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We soldered a Teensy 2.0 to a 240V relay then attached a wig wag light to the relay in order to create a nice and noticeable way to alert anyone at the shop for various reasons.  One plan is to eventually hook this to our doorbell whenever we get one of those installed for visitors so we know to open the door for them.  Right now you have to knock really loud and hope someone is in the office to let you in.

The interface is very simple.  Hook a USB cable to the Teensy and any computer.  Then connect through the USB serially and just send it a “1” to turn the light on.  Send it a “0” to turn it off.  It couldn’t be simpler!  Here’s the arduino sketch code we used to make it work:

/* USB Relay

 This is for a teensy connected to a relay on PIN 1.
 Send it a "1" to turn it on (HIGH)
 Send it a "0" to turn it off (LOW)

*/

int pinNum = 1;
int input = -1;

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(9600); // USB is always 12 Mbit/sec
    pinMode(pinNum, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(pinNum, LOW);
}

void loop()
{
    if(Serial.available())
    {
        input = Serial.read();
        if(input == 1 || input == '1')
        {
            digitalWrite(pinNum, HIGH);
        }
        else if(input == 0 || input == '0')
        {
            digitalWrite(pinNum, LOW);
        }
    }
}

Here’s a link to more pictures with more detail:

http://plus.google.com/photos/116575142518321294189/albums/5705228437791855137

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This fortnight Matt, Mog, Tim, and Nathan chat about Milwaukee Makerspace’s Wooden Nickels, ADX in Portland, and HeatSync Labs’ Last Week in Pics. They all hate on CentOS and Mississippi (a little). All this and more on the episode 021 of Hackerspace Digest.

Show notes available on the wiki. Please leave comments below or at podcast@makerslocal.org

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Our Hackathon started strong at 5pm with a load of rice krispy treats cookies and pizza.  It was a great success with people working on a range of projects. reprap repair, wireless mesh networking, life streaming apps, powerbolt board design, giraffe creation with a laser cutter, prop design, 555 based dice, some custom board design.  We are looking forward to our next meet up on February 25th.  Bring your ideas and projects.

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This time on Hackerspace Digest Matt, Tim and Nathan talk about their New Years Party, LVL1 giving away makerships, and welcome The Mill to the hackerspace universe. They also talk about Matt’s Space API Android App, Noisebridge’s Tor Node and more. It’s an hour of fun with your favorite hackerspace podcast!

Show notes available on the wiki. Please leave comments below or at podcast@makerslocal.org

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Dmitriy and his rocket, Safety Orange
Dmitriy and his rocket, Safety Orange

A few of us drove down to Talladega, AL on Saturday January 14, 2012 to put the Safety Orange rocket through some flight tests at the model rocket launch event.  Dmitriy’s flight computer altimeter worked great.  It was able to pop the parachute at the perfect altitude so that it almost landed directly on the launch pad it took off from.  It was very windy that day and even blew some of the tables over where people were preparing their rockets for flight.  You can hear by the videos we took just how much wind there was for the rockets to deal with.   There wasn’t a single cloud that day from what I remember so it made it easier to see as soon as the rockets would open their parachutes and watch it glide to the ground.  I recommend going to any of these rocket launch events to anyone especially if you already have a similar hobby like RC airplanes.

Video 1 (someone’s egg-nosed rocket): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLCeSg5HIjg

Video 2 (Dmitriy’s Safety Orange flight 1): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpgSovuLzow

Pictures:  https://plus.google.com/photos/116575142518321294189/albums/5697765429049993249