Hacklab Toronto!

So I’ve been a member of a hackerspace for about a year now, unofficially for near 2 years. The hackerspace in question is hacklab.to, a hackerspace in Toronto, Canada. We decided to film a promotional video to help show people what we are about and that its a cool space to hang out at. I helped with the conception and editing to a degree, so without further delay, here is the video (best viewed in 1080).

If you are interested as to where you can find a hackerspace near you, just visit hackerspaces.org for a listing of cool places like this near you!

DIY Robot-boat at AUVSI’s Autonomous Surface Vehicle Competition 2009

So the major project that I have been involved in recently was working on an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) that was entered in AUVSI’s 2009 ASV competition. Given a small team (6 people, 2 builders), under $1000, and about 30 days we built what would be considered a feat of bodging and hacks based on extreme ingenuity and resourcefulness.

Note that of the four people in the photo above, it consists of (from left to right) a comp sci masters student on exchange, a political science student, a broadcast technician, and a chemistry/biology student.

Quick and Dirty Timelapse Photography

So as I prep for a roadtrip, the thought of timelapse occured to me. I have already made some random timelapse test videos using my old Canon Powershot A40 and the software that came with it, however portability was always an issue.

Today, that is no longer an issue, I built in a few hours a frame to hold my old camera and a servo motor, and controlled the entire setup using a Arduino. The setup includes a LCD for display purposes, but in general is meant to quickly satisfy the need to do timelapse for the roadtrip drive. I plan to improve this a little bit, perhaps add a LM317 vreg so the entire setup is self-contained and powered off a 12V wall-wart or battery pack, however time is at a premium.