[Blog]

A quick look around the inside of the Electronex electronics trade show in Melbourne. Right after walking in the door I ran into Dave Jones (@eevblog), Karl von Moller (@karlvonmoller) and others, so I didn't get much video other than panning around a bit to show you what it's like.

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxI-fyI50m0

Snippets from my recent trip to the street markets in Hong Kong, the Freetronics China office in Beijing, and the electronics parts wonderland of Shenzen.

View or comment directly on YouTube: http://youtu.be/5BCYL6mLu84

The second half of my Mendel Max v2 3D printer has now arrived. Let's take a look at what comes in the hardware package.

View or comment directly on YouTube: http://youtu.be/40eO6ITp-bg

The first half of my Mendel Max v2 3D printer just arrived. Let's take a look at what comes in the electronics package.

View or comment directly on YouTube: http://youtu.be/uD4on9Mei4s

The Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre at Mt Stromlo has developed into an amazing facility, with both excellent physical infrastructure and very smart and experienced staff. Much of the new infrastructure has been built for Australia's part of the Giant Magellan Telescope project, but it also has spin-off benefits that hopefully will spearhead a revival in Australian space technology capabilities and industry. While I was in Canberra for the linux.conf.au 2013 conference I was lucky enough to be given a behind-the-scenes tour led by Dr Naomi Mathers and Roger Franzen.

These facilities may be used for future ArduSat missions, including as a ground station for communications with the satellites and possibly for integration testing.

View or comment directly on YouTube: youtu.be/HQ_XU47c83s

The very nice folk at Make Hack Void (the Canberra hackerspace) were very accomodating to all the extra geeks in town for linux.conf.au 2013. Not only was the hackerspace open days and evenings during the conference, but they also ran a "Makerconf" event on the Saturday right after LCA ended.

This is a bit of a random look around the current Make Hack Void premises on a busy night when a bunch of LCA delegates were visiting. Unfortunately this building may soon succumb to a bulldozer, so MHV are now looking for an alternative location.

Sorry about the dodgy phone-camera recording. I really need to upgrade myself to a proper camera for things like this.

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=co7skwW7EpQ

The assembly project for the 2013 Arduino Miniconf was "HackCNC", a CNC plotter designed (mechanicals) by John Spencer and (electronics) by Luke Weston, with software development lead by Bob Powers. For more info about HackCNC and the Arduino Miniconf see www.arduinominiconf.org

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TWiKmIdnUo

I like hard copies of datasheets. Yes, it means printing and using paper, but there are advantages to having a datasheet in a folder or on a clipboard instead of just a PDF on your computer screen.

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcEZbC8yoaU