Hey “Open Science” people and folks interested in Fungus…

A few months ago we got ahold of some very rare and insider information about fungal infestations on board MIR, the International Space Station, and the Apollo Missions. It turns out, the reason we let MIR burn up in the atmosphere was to protect our ecosystem from being exposed to mold species that had mutated during their time in space.

The super-fungus became more aggressive and could etch glass, eat through rubber gaskets, and grow four times as fast as fungus does on earth. Crazy, right?

Anyway, my family and I spent the last five months or so compiling this information into a 45-minute documentary. This documentary is just now starting to make the rounds in the microbiology world. It’s been screened privately for groups of microbiologists, the US Military, and other industry professionals.

We will screen this movie at PS:One, October 17 at 7pm.

Here is the trailer for the film:

If you are into science fiction, biology, Star Trek or real space exploration, this is really up your alley.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Hello! We had a good time today – moved the bar, planned out the draft tower design, figured out which parts to order. However, the interesting part is on the brewing front. We picked up another keg and cleaned/redid the hardware on 2 kegs, then kegged our two stouts.

Boiling priming sugar

Ryan Pierce kegging the Anise Stout

Kegged beers set to condition for a few weeks

We’ll definitely be ready for Locktoberfest on the 20th and possibly an upcoming party!

Oh come all ye faithful! Beer Church has 3 beers in the fermenter, and some of them are just about ready to go in a keg to get all carbonated and cold and… we don’t have any taps on our bar, or a fridge with lines! This Sunday, we’ll fix that (or get started on it, anyway)! Come help us turn our bar (thanks Greg for building it) into a real bar, with taps!

Beer Church’s first 3 beers

We’ll start off with a quick introduction to Pumping Station: One for newbies (you don’t have to be a member to attend Beer Church), with beers in hand. Bring your favorite unusual beer to share, and we’ll all get to try something new and exciting. We’ll check out the Raspberry Pi powered computerized brewing system that we’ve got going and go over our last few successful brews. The focus for project work will be on improving our dispensing and keg system, but if we have enough people we might go nuts and brew something!

The Meat

• When: 12PM Noon, Sunday 10/7/2012
• Where: 3519 N Elston, Chicago IL
• What: Potluck beer tasting, brewing discussion, and fridge/taps buildout!
• Why: Because you like beer and people who build things.

UPDATE:

• Jeff wrote a blog post about his presentation: Using embedded vision for autonomous car obstacle avoidance
• Photos from the meeting with captions
• Aquaponics automation slides

The next meeting of our embedded systems interest group, Not Exclusivly Raspberry Pi (NERP), will be Monday, September 24th, at 7pm.  We have two presentations lined up:

• Jeff will be talking about his research into machine vision on embedded systems.  He’s been working on an autonomous car project.

• Christopher will give a demo based around the automation framework he’s been working on using Python, Raspberry Pi and Phidgets.  It’s currently based around his aquaponics system.

NERP is open to the public and free to attend – just RSVP on our Meetup page.

EDIT: this is on 9/23, not 9/20.

Taken on our last brew day – why not use the hydraulic jack to siphon? You would if you could.

I never expected Beer Church to be as popular as it is! You’re all great. We now have 2 beers in the Brewing Station: One fermentation chamber under the patient temperature control of chillmon. We aren’t sure which of them is going to rejuvenate TOOOL during Locktoberfest on October 20th, but one these is it!

I don’t know if we’ll brew on Sunday, but the great thing is that we’ve got a Brew & Grow a quick saunter around the corner and all the gear we could need right on hand. If you want to brew this weekend, hit up the comments or the thread on the public mailing list and we might get something going!

Beer tasting: bring a few bottles of something you like that you think others may not know. We will do a potluck beer tasting. Tiny beer steins (for tiny beers) will be provided but bring your own chalice/mug/other drink receptacle if you prefer. Homebrews are highly esteemed, and you will get some beer peer review from your peers in beer! Neither of our brews are ready to rock yet, so we’ll have to wait for tasting our own creations.

You are of course welcome to come even if you do not consume beer or other alcoholic beverages! You must be 21 to drink at beer church. Come on down to 3519 N Elston at 12:00 PM on 9/23!

Folks, it’s that time of the month again. Join us at Automation Night (formerly DIY CNC night) and be part of the automated manufacturing and design revolution! Get together to discuss, fix, repair, upgrade, and show off 3D printers, routers, laser cutters, and other tools made awesome by computers.

• WHEN: Wednesday September 12th 7pm (show up early if you want a tour)
• WHERE: 3519 N Elston Ave, PS:One electronics lab

Typical schedule:

• 6:45 tour for new people
• 7:00 introduction round-robin
• 7:20 guest speaker
• 7:30 schmoozing, machine repair, demos, etc

This month we have a guest speaker giving a 15 minute talk.

International Manufacturing Technology Show recap by Jeff McAlvay

 

Jeff McAlvay is attending the IMTS and will give a 15 minute talk about highlights from the show.

 

The International Manufacturing Technology Show (http://www.imts.com/) is a trade show that is focused on automated manufacturing.  It has about 2000 exhibitors and 80,000 attendees and takes place in Chicago 9/10-9/15.

 

Jeff is currently working on software projects for McMaster-Carr, an industrial parts reseller.  In the past, he has worked on projects concerned with improving their conveyor systems and has been involved in running a variety of their warehouse operations.  Outside of work, Jeff works on automated manufacturing and distribution at Jeff’s Inventions (http://jeffsinventions.com/).  Currently, he is working on an autonomous car and a CNC milling machine conversion.

The next NERP (Not Exclusively Raspberry Pi) meeting will be at 7pm Monday Sept. 10th. See the NERP Meetup page for more information on location, meeting format, etc.

NERP is Not Exclusively Raspberry Pi, and this Monday’s meeting will also discuss Android and beer.

During fermentation beer must be kept at fairly precisely controlled temperatures. The required temperature varies with the stage of fermentation and other factors.

Any self-respecting beer temperature monitor would be accessible from the ‘net, and this one is no exception. Monday, Eric Stein will show Brewing Station: One’s  Raspberry Pi based temperature monitor and controller. Eric will show how the Python code and electronics work and discuss some issues around controlling temperature. Sampling the product will have to wait until Beer Church taps the keg.

The Desktop is DEAD, Long live the Desktop: The Android 4.0 miniPC

Jay will be doing a short walk-thru and talk about the user-land experience with the new Ricomagic MK802 thumb-drive-sized pocket-computer. Jay will be demoing android 4.x, Fedora, Ubuntu and/or puppy linux on the Ricomagic MK802. The Ricomagic MK802 is a $65 Cortex A8 1GHZ processor with 1GB of DDR3 Ram, 4 GB flash, wifi and a 500MH GPU (Mali 400) with HDMI video. The small computing landscape is changing fast, and the Raspberry Pi is only part of the story.

In honor of Labor Day, Beer Church is making a temporary excursion to a new day, Monday! Won’t brewing be far better than going to the office? Yeah, it will.

We’re going to brew our second batch of beer. This will be Brewing Station: One’s first attempt at an all-grain recipe. We will brew an Irish draft stout, featuring British 2-row pale malt accented with flaked oats and roasted barley. All-grain beer takes a lot longer to make compared to extract or kit beer. We anticipate being ready to start the mash about noon, although we’ll be setting up and heating water beforehand.

We will certainly have tastings (Bring your favorites! Homebrews are highly esteemed). We will also have discussions of brewing, and possible future projects for Brewing Station: One. We might also try hacking an air conditioner onto Brewing Station: One’s temperature monitoring system, which will allow us considerably more control over over fermentation temperature.

You are of course welcome to come even if you do not consume beer or other alcoholic beverages! You must be 21 to drink at beer church. Come on down to 3519 N Elston at 12:00 PM on 9/3!

The bi-weekly NERP (Not Exclusively Raspberry Pi embedded systems) Meetup  focused on  serial i/o. Serial interfacing allows connecting “stuff” to a processor using a small number of wires. There are different ways of making serial connections to processors, and last night we talked about two of them. Drew showed how to implement I2C interfacing to several devices he had out for demo. I2C (I-Square-C) is a way of wiring smart devices like sensors, displays, and microcontrollers to a host computer. The Raspberry Pi has connection pins for I2C on the board and a kernel module for talking to I2C devices from user land. Ed quickly demoed a couple of examples of  UART serial technique with a Raspberry Pi running a login on a dumb terminal demo and an RS485 to PC interface on a Macbook. We’ll examine practical applications of these connection methods and others including SPI in future meetings.

The NERP description and meetup are at   http://www.meetup.com/NERP-Not-Exclusively-Raspberry-Pi/ . (It’s not necessary to use the Meetup signup to attend NERP, but it helps us anticipate how to set up the electronics lab for the number of attendees. Also it shows Meetup that people actually attend the meetings.) .

We’re looking for people who would like to show their work or lead a NERP-related discussion.  We’d especially like to hear about works in progress (i.e., unfinished), both in hardware and software.  Python, C, interfacing, non-Rasapberry Pi embedded systems, media, networking, and physical devices are particularly interesting.  Contact Ed (ed -> kineticsandelectronics – com) to schedule a day.

This is what happens when geeks get married.  Back in December, I decided that I wanted to have a photo booth at the reception, so I looked around at rentals and services and was surprised at the cost.  I then looked around at DIY photo booths and was slightly disappointed by the state of the art of the DIY photo booth – most seemed to have a big button, and Arduino, a webcam, and a full laptop.

So I designed a simple test circuit with a Canon point and shoot camera (with CHDK installed), an Arduino, and a button.  Now, months and hundreds of prototypes later, I have Photoboop! A robo party photographer that turns most cameras into photo booths or time-lapse video machines.

Thanks to the entire PS:One community for help and support while making this project a reality!

Photoboop is live on Kickstarter, Facebook, and it’s own Website.