News/2011-03-24

London Hackspace news for 17th - 23rd March 2011.

General space news

• Adrian has left some carpet for the quiet room, he will be bringing some more soon - please leave the roll until then. [1]

• The consensus is that the South Unit 23 toilet will be turned in to a dark room/wet lab, hopefully this will happen over the next few months. We will also be converting one of the toilets to a disabled toilet at some point. [2]

• The chill out area has been moved into the lobby to free up space for...

• Elliot has left some desks, some of these are being set up in the main room area previously occupied by the sofas and beanbags. [3]

• Adam has bitten the bullet and bought a replacement cartridge for the laser printer. Please remember donate to the consumables pot whenever you print, so we can replace this one ourselves. It is claimed to do approximately 2000 pages per cartridge so although a bit more expensive than an inkjet cartridge it is much better value for money. Adam is thinking of a "please donate 10p per sheet" sign on the printer. Adam is contemplating using the printer as part of a PCB making process and may try out some sort of clothes iron toner transfer process.

Upcoming events

• Another Young Hackspace event is being run on Friday 25th, they will be holding a wood working and print making workshop for children and teenagers. (Please note this is not an open invite event and is now fully booked.) This will primarily be taking place in the quiet room and dirty shop: please don't leave sharp objects lying around, don't leave open power sources unattended, unplug any heavy machinery when it's not used, etc. Any assistance in keeping things safe is appreciated. [4]

• The weekly catchup meeting of the biohacking group will take place next Wednesday 30th.

• A Souis Vide Hack Event is being held on Thursday 31st.

• A small Perl RDF Hackathon will be taking place between Monday 28th and Wednesday 30th. [5]

• Filming will be taking place in the hackspace this Saturday 26th at 10:00 AM. [6]

• An Arduino for beginners workshop has been announced for 14th and 15th May. [7]

Equipment

The embargo on pledge funding is still in place, members with outstanding pledges are encouraged to fulfil them at their earliest convenience.

• We now have a PCB etch station. We expect that etching circuit boards in a heated bubble tank will generally etch quicker and come out better than using a plastic tray of ferric chloride. The arduino powered tray rocker was a nice idea but perhaps can be repurposed soon. Thanks to everyone who donated to the pledge, Mark for bidding on the Auction and particularly Artag for telling us about the auction and collecting the tank.

• Mike has purchased a 25 litre liquid nitrogen dewer. A small amount of research is needed to find somewhere to get it filled so we can make our own ice cream at the next party.

Projects

• The hackspace challenge team have had their entry accepted and are now planning their project, discussions are now on their new mailing list. [8] [9]

• Matthew Venn has had his maze puzzle box featured on Instructables front page. [10]

Recently added projects:

• No new project pages this week.

(You could prod Fish to add the cassette player organ project to the wiki... I'v thought of a simpler way of doing the electronics than the prototype transistor lashup, I'v just been busy... AJP)

SwapShop

Please can members update their items in the SwapShop so that it can become more useful and also please date when you add something.

New items this week:

• Canon CanoScan D1250U2 scanner (alexmuller)
• Microsoft joystick (serial port) (alexmuller)
• Power Plant herb growing hydroponic system (Liedra)

External news

• Nottinghack are running an Arduino worksop on Sunday 27th March. [11]