Hackerspace spacey-wacey projects

[Alex Cureton-Griffiths]

Hi all,

I'm a Shropshire boy who's just come back to town (Shrewsbury to be exact) and wondering if anyone wants to meet up for a drink to discuss doing open-source projects related to space...

Basically, my organisation got 500,000 USD from the US government to fund hackerspaces building space-related projects (space as in the inky black thing above your head, not space as in hackerSPACE). It's open to hackerspaces outside the US so I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone wants to submit a kick-ass project to us.

We're looking at 3 main focus areas:

* Maker education (and general space education)

* Small satellites (and other near-earth economy stuff)

* Habitats (i.e. growing food, building shelter, dealing with waste, etc in space or on another planet)

Budget is up to 20,000 USD per project. More info is at http://www.spacegambit.org/open-call-for-projects/ . All projects have to be open-source/hardware and connected with a hackerspace.

Being a Brit (amongst other things), I'd really love to have some cool stuff to show the USA we can kick arse. And it'd be especially amazing if we could put Shropshire on the map as a high-tech county.

I'll be in Shrewsbury til about mid-March. Just reply to this thread or email me on alexcg at spacegambit dot org if you'd like to meet for a pint or a coffee.

Cheers,

Alex C-G

UK Program Lead, SpaceGAMBIT

www.spacegambit.org

[Chris Davenport]

Hi Alex,

I have absolutely no idea about possible projects, but if someone else comes up with something where a software developer might be handy, then I'm all ears.  I'm on the leadership team for the Joomla project (one of the big three open source web content management systems), with a particular interest in REST web services and the "internet of things".  Oh, and I live just up the road from you.

All the best,
Chris.

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Chris Davenport
Joomla Production Leadership Team

[Stuart]

Hi Alex/Chris

I'm in Telford - one rough idea for a project, what about a bus/coach with astronomy equipment on/in the boot to take people out (school students, astronomy clubs) to observe?

Happy to get together for a drink to talk this through!

Stu

[Alex Cureton-Griffiths]

Hi Stu,

I think Sotira Trifourki's group have an astronomy bus that they drive around schools and what not. Can't find a link at the mo. Might be worth you talking to her. I can send you her contact info if you like.

Now a maker bus on the other hand, that would be awesome :)

Alex Cureton-Griffiths

UK Project Lead - SpaceGAMBIT

(+44) 0783-3603690

www.spacegambit.org

 

[Stuart]

Ooh, that sounds interesting! I guess that would be popular with schools in particular.

Hmmm... less "Starbus" more "Makerbus"?! Yeah... One area where this could really be interesting would be an area that fascinates me (and it is, of course, the area where my knowledge is zero or less) would be biohacking. How about a "Biobus" to get people interested in this?

[Alex Cureton-Griffiths]

Sorry for late reply. Been snowed under the past few days.

A biobus would be cool...but not for a SpaceGAMBIT proposal :( I'll be speaking to Sotira in a few days. Shoot me a text on, say the 16th, to remind me to throw your idea at her :) My phone is 0783 3603690

Cheers,

Alex

Alex Cureton-Griffiths

UK Project Lead - SpaceGAMBIT

(+44) 0783-3603690

www.spacegambit.org

 

[Stuart Adamson]

Hi all
Sudden brainwave hit me today - "dark skies", I thought to myself...

Anyway. You know how Google skymaps and what-have-you can tell you what you're pointing your mobile device at? Well, how about taking a picture of it, capturing the metadata like GPS and anything like air pressure, temperature - basically whatever the mobile device can provide - feeding all that back and then analysing the pictures to see just how dark the sky is?

Sounds pointless? Well... how does pollution affect the darkness (or otherwise) of the skies? Or how about the effect of light pollution?

"Ah, but Stu... how will you be able to tell how dark it really is?".

Good question - but look, apart from knowing from the metadata what type of device was used to take the picture you also know what's in the frame thanks to using the accelerometers and so forth, so you can measure the luminosity of two or more known objects in the picture (relatively), which you then cross-reference against a known absolute reference luminosity for those objects to give you - a measure of how dark the sky is to observe them (and maybe an indirect measure of air pollution and so forth).

Just a random thought today - any mileage in it?

Stu

[Richard F]

Hi

 

Stu I live in telford also ... im into  arduino ,electronics, cnc all  that kind of thing I was wondering is there many like minded people in telford  for sharing ideas

 

thanks

 

rich

[Stuart Adamson]

Hi Rich

I don't know if you're already aware of the group, but there's always SLUG: http://shropshirelug.wordpress.com/

More of a software group than hardware, but there are a few guys there who are into Arduino etc. - why not come along?

BTW I have been thinking again the "dark skies" idea - what do you reckon?

Stu

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[Richard F]

Hi stu thanks for getting back to me .. Any idea when the next meeting is ... In wellingtion

Thanks.

Rich

[Stuart Adamson]

Hi Rich
Next meeting should be the last thurs of the month, so 26th sept at the cock hotel in wellington from abt 7.30, but got to say it's not always prompt ;-)
Stu