Hacker Dojo's Open-Sourced Implementation

[Katy Levinson]

Hey everybody,

I know everybody's really excited about making their own thing, but here is Hacker Dojo's open-sourced implemented solution to this problem. We've been running it for a few months now, and it has been working pretty well.  I figured I'd throw it out there.

Here's a writeup of the bill of parts and shows the schematics http://katylevinson.com/blog/?p=7

Here's the code we use to run the maglock computer https://github.com/hackerdojo/hd-maglock

Here's the code which handles signup, billing, and RFID assignment and tracking https://github.com/hackerdojo/hd-signup, it also controls which users have rights to RFID keys and which do not.

The relevant interfaces are as follows: the RFID reader is a simple USB keyboard input, and the relay which controls the door is set by the ready-to-send pin on an RS232 controller, schematic is included.  The computer pulls the authorised membership list from the server via JSON.  The membership accounts are just Google accounts for the @hackerdojo.com domain, so we piggyback on all their security/user managament/administration systems.  System tolerates network outages (of course new members authorised while the network outage is going on won't be admitted), and tolerates a building power failure of about 6 hours before intentionally failing open.  Emergency open button is a hard break, no computer in the loop, for fire safety.  Entire system costs about $250 USD to make, and keys are about 60 cents.  System can be installed in a weekend.

We are excited to see what you all come up with, but I figured I would throw this into the ring to let other teams look it over.  We really would appreciate your feedback (or better yet, code patches!)

Thanks,
Katy

PS: This system also works with our login system, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPRKC8VD9K0 which you can have too https://github.com/hackerdojo/hd-signin  As a matter of fact, feel free to take all our code, use it in your space, and submit many many bug patches https://github.com/hackerdojo/