From JR

Great Global Hackerspace Challenge
Next meeting:	Tuesday March 22nd 6p
Project lead:
Skills needed:	everything ever

Full Text of the challenge

Contents 1 Overview 2 Involved Parties 2.1 Individuals 2.2 Communications 2.3 Groups 3 Criteria 4 Target demographic 5 Project ideas 6 Timeline 6.1 Deadline 6.2 Past Weeks and Report 6.2.1 Week One 6.2.2 Week Two 6.2.3 Week Three 6.3 Current Week 6.3.1 Week Four 6.3.1.1 Stories: 6.4 Upcoming Weeks 6.4.1 Week Five 6.4.2 Week Six 7 See Also 7.1 Tools and libraries 7.2 Source Code 7.3 DIY: How to Make Printed Circuit Board at Home 7.3.1 Etching with HCl and H202

[edit] Overview

Hello, and welcome to The Great Global Hackerspace Challenge, brought to you by the very excited folks over at element14!

You are one of thirty hackerspaces from across the globe who have been chosen to participate in this amazing event, which seeks to stretch your hackerspace-minded ingenuity to its very limit to create an electronics build that will make a real, and very positive difference in an educational establishment. And for you to have a whole lot of fun along the way!

Exactly what that build is, and what solution it provides is entirely down to you. The only stipulation is that your build must make use of a microcontroller and a portable power source. We encourage you to reach out to an educational institute in your area so that you can test your invention as it evolves, make sure you are answering a genuine educational need, and hopefully establish a home for your product once the challenge is over.

[edit] Involved Parties

Interactions with the organizers - contact, updates, etc

[edit] Individuals

• James Gray
• Danny
• Lawrence
• Willow
• Budi
• Ned Konz

... and more..

[edit] Communications

Jigsaw Renaissance Hackerspace Challenge is a Google Group that has been set up for this project at JR. Its posting address is hackerspacechallenge@googlegroups.com.

The Element-14 Jigsaw Group is where blog posts and documentation should occur. Please create an account if you haven't already, and join in the group.

Please note: The blog link to distribute (and post to) is http://www.element-14.com/community/blogs/JigsawRenaissanceGHC. This is the one on the RSS feed. We have two blogs, one for the account and one for the event. Posts should be made by the account JigsawRenaissance at the blog JigsawRenaissanceGHC.

[edit] Groups

• SCOW
• Dorkbot?
• AS1

[edit] Criteria

• How reproducible is the final project
• How easily can the parts be sourced in locations around the world
• How low cost is the final output
• How well are the plans documented
• How relevant is the project to helping education today
• How inventive and creative is the design and build of the project

[edit] Target demographic

• Low achievers in public education
  • greater need for support from alternative sources
• Age 6-10
  • more open to new things
  • less social interference
  • learned helplessness is a smaller problem
  • potential long-range impact
• Teachers!
  • Very interested in proven and accessible ways to improve learning which can be integrated into their curriculum
  • If at all possible, keep it cheap enough that teachers can reasonably can buy it for the class. Process for official purchases (i.e. with school funds) is often prohibitive.
  • Cannot count on a computer being available, cannot count on being able to install software. At most, data could be copied - but even that should be optional if possible.
• To a lesser extent, parents.
  • Parents who are a target will potentially follow something that's successful with teachers, but it doesn't necessarily work in reverse.

[edit] Project ideas

MathBlocks

• Concept: a set of Siftables-style electronic tiles which can be rearranged to manipulate portions of a mathematical expression.
• Math represents a common core literacy issue which creates ongoing problems. Alternative learning tools could potentially be very helpful, both individually and in classroom scenarios.
• Many things have been tried in this area. We don't have time to adequately review everything that has been tried. Without doing so, it may be hard to make a meaningful contribution vs. something shiny but not very useful.

Group musical participation widget

• Concept: a group of students collaborate to create music, with technology reducing the barrier to entry.
• Music is not as fundamental to academic success, but it's fundamentally human and a potential gateway to many things
  • Musical expression supports other forms of literacy
  • Any sustained engagement of student interest is positive
  • Teaches collaboration, creative expression, "I can do things with stuff"
• Multiple approaches are possible
  • Student manipulates instrument with hands, receives some feedback locally. Music is compiled and emitted centrally.
    • Possible feature: a sensor (piezo?) is placed on the student's foot. Students play the instrument and also tap their toes to keep time. The system incorporates the individual or consensus beat.
    • A predetermined audible beat may be used to keep time.
  • Shared interface - students interact with a mat or other shared interface in small groups. Multiple mats may make up a performance.

Hacky sack or Soccer ball that counts in various languages

• Concept: playground fun meets linguistics education / exposure
• Impact sensor, some sort of way to set language (base station?), charging method
• Needs to be kept free of sharp / hard bits.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Deadline

• 3/21 Q+A
• 3/25 profile and first blog update
• 4/1 second blog post
• 4/15 third blog post

4/30 end of build time

[edit] Past Weeks and Report

[edit] Week One

Introduce your team (video would be a great way to do this), explain your hackerspace's philosophy, and provide a top level summary of your first week

Notes from first GGHC meeting

Notes from Call:

Page for challenge: www.element14.com/hackerspace Hackerspace challenge team: bit.ly/gghcteam

Todo: Everyone create logins to element14. Put your login/profile here. We'll then get them to create a group for us on their site.

• Group:

We'll need to create a blog to talk about our ideas and track progress. (Probably on their site?) Send them a contact name for the free eagle license Send them mailing addresses later for soldering irons

First Blog Post

[edit] Week Two

Provide a basic outline of the materials you will be using in your build and any key challenges you anticipate

• notes from GGHC week two Meetup

[edit] Week Three

Provide an update on the status of your build and quick summary of obstacles encountered and how they are being addressed

[edit] Current Week

[edit] Week Four

Is everything going to plan? Perhaps provide footage of a visit to an educational institution you're working with

[edit] Stories:

• GGHC Percussion
• GGHC Pitch

[edit] Upcoming Weeks

[edit] Week Five

In your penultimate week provide a review of the challenge to date. Is the pressure on? What have you learned?

[edit] Week Six

This is the time to really showcase your build, why it works and what features make it stand out

[edit] See Also

• daVinci discussion
• Blog
• Stm32VLDiscoveryNotes

[edit] Tools and libraries

The following tools and products were used to develop the Jigbox:

• Olimex STM
• Quantum Platform
• STM32 Firmware libraries
• Atollic TrueStudio Lite IDE Lite version
• EagleCAD

[edit] Source Code

The source code is available on github.com at:

• GGHC Submission
• Also in the same github project, in the subfolder 'board' the EagleCAD files are available for the product's circuit and PCB layout.

[edit] DIY: How to Make Printed Circuit Board at Home

• PCB Fabrication (note that he uses 2:1 etchant, not 3:1 like we did)
• We had used Pulsar's paper for some time prior
• General toner transfer process

[edit] Etching with HCl and H202

• Stop using Ferric Chloride etchant!
• PCB etching CuCl