Announcement of new Embedded computer group
Ralph Green
Purpose:
The goal of the group is to share knowledge and help people learn to
program embedded computers with open source software. Embedded
computers of interest range from microcontrollers such as the ATMEL AVR
chips and Microchip PIC to boards that are essentially standard PCs,
such as the products from Soekris and PC Engines or a variety of Geode
based small board computers.
When:
Our first meeting will be at 6 PM, Sept 4, 2009 at 1701 North Collins
Boulevard Suite 2000, where we are graciously being hosted by
CompanyDallas. See details of the location at the CompanyDallas website
of http://www.companydallas.com/.
First meeting:
At the first meeting, we want to find out what experience people have
and what they are most interested in working on. For example, the
Arduino is used by two of the people starting this group. But, maybe 8
out of 10 people who join us use the Propeller or a Microchip Pic. In
that case, we will probably use that chip, instead. Whatever we pick
needs to be inexpensive and have open source tools. The idea is that we
want to plan on a common set of hardware and then we can all work
through the first few projects together. We can come up with some parts
lists and maybe buy a few things in bulk. Bright LEDs are usually
cheaper in 100 lot units, for example.
Future meetings:
We want to do a few basic workshop style meetings and then branch out.
This can be an entertaining, and useful hobby and it does not need to be
expensive. We will be guided by what the participants are interested in
and that means you need to come and be a part of it, if you want to
guide our efforts. The expectation is that there will be more
divergence of tools later and people will show and train others in the
tools they have chosen.
If you want to do some reading to prepare, here are some pointers to
places we have found interesting.
Interesting hardware:
Arduino home page
http://www.arduino.cc/
ModernDevice breadboardable arduino clones
http://www.moderndevice.com/index.shtml
Bifferboard cheapest x86 board we've seen
http://bifferos.bizhat.com
Kuro box(hackable NAS box)
http://penguinppc.org/embedded/kuro/
ET-STM32 Stamp Module
http://www.futurlec.com/ET-STM32_Stamp.shtml
BeagleBoard (high end embedded board, nice but expensive)
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard
Wii Nunchuk to Arduino
http://todbot.com/blog/2008/02/18/wiichuck-wii-nunchuck-adapter-available/
NES controller to Arduino
http://yikescode.blogspot.com/2007/12/nes-controller-arduino.html
Is your WRT54G hackable
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G/GL/GS/GX
Open Linksys NSLU2 firmware
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/SlugOS/SlugOSBE
Interesting software:
Denx embedded build system
http://www.denx.de/wiki/DULG/ELDK
OpenEmbedded
http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page
Buildroot cross compilation/build system
http://buildroot.uclibc.org/
pfSense embedded FreeBSD
http://www.pfsense.com/
Lady Ada's tutorials and free project designs
http://www.ladyada.net/
Free hardware guides to lots of projects
http://www.instructables.com/
Lots of project with much detail hidden behind Flash
http://hackaday.com/
Project ideas our members are working on:
1. DefCon each year produces badges that have some interesting
electronics. One member is working on a design of something similar.
He initially wants to modulate multi-colored LEDs on a badge based on
input from a microphone.
2. Toy ray guns are readily available and cheap. Most are pretty
boring. One member wants to add LEDs that light up in some controller
based patterns to make them more interesting. Stage 2 would be to add
sounds.
3. One member has a cat that takes another cat's food. He wants to have
the thief wear a collar with an RFID tag. A sensor near the food would
detect the tag and shoot the cat with a water gun when it got too near.
4. One member is designing a sign promoting the Python language. It
uses a CNC carved Python logo and is lit from behind in a hopefully
interesting manner.
5. One member is helping design the software for a firewall/router that
is focused around keeping young children from browsing inappropriate
material. The parents would control what is inappropriate.
David W Van Ness
dhawktx
projects - will you be having another meeting soon? How did the first
one go?
On Aug 29, 8:42 am, David W Van Ness <dave.vann...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have added it to my calendar.
>
> Thanks
>
> David Van Ness
>
>
> > Proposed charter for Dallas Embedded workshop group
>
> > Purpose:
> > The goal of the group is to share knowledge and help people learn to
> > program embedded computers with open source software. Embedded
> > computers of interest range from microcontrollers such as the ATMEL AVR
> > chips and Microchip PIC to boards that are essentially standard PCs,
> > such as the products from Soekris and PC Engines or a variety of Geode
> > based small board computers.
>
> > When:
> > Our first meeting will be at 6 PM, Sept 4, 2009 at 1701 North Collins
> > Boulevard Suite 2000, where we are graciously being hosted by
> > CompanyDallas. See details of the location at the CompanyDallas website
Ralph Green
Our first project will be Friday, Oct 16. I believe it would be
perfect for someone like you describe. See the details at our website
at:
http://embeddedworkshop.org
Come join us.
Good day,
Ralph
Michael
and the latter still lists the original meeting date, the former
doesn't really mention an event this friday at all that I can find. Is
there an event this Friday? If so, I'd like to plan to attend. If not,
I need to plan to do other things on my list. Please let us know.
Thanks.
Michael
Ralph Green
Yes. I can't directly update the CompanyDallas, so they don't reflect
it. But, they should be expecting the group. The top of the article
for the October project on the embeddedworkshop.org page clearly shows
the date as being Oct 16. I mostly setup the website and I am open to
advice on how to make it more clear. We probably need to add some kind
of calendar like dprg.org uses and I'll try to figure that out. The
project is definitely on and we hope to see you there. I'll be there
earlier in the day, getting everything setup.
Have a good day,
Ralph
Michael Reilly
but doesn't reference the earlier post, date or time. The post that
actually talks about it is 5 posts down, so if you don't know it's
there, you're not looking for it. Two suggestions I can think of, one
is to add the list of recent posts to the sidebar, then "October 2009
project" would have shown at the top of the page. And I believe you
can post date items, so you could create a short post (so it doesn't
obstruct later posts) that is dated for the actual event date that
links to the full post. After the date passes, it will sort into the
stream of posts. That will avoid the things we see on other sites
where event details remain long after the event has passed.
Sorry for being demanding in my earlier post, I really didn't see the
information. Something has come up for Saturday morning and I need to
take tonight to prepare for it so unfortunately I won't be able to
make it this time. But in the future I will be attending, and would
even be willing to host. More details on that later.
Michael
Michael Reilly
but doesn't reference the earlier post, date or time. The post that
actually talks about it is 5 posts down, so if you don't know it's
there, you're not looking for it. Two suggestions I can think of, one
is to add the list of recent posts to the sidebar, then "October 2009
project" would have shown at the top of the page. And I believe you
can post date items, so you could create a short post (so it doesn't
obstruct later posts) that is dated for the actual event date that
links to the full post. After the date passes, it will sort into the
stream of posts. That will avoid the things we see on other sites
where event details remain long after the event has passed.
Sorry for being demanding in my earlier post, I really didn't see the
information. Something has come up for Saturday morning and I need to
take tonight to prepare for it so unfortunately I won't be able to
make it this time. But in the future I will be attending, and would
even be willing to host. More details on that later.
Michael
On Oct 16, 2009, at 3:34 AM, Ralph Green wrote:
>