Harford Hackerspace took First Place in the first ever Baltimore Hackathon. It took nearly all 48 hours for us to plan and build RotoFoto. RotoFoto is an automated 3D imaging system that takes a series of 2D images of an object and stitches them into a 360 degree interactive image. This allows viewers to use simple mouse dragging gestures to rotate an object to see if from all angles. Watch the complete build in the below time lapse video. We will demonstrate the build shortly so check back soon.

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We would like to thank Pete Koziar, author of Dauntless Homecoming, for visiting our hackerspace and teaching us how to grind our own mirrors.

We’ll post video of the course soon…

Thanks Pete!

This was a very cool experience for us. We were asked by Gary Mauler to appear on the Fox 45 morning news to promote Electronica Fest. We showed up at the National Electronic Museum at 5:30am to prepare for our 6:10am, 7:10am, and 8:10am live coverage. Unfortunately the segments were very short so we did not get to explain our own projects. However, our Cornstarch Monster project stole the show. See for yourself.

We would like to thank all of the participants who came out and made the Netduino Class a huge success. This was the first class we hosted and we received excellent reviews from the class survey. Here is what some our participants said:

“It was fun. There was enough equipment and it was all in good condition and 
well organized.”

“It was groundbreaking! Netduino is ”three weeks old” (or out on the market at least.) 
and we got a chance to talk to the ”creator” of the product. What’s not to like.”

Enjoy the video montage!

You can purchase the Netduino from our Amazon Store for $34.95!

Hmm… What is a Netduino? Check out the next video from our Netduino Debut Tutorial for a demonstration!

The Netduino looks like an Arduino and it’s even compatible with the existing Arduino protoshields. However, it’s a completely different beast which can be programmed using Microsoft Visual Studio C#. Oh… It’s also Open Source. Pretty cool eh!

Netduino

Over the last few weeks Harford Hackerspace has had the pleasure of beta testing the Netduino. The Netduino is a development board with a form factor similar to the Arduino. Care was taken when designing the Netduino to ensure compatibility with most of the existing Arduino shields. That’s about where the similarities of the two devices ends.

The Netduino uses Microsoft’s Open Source .net Micro Framework SDK along with Visual Studio C# (or VS C# Express) as the primary development environment. C# application developers will be able to quickly adapt to the .net Micro Framework and start programming microcontrollers in a matter of minutes. However, this does not let them off the hook for learning the basics of electronics.
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Congratulations Eileen Barnett!

Eileen is the winner of Harford Hackerspace’s first ever raffle and she is the proud new owner of an iRobot Roomba. She also received Hacking Roomba book.

When we first contacted Eileen she thought we were pulling her leg. Once she overcame the initial shock and realized she had actually won, Eileen got even more excited.

We would like to send a special thanks to everyone who supported Harford Hackerspace by purchasing a raffle ticket and visiting us at RobotFest 2010 for the drawing.

Visit us at our RobotFest 2010 Table:

PicKit2 Debug Express

Paul King has created the first tutorial called “Using the PICkit2: As a Programmer” of his planned series of PICkit 2 tutorials. This one covers setting up the MPLAB software and PICkit 2 programmer to quickly compile and program the 44 Pin PICkit2 Demo Boards.

Subsequent tutorials will cover using the programmer hardware as a Debugger, Logic Analyzer, Logic Output Tool, and a UART Tool.

Be sure to read David Powell’s “Programming PIC Microcontrollers in C” as a precursor to Paul’s series.

Happy Hacking!

We just posted a new tutorial called Programming PIC Microcontrollers with C. It’s designed to get you started programming using MPLAB and CCS C Compiler. The only hardware you need to get started is the PicKit2 or PicKit3 which comes with a demo board. The demo board contains 8 LEDs, 1 Potentiometer, and a Pushbutton all wired and ready to go.

Check it out Here!