==== Hacking Wednesdays ==== If you want to try your robot in this weekends race and have yet to finish it or build one, dont fear, come down to XinCheJian tonight and buy a R/C car like rickys 70rmb, rip the guts out and replace it with an Arduino 180rmb, theNelsons h-bridge shield 50rmb and 2 ultra sonic sensors 35rmb.. everything you need is in the space, not only will you be a hacker but you’ll learn some awesome skills while you do it. Tonight Min Lin and Ricky will be around to share stories from their recent hacking journeys. Get an insight into processing. we have a special guest coming down who’ll be setting up a processing workshop, find out whats involved tonight. Michael (RubberDucky) will be drilling into the walls to setup some computer benches, and also hooking up his mega-super-awesome-button-box for the new restricted toys (lathes, mills, bandsaw, drill) Paul will be discussing the lock-picking study with interested participants. Lio will be figuring out how he’s going to do the bamboo go-kart with those interested for the ben heck challenge (find out more tonight) and how you can be involved. After the event around 9pm the hackers will take to the tracks for some go-karting “research” at Chang Feng park indoor race track for some super awesome driving skills “bring a head mounted camera” If you thought this Wednesday is fun, wait for the weekend..

==== This Weekend ====

Saturday – all day: Organic waste workshop.. find out how to make bio-diesel, sign up and more information here: http://xinchejian.com/event/?regevent_action=register&event_id=55&name_of_event=OrganicWasteRecyclingWorkshop Saturday afternoon – 5 presentations from XinCheJian will be delivered at _Barcamp_ Shanghai so come and show your support for xinchejian.. sign up and more information here: http://techyizu.org/shanghai-barcamp-2011-september-24 Sunday morning – Ardublock workshop.. never programmed in arduino before? use ardublock to visually program. sign up here: http://xinchejian.com/event/?regevent_action=register&event_id=58&name_of_event=ArduBlockWorkshop Sunday afternoon – Robo Racing championship, find out if the Title stays with XinCheJian for a 3rd victory, find out if anyone can take on theNelsons or mindstorm robots! Man vs Machine will Machine win again! Sign up here: http://xinchejian.com/event/?regevent_action=register&event_id=57&name_of_event=RoboracingCompetition ]]>

Understanding and mastering digital logic is a key part of becoming a better hacker. As part of getting better skills towards this, we’ve had our first FPGA workshop Sunday September 18th at XinCheJian. The workshop was given by Tinghui “Steven” WANG with the assistance of Qi “Kiki” Yao, both engineers from Digilent Inc. They demonstrated the power of FPGA through various demos such as a 720p real-time video hardware encoding and the FPGA acting as a Nintendo and executing the Super Mario ROM in addition to showing a large variety of FPGA-based projects. This was followed by step-by-step instructions to create and test our first few VHDL design using the Xilinx ISE WebPack FPGA design software. They’ve generously donated a Nexys3 Xilinx FPGA development board available for use to any interested XinCheJian member. Please refer to our initial XinCheJian Wiki page on our efforts to teach digital logic using 7400 ICs and FPGA. Feel free to add your own perspective to that documentation!]]>

Knowing what to do in an Emergency could mean the difference of Life or Death. At XinCheJian we use tools on a day to day basis that could inflict serious harm so we want to take steps to be there in the unlikely event of an emergency. NOTICE: This is not a license to repair a person, it will provide you the skills and confidence to act as a first responder and when used prudently can equip you with the necessary life saving skills. The Course is two courses in one, Primary care and Secondary care developed by Emergency First Response which follows ILCOR standards. Date and Times 2 day course, signups close 1 week before due to ordering Material. Day 1: 8:30am – 12noon Saturday 17th September @ XinCheJian Day 2: 9am – 1pm Sunday 18th September @ XinCheJian Instructor Paul Adams – @nihaopaul – #481827 IDCS, EFRi + CFC What should you wear? No skirts/shirts, something comfortable, loose and can get a little dirty – it’s XinCheJian! What should you do before the course? Sign-up, collect the book and read it Communication: English Material: English/Traditional Chinese (note: not Simplified) – Pre-order before the event. Cost: The Following costs include certification costs and Material fees and are non-negotiable. Members: 445rmb Non-members: 745rmb (Become a XinCheJian member and gain access to the other workshops the rest of the month.)   What will be covered Primary care:

• Scene Assessment
• Barrier Use
• Primary Assessment
• Rescue Breathing
• One Rescuer, Adult CPR
• Conscious/Unconscious Choking Adult
• Serious Bleeding Management
• Shock Management
• Spinal Injury Management
• Automated External Defibrillator (AED)

Secondary Care

• Injury Assessment
• Illness Assessment
• Bandaging
• Splinting for Dislocations and Fractures
• Burns

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Liu Yan, Chen Xu from XinDanwei

Ricky Ng-Adam, Min Lin Hsieh from XinCheJian

Tony Bacigulapo, “Mayor” of New Work City, New York

Notes from the moderator, An Xiao are available. Quotes:

At a hacker space like Xinchejian, this might mean bringing in hackers of different kinds, from software programmers to roboticists to urban farmers. The point is to find that magic spark of synergy that a more homogenous group wouldn’t be able to provide.

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CET Academic Programs, the same program that found us our fantastic summer intern Jonathan Kalin to XinCheJian. We had the pleasure to have a new paying member join us: Scott, who’s been very active in the urban farming project. We also welcomed a new visitor (Severin, originally from Germany) who immediately got to work helping Michael assembling a new CNC mill and trying to repair the broken Apple Time Capsule that Scott brought in (with some impressive capacitors sparks!). All this in the middle of a very busy evening with Paul fixing the Internet access (a simple re-crimp on the RJ45 cable did the trick), soldering together ultra-bright LEDs for the interactive plant project and taking apart the bubble jet printer with Michael. In the meantime, Lio whipped up a converter from 12V to 6V for the alarm battery (with a homemade heatsink) and figured out the rookie mistake that Ricky made preventing him from controlling the servos with the Freescale XL Star board (note to self: all grounds need to be connected to each other!). Ricky also helped out with Fan’s piano-driven RGB LEDs project MCU software. Lili was also in the space to promote her Bee Housing project (codename: Goldendust). Of note also is the successful daytrip to the Beijing road electronics market where Nelson bought the components for this weekend H-Bridge soldering extravaganza. See you next week!

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Participants last preparations:

Participants self presentation:

Racing!

The Winners: Nelson Zhang (Autonomous Wall-E) and Michael Liao (Remote controlled Tank)
A big THANK to Shanda Innovations for sponsoring 2 E-Book readers as prices for the winners!

Roborace Contestants and their Creators:

Thumbs up to all the participants for their great work! Thank you to Shanda Innovations for being our generous sponsor! Thank you to TimeOut magazine for featuring our event! Thank you to DFRobot and RoboticFan particularly Ricky Ye and Rocky for co-organizing this event! Thank you to XinDanWei for promoting our event! Thank you to everyone who visited us yesterday! Thank you to those who cannot come for your mental support! Thank you to Andi for the great poster and flyer design! Thank you to Paul for sponsoring the posters printouts! Thank you to Bindy for helping out on translations and selling drinks! Thank you to Michael for sponsoring his E-book for next competition and buying drinks to the participants! Thank you to John for helping out on event organization! Thank you to Airie for promoting the event on RenRen! Thank you to Min Lin for promoting, coordinating and organizing the event!

We’re planning to have the next Roboracing at the end of August, stay tuned!

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This event is open to everyone, please bring your friends and family! Register here. The competition will be in 2 parts: * Autonomous robot car racing * Remote controlled robot car racing ==>Competition Rules<== If you wish to become participant at the racing, please send email to: [email protected] If you wish to become sponsor of this event, please send email to: [email protected] Here’s some pictures of the last Roboracing event.

Registered teams:

Team 1: Lauren Pan (Toy car modification robot) Team 2: Barry Xu (DIY robot) Team 3: Daniel (2WD Mobile robot kit) Team 4: Zhang Chen (Andriod control HCR) Team 5: Jiang Gui Long/Wu Tao/Zhang Jie ( Android Control HCR) Team 6: Rockets (Tank mobile robot) Team 7: Unknown (LEGO mobile robot) Team 8: Ricky Ye (HCR robot) Team 9: Ricky Ng-Adam (Autonomous robot toy car – ART) Team 10: Lutz Michaelis (Autonomous Beetleduino) Team 11: Paul Adams (Hoverbot Hubert) Team 12: Nelson Zhang (Autonomous Wall-E) Team 13: Lionello Lunesu (LEGO mobile robot) Team 14: David Li (Soccerbot) ]]>

How to make music in Linux

Cross-compiling to ARM and Introduction to Panda board

Around 50 persons showed up even though it was raining like crazy outside! A big THANK to all the participants for their support!

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XinCheJian is proud to host Dorkbot Shangahi #4 on Sunday May 29th. Dorkbot is a group of affiliated organizations worldwide that sponsor grassroots meetings of artists, engineers, designers, scientists, inventors, and anyone else working under the very broad umbrella of electronic art. The dorkbot motto is “people doing strange things with electricity”.

There were 4 artists who presented their work:

Wu Juehui // Juehui is a New Media Artist. In recent years, Wu Juehui operates on the potential interface between art and science, between body and media in close collaboration with research institutes for neural engineering, automatic control and computer graphics.

Harald Haraldsson // Harald is the founder of Wonwei and presented some of their latest work, he also talked about how creative coding can be applied to computational design.

Wang Changcun // Media artist based in Hangzhou, with works exhibited in China, France, Netherlands and Belgium. He talked about his creative process using Max/MSP, Processing, and Flash.

Jingni Wang // Media artist based in Shanghai. She graduated from China Academy of Art, Intermedia Art Department and has completed artist residencies in Netherlands, Belgium, and China. Jingni Wang presented her wearable computing project called Lover’s Instrument. She also talked about social sustainability.

More pictures

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