Derby Mini Maker Faire 2013
Wow, what a day! As you will see in the time lapse video the Derby Mini Maker Faire was absolutely buzzing, all day.
I was fortunate enough to have my own table exhibiting the latest versions of my clock, amongst the Derby Makers. In the time lapse video you can see all the Derby Makers in our orange hi vis vests, along the wall to the right, busying about.
I created additional hardware, consisting of an LCD screen and 3 rotatory encoders, so people of all ages could interact with the clock, changing the RBG values of the hour marks. I created a simple tutorial, so people could read the RGB values off the LCD screen, update the code, creating their very own colour combinations for the hour, minute and second hands. I will publish the code and respective documents for this tutorial as soon as I get chance. I still have a few changes I would like to make, from the feedback from the Maker Faire.
I had load of positive and constructive feedback on my clocks, of which I am currently implementing. As, I was telling those interested on the day, I will be running a workshop at the Silk Mill in the new year, of which I will announce officially once I have completed my circuit design and tested the workshop out on the Derby Makers.
As a part of the Derby Makers, Amanda & Pam ran a jam and chutney stall, with about 20 recipes to taste, one of which I had contributed. I posted the recipe for my Gujarati style pear chutney on my personal blog, which was apparently loved by all those who tried it… 🙂 All the recipes have been compiled into a Derby Makers Recipe book, of which I will update with the link as soon as Amanda has published it.
The Derby Maker Faire was such a success, there is already talk of a summer event next year. I will keep you posted…
LED Clock circuit design on Fritzing
Today, I have published the circuit diagram for the Rise and shine LED Clock. Initially, I have completed the circuit design on the breadboard interface on Fritzing, as you can see below.
Breadboard layout of the Rise and Shine LED Clock, designed on Fritzing
I am going to work on adding other components, such as a mircophone and light sensor before completing the schematic and PCB layouts. I will add and upload the fritzing file to the next iteration of the LED Clock code.
I have used the open source Fritzing circuit designer, as this is great place to start for your arduino and other maker/hacker projects.
My LED Clock at Oggcamp 13
This a Last weekend I attended Oggcamp 13, the biggest and best open source & free culture conference in the UK. I took this opportunity to exhibit my LED Clock and demonstrate to the free & open source community what I have been upto and hopefully get some direct feedback…
Oggcamp 13 was kindly hosted at and sponsored by The John Lennon Art and Design Building, a part of Liverpool John Moores University. Oggcamp is an unconference focused around free culture and open source software & hardware. The Oggcamp 13 tag line sums up what its all about perfectly… “Learn/Teach/Play”.
Exhibiting My LED Clock and getting direct feedback was a very rewarding experience. I displayed the current 2 versions of my clock, where the LED strip is facing inwards and where the LED strip is facing outwards. As my outwards facing clock was open and incomplete, it wasn’t perfectly clear of the effect it could achieve, especially in such a very light environment. Once I had chance to explain the effect the clock will achieve when complete and in the correct environment, peoples interest and enthusiasm suddenly went to the next level. I had some great thoughts and ideas shared with me of how the clock could be hacked, in terms of both software and hardware, which is exactly what this project is all about. As and when I have time, I will write up all those ideas and add them to the development list, for either myself or the community to implement.
Lunch on both Saturday & Sunday was kindly provided for free by the sponsors of the event. There was a party on Saturday where a free drink and food was put on by the sponsors, of which was greatly appreciated by all.
There were a wide range of talks, covering topics such as why free music, Ubuntu vs Firefox OS for phone (as pictured above), how to build your first quad/tri copter, git basics, introduction to werewolf, Raspberry Pi Jam, and so on… I now look forward to next years event and would highly recommend it to anyone who is wanting to get in touch with the inner geek! 🙂
Updated Rise and shine code to v0.24
After buying a new laptop and installing the latest version of Arduino (1.0.1) and uploading v0.23 to test my com port, it didn’t work. But as you can see in this video, it’s not a bad thing…
At the time I was listening to “Summer Stepping” by Dr Meaker at it seemed to fit perfectly. Check it out…
While it doesn’t actually dance to the music I am playing, only looks like it, it shouldn’t be too hard to hack in a microphone to do exactly that… Maybe you might have time to hack it before I do… If so, be sure to let me know… 🙂
I have now updated the code so the LED Clock now works with arduino v1.0.1 and onwards. You can now download v0.24 from sourceforge, of which I have also added the menu flow diagram.
I will keep you posted when I get chance to add the music dancing functionality… 🙂
UPDATE:
After posting this video on the “FastSPI_LED Users” Google+ community (this is the LED library I use), I received a variety of potiential ways of implementing the sound/music reacting functionality.
Here is someone else’s implementation…
I have ordered some sound “arduino sound sensor modules” of which run off 5v and I should be able to combine with the Arduino FHT Library from Open Music Labs. I will post an update as soon as I get the clocks dancing… you know, really dancing…
Derby Makers at the launch of Proud of Derby campaign
Being an active member of Derby Makers (a collective of individuals who share an interest in making, modifying and improving anything and everything), I helped out in representing at the launch of a new campaign by the Derby City Council “Proud of Derby”.
At this event Derby Makers shared a stall with Derby Silk Mill, of which we displayed just a few of the projects that the Derby Makers members have created. One of which was my Arduino powered LED clock. This was the first time my prototype has ventured out into the public. My objects of the LED clock project is to create a open source, hackable clock, as an educational device to encourage people interested in technology to learn how adapt and improve something for there own needs, of what hacking is all about. I still have some improvements to make before I will be have to officially launch my open source LED clock, along with creating the tools to encourage a thriving community, so watch this space…
Here you can see rope being made using Mark’s rope making machine, of which he has used on previous occasions such at scout meetings to engage and educate.
Below are a few links to press releases about the launch of the “Proud of Derby” campaign if you wish to know more…
This Derbyshire – Derby Evening Telegraph Article with video