The Story Box Build Meetup #1
March 29, 2011 by spoonfork · Leave a Comment
Tonight’s meetup was a productive one. At the end of the meetup, we were astonished as to how simple the Story Box is. But keeping things simple is not an easy task. Especially at a hackerspace. For the past one year, we’ve been a motley crew of hackers, hobbyist, engineers and coders. We operate in an agile environment, and we do stuff as we see fit, or the way we like it. There’s no time frame, no reports, no documentation – just the freedom to build, tinker, make, hack and code the way we want. But in a competition, we have to have discipline. We got to have a plan, and we have to stick to it. And the most important rule of all: keep it simple, stupid.
Kakeman explaining TWI (Twin Wire Interface)
During today’s meeting we manage to list out the features that we want to implement. We’ve set milestone and timelines. We got rid of useless features. We drew some diagram. We even have a picture of how the final product will look like.
Mind map of the Story Box component and features
Due to its simplicity, the Story Box is actually pretty simple to do. All you need is an LCD shield, and an Arduino. Or you can have an LCD and a push button, wire it all up to the Arduino, and start coding. And because of its simplicity, The Story Box will be cheap to build as well. The next thing that we will do is to customized the PCB, and make the form factor smaller – enclosed in an acrylic box.
A sketch of the final product
To track progress and making sure that we follow the plan and not go overboard in terms of design and build, we’ve created a simple milestone chart. At the end of the week, we will have a working prototype built using LCD shield.
LCD Shield
and an Arduino with battery
Seeeduino
That’s all for now. In the next post, we’ll introduce our team. (This post is cross-posted to the element-14 community site)
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The Story Box: Build Meetup
March 29, 2011 by spoonfork · Leave a Comment
Hi all, we’ll be meeting up tonight at HSKL to start building The Story Box. The Story Box is our entry to the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge. If you are interested to participate, do show up. We’ll be there from 8pm onwards till late.
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GGHC Meeting 02 (29/03/2011)
March 25, 2011 by kakeman · Leave a Comment
After a fruitful discussion held on the first meeting, everyone was very excited about the challenge ahead. Now it’s time for execution.
What?
- Build a prototyping circuit.
- Write a bare bone program.
- Write necessary supporting documents.
- Document the whole process as we go.
When?
We are usually open as early as 4pm, with a break for dinner at around 7-8pm. And continue on till 10:30 or 11pm. If you want to come earlier, the best time is usually around 6:30 (before we go off for dinner)
Where?
Hackerspace KL
Who?
Members of Hackerspace KL.
We can make it into semi final 
San Francisco here we come!
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Electronics Friday 25/03/2011 – Special Edition: GGHC Meeting 01
March 22, 2011 by kakeman · Leave a Comment
Our weekly Electronics Fridays meetup is on from 8:00pm – 11pm, 25th March 2011. However, this will not be an ordinary Electronics Friday as we are going to discuss on our participation in the exciting Great Global Hackerspace Challenge (GGHC).
What?
- Form a team that will be directly involved in the competition.
- Brainstorm for idea.
- Plan for winning
When?
We are usually open as early as 4pm, with a break for dinner at around 7-8pm. And continue on till 10:30 or 11pm. If you want to come earlier, the best time is usually around 6:30 (before we go off for dinner)
Where?
Hackerspace KL
Who?
Everyone is welcome! Even if you are not a member and you want to check out what HackerspaceKL is about, feel free to come.
Cost?
Free for members. Non-members however, cannot use any of our equipments (to be fair, they are paid by the members). Non-members can buy the electronics components from us. We have stuff to sell to – QuarterK, and Seeeduino.
See you guys there!
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HSKL in Great Global Hackerspace Challenge (GGHC)
- Your hackerspace will create a project to help with education, using US$900 (or equivalent) provided by Element14. The project must use a microcontroller and a portable power source.
- You have 6 weeks to complete your project, documenting your project as you go. All spaces that complete their project will receive 10 soldering setups.
- Three hackerspaces’ projects will be chosen as finalists to present at the Grand Finale at the San Francisco Maker Faire. All three of these spaces will receive some really nice electronic test equipment. One person from each space will be flown out to present their project at the San Francisco Maker Faire over the weekend of 21-May & 22-May.
- One project will be chosen at the Grand Finale at the San Francisco Maker Faire to receive some extra goodies, including a very nice oscilloscope.
Hurry, we have only 6 weeks, and the clock is ticking.
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What we’re up to in the space on friday
March 13, 2011 by sweemeng · Leave a Comment
Here is a video on what we are up to in the space on Friday. More video coming soon as we can get more proper shots on the projects, coming soon. Yes HackerspaceKL is up and alive, so anyone interested on our project, and want to build your own stuff, you may join us!!!!
Seven Segment Display Demo By Adam
P.S I still trying figure out how to show the youtube video, probably that too will be fixed soon
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Electronics Friday 04/03/2011 Cancelled
February 28, 2011 by tinker · Leave a Comment
The event was cancelled. Apologies to all abouting this cancellation.
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The Arduino Documentary
January 16, 2011 by sweemeng · Leave a Comment
The arduino documentary is out for sometime, so yeah sorry for a bit late on this. While this is not a Hackerspace KL project. We do use arduino in many of our project. If you want to know more about Hackerspace KL favorite open hardware platform. Watch the video on the links below
Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD
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Electronics Fridays 07/01/2011
January 6, 2011 by klks · Leave a Comment
Our weekly Electronics Fridays meetup is on from 8:00pm – 11pm, 7th January 2011.
What?
- Weekly get-together to solder, wire, design, etch, and make electronics stuff.
- Learn new skills
- Make a project
- Show, tell and get help (bring your project – advance or simple, it don’t matter)
When?
- We are usually open as early as 4pm, with a break for dinner at around 7-8pm. And continue on till 10:30 or 11pm. If you want to come earlier, the best time is usually around 6:30 (before we go off for dinner)
Where?
- Hackerspace KL
Who?
- Everyone is welcome! Even if you are not a member and you want to check out what HackerspaceKL is about, feel free to come.
Cost?
- Free for members. Non-members however, cannot use any of our equipments (to be fair, they are paid by the members). Non-members can buy the electronics components from us. We have stuff to sell to – QuarterK, and Seeeduino.
See you guys there!
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What do we have at the space?
December 8, 2010 by spoonfork · Leave a Comment
We have the following items for use by members at the space:
- Soldering iron
- Soldering flux
- Solder wire
- Pliers, snippers, IC extractor, wire cutters, diagonal pliers
- Screwdriver set
- Solder sucker
- Digital and analog multimeter
- Single core wires
- Variable power supply
- Etching materials
- Iron
- Printer (please buzz @spoonfork if you need to use the printer)
- Drill (please buzz @spoonfork if you need to use it)
- Electronic components (resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc)
- Old circuit boards
- Seeduino (as pointed by @kakeman, spelling fail, should be Seeeduino)
- Projector
- Breadboard, veroboards, etc
- Old PCs
- Old hard disks
- Lots and lots of cables
- … and many more!
Basically, we have enough electronic equipments to use if you want to get started on your projects. The members also have their toys, which are usually shared among each other:
- Various Arduinos (Arduino Uno, Arduino S3V3, Arduino Uno Mega, Seeeduino, Freeduino, Duemilanove, and many more!)
- Arduno sheilds: Ethernet shield, Xbee module and adaptor, QuarterK, LOLshield, motor party add-on, etc
- Bus pirate
- USBTinyISP programmer
- LCDs (16×2, 20×2), GLCD
- LED matrix
- … and many more!
We also have t-shirts and stickers for sale.