7月17日周三开放日

Make something this summer!   Processing workshop went well on the weekend, for those that missed it, well worth checking out when it comes up again. just a friendly reminder that if you havn’t paid your membership dues, please do so at the space. in August paul will be running a free Arduino workshop for members only make sure you have your own Arduino kit, buy through the space to support XinCheJian. also let us know what you think about the new design on the xinchejian website. A friendly reminder that XinCheJian is a hackerspace and not a co-working space/cheap office space, its fine to work on your projects but not cool to run your business out of the space, people involved in this are kindly being asked to move to a co-working facility, we can make introductions if you need them. Just a reminder, if you would like to socialize or network please wait until after the presentations or go outside to give the presenters a chance to.. present.

Summary for Wednesday/本周三开放日综述

• Sunny Sun Jr will be giving a brief insight to the biohack lab he wants to setup and ways you can join
• David Li will be showing off his new hydroponic system named the Vortex
• DFRobot is going to be opening the sumobot challenge, XinCheJian is already forming a team to smash them!

Wednesday Presenters/本周演讲者介绍

• The Famous Sunny Sun Jr wants to kick off the biohack lab, find out how you can be involved and what they are planning on doing, glow in the dark goldfish anyone?
• David li, a constant builder has his new system, making your own vortex to process worm casters or suck the world into
• DFRobot is going to introduce sumobot challenge this evening!

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Ladies and gentleman! start your engines, we’re hosting the XinCheJian Autonomous robo-racing at the Shanghai Library on the 3rd floor THIS Sunday XinCheJian’s Toughest robot challenge is about to begin, Autonomous Robo racing, all based on sensors and time on the race track, from 1pm – 3pm we’ll be racing at shanghai library and competing for the fastest time on the track!]]>

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]]>

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!]]>

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.

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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]]>