Now that the final submission madness is over ... and this web-site is less stressed ... here is some content I tried (and failed) to upload earlier today ...
Now that the GGHC deadline has passed, we'll be completing the other 4 OpenLab prototypes, evaluating them (including a school trial) ... and making plans for hardware / software redesign and then making some production 1.0 versions of the OpenLab. The GGHC was a wonderful opportunity to kick-start this project and not just be an isolated event that is nearly over.
The ChallengeDownUnder team thanks our humble and tireless project leader @paulzee ... who put an incredible amount of time and energy into getting our project successfully across the line.
Thanks also to element14, the competition organizers / support team, sponsors, judges and Mitch Altman for making this all happen.
Finally, to all the HackerSpaces and their members ... keep on hacking and don't stop amazing us with your efforts !
If you are ever in Melbourne, Australia ... look us up at http://hackmelbourne.org ... drop by and visit.
We had a great evening last night rounding out the project, with most of the team members able to join in on the last tasks to complete the project. There were many highlights during the evening, including getting the final product working in its nice shiny enclosure:
however the highlight of the night was team member Rob's unveiling of the secret experiment: a Ruben's Tube:
we've designed OpenLab's hardware so that it will be able to drive a Ruben's Tube from the available outputs:
Key Thoughts and Observations
We considered a number of times whether our ambitions had gotten the better of us, and perhaps they had. But in the end, we've gotten to a first alpha prototype product, with lots of potential to expand it. This is by far the most feature rich and complex project we have undertaken together as a hackerspace. It stretched our skills as a group and as individuals. We found that our core team members were severely taxed, and it took the efforts of the entire team to get us to a final working product. A stellar effort from all the crew: congratulations everyone, but particular thanks go out to our friends at Freetronics for their support and assistance, and to the team: Andy, Luke, Marc, Stuart, Antoinette, Bernd, George, Rob and Clifford for your hard work and commitment.
We're very excited by what we've built, and the potential to improve it going forward. We're already looking at presenting this to the local Science Teachers association.
Next Steps and post-project activities
There are various activities we intend to investigate, including:
- Organise further school trials.
- Establish a way for schools to purchase the project in various forms, including as a partially built kitset, or as a complete finished product ready to use.
- Present to the local Science Teachers Association conference
- Improve the hardware in second version update
Spotlight: The OpenLab
Our finished product is a general science and physics project platform, usable by schools to more easily conduct and monitor various experiments. Our working title during the competition was ArduinoLab, but as you can see in the pictures we've now settled on the name OpenLab.
The OpenLab platform provides a number of things:
- A damage proof, protected, experimentation environment where the circuits are designed to protect the inputs and outputs from damage.
- An onboard Lithium Ion battery, providing mobility and portability of the lab around the classroom.
- Charging of the portable power source over USB, enabling the OpenLab to be powered and charged from a computers USB port, from a multi-port USB hub, or from mains power using an adaptor wall plug with USB socket.
- Graphics LCD display, enabling waveforms to be displayed.
- Intuitive navigation using buttons and control knobs, using a soft-label menu system.
- A built-in Arduino: an Atmega 28p, lowering the cost of purchasing the microprocessor separately.
- A Xbee header, enabling the addition of communications features using any of the "bee" form factors modules: Xbee, GPSBee, RFbee, BluetoothBee, etc.
- A multi-tasking screen/ application handling framework.
- The ability to monitor multiple sensor inputs and to generate multiple outputs simultaneously.
- based on a design using easy to source and well known components, enabling the project to be replicated internationally.
Documentation
We'v used this blog pretty much exclusively for our updates and information on our project.
We've also uploaded some video to the agentsilverfox FTP server, so keep an eye out for that footage appearing at some stage.
And if you want to review the hardware work, or see where version two goes next, see the previously mentioned hardware design repository here on github.
And and walkthrough of the hardware structure was in a previous blog post.
Closing comments
Well, it's been tiring but it's been a real blast! Congratulations to all the other Hackerspace teams who have joined in the challenge: we've enjoyed reading about your projects and your progress. We hope you've enjoyed hearing about ours just as much.
And if you're ever in Melbourne, come and look us up. And if you can't make it in person, drop by the website from time-to-time to see what we're up to, or look us up on IRC.
Happy Hacking from the Connected Community HackerSpace (Melbourne)
Phew! What a crazy, fun-filled and tiring week it's been! And so many great moments too I'll pick a few to highlight.
The PCB's arrived! Straight after the Easter break, on Wednesday 27th April, the courier arrived and we were holding our sleek looking boards in our hot hands. We kind of felt like proud parents, and I guess it's true we're biased, but aren't these just the greatest looking bundles of joy?:
It's been frustrating having the hardware delay, but it was great to finally be able to jump into populating the first few boards and begin testing our prototype software. We proceeded to make up for lost time with a week of late nights and grabbing any spare moment we could find during our regular daily lives.
Progress this week
Project: Lots of movement on all fronts. Hardware assembly, software implementation, enclosure package layout and design, and documenting the project. We had a few parts we ordered from element14 that still haven't arrived, however they're not critical components (an SMT trimpot for the LCD contrast and some 102 caps).
Requirements: Our main requirements focus has been to review the enclosure layout for usability. We've settled on a first prototype layout that works, however we'd like to make further improvements to simplify the user experience. We've also refined the software requirements a little based on the feedback and learnings from working with the LCD prototype boards, and we have needed to flex a little from our original software requirements to reflect the compressed timeframes due to the delayed hardware arrival. .
Design: We're taking the initial outline software deisgn and itereating that through design --> build --> test cycles, working collaboratively using github. We've also taken a similar approach with the case layout work, running through design-->paper prototype-->walkthrough-->refine & adjust cycles.
Build: We got the first few Motherboards assembled, followed by the Daughter and Buttonboards. We have a nice framework running to handle the various "applets" that the lab will run, with a number of prototype applications running in test mode. We have also completed the front-panel artwork for the enclosure, and have begun the final work on the case to mark it up for drilling.
Plan & Schedule: We only have a couple of days left to go! Still lots to do, and we're all feeling under immense pressure. We've settled for a reduced set of functions from those we originally envisaged, but that simply reflects a reduced set of software: something that can be improved with updates after the competition.
Key Thoughts and Observations
We're finding we have too many concurrent threads to close out in the remaining days. We can see the end in sight, but there are a number of tasks to complete, none of which are particularly problematic by themselves, but leave uncertainty around the final product. We'll be working very hard to make the deadline, and feel confident we'll make it with a first alpha protype version of a product that has lots of real-world applicability and potential.
Here's a look at the enclosure artwork that team members Marc and Antoinette have been working on, and a first enclosure cut to suit
Next Steps and post-project activities
There are various activities we intend to investigate, including:
- Finish the basic application environment, with a couple of example applications
- Finish the enclosure cutting and assembly.
- Attch and tst the secret experiment we spoke about in an early blog post.
Spotlight: Surface-mount soldering
We had fun with help from our friends at Freetronics, doing a couple of solder mount assembly sessions. the first focused on getting the few boards poulated and ready for testing, the second a demonstration/ tutorial for the general hackerspace membership to be involvd in.
We used solder paste, an stereo microsope and a toaster oven to make some magic happen. It really isn't as hard as folks might think it is to do SMT work, and we'd strongly encourage everyone to give it a go and learn the requisite skills.
Well, one more post to go! See you soon!
Happy Hacking from the Connected Community HackerSpace (Melbourne)
I'll pick a few to highlight.
