变，原先那些打家劫舍的、卖人肉包子的都似乎走上了正当营生的道路。也就是说，原先的盗版正在向正版验明正身之中。 不可否认，如果梁山泊接着能够自我日臻完善，不断精进去干一番不同天地的惊天伟业，是可以修得正果的，摸不准就创新出一个梁山号的朝代来。最最不济，看看澳大利亚吧，那些被流放的罪犯，生生不息，没用几百年，就建立了一个富饶的国度。 从某种角度来说，梁山泊的好汉们物以群分，人以类聚，给自己营造了一个创新的山寨氛围，这个不经意或有意中建立的寨子和刚果河湍流中或横断山脉中自然界形成的大大小小的寨子本质上没有什么区别的。 山寨理想中的悲哀其实就是忍不住地自责和自问：“我究竟是不是真命天子啊？”直至这背后，偷偷地问自己：“究竟我值不值钱啊？”从此也引发了我们坛子中众多关于山寨的纷纷扰扰的事端来。 感叹于前年，说是到湖南调研，主方实际安排了个红色之旅。毛主席韶山冲旧居的那个地盘啊，真是好风水啊。背山面水，独辟一峪。话说导游领我们来到主席家的灶房里，说他老人家当时年轻时闹革命，很多会议就是在这个灶房里开的。我突然解读为，原来革命的星星之火是从灶房里燎原的，真是太伟大了。于是乎，从此想开了去，当时William Hewlett、Dave Parkard的惠普车库，后来成为加州第976号的历史地标，也是硅谷的诞生地；而乔布斯年少时的兴趣，就是与好友沃兹一道，在自家的小车库里琢磨电脑，鼓捣出了苹果。此刻，一下子豁然起来，灶房、车库、手工作坊、四川的茶馆。。。。。。也似乎都是相通的道理，至于叫不叫山寨还真没什么本质的差别。 然而，麻烦来了，有那么一些人，想搞一个什么的灶房联盟，或者车库联盟，或者茶馆联盟。。。。。 这确实是非常好的想法，如果成功，把那些个灶房也好、车库也好，统统地联盟到一起，即使广种薄收，却也是从道义上也好，从成功保障系数上也好，总之，看似是一个极其完美的组合，好像可以保证将来的帝王将相将从自己的田野里长出来。但是，凭我的直觉来看，也许，创新的梦工厂（其实就是另一种投资基金联盟的别称）可以制造出一些喧闹的中不溜溜的物件来，但真正的王者似乎一般不会去选择这样的田地，至少，某一刻，即将有情况时，也一定要从梦工厂之类的机构中决裂开来。毕竟，终其一场，梦字开头，梦自结尾。 我反而崇尚，如果，有多多的灶房，如果有多多的车库，如果有多多的茶馆，如果每个灶房、车库、茶馆里都有那么一些人在废寝忘食地鼓捣一些东西，该是多么美丽的一件事情。那样，一定有更多不可思议并千奇百怪的鱼种出现，而且，终究，一定有大鱼会从中诞生，也许，就是那让科学家望而生畏的虎鱼。 我不反对，开源同盟中的一些优异者弄个公司出来，琢磨个好的商业模式，利益化运作一些事情。只是，我总觉得，即使你鼓捣个公司出来，最好从心底里还是把它看成个灶房、车库、茶馆什么来着，并同时保证原先在自个儿那“山寨”中的精神气儿，接着鼓捣手头的那些东西，千万别和公司形态、商业模式太较劲儿，那样子，有天，长成大鱼的几率要非常的大一些。 Richard 2011-1-4 ——————————————————————– 王江川 Richard * [email protected] ——————————————————————– ]]>

Photos from the new robot contest for kids in Shanghai called RoboMaster. Looks a lot of fun! ]]>

Xinchejian kicked off the first of the “Xinshanzhai” series of talks and discussion on how “Shanzhai” micro manufacture efficiency combined with open innovation process and open source hardware will change how China innovate. We had the honor to have Eric Pan, CEO and Founder of Seeed Studio to give the talk “Facilitate Open Innovation – The Seeed Studio Approach” [Speech Slides]. Seeed Studio was founded 3 years ago in Shenzhen to explore combining open source hardware and the electronics supply chain in Shenzhen. Today, Seeed Studio employes over 30 engineers and support staffs with over USD$1 million in annual revenue mainly from US, Europe and Japanese customers which are 98% of its business. Seeed does not yet focus on Chinese market as Eric points out that the tinkers/makers community in China has not yet matured enough for Seeed and there is not enough community. Seeed Studio has so far depends on words of mouth of open hardware community for its marketing and will launch its first marketing campaign in 2011. The following is one of the first ads to be run in Make Magazine. Seeed’s current focus is to grow its WISH platform described by Eric as a ecosystem to support open source hardware designers to better manage the product life cycle. WISH platform let designers and users propose requests and new design and through the community voting and pre-ordering process to help to bring products to the market. The process is best illustrated by this slide from the speech. Seeed also works with partners sites such as Dangerous Prototypes to promote the platform. Eric’s 30 minutes talk was followed by over 2 hours of heated discussion on the topics of open source hardware, innovation and manufacture. The talk and discussions were livecast on Sina Weibo by Steven Cheng under #新山寨#. ]]>

Saw Ricky came in with a RC car today and kicked his Robot RC car project. Very cool! Read more… Also, spoke NPI today about hosting robot RC car race in their place in the future. A robot F-1! That would be fun.]]>

Wow, this is pretty big news for us at Xinchejian. Google releases Android robot libraries. In China, we have access to the biggest variety of Android devices, all thanks to the Shanzhai industry.

(Via DIYDrone.)

the one designed by kinderkram. It uses gyros from Wii Motion Plus and accelerometer from Shanzhaied Nunchuk. Read More…]]>