embedded systems to learn and create – 10 years of making, learning and sharing
We will be conducting Virtual Meetings for the next few weeks using Jitsi, a free video-conferencing system. Please use Chrome or Chromium for the best experience, or download one of the pre-built clients: https://jitsi.org/downloads
Due to the current situation @ March 14, 2020, in-person meetings have been suspended until further notice. Please do join us on Slack or at our online learning sessions using Jitsi. Write to hello at vicpimakers.ca for invitations and information.
Q-CollegeSuite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC – 10am
It is fun to repurpose battery powered consumer products. For instance, here is a Leak Detector made from a window alarm. The article includes the window alarm schematic.
And George made a bike theft deterrent alarm with remote radio alerting from the same window alarm.
In normal operation, the window alarm senses separation from its external magnet via its internal reed switch and feeds its piezo disk with an oscillation. The window alarm runs on 3 button cells and draws no current when the reed switch is open. There is also a slide switch to enable/disable the alarm.
Here is a photo of the circuit board: The OUT signal from the 8 pin oscillator chip is a 10V DC wave, pumped up by the inductor from 5 volts. A voltage divider can be added to lower this chip output signal to less than 5v to feed another device.
Or the piezo can be used as a microphone, providing about 100mv into a very high impedance input
In May we can show what we achieved.
Deid successfully connected a 50 light string of addressable LEDs to an ESP8266 to cause the lights to light and change colour and move and …
Deid created the following patterns:
The ESP8266 C code to do this can be found here. Deid makes no representation that the existing code is good. In fact he knows some of it is not. Feel free to fix.
The challenge is to add more patterns and the code to implement the patterns. If you send Deid the code he will load and try the code. Unless someone comes up with a better way for folks to test remotely.
Learn the basics of Computer Languages: c, PHP, Python, Bash
All four languages will be covered, where it will be apparent the similarities and differences of each.
Be sure to have a LAPTOP, as these are hands on sessions. https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
This session: Functions
Details
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
This is a Virtual meeting using Jitsi. Join the meeting at:
https://meet.jit.si/vicpimakers
Interested in the basics of computer networking? Want to know how your packets get from here to there? Don’t miss this Introduction to networking presentation which will answer the following:
Bring your own coffee, and we’ll see you on Jitsi on Saturday!
Presentation notes:
Learn the basics of Computer Languages: c, PHP, Python, Bash
All four languages will be covered, where it will be apparent the similarities and differences of each.
Be sure to BRING a LAPTOP, as these are hands on sessions.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Camosun College Interurban Campus
4461 Interurban Road · Victoria, BC
Tech Bldg, Tec 177
Sure you can run an ad blocker on your device, but only your device benefits.
In this talk, we’ll compare PiHole, a popular ad blocker for the Pi with adblock for OpenWrt, and the benefits of doing so.
Saturday, February 8, 2020
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Q-CollegeSuite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
A Raspberry Pi Shake and Boom is just one way to watch the earth move under your feet. See how Cody and Eileen found the Rpi Shake and Boom and more.
10:00am
Q-College,
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Learn how to measure the electrical world using your embedded device. In this talk, we’ll answer the following, and show you lots of cool stuff:
Camosun College Interurban Campus
4461 Interurban Road · Victoria, BC
Tech Bldg, Tech 177
Learn the basics of Computer Languages: c, PHP, Python, Bash
All four languages will be covered, where it will be apparent the similarities and differences of each.
Be sure to BRING a LAPTOP, as these are hands on sessions.
10:00 AM – 12:00PM
Q College Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
Learn how to use IPv6 to rescue your embedded device which has lost it’s IPv4 address (for some reason).
Bring a laptop with SSH installed for hands-on demo.
10am Q-College · Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
Click here for Craig’s demo notes.
Learn the basics of Computer Languages: c, PHP, Python, Bash
All four languages will be covered, where it will be apparent the similarities and differences of each.
10:00 AM – 12:00PM
Camosun College Interurban Campus
4461 Interurban Road · Victoria, BC
Tech Bldg, Tech 177
Sign Up with Meetup here
Part 2 is Saturday, October 26, 2019
Bring a laptop with Wireshark (download) installed:
We’ll be covering the basics of packet capture, and seeing what is actually on your network. More Wireshark: pad
What is NetSig?
A Special Interest Group focused on computer networking.
Building networks for Today and Tomorrow!
1.5 hours on a weekday evening
Half of the meeting is education or presentation.
Half is sharing, and problem-solving.
A gathering of like-minded persons.
Understand and solve some of the challenges in networking today.
Are you IPv6 ready?
Help Victoria become a leader, rather than a follower in Networking.
Topics
Education | Traffic analysis: ELK stack and Packet Beat | Virtualized Networking in Cloud containers | IPv6 | Routing |
Victoria PiMakers and Others are on a summer break. We will meet again on Saturday, September 14th, at Q-College. The presentation(s) will be “My Summer Show & Tell.”
In the meantime…
Linux Sigs!
First Saturday of the Month
July 6th and August 3rd
9:30 am – 12:00pm
Quality Foods, Upstairs Large Boardroom
Eagle Ridge Plaza
27 Helmcken Rd
And The Net Sig!
First meeting
Thursday, July 25, 2019 and the next meeting is August 22.
6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
A Special Interest Group focused on computer networking. Building networks for Today and Tomorrow!
Half of the meeting is education or presentation. Half is sharing and problem-solving.
Bring a laptop with Wireshark installed: We’ll be covering the basics of packet capture, and seeing what is actually on your network.
This time we’ll delve into how to write a Node-Red program using the web-based GUI.
Presentation Notes are here.
10:00am
Q-College,
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
Find Part One here.
Jekyll sites can be connected to cloud-based CMS software such as CloudCannon, Forestry, Netlify or Siteleaf, and Github enabling content editors to modify site content without having to know how to code.
Here is the link to Gordon’s fine presentation.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Camosun College Interurban Campus
Tech Bldg, Tec 177
4461 Interurban Road · Victoria, BC
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
Intro to Pi & Others is a 4 part series of short monthly sessions to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is a structured hour-long session where you can ask questions.
Please bring in your Pi, HDMI cable, and power supply. All other equipment will be provided.
This is a four-part series with each session building on the previous sessions, where Pi basics of software and hardware will be explored. Read More
10:00am
Q-College,
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
How’s your Project coming along. How can we help? Spring has sprung, we’d like to hear how the projects are doing?
Come share your favourite software or project with the group.
9:30 AM to 12:00 PM
Quality Foods, Upstairs Large Boardroom
27 Helmcken Rd · Victoria, BC
Eagle Creek (near Victoria General Hospital)
Get together, enjoy coffee, and talk Linux. Everyone is welcome
Camosun College
Bldg: Technology Bldg, Room: Tech 177 – 4461 Interurban Rd, Victoria, BC (parking at lot 8 for park users)
Another container technology which can also run on SBCs is Linux Containers (LXC/LXD). Each LXC Container appears to have its own network stack. And therefore is much more flexible than Docker.
We’ll run 20
See Craig’s documentation here.
VicPiMakers will be supporting Projects in 2019. What are Projects?
George Bowden – Timed Lock
Heidi Bada – Intro – https://badadigitalmarketing.com/piprojects/
Ideas
Phillips Hue – timed dim/
Weather Sensors
Wearable Sensors in sport
Home Safety –
Flow sensor in
Launchpad pro using python – Open Firmware project
Environmental Sensors – birdfeeder motion (
Pi version of “the clapper”
Eileen & Cody – Space Station Light & Sound – https://github.com/cozyhost/
Plan on lighting Neo Pixels
Peter Sprague – Packet Radio Satellite tracker
Portable, run in
Moved from
Dan Willis – LED running as a Canadian flag flying
Weatherproof boxes outside
10:00am
Q-College, Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
Contact projects at vicpimakers dot ca to share your project on our next Project Day.
Explore the Pi Cam and motion detection in Python
Get Deid’s presentation material here.
Camosun College
Bldg: Technology Bldg, Room: Tech 177 – 4461 Interurban Rd, Victoria, BC (parking at lot 8 for park users)
Camosun College
Bldg: Technology Bldg, Room: Tech 177 – 4461 Interurban Rd, Victoria, BC (parking at lot 8 for park users)
10:00am
Docker is a computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization, also known as “containerization”. A Container is a lightweight application component including all the required elements (libraries, config, etc). Containers can be quickly started up without polluting your file system with libraries, and config files, and easily upgraded with one command.
In this presentation, we’ll install docker on the Pi, and get nginx webserver up and running in a container. The presentation material can be found here.
Docker Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docker_(software)
