What has been going on?

Hello, and wellcome new members!

It has been a very busy month, 3D printing, typing tutorials, default web browsers, hackerspaces you name it!

 

Association help

Neighbourhood Forum

I learnt a bit about Word Press management. It seems to be like a Content management System (like what I am using now to write this page) only it looks more flexable and more modern. I kind of knew this already but what I did not know is how surprisingly easy it is. And there are plenty of tutorials online. Justine has been off by herself uploading reports and pictures it looks grea! in our to-do list is how to make the image gallery loop by it's self. 

Meeting minutes

More meeting minutes have been uploaded as well as some comunications such as the Airplane factory flyer.

Automatic irrigation system

This is a bit soon, but I am super excited about it. At the moment we followed tutorials for a garduino (garden + arduino) here, here and maybe here.  The part we have managed so far is the humidity sensor this is done by putting literally two nails in the soil and measuring the resistance between them. If you add water electricity flows easier thus the resistance drops. If the soil is dry electricity has a hard time getting from one nail to the other thus the Resitance increases. A. helped a lot with this. Who is A.? Keep reading! Next steps: the distances between nails needs to be close but not touching and always constant in order to get consitant measurements. A. is on this by building an enclosure for the nails.

The next thing I think is to actually go shopping for the parts and plan this out sticking to one tutorial. 

 

one two one

Web page

I have admitted new members to the website and their emails have been sent to Penny the HUG secretary so that they are informed of the HUG activities.

Web browsing

We learnt that holding ctrl key and pressing the plus or minus key makes the web page bigger or smaller. Thank you R. for this!

Twitter

Jean and I are now the two twitters for the HUG twitter account.

Slow computers

It is not a good idea to have 3 antivirus installed at the same time. Actually they normally recomend you uninstalling completely the one you have before installing a new one. This of course is a problem with windows machines: in linux you do not need an antivirus. I tried installing ClamAV on the windows machine but was unable to use it.

HUG computer

Several programs where intalled Klavaro  and the Arduino IDE. The former will be explained in the next section and the latter will be explained in the seciton after that.

Touch typing tutor

S. Is a regular visitor we DIY though Skype, web browsers and many other things. But one thing that S. really wanted to do is learn how to type. We tried several programs Klavaro being the one that best fit. Last I heard though, S. mentioned that she got an error while attempting to run the program while at home. Also S. wanted the letters to be bigger. This can be fixed: I asked the kind people in the Klavaro forums and got a response!

3D printer

A. came to the DIY workshop with the frame of a 3D printer! This is so exciting that I honestly got a nose bleed. A. is really goot with wood work but wanted to work out how to move the motors about. Luckly I had my Arduino kit and we did the servo motor tutorial toguether and I lent A. my starter kit for further practice.

We also think we solved a puzzle relating to a the sliding parts. turns out that if you fix four points they will not silde between to rails. It needs to be 3 points.

A. is currently waiting to buy some motors so he offered to help with the Garduino project.


 

Maintaince of this web page

 Not much more here.

 

 Other

Kings of Hack

I met up with some people that want to have makerspace (hakerspace if you are a purist) in south west london. There is currently a group but we do not have a space.  The idea might be to have something similar to the Hackerspace in London but of course starting in a smaller scale.

I have invited them to come over on Tuesday the 20th of August. If we work in the HUG areas it is clear that all the projects will be for improving the community. Most of the people in Kings of Hack are looking for projects and people to do them with.

I have also discovered that I am not alone in my ideas of DIY computers and electronics. there are other associations around UK that promote this kind of activity. I will sign up to some to see what they are about and hopefully promote Ham!