Category: News

October 8, The workshop was a success

Nous n’avons pas reçu autant de participant que prévu, néanmoins ce workshop fût un succès.
Tant au niveau de la transmission des compétences que de l’ambiance, j’ai le sentiment que chacun d’entre nous en est parti concidérablement enrichit.
L’accueil au Zoo fait par Amira nous a permi de présenter les bases de la plateforme Arduino dans un environnement accueillant.

L’architecture particulière du lieu, immense et froide, prévue pour la nuit d’avantage que le jour vallait à elle seule le détour.
Le milieu hétéroclyte de l’Usine était propice à nos digressions technologiques, comme nous la déjà prouvé le passé.

Qu’il s’agisse de projets artistiques ou de démonstrations physiques, que l’expérience aie abouti ou non, les domaines de l’électronique et de l’informatique ont flirté avec d’autres domaines. Education, art plastique, philosophie, tous les grands thèmes ont eu leurs moments.

Apprendre et faire apprendre l’utilisation de technologie pour émanciper, c’est bien plus que j’en attendais.

8 octobre 2009
8 octobre 2009

chic chic chic!

de la bonne stoff hier soir à l’Usine pour le workshop Arduino! après une short intro pour démystifier l’Arduino et prouver que même ma Grand-Mère pouvait faire blink, on est passé au vif du sujet: tout le monde a commencé à fouiller dans les caisses à trésors de Théo à la recherche d’un vieux robot ou d’un pack de leds.

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et là on a vu plein de belle choses se passer. tellement bien de voir qu’à chaque nouveau tour de table, chacun(e) a ajouté un nouveau truc à son circuit et que petit à petit notre armée de hackers allait conquérir le monde électronique, une led après l’autre… as said, “resistance is futile” and we WILL conquer Geneva, one Arduino after the other!

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on remet ça dimanche prochain, allez le crier sur les toits!!!!

Resistance is futile @ le Zoo/Usine – 8 et 15 novembre 09

flyer

Lire ce billet dans la langue de Voltaire.
Read this post in Shakespeare’s tongue.


Le spleen du dimanche d’automne n’est pas une fatalité, venez découvrir et apprendre à utiliser les merveilles électriques de la plateforme arduino avec le allstar cast de modprobe.ch. A la soudure et robotique Theo Reichel, au platine du code Monsieur Java en personne Renaud Richardet, acompagné en exclusivité mondiale par le über-guru du C Philippe Vaucher en personne, finalement au support moral on trouvera le pousseur de pixel David Hodgetts. Le workshop s’adresse à un large public, artiste et bricoleur du dimanche bienvenu.

Hard

Pour suivre le workshop dans les meilleures conditions, il faut amener un laptop (mac linux ou windows) et un kit arduino. Pour ceux qui le désirent, l’usine a 16 kits starter arduino à vendre. Il est évidement également possible de venir avec son propre matos tant qu’il s’agit de la même plateforme (micro-contrôleurs ATMEGA8-168-328). Sur place, vous trouverez plein de composants marrants: moteurs linéaire ou pas à pas, servos, LED puissante et moins puissantes, drivers de puissance, transistors, ICs en tout genre, bière etc. Dans le bordel et plus spécifiquement pour arduinos et artistes, module son (wave), module de puissance pour mécaniques, plaque de prototypage à souder, module Xbee, etc.

Thunes

Entrée : 10 balles Kit arduino (optionnel) : 50 balles (Arduino Duemilanove 328, breadboard, composants divers, fils, voir ici pour le détail)

Lieu

Le zoo de l’usine
4 pl. des volontaires
1204 Genève
www.lezoo.ch

Programme

Samedi 7 novembre 2009, 10h-12h

Des-puces-lage : Balade sur la plaine de plainpalais à la recherche de matériel électronique pour occuper le workshop. Participants les bienvenus.
Rendez-vous à 10h00 à la roulotte (46.197929, 6.139324)

Dimanche 8 novembre 2009, 16h-20h

Premier workshop : introduction à la plateforme arduino
En gros :
30min intro, qu’est-ce que l’arduino, exemple d’utilisation.
30min installation sur les machines et clignotement d’une LED
1h presentation de projets connus
1h mini-workshop pour se faire les dents sur la plateforme
1h presentation de project modprobe et potes.

Samedi 14 novembre 2009, 10h-12h

Marché aux puces: Deuxième balade plus ciblée : circuit-bending, méchanique, électronique de puissance, etc.
Rendez-vous à 10h00 à la roulotte (46.197929, 6.139324)

Dimanche 15 novembre 2009, 16h-20h

Second workshop : Réalisation d’un projet arduino, présentation de projets hardcores
1h, présentation de projets poussés, de quoi faire rêver
3h, workshops les mains déliées avec le soutiens d’une équipe de 5 gars compétents, dans le domaine de l’électronique, de l’informatique et du lard.

Formulaire d’inscription

Nous avons a disposition 16 kit “Budget pack” d’adafruit industries. Pour réserver votre kit ou vous inscrire au workshop, merci de remplir le formulaire ci-dessous.


















Resistance is futile @ the Zoo/Usine Geneva november 8 and 15 2009

No need to suffer from autumnal sunday spleen anymore… Come discover the electrical wonders of the arduino platform with the allstar modprobe crew: on the soldering iron and general robotics expert, Theo Reichel. Spinning and grooving, the one and only Mr Java, Renaud Richard, exceptionally assisted by the world acclaimed all time C über geek, Phillipe Vaucher. Finally, on general moral support, David Hodgetts the pixel pusher. The workshop is open to all. Artists and sunday do-it-yourselvers welcome !

Hard

To follow the workshop in the best consitions, you will need a laptop (mac, linux or win) and an arduino kit. Le zoo-usine has 16 arduino starter kits to sell for interested participants. Of course, it is also possible to come with your own chips as long as they are based on the ATMEGA8-168-328 family. Plenty of fun components will be available to play with: motors, leds, sensors, ICs, wave modules, etc.

Finance

Entry : 10 chf Arduino kit arduino (optional) : 50 chf (Arduino Duemilanove 328, breadboard see here for details).

Location

Le zoo de l’usine
4 pl. des volontaires
1204 Genève
www.lezoo.ch

Language of the workshop

The workshop is in french.
But if there is subscribers speaking only english, the workshop will be translated in live for them.

Program

Saturday november 7 2009, 10h-12h

Object-Hunting: Stroll around the plaine of plainpalais’ s flea market on the look for electronic treasures. Workshop participants welcome.
Meeting point 10h00 @ “la roulotte” (46.197929, 6.139324)

Sunday november 8, 16h-20h

first workshop : introduction to the arduino platfom
30min intro, what is arduino , real world examples.
30min arduino hard and soft install and blinking led test. 1h case studies.
1h applied arduino examples.
1h modprobe project presentation.

Saturday november 14 2009, 10h-12h

Flea-market: The second stroll : circuit-bending, mechanics, power electronics, etc.
Meeting point 10h00 @ “la roulotte” (46.197929, 6.139324)

Sunday november 15 2009, 16h-20h

Second workshop : warm-up: production of an arduino project.
1h presentation of crazy hardcore skills projects
3h free-form workshop

Enroll here

We have 16″Budget pack” kits from adafruit industries. To order an arduino kit or to to book a seat for the workshop please fill in the following form.


















CANCELED – Arduino @ Usine / september 19th.

UPDATE : The date has been cancel due to late building site. Indeed, the new place where we were supposed to present the workshop is not yet build.
There is no new date at the moment. 🙁

In french, parce que tu le vaux bien.

<<< TITRE : Arrrrr... duino ! Le dur-ware pour pirate content pour rien. sous-titre: (ou Workshop arduino pour les nuls et les artistes) Venez naviguer les eaux troubles, entre technologies, art et n'importe quoi. Un long périple d'introduction à la plate-forme Arduino. Apportez vos fonds de cales électriques (jouets, moteurs, lumière, récup, imprimante,...) nous en feront des trésors robotisés. L'abordage se fera en 3 parties, discours du capt'ain, mutinerie et démonstration, et enfin partage du butin et orgie électronique. 10 pièces d'or pour entrer, 50 supplémentaires pour repartir avec un kit Arduino et ses munitions. Récap pour en profiter à fond : - un laptop pour coder et brancher l'arduino - 60.- pour repartir avec un kit arduino + composants - quelques objets désuets pour transformation (ou destruction) >>> EOPrésentation

PS: If someone whant try a translation here is my email.

Mapping Festival, first shots

From the 8th to the 17th of may, the mapping festival invades some of the cultural places of Geneva.
This great event allow us to discover, and sometimes experience, lots of nice “stuff”.
This year, there was the reactable, an amazing multitouch table.
The UI and performance are really sweet.
The first purpose of this apparel isn’t being a nice multitouch table. It’s a music instrument, able to produce a lot of different sounds, from different sources, parsed by many filters.

I think they made a really nice work. We were both astonished by the demo. And in the same time excited about our current project.

Very entertaining…

Later in the night, I dropped by the Usine, more specifically le zoo, to watch the VJ battle. To say the truth, it was boring before the crew I know started the show ! Look at the picture, two Disco-Saint-Nicolas landing directly from the 80’s.

The day after was a sunday. I quickly went to module8 workshop. It was interesting, I’d love to try it now. And I’d like to try something like a midi-theremin with it. Maybe the Disco-Saint-Nicolas from the 80’s would be interested in being my guinea pig (direct translation of “cobaye” with my aïPhone).

My advice: Enjoy the mapping.

Howto change the Roomba 560’s brush deck motor

2 years ago I bought a Roomba 560. It’s quite good at doing what I paid it for, so last month when the main brush stopped working I was really disappointed. It is hard to go back to manual vacuuming once you’ve experienced the bliss of robotic cleaning.

Anyway, I decided not to transform this robot in a other “useless” toy. Even if the desire was strong: I could program my own code pattern and art, install a camera, play with other sensors, etc.
Arg, it’s hard to neglect all the fancy robot-dreams I have in my head !

So, I found an electric motor with the same specs, RS385SH for only 2.5$. Compared to the 60$ to exchange the whole deck, without shipping fees, it’s almost free.

This motor is a little shorter so I had to shift the handle and only use one screw. The axis is also a bit long. I had to cut it to make it fit in the complication box.

The repair seems to work well even if the robot’s noise is a bit louder.
My only advice if you try to do the same is to be extra careful when extracting the motor’s cogwheel.

 

Party for the new lab & multitouch table

On the 19th of February 2009 we had a party to celebrate the new arrangement of our offices.

At the end of november 08, I ordered new desks at my father’s company. It seems trivial to change desks, but in our office it’s been a revolution. The idea was to bring up the lab and improve the use of space.

This is why the magnificent man call dad sent 2 guys to drill, screw and fix long pieces of wood on the walls (410cm X 90cm each).
The result is pretty nice, very useful and already paying off.

So earlier this year, in our new lab, David and me had a great time building our first project together. We were very proud of our new born, and had the honor to present it during the party.
So to say, this party became the “multitouch and toys party” while the brand new desks were reduced to their first purpose : holding the huge amount of wine bottle we brought.

A lot of people enjoyed the table and the store window turned into a multitouch screen with our homemade IR funny throwies.

Show !

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Punk multitouch table

Well, first post in english. Let’s see how it works.

David (called “the mighty Brain” below) and me (called “the clumsy Hands” below) tried, and actually managed, to build our own multitouch screen using FTIR technology. We obtained most of the information to get started on Nuigroup. This is a great community and we wouldn’t have managed without them. 

For our first try, we wanted to stay low budget. We repurposed our old tables to build the main box, tried different silicone-based options for the compliant surface, opted for some rosco projection screen, used some common webcams for the tracking (PS3 eye cam) and finally bought a relatively cheap DLP projector.

Our aim was to make a quick and dirty Multi(please)Touch from scratch, and learn by making experiments. We now plan to build a nicer V2.
The Hand knows how to handle the work when it’s about getting something done.
The Brain knows where is information and how to write code that work.

We plan to post some articles in the coming weeks to discuss the different aspects of the whole process.

Finally, here are some pics.

a spoon to feed, two prototypes

For Ida.

Well, this project seemed to be so easy, but it so wasn’t.
The description is the following : “Before dying I had to make an apparel able to transmit touch or pressure sensation through the distance.”
The purpose of such an apparel is obvious, trying to reduce body distance and allowing hand collision in spite of kilometers.
There are some kind of relationships who need more than the spiritual belief of “we keep in touch” when contact isn’t possible.

So why the spoon ?
The symbolic of the spoon used to feed is strong. No need to define what sort of emotions have been transmitted through our first spoon of food. No need to express the feelings we had towards those who used to feed our mouth. We all have a different kinds, but probably strong for everyone.

Feeding is the responsible act for keeping alive.
(Alimenter est l’act responsable de maintenir en vie)

The spoon is a cold iron tool. With at least one curve and a nest for something liquid, difficult to keep by definition. It’s an agile shape for our clumsy hands, and it does the job.
Spoon by its shape, size and material is also an erotic object. Not to feed we agree, fork is more romantic, but for imagination.
As I was born in a protestant city, I’ll let you figure out what you can do and how to play around with a spoon. Some people could be shocked, and It’s really not my kind, oh no !
(the truth : I keep alive the dream and wait patiently for a receptive body, no need to spread desire if I release the code and plans, no?)

Somehow, the spoon is for food what this prototype is for the relationship, an artifact of love.
A new tool to feed the relationship.

Code and electronic will come later.
Right now, what matters is : Arduino, modified servo, spoon, capacitive meter.

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