Where:

The Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, Birmingham, B12 0QH [map] [Street View]. Look for the red signs on the gate, and if you get really lost give the fizzPHONE (07754 634993) a call on the night of the hack session

When:

Wednesday 1st September 6pm-10pm. Please add your name here if you’re coming. We ask for £3 per person as subs.

What:

Get hacking on whatever you want or work with others. Check out the wiki pages or disscussion group to see what people have been working on.

Other details:

• Wifi Internet. Ask for the key.
• We’ve got a few soldering irons, so no need to bring your own.
• Tea, coffee and soft drinks are available for a small donation, although there’s not usually any milk unless someone remembers to bring some!
• There’s no food available at the venue, though it’s near to the city centre and Digbeth. There’s also a chippy just around the corner from the venue and there’s a basic kitchen if you want to bring your own food (no microwave).
• There is also the option to club together and order pizza – let us know if you can recommend any good nearby pizza places.

See you there!

DIY Arduino - back to basics

What:

This is a themed hacksession. You’re free to work on your own individual projects if you wish, but the main focus of the evening will be people working on things that respond to the idea of ‘DIY Arduino’. There’s more information on this blog post and on this discussion thread.

When:

Wednesday 18th August 6pm-10pm. Please add your name etc to the wiki page if you’re coming.

Where:

The Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, Birmingham, B12 0QH [map] [Street View]. Look for the red signs on the gate, and if you get really lost give the fizzPHONE (07754 634993) a call on the night of the hack session

Other details:

We ask for £3 per person as subs. You can also buy a kit of basic, bare-bones Arduino components from Nikki at a price of £4.50 per kit.

• Wifi Internet. Ask for the key.
• We’ve got a few soldering irons, so no need to bring your own.
• Tea, coffee and soft drinks are available for a small donation, although there’s not usually any milk unless someone remembers to bring some!
• There’s no food available at the venue, though it’s near to the city centre and Digbeth. There’s also a chippy just around the corner from the venue and there’s a basic kitchen if you want to bring your own food (no microwave).
• There is also the option to club together and order pizza – let us know if you can recommend any good nearby pizza places.

See you there!

After a few small hiccups everyone walked away with their own Drawdio

And now for a special performance of Smoke on the Drawdio from Pete!

You can still buy your very own Drawdio kit if you missed out

We’ll still be running the freestyle hacksessions where people bring along whatever projects they happen to be working on (or just pop in to say “hi” and get involved), but on alternate dates we’ll be announcing different themes for people to get stuck into.

These won’t be as structured as workshops, though there’ll still be loads of learning and skill-sharing going on, as well as the inevitable swapping of ideas. It’ll also give us a chance to pool equipment and buy in components as a group.

First up we’re doing DIY Arduino on Wednesday the 18th of August.

DIY Arduino

This has grown out of a thread on the discussion group and several areas of interest have emerged:

• building a barebones arduino board
• burning the bootloader using ArduinoISP and building daughterboards to make this easier
• designing and building low power variants
• and using the barebones board as a case study for learning about PCB design

We’re sure a lot more will crop up on the night too, but that’s an idea of the sorts of things that will be going on.

This kit of components (plus battery connector) will be available for £4.50

Components for a minimal barebones board will be available for £4.50.

This is what I’ve been using in my artwork when I want to embed something permanently rather than recycling a full-blown Arduino prototyping board. You’ll get everything you need to build the basic circuitry: please note this does not include for programming the chip in situ – you’ll either need to use a different Arduino board or bring your own components suited to whatever programmer you use.

The kit will also include a battery connector, but you’ll have to bring your own PP3 battery and also something to mount the components on. If you’re not sure what to bring the Maplin AD100 breadboard is ideal if you’re just experimenting, or half a JP46A (100mm x 74.1mm, 29 holes by 39) if you’d like something more permanent like that shown below:

A barebones arduino mounted on stripboard

The ATMEGA328 chips will need to have the Arduino bootloader burned onto them, so we’ll also be looking at the ArduinoISP method for doing this. Bring a regular Arduino board if you have one! We will probably investigate making a daughterboard that sits on normal Arduino boards shield-style to automatically make the necessary connections between pins.

I’m not savvy enough to have followed the low-power part of the conversation, so I won’t attempt to summarise it here! I will of course be eavesdropping on the evening though to see what I can pick up…

So, there you go, unleash the themed sessions! We’ve got a conversation going on the discussion group about what other themes we can explore and we’d love to hear from you if you’d like to get a session together (herd a few cats, take responsibility for the getting the word out and gathering a few words and pictures of the event afterwards).

Likewise, if you’ve any suggestions for the DIY Arduino session, put them in the comments or join in with the discussion group thread.

You can read the whole article on the digital magazine (flash) or a HTML version.

Now get building your own Useless Machine!

Updating social networks

fizzPOP has a number of presences of social networks. Currently the blog posts are automatically synchronised to our Twitter, identi.ca and Facebook profiles, but we feel those areas could be more social. We require one or two people who can be more social on these networks.

Twitter is our main focus, and we require one or two people who can post about new hacks they’ve seen, notify people about new hack sessions and just generally tweet about hacking. Can you discuss hacking in 140 characters or less?

Mailing lists

fizzPOP has its own discussion group and will have its own mailing list too. On both of these we send notifications of our regular hack sessions a week before they happen and for larger events usually a few weeks before.

For larger events we also send notifications to other local tech groups including 2600, Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton Linux User Group and Perlmongers, in addition to any other groups that might be interested. This task involves writing a short text-only summary that includes the vital information i.e. What the event is, where and when it is, how much it is and where they can find out more information.

We require one person who can write this summary and send them out to mailing lists when needed. We’re also interested in the possibility of automating this process. One of our hackers is working on a script to automate this, but could you help to write this script?

Add events to directories

As well as mailing lists we often put our events on events listings websites including, Facebook, Digital Brum, the main fizzPOP website (including Calendar and blog posts) and the main page of our discussion group.

We require one person who can add events to these websites and update them with new information when required (change of time, change of theme etc). We’re also interested in the possibility of automating this process. One of our hackers is working on a script to automate this, but could you help write this?

Write about hacking

Have you made the most amazing contraption in the world? Tell everyone about it! We’re looking for multiple people who can write about hacks they’ve made, seen or want to make. Ideally we would like a tutorial or other piece about hacking every fortnight. Have a look at our past tutorials for an idea of what sort of thing we want

Write about our events

Can you write summaries of hack sessions and other events? It doesn’t have to be an essay, a few words accompanied with some photographs or video is great. Have a look at some of our past articles for examples.

Anything else you can offer

Are there any other ways that you can help spread the word? Can you print flyers, get sponsors or offer any other services? We’re interested in any help you can give!

If you’d like to help get in contact. Leave a comment here, come talk to us at our hack sessions or get in contact via e-mail

Thanks!

Drawdio is described as the pencil that lets you draw music. It’s really something that has to be seen (or heard) to be believed:

Fancy making one? Nottinghack will be selling the kits for £10 (payable on the door) and also showing you how to make them

Where:

The Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, Birmingham, B12 0QH [map] [Street View]. Look for the red signs on the gate, and if you get really lost give the fizzPHONE (07754 634993) a call on the night of the hack session

When:

Wednesday 4th August 6pm-10pm. Regular subs of £3 applies. £10 for Drawdio kit and tuition. Please add your name here if you’re coming. Only 25 kits are available

What:

Regular hack session activities plus a Drawdio workshop from Nottinghack.

Other details:

• Wifi Internet. Ask for the key.
• We’ve got a few soldering irons, so no need to bring your own.
• Tea, coffee and soft drinks are available for a small donation, although there’s not usually any milk unless someone remembers to bring some!
• There’s no food available at the venue, though it’s near to the city centre and Digbeth. There’s also a chippy just around the corner from the venue and there’s a basic kitchen if you want to bring your own food (no microwave).
• There is also the option to club together and order pizza

See you there!

Photo by Nikki Pugh

Where:

The Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, Birmingham, B12 0QH [map] [Street View]. Look for the red signs on the gate, and if you get really lost give the fizzPHONE (07754 634993) a call on the night of the hack session

When:

Wednesday 21st July 6pm-10pm. Please add your name here if you’re coming. We ask for £3 per person as subs.

What:

Get hacking on whatever you want or work with others. Check out the wiki pages or disscussion group to see what people have been working on.

Other details:

• Wifi Internet. Ask for the key.
• We’ve got a few soldering irons, so no need to bring your own.
• Tea, coffee and soft drinks are available for a small donation, although there’s not usually any milk unless someone remembers to bring some!
• There’s no food available at the venue, though it’s near to the city centre and Digbeth. There’s also a chippy just around the corner from the venue and there’s a basic kitchen if you want to bring your own food (no microwave).
• There is also the option to club together and order pizza – let us know if you can recommend any good nearby pizza places.

See you there!

Photo by Nikki Pugh

Where:

The Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, Birmingham, B12 0QH [map] [Street View]. Look for the red signs on the gate, and if you get really lost give the fizzPHONE (07754 634993) a call on the night of the hack session

When:

Wednesday 7th July 6pm-10pm. Please add your name here if you’re coming. We ask for £3 per person as subs.

What:

Get hacking on whatever you want or work with others. Check out the wiki pages or disscussion group to see what people have been working on.

Other details:

• Wifi Internet. Ask for the key.
• We’ve got a few soldering irons, so no need to bring your own.
• Tea, coffee and soft drinks are available for a small donation, although there’s not usually any milk unless someone remembers to bring some!
• There’s no food available at the venue, though it’s near to the city centre and Digbeth. There’s also a chippy just around the corner from the venue and there’s a basic kitchen if you want to bring your own food (no microwave).
• There is also the option to club together and order pizza – let us know if you can recommend any good nearby pizza places.
• As reported recently Digbeth now thankfully has a cashpoint! It’s located at Nisa Local convenience store, Digbeth High St, near the Coach Station. More details here

See you there!