DorkSnow08
From DorkbotLondon
[edit] Photos/Media
All. We did it! Please post links to photos or add your comments below:
Some photos by dan (low quality, so you're advised not to bother zooming in):
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1266/3267588476_a60f8466bd_m.jpg http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1094/3266763629_b17c380af0_m.jpg http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1336/3266764433_8cccc0565d_m.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/3264623866_a979c06906_m.jpg
The last is of the ormskirk gingerbreads I brought, which went down pretty well :)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/3281703806_1eae6594b7_m.jpg Here some of my phone pics and shots from the finished Atari Punk Console done in Iain's Ciruit Building Workshop. Flickr Set
To all: I remember somebody taking proper shots and he said he would put them on Flickr for everybody - any news on this?
[edit] Date and Location
Feb 7th/8th in Limehouse Town Hall. Planned times: 10:30am to late Saturday and 10:30am to 5pm Sunday. Ring the (very faded) "Boxing Club" bell.
People can sleep in the hall on Saturday night if they wish but bring warm sleeping bags, because it will be damn cold and there are no heaters. (With the current weather situation, this is probably not advised. If you do plan to, please contact greenman at the-organization.com)
See timetable below for more information about the running order.
[edit] Weather
Yep - Dorksnow has brought the snow, but now it's going! Dorksnow is ON! It will be cold though so wrap up.
[edit] Contact
For questions and offers of activities please email: dorksnow2009 *a* pinedragon.com
[edit] Costs and Food
Cost: £15 for food on Saturday and as contribution towards the rent at Limehouse. Some projects that require parts are additional costs - see below for details.
Annie Spinster has kindly agreed to orangaize a group takeaway order on Saturday night (included in the cost). Other meals are at your own initiative/cost. There are no kitchens at the Town Hall, so don't plan on cooking anything.
- ANNIE: I am planning on ordering a vegetarian Indian buffet from a local takeaway. I'll ask for it to be delivered at about 7pm.
Beer will be available for sale. Also bring your unusual/undrinkable spirits for the classic Dorkcamp cocktail experience.
Sarah P and Julie F will be bringing home-made cakes for a cake stall to keep the energy up and in case we get DorkSnowed in (with honesty box). Bring some too!!
[edit] What to bring
Bring yourself! Entrance fee. Any additional items needed for the workshops below.
If you are equipped it would be helpful if you could bring a soldering iron and basic tools (wire cutter, wire stripper, pliers) that you are willing to lend to the circuit building workshop.
Lunch or lunch money.
Warm sleeping bag and breakfast if you are planning to stay at the Town Hall on Saturday.
[edit] Internet Connectivity
Despite a few months of back and forth, BT has so far only managed to disconnect more phone lines rather than connect anything. There is a chance that we can find where the $%£$^&! BT has connected the line this time and then can plug in a wireless router - but don't count on it.
[edit] Setup, Takedown and Resources
Since Greenman has no intention of running around and looking after everyone for the weekend, please just join in with general management. If you arrive early, you will need to help set up, and for those around at the end, we will all need to clean up. The chances are, it will all be chaos - but that's exactly how it should be.
We have a good number of extension leads and multiplugs, but bring your own if you are running a workshop, just in case.
[edit] Interest
Put your name here if you're interested:
- Christian Nold (want to make my RFID reader work - help wanted :) )
- Iain S
- Alex Z
- Yaroslav T (Will come on Sunday for the evolutionary stuff)
- Rachel Carney (Dorkbot Bristol)
- Matt H
- Adrian Smith
- Adrian Godwin (newbie - interested in bellringing, evolutionary programming and physical->virtual)
- Bryan Crotaz (Definitely interested in actuators - looking at getting into animatronics)
- Rami S (Curious Pleb)
- Robyn Backhouse (another newbie.. interested in circuits, actuators, microcontrollers,DVD/HDD. Ooh! and evolutionary algorithms!)
- Javier A
- Julie F
- Sarah P
- Bea T (Spanish visitor)
- Manu G (another Spanish visitor)
- Jerome R
- Ben Goldacre
- Ben W (newbie)
- Che Molava
- Julian Burgess (newbie)
- Sibyl T (also new)
- Jim B
- TenYen
- Ian Morrison (darq#)
- Pat Leeson
- Oliver B (newbie)
- Rob McCardle
- Esteban Olmedo (studying Product Design)
- Cris T (not been for ages. Interested in Processing workshop)
- Anthony Smee (interested in circuits and Processing, oh and I am a newbie)
- Sonia W (dorkbot Sydney / Adelaide)
- Sarah G (newbie)
- Robert Andre (virtual but enthusiastic novice)
- Jerome B (newbie, interested in solenoids & actuators)
- Kjartan
- Jens Meijer
- Sim B
- Annie + up to 8 friends from Ravensbourne and possibly Caspar and Carl too.
- Dimitris bleen
- Joe Clark
- Dan S (will not be there for most of Sat, but will be bringing arduino for sunday workshopping)
- Joseph Smith. Novice- interested in circuit builinding. (Product Des student)
- Acsia
- Patrick Tresset.
- Oli Evans (My Arduino needs love)
- Veronika Bazika (new, but interested in how stuff works, product design student)
- Yogesh Patel (Ravensbourne - Product Design)
- Adnan Hadzi
- Natasha Sturny
- Martin Ch. (Novice, Ravensbourne)
- Tim M (newbie)
- Aggeliki A (newbie)
- John Honniball (Dorkbot Bristol) (also presenting talk on microcontrollers)
- Matt Spall (still very much a novice, but I'll bring a 6 x 16 segment clock wot I made and the various gubbins to code it)
- Ale Fernandez (still not sure if i can make it fully. but its a great event! multiplexers and step motors... mmmm... delicious)
- Davide Della Casa (newbie)
- Devin Hunt
- Sara Heitlinger (newbie)
- Kat Borges and Geoff Brinsden (Saturday afternoon and evening)
- Rain A (my arduino wants to come and play :-D) update: bugger, rotten cold = duvet day, soz :'-(
- Ian Simmons (Newcastle Science Festival/Makers Faire) & Ali Pye
[edit] Things to do and people interested in them
[edit] Origins of programming workshop *confirmed*
Knitting for beginners workshop by London's finest knitting teacher, Aneeta P. Running from 3pm til 5pm on Saturday.
[edit] Circuit building/bending workshop (Iain S) *Confirmed - Now full*
Very easy electronics assembly project - suitable for absolute beginners. The aim is to build something simple and fun, and also learn enough to have a go at other projects in the future. For those that have done some circuit building before a chance to practice. Will hopefully cover some stuff like component identification and basic circuit debugging.
I think the circuit is likely going to be the Atari Punk Console.
Cost: approx £10 to cover components payable before 28/1/09. Bring your own case. Let me know in advance if you want to do this: dorksnow2009 *a* pinedragon.com
Photo of my prototype. It's a lovely fun little thing!
[edit] Beginners Arduino (Alex Z) *Confirmed*
I will be helping any Arduino newbies to get started. If you want to do this bring your own Arduino Duemilanove or Diecimila and a laptop and a USB lead. Currently, there is no stock of Arduinos in the UK (the Italian factory is struggling to keep up with world demand) so if you haven't already got one, you won't be able to get one in time for the weekend. I do not have any spare to bring along.
(Update from Iain : These guys do an Arduino clone which is fully Diecimila compatible. The build quality isn't the best, but it does work.)
[edit] Sarah Angliss *Confirmed*
Robotic bell ringing and infrasound presentation. Plus I can offer a beginner's guide to evolutionary programming, in Processing. I'll teach you the rudiments of evolutionary algorithms, show them in use in some simple apps I've written, then leave you to play with the 'fitness' functions and random mutations and see how that influences their behaviour. A free biscuit to anyone who turns up dressed as Darwin.
[edit] Actuators (Alex Z) *Confirmed*
I will do a presentation followed by a workshop on actuators, i.e. motors, servos, solenoids, stepper motors. How to make them make things move, how to control them, etc. If you want to do the workshop, you will need to bring your own Arduino, USB lead, breadboard and laptop. I do not have spare and there is no stock of them in the UK at the moment.
[edit] Physical to Virtual *Likely cancelled due to unavailability of Evan*
Iain and I (Evan) were discussing doing a workshop/project where the goal was to create some physical objects that controlled video effects. Probably using arduinos chained together interfacing with Processing or OpenFrameworks.
[edit] Space Echo *Cancelled due to loss of a critical component*
I (Mike H of Dorkbot Bristol) would be up from bringing my satellite dish along for Internet connexion for the weekend and doing a workshop about how it works and all that, including doing a streaming performance over it, along the lines of http://www.radiovague.com/space_echo/
[edit] Doing More With Microcontrollers (Confirmed)
I (John Honniball of Dorkbot Bristol) would like to talk about and/or demonstrate ways to get more out of your microcontroller! For instance, using multiplexers (analog and digital) to make more input lines. How about using an addressable latch to make more output lines, or using shift registers to do I/O in a bit-serial way. Then, there's analog stuff like reading six input buttons on a single wire and making a "poor man's RFID" using resistors.
[edit] Playing Indian classical music on din_been, boxar *Confirmed*
An easy introduction to playing Indian classical music with free software musical instruments din_been (a version of din, inspired by the been, an ancient indian plucked string instrument) and boxar for the nokia internet tablet n810 - we can try installing din_been on your laptop (requirements: gnu/linux with SDL, portaudio and opengl libraries and a mouse!). boxar can be installed easily on your nokia n810 internet tablet. if you dont want to bother try din_been/boxar on my laptop/n810.
din_been works better on loudspeakers, boxar works better on headphones.
-- jag
[edit] Short film program - Polish experimental animation
I (Julie F) will bring some ace short films to show in the evening. My particular favourite is Oko i ucho from 1944/45 (The Eye and the Ear) analogue visuals to sound animation. Sat eve. I can bring ye olde projector if needed.
[edit] Sponsored(?) Dork Out
Assuming he's allowed in. . . TenYen will be along to try and get an internet connection working by "Any (free) Means Necessary" and anticipating "mixed results" will bring the following:
- Amiga for Bubble Bobble master classes.
- ronja Twister board to populate, with soldering iron and solder.
- A variety of wireless Access Points to break into (will be making a Cisco to 9pin Serial cable)
- Suggestions/ Requests?
[edit] Timetable
All timings are approximate. Other ad-hoc activities are likely to continue throughout the weekend.
| Saturday | Sunday | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:30am to 1:30pm | Iain-Circuit Building, Alex-Arduino | Iain-Circuit Building (continued for those that need extra time), Alex-Arduino, John - Doing more with microcontrollers | |
| 2pm to 5pm | Iain-Circuit Building, Alex-Arduino, Yoshi- HDD for fun use
| Sarah - Evolutionary algorithms, infrasound | |
| 5pm to 7pm | Presentations - Sarah (Bells and infrasound), Jag on Plucking | Tidy | |
| 7pm to late | Dinner, Performances and social, Short films | Zzzzzzzzzzzzz |
[edit] Locations
We felt that just using Limehouse Town Hall was going to be easier than running a residential event, so we're in London.
[edit] Thaw
If your digging the dork snow you might be interested in:
