Robotics and Mechatronic Jam April 16th

The photograph below shows Bill’s rapidly increasing collection of robots for his CodeClub.

The processors are Raspberry PI’s, Micro-Bit’s and Crumble’s. Chassis’s are made out of cardboard or 3D printed, with a 3D printed holder for the castor wheel.

All connected using crocodile clips.

I wonder what the next one will be?

Inaugural Radio Control Jam

Thursday, April 5th saw the first of our Radio Control Jams, happening on the first and third Thursday of the month.

Star model of the evening was Dave’s Radio Controlled Buggy.

“I took a battered and unwanted 3 wheeled buggy and stripped it down of all unnecessary parts, designed and 3d printed adapters for the wheel hubs to take a standard toothed belt, added a second stage of gearing and used a couple of old quadcopter motors I had kicking around (with ESCs and receiver), the result is somewhat limited having very little torque at low speeds and has no reverse, but its great fun to drive!”

Why not come along to the next jam with your own project.

Creat-A-Con March 10th

Saturday, March 10th saw the Hackspace attend Create-a-con again, this time held for the first time at the LCB depot.

All images are courtesy of Chris Slowe, Chris Leach and SideFest. More can be found on the facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/pg/creatacon/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1471096849684645.

Aaron and Divya brought the sand box which always attracts a large number of visitors.

Keith, Aaron and Matt demonstrated several of our 3D printers.

Tony and Bruce demonstrated their spark machines and BBC computer

Steve and Russ brought along their Raspberry PI robots and home automation demonstrations

Last but not least Marie and John were there from Leicester Fixers.

We always have a good attendance at Creat-A-Con from Hackspace members, easily filling a room to ourselves. Hopefully we will also attract some new members.

Extreme Electronics Talk

Saturday March 3rd saw our first event at the new hackspace when Derek from Extreme Electronics gave us some great demos of his Tesla coils and Large Van der Graff generator.

Check out the link to our Facebook page of a great video of the Tesla Coils making music!

Summary of 2017

2017 saw our membership expand at the De Montfort University Innovation Centre, so that in November we moved to our new location on the Faircharm Trading Estate.

There is an event now on every weekday evening, nominally between 1830 and 2130.

Monday evenings alternate between Crypto Club, Arduino Jam, Robotics - Mechatronic, and Raspberry Pi Jam.

Tuesday evenings remains the Open Hack Night for new members

Wednesday evenings is a members only hack night.

Thursday evenings saw the introduction of a members only 3D printing club and a textiles evening.

Friday nights alternate between TableTop Gaming and Role Playing.

All details can be found on the Diary page.

Slack has been introduced for Members only Communication

Facebook and Meetup are used to attract new members