Success from Failure at the Hardware Meetup

WE got this mostly working

First nothing would work. Then everything worked. The Hardware Meetup last night turned out to be all about RFID tags. I’d brought along some tags I was thinking of putting onto the Hull Pixelbot robots. And Ross had brought a reader and some very fancy tags that were sticky labels that can be used to measure the temperature of whatever they’re stuck on.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags are great for identifying things - the clues in the name. They contain a chip and a tiny antenna which gets power from the the tag reader. The chip can send and store data so that you can literally keep tags on things. I’ve used them a lot in the past. And the new tags are much more powerful - but only if you can get them to work.

At the start of the evening I couldn’t get read any of my tags. And nothing Ross had brought was working. But then things started to change. A network cable was obtained to connect the sensor reader to a network gateway that Brian had brought. Then software was loaded and fired up and, despite not really knowing what we were doing, we managed to connect to the tags. And I even got my tags working too. The next step is to build a tag reader holder into the front of the robot and scatter some tags around the robot arena.

The next meetup is in two weeks. I wonder what we will get working then?

Free Hull Pixelbots at March 20th Hardware Meetup

If too many folks turn up will run a draw for these

Thanks to the generosity of “Player Piano Ross” we have some Hull Pixelbots to give away at the next Hardware Meetup at the Hull Makerspace at Central Library Hull. The meetup is on Wednesday 20th March and will start at 5:30 pm and continue until around 7:00pm. We are going to spend some time doing “Robot Training” with a little obstacle course we’ll try to program our way around.

The long term aim is to swap out the existing Arduino Uno controllers on the robots and replace them with Raspberry Pi Picos. This will let us run Python on the devices and program them over Wi-Fi. For the session on the 20th we’ll be using Python-ish and connecting our robots over RS232. I’m going to bring a few original pixelbots including Crystal Masie and Captain Black. It would be lovely to see you there. Bring your laptop, some AA batteries and a winning smile.

And you might get a free robot of your own.

Carbonizing at the MakerSpace Meetup

This was the setup

I took the Kinect sensor over to Hull Makerspace this evening. I’m still working on the latest release, so I used the previous code (ten years old) running on my Surface Pro 3 (ten years old).

It worked, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. Things ran, but very slowly.

An image being worked on. Slowly.

Brian brought in a 3D printer he is donating to the space and fun was had by the few of us who turned up. Next meetup is Wednesday 21st Feb. All about photography.

Future Meetups

The MakerSpace is a good looking place..

I’ve put together a schedule for hardware meetups for the first part of this year:

Wednesday 17th of January Colour 3D printing

I'll bring in some examples of colour printing and show how to use Bambu Studio to colourise prints and create lithopanes. I'll also show off some work made with HueForge (https://thehueforge.com/)

Wednesday 7th of February Robot Rugby

We'll set up a Hull Pixelbot rugby match and get a game going.

Wednesday 21st February Music and MIDI

I'll bring in a bunch of MIDI music devices (some Pico and Pi powered) and we'll have a go at making some tunes

Wednesday 6th March Analogue photography

I'll show you how to get started taking analogue photographs on instant and black and white home-processed film. If we can have access to running water in the Hackspace we can take a bunch of pictures and process them on the night.

All the meetups are in the Makerspace in the Central Library in Hull. Doors open at 5:30 pm and we start the presentations and whatnot at 6:00pm after some chat. We finish around 7:15pm or so. Anyone can turn up and you don’t need to book. If you have a topic that you’d like us to cover (or better yet you fancy running a session yourself) get in touch. If you want find out more you can find it all on our Mattermost page here.

Next Hardware Meetup is all about 3D printing

YOu could have one of your very own….

We’re having our next Hardware Meetup in Hull library in the Makerspace on Wednesday 1st November starting at 5:30pm. It’s all about 3D printing. There’s an exhibition of 3D printing on at the Makerspace at the moment and lots of stuff worth looking at, whether you own a printer or are thinking of getting one.

It would be lovely to see you there. If you have something you’ve printed that you want to show off, bring it along. There will be a small (3D printed) prize for the object that everyone likes the most. I’ll be talking about the fun you can have making 3D printable objects from Python code - which is something of a thing for me.

We’ll also have free tags of fun to give away, and we might have a Tag Joust championship. It would be lovely to see you there.

If you are around earlier on Wednesday I’m going to be in the Makerspace fiddling with stuff for the entire afternoon if you want to drop round for a chat about hardware.

Connected Little Boxes at the Hardware Meetup

I’ll bring along a text display too.

I’m bringing a bunch of Connected Little Boxes to the Hardware Meetup next Wednesday. I want to show off the web configuration and deployment and what you can do with QR codes.

If you fancy coming along you can just turn up at Hull MakerSpace on Wednesday 11th of October from around 5:00 pm onwards. I’ll be around with some devices to show off, and even ones that you can take home with you (numbers permitting). It would be lovely to see you.

Connected Humber Meetup Dates

We’ve set the dates for the next Connected Humber Hardware Meetups. We meet at Hull Makerspace in person on the first Wednesday of the month. Then, 15 days later on Thursday evening we meet online - link here. I look forward to seeing you if you fancy dropping in.

July Meetups:

Wednesday 6th July from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 21st July from 6:00 pm online

August Meetups:

Wednesday 3rd August from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 18th August from 6:00 pm online

September Meetups:

Wednesday 7th September from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 22nd August from 6:00 pm online

October Meetups:

Wednesday 5th October from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 20th of October from 6:00 pm online

November Meetups:

Wednesday 2nd November from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 17th of November from 6:00 pm online

December Meetups:

Wednesday 7th December from 5:30 pm in Hull Makerspace

Thursday 22nd of December from 6:00 pm online

Thermal Camera Meetup next week

We’re holding our first in-person meetup event of 2022 next week at the Makerspace in Hull. At this event we are going to take a look at what a thermal camera can do for you. Brian has got one running into a Raspberry Pi and has been doing some tests.

Of course we’ll be bringing along other bits of hardware to talk about and you are welcome to bring yours too.

Hull Makerspace is on Discord

I had a splendid chat from Matt at Hull Makerspace today. It got even better when I turned my video camera on around half way through. Or perhaps it didn’t.

Anyhoo, one of the things that dropped out of the conversation was the fact that Hull Makerspace has its own Discord channel. Discord is a great place to meet and chat, usually about games but sometimes about other things - like making stuff.

The makerspace has an open chat on a weekend where you can talk about things you are building and discover what they can offer and they are building a lot of expertise in making stuff. You can get involved here.

I’m really pleased to discover that the makerspace is going from strength to strength, even in these horrible times.

Makertober Day 7: Led Array

I’m totally sold on Python development for embedded devices now. I had an idea for a silly device and ordered an 8x32 led array powered by Max2179 devices. The leds arrived last night and I plugged them into one of my cheap ESP32 devices and got it sort of working. I found an Arduino library and, after tweaking the C++ library code I manged to make it build and almost display something. Writing and deploying C++ from the Arduino IDE again reminded me why I don’t like this very much anymore. The compilers are very brittle and prone to failing if you happen to use a library that contains code that is not supported by the device you are targeting . And deployment is tiresome and slow.  I think that the Arduino toolchain is an awesome achievement and makes lots of lovely things possible but it can be a bit of a pain to use sometimes.

Rather than continue with that I thought that today I’d try using putting MicroPython on the ESP32 and using a Max2179 library that I found on GitHub. This. Just. Worked. I used Thony to write and deploy the code. I was able to use the REPL command prompt to test out the code and my tiny little programs took no time at all to deploy and run inside the device. Best of all, the Max2179 library I found just sits on top of the Framebufuffer (http://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/framebuf.html) class and has lots of easy to use graphics commands.

I’ve got text scrolling nicely and now I’m going to hook it up to a data source. If you want to have a go at this kind of thing I’ve written a little HowTo that you can find here.

Maketober Day 3: Use an M5StickC to display temperatures

I’m trying to use devices and things I’ve not used before. Today I’m using the Blockly environment provided by M5Stack to program their devices. This runs in the browser. You can find it here. You use the M5Burner app on your PC or Mac to program an M5 device with MicroPython plus a bunch of M5Stack libraries. You also use M5Burner to put your WiFi details into the device because (and this is wonderful) you can deploy the programs you are writing over a wireless connection.

You build a program by dragging blocks onto the workspace and fitting them together. Above you can see a program that fetches the temperature values and displays them. It took me a while to build this code what with the dragging and linking. I’m not really a fan of working like this, but then again I’m not learning to program so it’s not really aimed at me. The good news for me is that I can press the Python button at the top and be instantly transported into a world I know very well:

This source is keyed to the Blockly view and if I make changes to the Python code I’ll break all my blocks, but at least it gives me a handle on what is going on. And its a great way to learn to code. When you press the run button in the top right hand corner of the page you get to run the program in the device. If you want to deploy the program so that it runs each time the device is powered on you can use the menu to download it into the file store on the M5Stick. Then you use a tiny menu on the device itself to select the program and run it.

If you are wondering why some of parts of the above images have been covered with yellow blotches this is because these are the unique ID of my Cricket device which is transmitting the temperature values. You use the device ID as both the username and the password for the connection to the Things On Edge MQTT server. I don’t think that there would be a huge problem if someone got hold of the ID of my device (although I guess they could find out the temperature in my house).

And now I’ve got a little client that lets me view the temperatures from my remote sensor. It took hardly any time to put together and it works a treat. If I have a worry about the solution it is that if anything happens to the Things On Edge company my Cricket sensor turns into a tiny paperweight - because the only way to configure the sensor is via the Things On Edge server. It would be wonderful if the whole configuration process could take place on the Cricket itself via the same web interface that it generates when you setup the WiFi connection.

Anyhoo, that’s day 3. On to day 4 when I’m going to make a little box to put the sensor in….

Maketober Day 2: Remote temperature monitoring

The complete system

I’d rather like to be able to monitor the temperature around the house. The heating system tells me the temperature but I’m not sure what this means when I’m sitting in the living room several feet away from the radiator. I’m also keen to test something I got a while back. It’s called a Cricket and it is tiny microcontroller that is specifically designed to do just what I want, which is read the temperature every now and then and send it onto the network. I want to have a battery powered sensor and want the batteries to last forever-ish.

Previously I’d be looking at LoRa (Low Powered Radio) devices to do this but they are a bit complicated to set up. The Cricket claims to give you LoRa style battery life with WiFi connectivity. I should be able to power it from a pair of AA batteries for a good long time. The Cricket achieves this by optimising the time that it takes to connect to the network and send a data packet. It seems to take around four seconds to do this, which is pretty impressive. It has one input for sensing data and another for triggering a transmission. It also has a real time clock which can be used to trigger updates. And there is an onboard temperature sensor which I can use to get my readings.

Once you’ve soldered (badly in my case) the battery pack to the Cricket you then have to attach it to your WiFi. This is done in the “traditional” way of WiFi devices. Hold down a button to trigger Access Point mode, browse to the WiFi hotspot that the device has just created, open up a web page there and enter your WiFi SSID and password. Then you have to configure your device to tell it what data to gather and where to send it. You might think that you’d do this on the device but no, you do it via a browser. Each Cricket has an unique ID on a label on the back. You log into the developer portal, find your device by its name and then use a web interface to configure it.

You can configure the real time clock to wake up the sensor in time measured in hours, minutes or seconds. You can also use a digital or analogue input to wake the sensor up and make it send a reading. The reading can be sent as an HTTP Post to a web address or you can use MQTT. Things On Edge provide their own MQTT server or you can use your own. I’m going to use theirs.

The idea is that you enter your settings into the web page, press Save and then press the button on the sensor to make it connect to the server, upload a value and then check for new settings. This took a bit of fiddling for me, but eventually I made a sensor that wakes up every five minutes and sends a temperature reading.

Above you can see the display from the MQTTBox program on the PC showing that temperature readings are being sent up to the server. Next I need a device to get those values and display them. But that’s a job for tomorrow.

Hull Makerspace Maketober

Hull Makerspace are having a Maketober event. I found out about it this afternoon. The idea is that you do a different make for every day the month of October. I’m going to have a go and see how far I get. I’m going to set up a GitHub repository and fill it up with the silly things that I make.

Above you can see a screenshot of today’s effort. It’s a tiny demo of a JavaScript physics engine that I’ve been meaning to play with for a while. That’s the beauty of things like this event. They force you to actually do something. You can play with the program here. It might prove the basis of a little game or two.

Hull Rocks

They were having a discussion on Radio Humberside this morning about the future of Hull. They asked me to contribute some thoughts. I made some notes (most of which I never used). So I thought I’d pop them on the blog. The question posed was something like: “As a person who has lived in Hull for a while, what do you think of the state of the city and potential for the future?”. These are my answers in bullet point form:

• There are amazing things going on at the Fruit Market . I’ve been involved with c4di for ages and their building is now fully occupied with people making stuff and doing things. With more coming.

• We’ve got super fast fibre networking, something which other places have just started to realise might be a good thing.

• We also have a city wide LoRa network which is free for anyone to use for connected product development and a couple of local companies, KCOM and Connexin, who can provide you with a paid network service you can use to commercialise your solution.

• Humber Street is awesome. The new pedestrian bridge will make a huge difference to access to the area.

• We must give give local students a trajectory that encourages them to say in Hull when they graduate. As I said this morning, “It’s cheap and nice”, a killer combo. Students tend to be quite conservative about where they go in their local area. We need to encourage them to take a look at the lovely places we have where you could build a good life..

• Hull Makerspace is a great development which lets anyone from the community explore technology.

It’s a crying shame that this nasty virus has come along just as we were getting up speed with all this, I really hope that progress is not knocked too far off beam by it.

Hull Makerspace in Hackspace Magazine

This time last year Hull didn’t even have a Makerspace. Now we’ve got one that is featured in magazines. This month’s “Space of the month” in Hackspace magazine is Hull. Well done folks. I’ve used the Makerspace quite a bit, I’m especially fond of their laser cutter which is where I cut the chassis parts for the air quality sensor.

If you’ve not read Hackspace magazine you really should. I’ve got just about all the issues in printed form even though I could have read them here for free. What can I say? I like having printed stuff. And I really think this kind of publication should be properly supported. Take a look. I think you’ll agree.

Laser Cutting at Hull Makerspace

I spent a very pleasant afternoon at Hull Makerspace laser cutting last week while the car was being MOT’d. I wanted to cut some chassis parts for the air quality sensor. I turned up with some files and my lovely Surface Go and set to it. By the end of the day I’d got exactly what I want and even been able to use the cutter myself.

Laser cutting panels is much, much faster than 3D printing them, and I think that the new design (you can see it on the right, looks really classy in smoked perspex. It will end up hidden in a box on a lamppost somewhere, but at least I’ll know the insides look nice.

They were busy giving help on programming and making stuff and there was a lovely buzz about the place. If you are interested in making stuff you should get down there and take a look around.

Laser Cutting at Hull Makerspace

I really like it when I head out of the house with the intention of achieving something and then actually manage to complete the task. Today I headed down to the wonderful Hull Makerspace with the intention of completing my air quality sensor mount design and maybe even cutting it out of perspex.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Fair enough, some of the holes are in the wrong places and some are completely missing. But a little drill work and my first prototype is now ready to be fitted.

The holder has our custom circuit board on one side and the SDS011 sensor on the other.

Achievement Unlocked: Joined Hull Makerspace

Today I went for my induction at the Hull Makerspace and paid up for my first month of membership. I’m rather pleased that my recent financial shenanigans mean that I’ve actually saved the monthly membership fee before I spend it, which must be a first for me.

The induction session set out how they see the Makerspace working and I’m really keen to get in there and play with stuff.

My ambition is to have used every single machine in the Makerspace by the end of the year. This means that I’m going to have to have a go at making pottery and using the scary lathe and CNC machines as well as laser cutting.

Looking forward to it.

Hull Makerspace open for business

I’ve been saying for ages that Hull needs a Makerspace. And now we’ve got one. And it’s bigger and better than my wildest dreams. It’s in the library in the middle of town and it is packed with equipment and expertise in equal measure. Membership costs 20 pounds a month (which it turns out I’ve already raised thanks to my last two financial deals) and gives you access to valuable machinery and tuition.

I’m looking forward to making robots, air quality sensors and daft lights among other things. You can sign up here for an induction session that will get you stared making.

Fun at Hull Makerspace

I spent a very happy three hours at the Hull Makerspace today. I’d been invited to take a look and have a go with the machinery, so I did both.

They’ve got the two most important ingredients just right. Lots of tech and lovely people to help you use it. The tech includes a really nice laser cutter, complete with proper cooling and ventilation systems, which makes it a dream to operate. I took my Hull Pixelbot design files off Github and they were able to feed them straight into the laser cutter and make the robot chassis that you can see above. This of course prompted design work on another version which will be entirely laser cut, rather than needing some 3d printed components. Not that this is really a problem at the Makerspace, they have a couple of 3d printers to play with as well.

It’s that “being next to the machine” immediacy that makes the Makespace such a nice place to work. Knowing that I can turn round a design really quickly means that I’ll be able to experiment a bit. There are also things around the place I’ve never used before, including CNC machine, a lathe, a band saw and a vinyl cutter. Some of them scare me a bit (which is apparently a good mindset to go in with) but I’m really looking forward to finding out how to use them.

Membership will open in the new year. It will cost 10 pounds a month for students and the unemployed and 20 pounds for everyone else. If you want to use some of the more “expensive to feed” devices like the laser cutter there’ll be an extra charge depending on how much you use them, and you will also have to pay for consumables.

For years I’ve been saying “What Hull needs is a really good Makerspace”. Well, we’ve got one now, so it is up to us folks in the region to show just what we can do with it. You can keep track of what they are up to here.