Upcoming Meetings
- Make:SF South 5/22 @ TechShop SJ - How to make a product using Arduino (eMotimo)Make:SF - the Bay Makers Hello Makers Ever wondered how you can make a product using Arduino? Well Brian Burling, the man behind eMotimo, can answer all your questions because he has done just that. eMotimo is a line of multi-axis motion controlled DSLR mounts and all of it is based around an Arduino Uno. Learn everything from licensing Arduino based product […]
Recent Meeting Recaps
April Meetings
We had a great turn out in April. Thanks to all the people who came!
First we had the fine people from Ace Monster Toys speak about their hacker space.
Ace Monster Toys is located in Oakland and has been around for about a year now. They are the first East Bay hacker space and they have a bunch of cool equipment that members can use. There are lots of smart people there everyday to help with anything you want to do. Also there are ongoing collaborations including a book scanner so if you want to get into something bigger that is possible as well. AMT has a general meeting at 7:30pm Thursdays that is open to the public so go check them out!
Then Andrew demoed making a parametric shape Processing and outputting an STL file that you could print on a 3D printer.
Oooooh geometry
A parametric shape is a mathematical defined shape. Generating these shapes is much easier and quicker than using a 3D modeling program like Solid Works so it is a good place to start when you are getting into 3D printing. To generate the shape we used the demo code from Local Guru which and the unlekker library made by Marius Watz. This library can convert a shape made in Processing into an STL file. Marius was the first Artist in Residence at MakerBot Industries and made some really cool parametric shapes while he was there. With the STL file you can use Replicator G to process the STL file and control a 3D printer to make the part.
March Meetings
We had a great meeting in March. Eric Maundu gave a great over view of the chemistry and system used in aquaponics. Basically it consists of a fish tank and a growing bed. To keep the tank clean water is pumped to the bed where bacteria break down the fish waste and feed the plants. Then the water is pumped back into the tank and the cycle repeats itself. Eric explained how this flow matches what nature already does only on a much smaller scale. For more information on Eric’s projects go to Kijiji Grows
Eric Maundu talks about the aquaponics cycle at Tech Liminal
Then Rik Kretzinger demoed his Arduino automated unit. The cycle starts with a pump that fills the grow bed. The water level is detected by a media probe. When the signal from the probe is big enough the Arduino shuts off the pump and then waits a set amount of time. Then it activates a gravity feed valve that empties the tank. When the media probe signals the tank is empty the Arduino waits a set amount of time and then starts the cycle over again. All of which is pretty neat 
For more information see Rik’s page on the The Aquapanics Gardening Community.
Rik demos his aquaponics system at the Tech Shop
Then we did our soft circuits miniproject and people went home with some great LED bracelets. This project used conductive thread to connect a battery to a LED. When the bracelet was snapped together it would close the circuit and light up the LED.