Posts

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Sat. Mar. 13, 2021 – Hardware Containers

Now that you have the world’s most useful project, it is time to package it up so the world doesn’t break it. We’ll discuss using different packaging containers to protect your project.

9:30 AM to 11:30 AM PST

Jitsi Virtual Meeting

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
Please contact markg@vicpimakers.ca if you are having trouble connecting to the meeting server.

George’s packaging presentation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ivUou7D7rNFYmZPl1GAi4F6A5dP52ewsqoxxl0eUt5c

Deid’s packaging presentation: http://drsol.com/~deid/pi/packaging/

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Happy Holidays

The tree in its final decorated state

The friends of VicPiMakers wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Stay tuned for our 2021 lineup of VicPimaker and Others goodness and lots of Linux and Network fun.

Christmas Tree by Mark G and Arduino

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Sat. Nov. 14, 2020 – Overview of IDEs

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

Overview of IDEs for programming your embedded devices.

Be sure to BRING a LAPTOP, as these are hands-on sessions.

QCollege has graciously offered to use their campus for our fall meetings. This will be a hybrid meeting (in-person & on Jitsi). Seating is limited, please indicate if you intend to attend in person post to this event on meetup.

QCollege
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Jitsi
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

George’s slides

Lynn’s slides

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Sat. Oct. 24, 2020 Intro to Scratch (language)

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

Introduction to Scratch. Scratch is a block-based visual programming language.

See Eileen’s presentation .pdf here.

And Jim will introduce Programming Challenge 2. Download the challenge here.

Be sure to HAVE a LAPTOP, as these are hands on sessions.

QCollege has graciously offered to use their campus for our fall meetings. This will be a hybrid meeting (in-person & on Jitsi). Seating is limited, please indicate if you intend to attend in person (post to the event on meetup here).

QCollege
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Jitsi
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Oct. 10, 2020 – Computer Language Series

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

language sig


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.

This session: Libraries

QCollege has graciously offered to use their campus for our fall meetings. This will be a hybrid meeting (in-person & on Jitsi). Seating is limited, please indicate if you intend to attend in person (post to this event).

QCollege
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Jitsi
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Programming Challenge (Hybrid) Saturday, September 26, 2020

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

A two-parter:

Jim will issue a programming challenge to hone or improve your coding skills.

Mark will share his 3D printer, octoprint, experiences.

QCollege has graciously offered to use their campus for our fall meetings. This will be a hybrid meeting (in-person & on Jitsi). Seating is limited, please indicate if you intend to attend in person (post to this event).

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

See the programming challenge txt here.

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Sat. June 27, 2020 – ADSB Multiple Feeds

Details

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

Virtual Meeting: https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Interested in feeding your data to more than just Flightradar24 or Flight Aware? Unsure which feeder to install first? Confused by which dump1090 fork to install?

This presentation will demonstrate installing one feeder on your Raspberry Pi and then discuss the quirks to setting up the additional feeders (ADS-B Exchange, AirNav RadarBox, OpenSky Network, and Plane Finder) so that they all play nice together.

ADS-B Exchange: https://www.adsbexchange.com/
AirNav RadarBox: https://www.radarbox24.com/
Flight Aware: https://flightaware.com/
Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/
OpenSky Network: https://opensky-network.org/
Plane Finder: https://planefinder.net/

Here is the video of our virtual meeting:

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Postponed – Projects and Challenges

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

1) Hack Challenge, by George
Modify a window alarm to be a useful or entertaining device. Window alarms to be supplied free March 14th, one per attendee.

2) Hack Challenge, by Deid
New “Christmas Light” patterns

3) … bring projects that you want to share or need help with… If you like, email a description to be added to this page.

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.

New “Christmas Light” patterns

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:

  • Primary
  • Random
  • Web Safe
  • Follow
  • Lead
  • Random On ***
  • All On
  • All Off
  • Rainbow
  • Moving
  • Colour
  • Christmas
  • Rainbow Group
  • Dual Colour ***
    *** Shown in the images

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.