[Blog]

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

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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.

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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

Electronics design has traditionally been a solo activity. Some high-end packages have a degree of collaboration using shared libraries and synchronisation tools, but Upverter is the first project I've seen that allows real-time online collaboration. Multiple engineers can be working in the same project simultaneously, and the project updates live so all participants can see changes as they happen. Now with Upverter's latest release they've extended their initial schematic tool to include PCB layout, which may just tip it over the edge to being a major contender as design tool of choice for many engineers.

Check out Upverter at www.upverter.com. I'd love to know what you think.

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPsViT0IT2c

I put up SuperHouse episode 4 a while ago, and forgot to blog about it! Slack.

Anyway, it's up now so please check it out!

http://www.superhouse.tv/episode/4-making-home-automation-gear-quieter

I have another 2 episodes partly filmed, and work done for a couple more after that so hopefully they'll begin coming through more regularly.

When IVT started using Scrum as a development methodology I wanted to put the power to approve or reject software releases into the hands of the product manager. Combining an Arduino-compatible board from Freetronics, a WiFi shield, the JIRA issue tracker, the Git source code management system, a custom web service, and some flashing lights, this is the result.

View or comment directly on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jieg_Aalp8s