Introducing the Bumble-b and using it to control a LED matrix October 8, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Electronics, Hamakor, ITU, diy, open source, programming.Tags: bumble-b, diy, Electronics, howto, leds, linux, open source, programming, usb
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The Bumble-b
Hi all,
The past week I have been playing around with my new Bumble-b, as I mentioned in my last post. Basically what I did with it is control an LED matrix. After doing that I made it in to a USB Device! Thanks to the simple library LUFA. Now I can use a simple echo > /dev/ttyACM0 command to send a text message to the display. Meaning that I have now /dev/matrix!
In this post I hope to explain how to use the Bumble-b, a programmable USB chip, including its own built in programmer, for just $20. I would also like to encourage people here in Israel to start playing with this, since its cheap and easy to order way to get started with amateur electronics.
Here is a quick introduction video (followed by a detail post):
What is the Bumble-b?
The bumble-b is a USB programmable AVR chip with a programmer built in to it (called a breakout board). It is an AVR chip, meaning that its based on something that is widely used (the model is at90usb162). Moreover, since it has a USB connector right on it , this makes the creation of USB devices really simple. But not only USB devices alone.
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Connecting a programmable chip to a remote Controlled Car September 11, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Electronics, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, wireless.Tags: C, Electronics, hacking, howto, linux, open source, programming
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Car and the breadboard
Hey all,
I have been playing with electronics the last few days, and I thought I might show you the outcome.
I basically took a remote controlled car, and connected it to a 16F84 programmable chip, and now I can control the car using C code.
Although I am using a car in this guide, you should be able to close and open any kind of switch. Anything under 15 volts.
For people who have don’t feel like reading all this (and also for those who do), here is an action-packed video of the outcome:
After you saw that, here is how I did this.
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Interview with me about the OLPC Pilot in Israel September 1, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, olpc, open source.Tags: august penguin, Crictor, interview, Israel, olpc
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Crictor, the “technology news, for technology people” initiative I actually help found, interviewed me about the OLPC pilot in Israel, during the Israeli FOSS convention called August Penguin. Also, in the convention Netzach gave a talk about the pilot we did, and the new program with open source and eeePCs.
There are English subtitles, now, so enjoy.
You can to visit the article’s page in Crictor.
Today is the first day of school, let us hope the laptop program started here succeeds.
Astrophotography Using Canon Camera’s Hack Development Kit August 16, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Astronomy, Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, diy, linux, open source, programming.Tags: Astronomy, basic, camera, chdk, diy, ffmpeg, hacking, meteors, negev, open source, programming, video
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Hi all,
I am going to explain here how I managed to use the Cannon open source hack development kit , known as CHDK, to photograph stars and even create neat movies of the stars motion.
It all started this Monday, I was lucky to see that there is going to be Perseids meteor shower, a day in advance. So I had time getting the code ready before it was too late. I thought I would go somewhere next to Jerusalem and photograph, but in the end, friends of mine (Shy and Anna) from the Israeli Astronomy Association, which I am part of, told me they are going down south to the dessert, far away from light pollution, to take count of the meteors for the IMO. So I joined him, and my data is also available.
Before all the technical stuff, here is a video I made that shows you what this all comes to:
Now back to CHDK, and how this was done.
What is CHDK? And how do I install it?
CHDK is a firmware addon for Cannon powershot digital cameras. It supports most of them, mine is a simple powershot A590, costs to date about 700 NIS. Moreover, since its an addon, it will not void warranty, and can’t damage your camera. It has a lot of features (including games and an e-book reader!).
Copyright Lobbyists Might Be Tied Up to Israel’s Internet Censorship law July 18, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, open source.Tags: censorship, copyright, internet censorship, Israel, law, no2bio, pirate
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About half a year ago, a law for internet censorship passed the first stage in our parliament, on its way to become in effect. The way it was done is disguising the law as a way to protect against child pornography.
There was quite a lot of opposition and finally at the beginning of this week, the law proposal was dropped. This of course makes quite happy.
However, this week I stumbled on a Google Talk of Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party. He said, and I quote (the video skips to the quote):
“I’ll give you an anecdote of a copyright seminar. The Danish head honcho came and said: You know, the politicians don’t understand file sharing. So what we need to do is to filter the internet. But since politicians don’t understand what that means, we should associate it with child pornography. Because politicians understand child pornography.“
Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar May 1, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, Maemo, linux, olpc, open source, python.Tags: arm, debian, Maemo, Nokia, olpc, sugar
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- Sugar running on the Nokia N810
Hey all,
This past week I managed to do something quite interesting. I got sugar, running on my Nokia N810, compiled for armel.
The trick that made it work was thanks to easy Debian chroot, that got me access to installing sugar without a few good hours of compilation for arm (and I did that before).
Touchscreen is cool!
The first thing that I found pretty neat was running sugar on a touchscreen device. It really felt better, since most people that I let play with my XO and flip its screen 180 degrees naturally try touching the screen, expecting it had a touchscreen. Sugar was actually quite good with it on the Nokia.
A trip to the North and some GPS fun April 15, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, Maemo, linux, open source.Tags: googleearth, gps, ITU, linux, Maemo
11 comments
Tracking with the Nokia N810.
Hey all,
This Passover, I went on a trip in the North of Israel in the Golan heights.
However, apart from enjoying the beauty of nature I thought I might do a little experiment with my Nokia N810, a Linux device with a GPS receiver.
What I did was switch it on at the beginning of the tour and put it back inside my bag, ignoring it most of the time.
The result was a complete GPX file of our tour.
On the Nokia it looked nice, however I wanted to see if I can extract more data at home with the GPX file.I found 3 tools I could do with it.
OLPC Israel’s New Debian Based System for Pilot February 7, 2009
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, linux, olpc, open source.Tags: olpc
4 comments
OLPC Israel Debian Desktop View
Hey All,
I am Happy to update we have now a working prototype OS for the OLPC pilot here in Israel.
As explained in my last post, we have only B2/B1 laptops that are not compatible with the current sugar version. Because of this we had to develop our own OS that we will put on SD cards and in to the laptops (in the full project we want to use sugar, we did this for the B2s only really).
This system works well also with the normal OLPC units. And I’d be glad if anyone would like to use it copy, and modify.
The system is based off Debian and runs on XFCE. The B2 laptops work with only 128 RAM so we really reduced the memory usage. The kernel on the system is from build 711, which is the last to work with the B2. Still, it works fine on any OLPC. I hope we will have Kernel Headers for the release someone in the future.
I’d also like to take the opportunity for give a huge thanks to Ram-on Agmon who really got the system up and running.
We have 24 Old OLPCs in Israel, for our pilot! December 18, 2008
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, olpc, open source.Tags: b2, olpc, pilot
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Hello all big news:
B2 OLPC boxes
I have in my room, 24 B2 laptops!
Dima (ITU alumnai), Netzach (head of Ilan Ramon Center) and I had a meeting with Peres Center for Peace. To our great surprise, the center had 24 B2 laptops, which were laying there for more than a year without any use (if you are yelling “but why?!” then the quick answer is that none had the technical ability to get them truly working).
So to sum up: the pilot can start! .. but wait, there is a catch.
Cellphones in Israel – No collaboration on infrastructure leads to bad quality of service December 6, 2008
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, open source.Tags: carriers, cellphones, GSM, ITU, Pelephone
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In Israel we have no problem when it comes to cellphone reception, even in deserts you will find that the reception is at full gain. However when the access is antiques, quality and reliability of that access the becomes the really important issue.
Part of a jungle of models
It seems that the service models are quite different around the world, and this seems to directly effect the usage pattern in the country. A common problem in Asia is when one has a monopoly, where a single company is in charge of the cellphone service, usually derived by an agreement with the government. This usually creates dis-connectivity in places where there is a low concentration of people, or remote places that are hard to reach.
