[clug] Make, Hack, Void

[Alastair D'Silva]

Hi folks,

I just thought I'd ping the CLUG community and give an update on how Make,
Hack, Void is doing.

The biggest news is we finally have a space (a big workshop in Downer), and
have started taking membership for access. We currently had 17 paid up
members and expect more once we officially open.
http://www.makehackvoid.com/community/our-space
http://www.makehackvoid.com/community/membership

We have been meeting fortnightly to talk tech, and have had lots of
interested projects being shown. We have also spawned a side-community, to
build an Umannned Arial Vehicle to enter into the UAV Outback Challenge, the
goal of which is to build a UAV to locate a stranded person and drop a water
bottle to them:
http://www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au/

I have had the MHVBoard professionally fabbed, and sold 40something of them.
The MHVBoard is an Arduino clone, based on the Metaboard, with some tweaks
including a bigger microcontroller. It does away with a USB->Serial chip,
and instead has native USB (a hack, done by bitbashing the USB protocol).
http://www.makehackvoid.com/group-projects/mhvboard-arduino-clone

MHVlib, the runtime library for AVR devices (including the MHVBoard &
Arduino) has also started gaining momentum, and I have been fleshing it out
with support for a few displays, pin debouncing and a software realtime
clock.
http://www.makehackvoid.com/mhvlib

Thats all for now - if anyone is interested, a maker "preview" of the space
will be held next Tuesday. Not all the tools will be present, but it is a
good opportunity to see the facilities and meet the rest of the community.

Cheers,

--
Alastair D'Silva           mob: 0423 762 819
Networking Consultant      fax: 0413 181 661
New Millennium Networking  web: http://www.newmillennium.net.au
skype: alastair_dsilva     msn: alastair at d-silva.org
blog: http://alastair.d-silva.org