This past weekend was Maker Faire at San Mateo. I took some pictures and video while I was there of the various sights and sounds.

http://krux.org/gallery/v/events/Maker+Faire+SF+2010

So looks like we're slowing rolling together more people interested in building a Las Vegas based Hackerspace. Tom and I have done quite a bit of research and made some contacts with some key players who have been helpful in pointing us in the right direction. I think it would be good to put up a wiki style page to detail what we have found and some of the next steps to be done.

Hackerspace Planning

Since the site has had a number of spammers posting crap here lately, unfortunately I've had to disable the ability for non-validated users to post comments or stories. To get your account validated you'll need to email me.

echo krux~thcnet%net | tr '~%' '@.'

We'll be having a Dorkbot meeting on Sunday, February 28th at 2pm.

Tom should be showing off his new Cupcake CNC Makerbot. So be sure to show up to see desktop 3d printing. Hopefully I'll have a start on my RepRap 3D printer as well.

Location:

Krux's house
1653 Caliente Ct., Las Vegas, NV 89119

Here is a quick build I did for this year's Christmas party. I decided to take a couple hours to hack together a pair of Steampunkish Christmas Goggles using an inexpensive set of Oxy Acetylene Welding goggles and things I had around my work bench.

This year's Defcon had a hardware hacking kit you could buy featuring the Parallax Propeller chip, a nifty eight processor microcontroller.

And what better way to test out that the board works than to solder up a nice vga/ps2/audio shield so I could check out the Turbulence Demo.

The Defcon 17 HHV Propeller Board

Adafruit has an updated version of their open sourced TV-B-Gone Kit, a universal TV off button. The Adafruit kit is a high power version of the TV-B-Gone keychain remote, and can extinguish TVs over 150 feet away.

I had the previous version of the TV-B-Gone, but the ATTiny85 microcontroller stopped working. Obviously not being able to turn off any TV was a problem, so I decided to order the updated kit and use a Vojo mint box to house the project.

I am hosting a very informal meeting at my place at 7:00PM tonight 7/29/2009.
My address is:
10449 Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, NV.

Obligatory Google Maps link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&q=10449+niagara+falls+las+veg...

My latest project is a Knitting Row Counter, which helps you keep track of which row you are on when knitting complex patterns.

Morgan, my girlfriend, recently aquired the addictive hobby of knitting. She needed a row counter to keep track of where she was in multiple projects. Instead of paying up to $12 to $30 for an store bought electronic counter, I decided that I had enough parts laying around where I could build one for a fraction of the price.

I based the counter off the Parallax SX28 microcontroller, an I2C EEProm for data storage when the device is powered off, three seven segment LEDs for the display, and a few lego pieces for buttons.

Just a FYI, the Las Vegas Adobe User Group is going to have a presenter from Phidgets, Inc demo some Adobe Flex / microcontroller interaction.

UNLV Paradise Campus Room 511
851 E Tropicana Ave
Las Vegas, NV 89119

July 7, 2009 at 07:00pm

More info: http://groups.adobe.com/posts/c09b77c844