Hardware

Drones Pt. 2 (Captain Buzz, Whirly Blades of Death, Bounder) – London 16/6/2016

 in Hardware / OSHUG / OSSG Events  tagged drones by (updated 2670 days ago)

For the BCS OSSG and the OSHUG June 2016 meeting we return to the theme of June 2012, “drones”, with a talk on Captain Buzz, a smartphone app that flies drones, another on what goes into making a quadrotor stay in the air, and a third talk on managing drone airspace.

The event will be held on Thursday 16th June at BCS HQ – 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA, [map] from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

This event is free to attend for both BCS Members and non-members but booking is required. Places are limited; please book as soon as possible.

Captain Buzz: Your smartphone’s real ‘airplane mode’

In ten years time drones will be delivering Amazon packages to your door minutes after ordering them. Current drones are built using purpose-designed hardware and software with limited computational power. Moreover, adding features typically requires purchasing and connecting additional hardware modules.

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NMI/BCS Open Source SG Conference – London 10/5/2016

 in Business / Hardware / OSHUG / OSSG Events  tagged electronics systems / IoT / lowRISC / open source hardware / radio frequency / supply chain by

In partnership with the BCS OSSG and BCS OSHUG, this conference explores the increasingly vital role of Open Source as an enabler in the world of electronic systems. It will provide attendees with an informative view of:

  • The benefits and challenges of using open-source
  • Leading electronic systems organisation using open-source today sharing their experience
  • The breadth of opportunities presented by open-source, from application software down to silicon IP
  • Open-source capabilities from a range of leading suppliers

The event will be held on Tuesday 10th May at BCS HQ – 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA, [map] from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 9:15am as the event will start at 9:30 prompt.

This event is free to attend for both BCS Members and non-members but booking is required. Places are limited; please book as soon as possible.

Meet the Supplier Pitches

Provider of Open Source solutions or services? Give a 2 minute pitch!

Session 1: Challenges & Opportunities

Open Source: The Enabler for IoT Greatness (and Mediocrity)

Strip the layers of marketing fluff on the shiny new Internet of Things devices and you will find, in almost all cases, a slew of great Open Source projects powering these little gadgets, to perform their intended duties. Go up a layer and guess what — the cloud is full of Open Source too!

This talks uses IoT as a case study in explaining how Open-Source makes rapid iterations and complex interconnected things happen very quickly. While this all sounds great, we will also look at how certain approaches in “openness” actually cause more problems than they solve especially when it comes to interoperability between ecosystems.

Omer Kilic is an Embedded Systems Engineer who enjoys working with small computers of all shapes and sizes. He works at the various intersections of hardware and software engineering practices, product development and manufacturing. He is the Chief Hacker at Den Automation, an Internet of Things hardware startup in London.

Sailing the open seas

Deciding to operate a business with an ‘Open Source’ mindset, and looking beyond “why would you give everything away for free?”, there are interesting business models to be had. Those invariably come with challenges, but also have the benefits that are derived from maintaining a culture of openness. Boldport is a small business that open sourced their primary internal software tool, PCBmodE, and who releases all their hardware designs as ‘Open Source hardware’. We’ll discuss where ‘openness’ is challenging and where it has created opportunities, all with a hardware perspective.

Saar Drimer combines his obsessive doodling, love for circuit design, programming, and problem solving into Boldport’s products and services. As an engineer he’s learned to appreciate the value of adopting industrial design thinking and making it an integral part of his design process. He studied electrical engineering at UC Santa Cruz, and researched the topic of hardware security for his PhD at the Computer Lab, University of Cambridge.

Session 2: Practical Solutions

Red, Amber, Green: Free and Open-Source Software in the Supply Chain – When to Avoid, Tread Carefully and Embrace

Almost all software projects have an aspect of Open Source: and for very good reason. With reference to client case studies, Andrew considers how to maximise the utility of Open Source code, both in terms of the code itself, and engaging with the communities around it, and mitigating risk throughout the supply chain.

Andrew Katz is a UK-based lawyer specialising in FOSS and open content.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Andrew Katz was a developer and has released software under the GPL. He advises individuals, corporations, foundations and public sector organisations on FOSS law issues, and is a visiting researcher at the University of Skövde, Sweden, and visiting lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. He is a founder editor of the Free and Open Source Software Law Review.

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Open Source Where You Least Expect It – London 21/4/2016

 in Hardware / OSHUG / OSSG Events  tagged AirPi / Editors4 by (updated 2718 days ago)

The BCS OSSG and the OSHUG are hosting a talk that takes a look at the use of open source hardware and software in less obvious places..

The event will be held on Thursday 21st April at BCS HQ – 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA, [map] from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

Please register to attend and share on Lanyrd.

Ownership and Gift; Open Source and God; How a Vicar values Open Source

Do we really own anything, or is it a gift? When we try to claim ownership how does that affect our attitude and our freedom? Does my choice of software really have a spiritual dimension? How can I give something back? These are all questions which arise for an ex-compiler-writing Vicar who wants software which does the job at hand but also wants to live with integrity and Christian values. In his talk Rev Peter Salisbury explores these questions through examples of the way his church uses Open Source software and hardware.

Peter Salisbury was an electronics geek in his teens just as logic chips first hit the Maplin catalogue. From building computers in a cupboard he went to study Computation at UMIST, graduating in 1980. He worked in system tools with Burroughs Machines, then moved to language design and compiler writing for a Project Management company. In 1989 he moved to Salisbury to study theology in preparation for becoming a vicar. He was ordained in 1992 and is currently Vicar of Lymington on the south coast near Southampton. He has never really forgotten he’s a geek.

Update: the event recording is now available.

Open hardware for open science

Is science open source and should it be? This talk will look at the current state of open software and hardware in scientific practice. Example open hardware projects from the worlds of biology, astronomy and computer science will be presented.

Sarah Mount is a Research Associate on the Efficient Editing of Homogeneous Programs (Editors4) project. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, and before that she held a number of positions at Coventry University.

Update: the event recording is now available.

Hacking the atmosphere

The AirPi is an open source board he designed for measuring and recording air pollution and weather information. Despite its innocuous goal, that board has ended up in some fairly weird situations — come along to find out where!

Tom Hartley is a student at Imperial College, currently sitting on the fence between software and hardware. Prompted by a mysterious fascination with the Raspberry Pi that lives on to this day, he developed the AirPi 2 years ago as part of a competition and went on to sell over 1,000 kits to people who care about the air they breathe. A devotee of open source, the code he writes and the boards he designs are all available freely online.

Update: the event recording is now available.

Embedded platforms (BSD, OpenWRT, Plan 9 & Inferno) – London 17/3/2016

 in OSHUG / OSSG Events  tagged distributed systems / embedded platforms / Linux / OpenWRT / Plan9 by (updated 2971 days ago)

The BCS OSSG and the OSHUG are hosting a talk on embedded platforms, with talks on the BSD family of operating systems, Linux and OpenWRT, and Plan 9 and Inferno in distributed systems.

The event will be held on Thursday 17th March at BCS HQ – 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA, [map] from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

Please register to attend and share on Lanyrd.

The BSD Family of Operating Systems: a familiar environment for your VAX, PIC32 or RISC-V ISA and many other platforms.

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution started out as a patch set to AT&T UNIX in the 70’s and grew to a complete Operating Systems. Today several projects continue to develop variant operating systems based on the work originally started by the Computer Science Research Group, each with a different area of focus.

This presentation will cover some of the benefits these operating systems can offer to aid the workflow of a hardware project.

Sevan Janiyan is founder of Venture 37, which provides system administration & consultancy services. As a fan of operating systems and computers with different CPU architectures, in his spare time he maintains builds of open source software on a variety of systems featuring PowerPC, SPARC and armv7l CPUs. He hopes to own a NeXTcube & OMRON LUNA-88K2 one day.

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Open Energy Tools & Interoperability (Open Inverter, OpenTRV, Heat Pump Monitoring) – London 18/2/2016

 in Hardware / OSHUG  tagged hackday / open inverter / openenergymonitor / opentrv by (updated 2752 days ago)

The BCS OSSG and theOSHUGare hosting a talk on a topic which has been a recurring theme and of much interest at previous meetings, open energy platforms.

There will be talks on Open Inverter, OpenTRV, OpenEnergyMonitor and heat pump monitoring, with a focus also on interoperability. The evening meeting will also be preceded by an interoperability hack day for project contributors.

The event will be held on Thursday Thursday 18th February atBCS HQ?EUR” 1st Floor, The Davidson Building,5 Southampton Street,London,WC2E 7HA, [map] from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

This event is free to attend for both BCS Members and non-members butbooking is required. Places are limited; please book as soon as possible.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

Low power DC conversion using open source hardware

WinNode5

The Open Inverter is a micro inverter designed to produce an AC power output of up to 250 VA. It uses modular, open source PCB designs for both it&s controller and power boards ?EUR” and is extendible to larger power outputs or for other power electronics projects, such as battery charging, DC ring mains and DC power transformation using buck-boost DC/DC converters.

Open Inverter will provide an AC output from a single 250W photovoltaic panel, micro-hydro turbine. It also has applications in electric bike charging and DC power storage. The key PCBs are currently at either the layout or manufacture stage. The microcontroller board features an RFM69 low power wireless, making it compatible with the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem.

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Malvern Raspberry Jam (Family & Adult Edition) – Malvern 21/10/2015

 in Education / Hardware / OSSG Events / OSSG News  tagged Linux / rasperry pi / single-board computers by

Raspberry PiInnovate Malvern in collaboration with The Pi Shop are organising an event for people to what they have done with their Raspberry Pis, or to attend and learn about the Pi hardware and software and perhaps get started on your own projects.

The event will be held on  Wednesday 21st October 2015 at Walwyn Road (near Fossil Bank), Upper Colwall, WR13 6PL, Malvern
between 7:30pm and 9:30pm.

Come to be inspired, make friends, and collaborate on new ideas. Also, if you have children attending the earlier Student Edition of the Malvern Raspberry Jam, then this is your chance to try and get ahead of them! After the session at about 9pm, people can head to either The Chase Inn or the Wyche Inn for a drink and chat.

There will be keyboards, display monitors, power, and wifi available for you to connect up your Pi. The event is free to attend, but because space is limited, we ask you to please register in advance.

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Chips Pt.3 (BERI, Do we need separate Hardware Construction languages? OpenTransputer) – London 18/06/2015

 in Hardware / OSSG Events  tagged beri / Bluespec / Chisel / FPGA / HML / Internet of Things / IoT / LLVM / OpenTransputer / oshug / risk by

The BCS OSSG and the OSHUG are hosting 3 talks on Open Source Chip Designs.

The event will be held on Thursday 18th June at BCS HQ – 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

This event is free to attend for both BCS Members and non-members but booking is required.

Note: Please aim to arrive by 6:15 as the event will start at 6:30 prompt.

BERI: An open RISC softcore for research and experimentation

OpentransputerBERI (the Bluespec Extensible RISC Implementation) is a softcore processor jointly developed by SRI International and The University of Cambridge. It implements a superset of the MIPS III ISA in Bluespec, a high-level HDL and supports a fully Open Source, permissively licensed, software stack comprising the FreeBSD operating system and the LLVM compiler suite. This talk will describe the design of the BERI processor and its use.

BERI was created to facilitate experimentation at the boundaries between CPU architecture, operating systems, and programming languages. It runs in Altera and Xilinx FPGAs, including the NetFPGA 10G board. At 100MHz, it is fast enough to use as a real computer (albeit a fairly slow one).

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Wiring the Internet of Things with Raspberry Pi & Node-RED – London 21/05/2015

 in Education / Hardware / OSSG Events  tagged ibm / internetofthings / node-red / raspberrypi by (updated 3003 days ago)

The BCS OSSG, IBM UK and the OSHUG, with support from the Knowledge Transfer Network and hardware sponsored by RS DesignSpark are hosting an event on wiring the Internet of Things.

The event will be held on Thursday 21st May at Fab Lab London, 1 Frederick’s Place, Off Old Jewry, London, EC2R 8AE from 12:30:00pm to 6:30pm.

This event is free to attend for both BCS Members and non-members but booking is required.

Node-RED

Node-REDNode-RED is a visual tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. Used together with Raspberry Pi it provides a compact, powerful platform that is able to read sensors, control outputs, and send and receive data to and from the Web and other systems.

This workshop will provide an introduction to Node-RED and integrating simple sensors and outputs, applying basic processing and publishing data to the Web. No prior experience with either Node-RED or electronics is required. However, while not strictly necessary, some experience of JavaScript would be beneficial as this is used to implement custom functionality within Node-RED. (more…)