Beta Forums
Ipswich Makerspace now have Forums, anyone can register and post so please make use of them. They are in beta at the moment so if you have any comments please let us know.
To try them out visit forums
Author: Keith Ellis
Pi Wars 2015
At the last CamJam event, one of the talks was titled Pi Wars 2015.
The announcement can be seen here:
So for those who do not know, the Ipswich Makerspace entered the 2014 event, and we actually did very well. We cam first in the under £75 category which we were all very please with. The few weeks leading up to the event were very busy getting Tractor Bot ready for the event, with some very late nights. The event on the day however was very enjoyable and we all had a great time.
Frank put together a video demonstrating some of the achievements of Tractor Bot last year and can be seen here:
This year we have a very good base to start from, so development should be much easier. The rules have not been announced yet, but the challenges have, they are listed below
- Obstacle course (with different obstacles than 2014)
- Skittles
- Straight-line speed test
- Robot vs Robot Duel
- Three-Point-Turn
- Line follower course
- Proximity alert
- Code quality
- Aesthetics
- Build quality
- Best blogging team
In adddtion there will also be prizesfor the following:
- Smallest robot
- Most featured robot
- Most innovative robot
So this is a call for help, we would very much like to enter Tractor Bot version 2 this year but myself and Phil do not want to take the lead. We need at least a couple of people with lots of energy and vision to follow this though, you will obviously get lot of support from the Makerspace. Reviewing how last year went, we probably need a lead code developer and a hear hardware developer. Once of the challenges is for the best blogging team so we could probably also do with a lead blogger.
If this sounds interesting to you, please put your hand up. It would be lovely to win for a second year but we need your help.
If you want to keep up to date with the latest Pi Wars news, sign up for alerts at the official Pi Wars page
Linux Voice, issue 7
Another month passes and another issue of Linux Voice is open sourced.
This month it is issue 7, originally going on sale in October 2014 and they cover the following:
The full issue can be downloaded here:(95MB)
- Distrohopper – Siduction, Zorin, GhostBSD and OpenElec: PDF
- Gaming On Linux: PDF
- OSCON 2014: PDF
- Feature: Find your perfect Linux distro: PDF
- Feature: Raspberry Pi B+: PDF
- Feature: Elementary OS: PDF
- FAQ: BSD: PDF
- Interview: Thomas Voss of the Mir project: PDF
- Review: KDE 5: PDF
- Review: CamJam EduKit: PDF
- Review: Mathematica 10: PDF
- Review: LibreOffice 4.3: PDF
- Review: Stellarium 0.13: PDF
- Book Reviews: Tubes: A journey to the center of the internet, Great North Road, Dealing With Disrespect and Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking: PDF
- Group test: IRC clients: PDF
- Core technology: Get plugged in with UDP: PDF
- FOSSPicks: PDF
- Tutorial: Void your Raspberry Pi’s warranty: PDF
- Tutorial: Program electronic music with Sonic Pi: PDF
- Tutorial: Data analysis using Python and MySQL: PDF
- Tutorial: Power up your shell: PDF
- Tutorial: Write and publish outlines with Fargo: PDF
- Coding: Reverse engineer a device driver for a USB toy car: PDF
- Coding: Master Bash scripting: PDF
- Code ninja: Programmer’s golf: PDF
- Coding: Konrad Zuse, (nearly) the German Turing: PDF
- Masterclass: Use Samba to share files with Windows users: PDF
OpenTech 2015
On 13th June just gone OpenTech 2015 happened. It was an event sponsored by the Open Data Institute.
The event hosted talks of various kinds, all relating to Open Tech and open data particularly. Although I did not go, or even realise it was happening, looking at their web site it looks like they had a good selection of talks. Some of which have been made available in either audio or video form.
So if you want to learn about some great open data projects this is the place to go. Unfortunately the talk about The Great British Public Toilet Map is not online, but I’m sure there will be other things to take your interest.
Ryanteck Debug Clip
The Ryanteck Debug Clip allows the Raspberry Pi serial console to be controlled over a standard USB cable from another computer. This is great where you have a headless Pi and are unable to get it on the network to SSH in. Ryanteck have provided instructions for using the Debug Clip with the Linux and Windows operating systems. But I use OSX on a Mac so I thought I’d give it a go to see if I could get it to work.
It turns out Ryan picked the Microchip MCP2221 IC as the brains of the board and this IC does not require any drivers on OSX 10.7 or greater. This is much better than the generic console cable I have been using to date where the driver needs to be re-installed after every OS update.
It was really easy to use, if you want to see how to use it yourself, take a look at this video I produced.
CamJam – Report
On 6th June the CamJam team held their latest Raspberry Pi event. Once again it was at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. I had the opportunity to attend this one and dragged the family along. Although I could not stay for the whole event I had a great time.
Some of the key highlights were:
- Andy Proctor gave a very inspiration talk on why the Raspberry Pi is not just for kids. Andy has been involved in the Ipswich Makerspace for the past few months and has now taken up the challenge of hosting the Ipswich Raspberry Jam We shall be offering Andy all our support and you can see his talk CamJam talk here:
- Jimbo Uberscuba, who also visits the Ipswich Makerspace regularly gave a great talk on programming with Java on the Pi, his talk can be seen below:
- Other things of interest, a USB key which can be programmed easily on a laptop with wifi or LAN settings, so that it can be inserted into the Pi and upon booting the Pi’s wifi or LAN settings automatically update. Making it easy to connect a Pi to a network without needing a monitor, great for headless setups. It was called PiConfig and the website is here
- PiWars 2015 was also announced, but I will post separately about this.
- If you are interested in seeing any of the other talks from CamJam June 2015, they can be found here.
CamJam – June 2015
I’ve just received the CamJam programme for this weekend, being held on 6th June 2015 in Cambridge, I think tickets are all gone, but it’s looking like a good one. Both Jimbo Uberscuba and Andy Proctor from the Makerspace are giving talks and there is also some planned news on this years PiWars, likely to be in December again.
It would be good if Ipswich Makerspace can enter PiWars again this year to fight to retain our title, we have a good base to build on. If anyone wants to be involved this year please speak up. Hopefully next week we will have more details.
The programme can be downloaded here – CamJam programme
Open Tech Calendar
Did you know there was an Open Tech Calendar. Well there is. It can be found here http://opentechcalendar.co.uk/
Since we are tech based I thought it would be rude not to put us on there, our events can be found here http://opentechcalendar.co.uk/group/283-ipswich-makerspace. There is no clever linking going on here, they have been entered manually. Therefore please use this website as the source of the latest information.
SQL for beginners – part two
So the next meeting, Thursday 28th May will see Tim run the second part of his three part SQL course. This time we are planning to have access to the break out room to ensure other making and discussion is not hindered.
Tim will be discussing advanced data retrieval, this will be an interactive session so please remember to bring your laptops along and make sure you have access to a ‘proper’ text editor. It makes lift so much easier.
SQL for beginners
The next Ipswich Makerspace meeting is rapidly approaching. It is being held on Thursday 23rd April between 19:00 and 22:00 at Holy Trinity Church.
As well as the usual, coding, making and socializing, Tim will be presenting the first of a three part series on SQL (Structured Query Language).
The course will be practical and aimed at beginners, so bring along your laptop and follow along. Tim will have an SQL server running so all that is needed will be a working web browser.
The three parts of the course will be:
1. Basic Concepts
2. Advanced Data Retrieval
3. Design & Performance
The aims of the three parts will be:
Part 1: To create a database table, insert data into it, update that data, and retrieve selected records from the data.
Part 2: To aggregate data, and to use more advanced selections.
Part 3: To use simple joins and unions, subselects, and describe the use of indexes and views, and the concept
of Third Normal Form.
This looks like a great course so why not come along and joint us.
Please see our events page for more information.