MALMO’S HACKERSPACE ATTACKED … COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
– December 1st, 2009
[by D. Cuartielles, the rest of the Arduino team might not subscribe these opinions]
During the weekend Malmo’s Hackspace was visited by the local police. The visit could be classified as “collateral damage”, since the reason for them being there (they say) was that beverages were being served during a punk concert. The hackerspace shares room with the rest of the community at the leftist association building Utkanten.
Also as a side effect the police took with them all sorts of gear. Some of it, asSlashdot comments happened not to be legal in Sweden. Who put those things there is not very clear to me, however legality within the EU is a very weak term, e.g. you could buy an airgun in Sweden, but not in Spain, you could buy spray cans but not transport them in a plane, you could buy alcohol in a supermarket in Germany and bring it up to Sweden -but you couldn’t sell it to anyone… the list is pretty long.
I am part of the activities being conducted at the hackerspace and that I don’t find anything being done to be even morally questionable. We -the Swedish hacking community- share an endless desire to play with technology and learn from each other and that is why we meet. Furthermore, Malmo’s hackerspace, as well as the whole Utkanten community pay the rent, and get along pretty well with the owner. On top of that, according to Swedish laws, it is allowed to serve all sorts of beverages -and charge for them- among the members of a club, like the one that was taking place during that evening when the police broke in.
The question is then … why did they come in and why did they take the hacker’s computers with them? Police is there to protect and to serve … all of us! So far there is no good explanation for the visit, and I doubt there will be one. We -hackers- happen to pay taxes like everyone else. As a matter of fact many of us are IT professionals, educators, freelance… with high tax rates. The hackerspace is our way of expression, of meeting up others with similar interests, and now these dudes came in to spoil the fun. You know what? Since we are in a free country, and since we haven’t made anything illegal, and since we are all “proper” citizens, we will keep on meeting, we will redo whatever they broke, we will repaint the walls, and we will even buy again the key-copying machines they took with them.
At this point, if I think about it, we should thank the Swedish police for bringing the hackerspace in the media, they just made us stronger!
AND WE CAME ON WALL STREET JOURNAL FOR REAL
– November 27th, 2009
The journalist that featured Arduino as a side-effect while talking about RepRap the other day on Wall Street Journal got very interested in the subject and called all of the team members to put together an article for the online issue of the WSJ. He is focusing in the market generated by Arduino but more specificly in how open source hardware can boost interesting business opportunities.
I like the way it is written, and got happy to see that someone got to interview Gianluca in depth. Arduino is not only about boards, software and education, it is also about the compromise of manufacturers to provide a community of makers with the best tools possible, assuring quality and reliability.
I like the way it is written, and got happy to see that someone got to interview Gianluca in depth. Arduino is not only about boards, software and education, it is also about the compromise of manufacturers to provide a community of makers with the best tools possible, assuring quality and reliability.
The main producer of the Arduino is Smart Projects Snc, based in the tiny town of Scarmagno, Italy. This year, the two-person firm is on track to sell at least 60,000 of the microcontrollers, which retail for at least $30 a piece, up from 34,000 last year. Owner Gianluca Martino, an electrical engineer, has had to contract out much of the production to keep up with growth.It’s a peculiar predicament, since the Arduino’s designs are on the Internet for anyone to download and use.While there are clones on the market, the microcontrollers that Mr. Martino produces, with the map of Italy printed on the back of it, are by far the most popular.“What’s interesting in this kind of open-source project is the feeling of confidence the consumer has,” he says, since people can look up the designs and tailor the Arduino to their needs.
Read the whole article here. Thanks to Justin Lahart (the journalist), some nice investors may read the article and call us back 
TOM JONES SINGING TO ARDUINO
– November 23rd, 2009
People have plenty of spare time, at least that is the impression I got today while working on cleaning some spam from the forum. Crumpy_mike sings onthis forum thread to Tom Jones’ Delilah:
I saw the flickering lights of your LEDs loading,
I saw the flickering bytes that I coded so blind,
She was my dev board,
As she did nothing I watched and went out of my mind.My, my, my, Ar-duino
Why, why, why, Ar-duino
I could see that board was no good for me,
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free.At break of day I just posted a note on the forum,
I looked at the replies only to find I was dumb,
It lay there laughing,
I felt the iron in my hand and it laughed no more.My, my, my, Ar-duino
Why, why, why, Ar-duino
So before they come to break down the door,
Forgive me Arduino I just couldn’t take any more.
In the meanwhile, yesterday we broke the record in people logged in the forum. Just take a look at these stats:
Most Users ever online was 410 on Yesterday at 09:24:13.
Most Members ever online was 69 on 09.11.9 at 20:13:45.
Most Guests ever online was 358 on Yesterday at 09:23:12.
Most Search Engines ever online was 111 on 21.10.9 at 23:38:35.
In my opinion, the server’s upgrade seems to be having some effect -there still a lot to do-. On the other hand, in order to gather information about spam, and collect proposals on how to improve the website, we have created a whole new category in the forum. Please report everything you find there, it will make our cleaning-work much easier.
Also, if you want to follow the development of new features for the website,this google code project is the place to visit. We will be collecting all the feature requests, and implement them in order of importance. We will not install everything asked, but we will do our best to improve the service. You could report feature requests if you have a google developer account directly there.
I doubt the forum’s success has to do with Tom’s cover, however I hope Tom will forgive us for this
ARDUINO WORKSHOP IN MEXICO DF
– November 17th, 2009
Arduino Workshop in Mexico DF
Between November 25th and December 5th I will be running a free workshop in basic electronics for music instrument construction in Mexico DF at Faro de Oriente. Our goal will be to build digital interactive instruments out of Arduino boards and parts taken from the markets (Tianguis in Mexican) around the area. The workshop is free and counts with the collaboration of Centro Cultural de España en Mexico.
Subscribe by sending an email to gomez [at] ccemx [.] org or trilce73 [at] gmail [.] com
More information and questions on this forum thread.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: THE ECONOMY OF TINKERING
– November 12th, 2009
The Wall Street Journal looks into hackerspaces, prototyping, tinkering … and even Arduino in an article published today:
Mr. Smith, 25, studied computer science at the University of Iowa, and worked as a Web developer. But a few years ago, he started playing with an “Arduino” — an open-source microcontroller. These are used as the “electric brains” for everything from wall-avoiding robots to a hat that pokes the wearer’s heads if the person stops smiling. “I was hooked,” he recalls.Intrigued by the idea of making a machine than can build its own parts, Mr. Smith got interested in “rapid prototyping machines” — 3D printers that lay down layers of materials like plastic to form objects. The technology is used by manufacturers to make prototypes, with industrial machines typically costing tens of thousands of dollars.Mr. Smith’s NYC Resistor friends Mr. Pettis and Adam Mayer joined the project. Using off-the-shelf electronics and parts, along with a laser cutter, they came up with a machine. Now they’re selling kits to make 3D printers.Their company, MakerBot Industries, has shipped 350 of the $750 kits so far. They hired two employees, started paying themselves, and are building another 150 kits for their next shipment.
The article is worth reading, looks into the alternatives to corporate jobs that tinkering is generating during the current economic crisis. You should also give a look at the article’s comments, priceless.
OPEN LAB EGYPT
– November 5th, 2009
(c) 2009 Alex Posada, Hangar.org
I got a report from Alex Posada, at Hangar.org, about the workshop they organized with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID). The workshop ran during two weeks, and seems to me that it will become the base for a lot of people to start working with Arduino and other open source technologies in the field of arts in Egypt.
Workshop for the production of ideas/projects around the concept of interactive image and sound, using a combination of free hardware and software platforms (PD and Arduino) to deepen in the use of electronics and programming.The workshop is intended for art students, artists, designers and educators, contributing to development cultural production in local communities.[...](Open Lab Egypt) is a project for digital arts education in collaboration between Medrar Contemporary Arts (Cairo) and Hangar (Barcelona) funded principally by the Spanish Embassy in Cairo.[...]Workshop for the production of ideas/projects around the concept of interactive image and sound, using a combination of free hardware and software platforms (PD and Arduino). During the two weeks of workshop a space of reflection, investigation and collaborative work will be developed in a context of production, encounter, dialogues and collective learning where 2 tutors, Alex Posada and Sergi Lario, help to develop the proposals of the participants.
Open Lab Egypt
OPEN EDUCATIONAL GAMES
– November 2nd, 2009
(c) 2009 C. Siggelin & J. Lundgren, K3, School of Arts and Communication
Yet another prototyping course comes to an end at K3, the School of Arts at Malmo University. This time we have spent some weeks creating open educational games. The goal was producing Processing-Arduino based interactive educational tools that could be reused by any secondary school to teach kids about issues that go from the small scale of human reproduction to the large scale of weather simulation.
The results are going to be shown publicly tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3rd at K3′s cafeteria. There will be no entrance fee. All the projects will be introduced by their authors and drinks will be served.
All the projects are open source, and once the course has been evaluated after tomorrow’s exhibition at K3, it will be possible to get the code from this website. There you can already find the description to each one of the projects, some screenshots, and pictures of the simple controls built with Arduino, potentiometers, pushbuttons, and such. Nothing complicated to bring the kids closer to knowledge.
(c) 2009 R. Rundkvist & J. Opasiak, K3, School of Arts and Communication
HACKEA WORKSHOP IN TORINO
– October 16th, 2009
Tinker.it! is organising a workshop for the Torino Design Week focused on building lamps and other kinds of luminaries by hacking Ikea products. The workshop takes place the 26-27-28 October 2009, between 9:00 and 12:00.
David Cuartielles started doing these back in sweden and we thought we could “import” the concept into Italy and allow a group of young designers to learn how to use Arduino while building lamps that will be displayed during the Torino Design Week.
The workshop benefits from the support of IED Torino, the “Istituto Europeo di Design” who are kindly providing us with the space.
More details and registrations here
Tinker.it! wishes to thank Prof. Paolo Maccarrone for inviting us to hold this workshop and Davide Gomba for helping us organise.
ARDUINO MANUFACTURING AND CARBON NEUTRALITY
– October 13th, 2009
Smart Projects, the Italian company that is the manufactures the Arduino Duemilanove, Mega, and Mini, has signed up with the ZeroImpact/Lifegateproject in order reduce its environmental impact and compensate for the emissions created in manufacturing Arduino boards. The company’s donation to ZeroImpact/Lifegate will go to restore and protect 25 thousand square meters of rainforest in Costa Rica. This means that for every two Arduino boards manufactured by Smart Projects, one square meter of rainforest will be restored or protected from deforestation. This donation has been in effect from the beginning of production of the Arduino Mega in an effort to make the production of Arduino boards closer to carbon neutral.
INSTRUCTABLES ARDUINO CONTEST
– October 2nd, 2009
The people at Instructables have launched an Arduino contest due by November 15th. Just submit your projects directly on their website and wait to get feedback from the jury. Good luck!
The rules are simple: to enter you must make a new Instructable that involves the Arduino IDE. You can use any hardware that you like, or none at all. Be sure to provide the code you used so that others can follow in your footsteps. Make something amazing and win a sweet Meggy Jr RGB from Evil Mad Science or anArduino Mega from the Arduino Team to power your next project!
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