Hardware Group Meetup

On the way into the Hardware Meetup at c4di tonight I sprinted off to the waterfront, leaving Brian wondering what I was up to. There was a great big boat going down the estuary and I wanted to grab some pictures. Of course, but the time I got the big camera out and pointing in the right direction the boat had moved downstream a bit, but I still rather like the resulting shot.

We had some really good discussion about hardware and whatnot and Brian showed me how to get started making my own PCBs. The next meetup will be on the 20th of February and I’ll be publishing details soon.

Really good hardware meetup at c4di

This evening we had a most excellent hardware meetup at c4di. We had a new member turn up and say Hi, Adam was there too and we had some great discussion about moving forward with Air Quality and lots of other stuff. Everyone who turned looked like they’d just come from standing under a waterfall, which they had.

I really must start taking pictures of these gatherings, but I’m usually so busy chatting that I forget to. Which means you’ll have to put up with one of my vaguely artistic efforts at the top of this post.

The next Hardware Meetup is on the 14th November at 6:00 pm at c4di. Let’s hope for better weather.

Hardware Group on Thursday

If you’re in Hull, and you’re into Hardware, don’t forget that we’re having another Hardware Group Meetup this Thursday (the 7th of March). We’ll be talking about air quality, embedded devices, LoRa and top hats.

Among other things.

You can find out more here and sign up for notification of future events here.

AI Frenzy at c4di

We had a Barclays AI Frenzy with Codepen Hulll tonight. There was plenty of frenzy in my session, where I built a complete Machine Learning application in around 12 minutes. There were also a bunch of other great sessions from Sherin Matthew who gave a splendid overview of the field, Aparna Garg who showed a lovely example of an advanced AI application and Neil Gordon who talked about research at Hull University and how companies can work with it. 

If you want to see my sample application and the presentation you can find it on Girhub here.

Free Sony Photo Editing with Capture One Express

If you want a really good way to edit pictures, and you happen to have a Sony camera, then I can strongly recommend Capture One Express from Phase One. You can download it for free and it works very well with the raw format from Sony cameras.

I took the picture above on the way into c4di with my venerable old RX100 this morning and used Capture One to straighten it, light up the foreground a bit and sharpen some of the edges. I’m really very happy with the result.

One other neat trick, is that if you’ve got a camera like the RX100. It is very interesting to search a place like Thingiverse for your camera type. I’ve just done that and turned up a whole bunch of bounce flash adaptors, filter rings and cases that look like they might be worth printing out and using.

HEY Children's University at c4di

Can you spot the bug in the light flashing program?

We had some children from HEY Children’s University to see us at c4di today. We did some talks for them up in the boardroom on the 3rd floor, with a fantastic view of the estuary and the deep. They were all sitting comfortably in the posh leather seats and spreading their notes around the big polished wood table.

I really hope that they get a taste for it. I want to see them in this building in a few year’s time pitching ideas and meeting customers.

I did some robot coding with them, starting with making a light flash red and blue. And some of them managed to spot the bug in the program above, which was awesome.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT C4DI HARDWARE GROUP

If you’re wondering where the Meetup site for the c4di hardware meetup group has gone, we’ve moved our operations to GetTogether. Alternatively you can just turn up at a Meetup at c4di on the first and third Thursday of each month, starting at 6:00 pm.

Note that the above picture is not one of mine, I’m using an image from unsplash.

PCB Design at the Connected Humber Hardware Group Meetup

Thanks to Robin for the picture

We had another great session at the Connected Humber Hardware Group tonight. Paul was telling us how to design our own printed circuit boards and get them made up. This is now so cheap that every electronics hobbyist should be getting their own custom boards made up. It turns out that it is all a matter of workflow, in that the sequence in which you put the design together is the important part. Unfortunately I was helping out with a recalcitrant LCD panel during this bit, so I’ll have to ask the other members to help me along when I start making my own circuits.

I want to make at least four, one for the fully featured Air Quality sensor, one for the “Mini MQTT” sensor, another for the Hull Pixelbot dual brain version and a final one as a badge which I think will look cool.

We’ll be continuing our exploration of PCB design at later meetups. They are free to attend, great fun, and take place on the first and third Thursday of each month at c4di in Hull. You can just turn up on the day (as a bunch of people did tonight) but you can also sign up for notification of upcoming events here.

Hello to Asda

We had some robots on display…

Robin and I were working in the c4di this morning when a bunch of folks dropped by with John to take a look at what we were doing. I had my old glasses on and taking a quick look at them, decided that it was perhaps a bunch of students, what with everyone looking fresh-faced and keen and whatnot. So I gave them what I thought was good advice for people in their position. I told them what I do with the robots, and the importance of playing with tech, learning how to write well and working hard etc etc

Turns out that they already work hard, as they were all Asda employees who had come along to take a look at what c4di gets up to. Oh well, I still think that my advice still holds good though….

November the 1st Hardware Meetup

Another first Thursday of the month, another Hardware Meetup at c4di. This time I had an agenda of my own. I’ve just found out that you can get printed circuit boards made for really low prices. Really low. This has stirred within me an intense desire to find out how to make them. (posh prose eh?)

Anyhoo, it turns out that among the Hardware Group membership there are folks with experience with the tools that you can use to make your own PCBs using a free tool called Kicad. We’ll be doing a PCB design special event at the next meeting, on the 15th of November. If you’ve got any interest in building your own hardware you really should come along. The price of having lovely boards made specially for you is so low as to make them an extremely attractive prospect for makers.

You can sign up for the next meetup, and keep track of what we are doing, by joining our new group on Get Together.

c4di partnership with Barclay's Eagle Labs

David Keel of c4di talking Tesla

Yesterday, after a happy day building robots I went along to a big, posh, event in Hull Minster. The occasion was the announcement of big things for c4di, the place where I go and they let me play with robots.

I love c4di because it provides a place in Hull where people can take their ideas and make them real. It’s turned into a proper community of like-minded souls working to do great things. It means that you don’t have to leave Hull to make something world-beating. You can do it and still be able to find a local shop selling chip spice.

Barclays Bank have spotted what we are up to, and have now entered into a partnership with c4di which provides us with real financial muscle and expertise. You can find a lovely report on the evening, and what it means for Hull, here. I took some pictures….

Shoutout to Yasmin Coe, who provided some lovely music at the event

They had some c4di hardware on show, including Hull Pixelbots

They even lit up Hull Minster in c4di blue

Looong Day

Being up town at 7:00 am does have it’s compensations….

Today was a looong day. Headed out of the house at 6:30 am to review some newspapers for the BBC Radio Humberside Breakfast show and got back home at 8:45 pm after a Hardware Meetup at c4di. In between I did some software development on the Air Quality sensor which can now talk LoRa, MQTT and seems to work. I make that that a 14 hour working day, and it was wonderful. And to think I don’t have a “proper job”.

We had a splendid turnout at the hardware meetup, we’ve got people getting started with Arduino devices and learning how to code for them .Tonight we made an “accidental reaction timer game” and discovered how to store music in a C++ program. Who knows what we’ll come up with next time. We’ve got others entering into earnest discussions about sensors, Stephenson’s Screens and software services. And that’s just the things that begin with s.

If you want to come along and see what we’re up to next time, we’ll be at c4di at 6:00 pm on Thursday 1st of November. Find out more here.

Connected Humber Hardware Group Meeting on Thursday

We’re having another meetup of the Connected Humber Hardware group at c4di on Thursday,. We start at 6:00 pm and talk about lots of stuff. I’ll be bringing along some Arduino kits for those who want to get started with embedded development, along with a few things I’ve been playing with…..

Connexin Live

I can’t help thinking that HullOS has a much better ring to it…

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Hull Arena marvelling at how Hull could put on such a fantastic digital awards ceremony. Today I’m at the same place marvelling at how Hull can host a splendid technical event. One of of the first thing the delegates were told about Connexin was that they are a Hull company. Born and bred. And proud to be here.

Connexin are a local company with global plans and big hitting partners in the form of Cisco. A Cisco person had even flown all the way from San Francisco to speak at the event. The theme was something very dear to my heart; Smart Cities. We heard from Hull City Council and Hull University about their ideas for the future and from folks from Newcastle about what they had been up to.

These are challenging and exciting times for local government. Challenging because budgets are being squeezed as never before, and exciting because technology is showing real potential for improving the lives of the people that the councils serve.

It was great to hear all these inspiring plans being laid in Hull. I couldn’t stay to the end unfortunately, I had to go and see how the Hardware Group at c4di was getting on. The answer, by the way, is very well. We’ve got three new members who’ve turned up and want to have a go with the Arduino. I’m putting together some kits for them for the next meeting. You can come along and have a go too if you like. The next meeting is on the 11th of October at c4di, starting at 6:00 pm.

Hull Pixelbot at The Digital Awards

I'm totally gobsmacked (a great phrase) to discover that the Hull Pixelbot has been made a finalist in not one, but two categories in the The Digital Awards 2018.  

"The little robot from Hull" is up for an award in the "Best Hardware" and "Best Use of Technology within Education" categories. Awesome stuff. Thanks so much folks. The awards ceremony is in September.

There's some impressive competition in the categories, including some from companies that are also based at c4di. I'm really pleased just to have made it as a finalist. If you want to read what I wrote about the robot, you can find my entry description here. 

LoRa Build a Node Workshop at c4di

We've just had a bunch of folks around to build some LoRa nodes. Robin had put together some kits and we came up with a set of instructions. By the end of the day we expected our attendees to have their LoRa nodes sampling temperature, air pressure and humidity and maybe even be viewing the values on The Things Network website. 

Well, we got that and more. One person had the information going into Microsoft Power BI and was using Machine Learning to predict future room temperatures. Another used If This Then That to tweet temperature readings to his phone. Others left with plans to install LoRa gateways and sprinkle LoRa powered sensors all over their properties.

Very successful, in spite of the fact that we were soldering surface mount components and some folks hadn't soldered since they were 14, or even at all. Thanks for coming folks and being so determined. At some points during workshop you could have heard a pin (or other tiny component) drop. 

We're doing another one in September, ping me an email if you want to get your name on the list. You can find our notes and sample programs here.

If you want to play with LoRa (and anything else that takes your fancy) take a look at the Humber Health Care Challenge. We'll make sure we've got some LoRa kits available there for people to have a go with this technology. 

Mightier Than sword or pen?

Make your own Theremin. Sort of.

A Theremin is a musical instrument that you control by waving your hands. It's used a lot to provide spooky sounds for science fiction and horror movies. A "proper" theremin uses a tuned circuit that is which is controlled by the player waving their hands near a couple of antennas. 

I thought we could have a go at making something similar using just a light sensor and an Arduino, so I've come up with the circuit above to get started. You can find the detailed instructions here. We've been using these little exercises at the c4di Hardware Group, which met again today and will meet again on Thursday 5th July. Sign up here if you want to come along and make some annoying noises....

Hull Pixelbots with ChildDyamix

Answering questions...

Spent a great evening with a bunch of folks from Child Dynamix. I showed off the Hull Pixelbots and then we had a go at programming them in HullOS. Such fun. 

Working with the Arduino at the Hardware Group

I really must take more, or at least some, pictures of the Hardware Group at c4di in action. But I'm always too busy talking about stuff to get out the camera.

Anyhoo, we had a great meetup today. We've got a bunch of new members who are just getting started, so we've put together some tiny hardware kits that they can use to get started. Like those "Build an Aston Martin in easy steps" magazines that you can buy in the new year, If you want to pick up a kit and have a go, come along to our next meetup on the 7th of June. You can sign up here. 

Hardware Meetup - now with biscuits

I had to tear myself away from a really good conversation to take this picture

We had another really good Hardware Meetup at c4di yesterday. Three new folks turned up and we’re going to start working with Arduino devices at the next session. We’re assembling some kits and some content to get folks playing with hardware. The idea is that you spend a princely five pounds on a starter kit containing an Arduino and some lights and switches. And then over the next sessions we’ll introduce other components to play with. If you fancy coming along, you’d be more than welcome.

The next meeting is on the 17th Mary at c4di as usual. Only now we have coffee, tea and biscuits. And hardware. It would be great to see you.