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Hackaday Party in Los Angeles (JAN 21, 2014) — Parallax Forums

Hackaday Party in Los Angeles (JAN 21, 2014)

JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
edited 2014-01-28 09:28 in General Discussion
Anyone else going? I'll be there. So will Rick Galinson (Propeller mini-gun creator). And our friend Matt (www.likeform.com) -- who is just getting into Propeller programming.

I figure there will be a lot of Arduino programmers there; it would be nice to have more of a Propeller contingent.

Jon
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Comments

  • WBA ConsultingWBA Consulting Posts: 2,934
    edited 2014-01-16 12:41
    JonnyMac wrote: »
    it would be nice to have more of a Propeller contingent.

    That is always my thought at events like this. I have seen about 4 recent Hackaday projects built using Arduino boards that were done years ago with a propeller. Not sure why the Propeller versions never got the same attention. A cool project is a cool project no matter how it was accomplished.

    Hope you have a blast and have a chance to pump up the EFX-Tek and the Propeller. I know I sincerely appreciate your efforts/talents as they have greatly helped many of my projects.
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-16 13:06
    Thanks, Andrew.

    I'm going to take my computer and a some Propeller boards -- just in case there's an opportunity to show people how cool the Propeller really is. Rick joked about taking his mini-gun, though with the reputation of the LAPD, that might be somewhat dangerous in downtown Los Angeles.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-16 13:51
    Sounds almost too good to be true: free admission & free beer! No wonder it sold out quickly. Thanks for the heads-up, I'm waitlisted. The Eventbrite description says "it's a bar, so only bring pocket-sized projects". I bet some folks showing up must have big (if not deep) pockets. My Spiderbot nearly fits in a pocket and it can run/walk circles around beer bottles all night long.
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-16 14:11
    Well, then, no PC -- I'll stuff my cargo pockets as much as I can with Propeller boards.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-16 14:56
    Here's where it said that, with some more details. Hope I can get a ticket, it sounds like the "in" crowd!

    http://www.eventbrite.com/e/hackaday-party-la2014-tickets-10018045243
  • RS_JimRS_Jim Posts: 1,766
    edited 2014-01-17 05:41
    Jon
    Your cargo pants should hold one of Propellar Powered's pocket PC's.
    Jim
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-17 09:39
    I expect the crowd will be Arduino-centric, so I'm taking a Propeller ASC with an Adafruit 8x5 WS2812 matrix running Conway's Game of Life. I already had the CGOL code, which changes colors in between each game. Last nigh I added a scrolling message ("P8X32A" -- mysterious enough to invoke questions). If it starts a conversation I can entice Arduino users by showing them a Propeller in a format they know and love.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-20 21:31
    I did get a ticket off the Hackaday waitlist, so I hope to catch up with JonnyMac Tuesday night. Not sure if I can bring any bots, as I'm bicycle commuting all January. Haven't missed a day yet. I'm hoping Jon brings enough Parallax goodies to cover me. But however much I fail to bring, I promise to make up for in beer consumption.
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-20 23:46
    Give me a list -- I'll chuck what I can into a backpack so we can proselytize to the Arduino masses! :)
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2014-01-21 13:04
    Can we get pictures, please. :)
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2014-01-21 13:13
    Publison wrote: »
    Can we get pictures, please. :)

    The news wires may have all the pictures we need......

    Jon was packing his cargo pants pockets with Propeller gear.

    Erco got a ticket. Erco like combustibles.

    Jon says:
    Give me a list -- I'll chuck what I can into a backpack so we can proselytize to the Arduino masses! :smile:

    ...this could go badly! :smile:
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-21 13:13
    Publison wrote: »
    Can we get pictures, please. :)

    A Message from Hackaday.com:

    We’re going to have a blast tonight. Make your friends jealous by sharing your experience at Hackaday: The Gathering! Pick your poison:
    Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/1/events/cl4va5p6ulm90dkcj4k0hjc8k1c
    Twitter: @Hackaday #HaDLA https://twitter.com/search?q=%23HaDLA
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/688052487884565/?ref=22

    -Mike Szczys
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2014-01-21 15:44
    erco wrote: »
    A Message from Hackaday.com:

    We’re going to have a blast tonight. Make your friends jealous by sharing your experience at Hackaday: The Gathering! Pick your poison:
    Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/1/events/cl4va5p6ulm90dkcj4k0hjc8k1c
    Twitter: @Hackaday #HaDLA https://twitter.com/search?q=%23HaDLA
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/688052487884565/?ref=22

    -Mike Szczys

    I was thinking more of pictures of the "ohs and ahs" when presented with this thing called the Propeller as only Jon and erco can do. :)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-21 22:23
    Fun event, not so much a tech fair, but a fun open bar social event. I never made it past the bar, but I did bring my latest Spider bot programmed to orbit around beer glasses and I gave several demos at the bar. Met several cool folks tonight, including my hero JonnyMac, what a nice guy. His buddy Rick knew my buddy Christian from special FX gigs. Small world! My pics came out dark, but my buddy Gus got a pic of JonnyMac & me together on his iPhone, I'll post that tomorrow. This cowpoke lasted until ~7:30 before Daddy duty called.

    Phew. Lots of beers, lots of fun!
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-22 07:38
    I had fun too, especially meeting Eric (who is a very nice, very handsome devil!), as well as Jack Buffington -- both great contributors to the Parallax community. As Eric noted, it was more a social event than a tech event. Of the folks with lighted goodies, Jack's Propeller-controlled 8x8 RGB board was the coolest.

    On a frustrating note I approached a guy who was wearing a strip of WS2812 LEDs. I knew the answer before I asked, "What are you using to control them?"

    "The Arduino."

    "Have you ever considered the Propeller?"

    "What's a Propeller?"

    Jeepers! This gentleman is part of an LA hacker-space but had never heard of the Propeller. I had some Parallax and EFX-TEK boards with me -- including a Propeller ASC driving an Adafruit 8x5 WS2812 board. When I told him how it worked and how he could have more bandwidth for animating his LEDs he became very interested. We exchanged cards. Hopefully, he'll give the Propeller a try and invite others in his hacker space to join in,

    Anyway, the event was the first for Hackaday, and they seem intent on having more that are focus more on tech, less on beer (though that was appreciated by all).
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,185
    edited 2014-01-22 09:40
    JonnyMac wrote: »
    I had fun too, especially meeting Eric (who is a very nice, very handsome devil!), as well as Jack Buffington -- both great contributors to the Parallax community. As Eric noted, it was more a social event than a tech event. Of the folks with lighted goodies, Jack's Propeller-controlled 8x8 RGB board was the coolest.

    On a frustrating note I approached a guy who was wearing a strip of WS2812 LEDs. I knew the answer before I asked, "What are you using to control them?"

    "The Arduino."

    "Have you ever considered the Propeller?"

    "What's a Propeller?"

    Oi. This gentleman is part of an LA hacker-space but had never heard of the Propeller. I had some Parallax and EFX-TEK boards with me -- including a Propeller ASC driving an Adafruit 8x5 WS2812 board. When I told him how it worked and how he could have more bandwidth for animating his LEDs he became very interested. We exchanged cards. Hopefully, he'll give the Propeller a try and invite others in his hacker space to join in,

    Anyway, the event was the first for Hackaday, and they seem intent on having more that are focus more on tech, less on beer (though that was appreciated by all).

    Hello!
    Nice to see you two had fun visiting that gathering. (Never mind the witty remarks I'm thinking of concerning LA.) I also get that response lots of times concerning using a Basic Stamp to animate my logic puzzles from my hackerspace.

    I'm probably going to demonstrate your Propellor driven WS2812 LEDs as the Adafruit NeoPixels via my PAB (Prop Activity Board) at the next meeting as well. (If I get around to it, that is. Too much to do, not enough time.) Those are the http://www.adafruit.com/products/1312 as seen here:

    leds_Breadboard.jpg


    They've already seen me wow them with the favorites. But not with a Propellor.

    Oh and a point of correction, the word "Oy" which means "Oh" in Yiddish, is typically spelled like that. Although its application has drifted in time, never mind the understanding.
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  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-22 10:03
    I took my Spider robot to the event and gave several demos of it walking around beer glasses at the bar, which was fun. Sir Brian of HackaDay approved. But in retrospect, the best projects for this particular gathering were the wearable LED gizmos which Jon mentioned. They encouraged total strangers to ask & interact, even just wandering through the bar. Any of Duane's recent 8x8 projects on a pendant would have killed. Jack, the fellow who Jon mentioned, wore his 8x8 RGB around his neck, powered by a good-sized LiPo on his belt. Another guy had some cool steampunk goggles with lots of animated RGB LEDs inside.

    Oy, Ken would have owned the joint in his CCFL shirt. Now where's that pic?

    Edit: A flamethrowing bot might have gone over well with this crowd. Less so, the bar owner. :)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuXMh1_-6Ag
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-22 13:45
    A few pics from the event. Who can spot JonnyMac in the first pic?
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  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-22 13:55
    And the guy just in front of me with the glowing necklace is Jack Buffington. And while he's a little obscured, the guy with the blue shirt and ball cap to the [photo] left of Jack is Rick "Paintball Mini-Gun" Galinson.
  • Ken GraceyKen Gracey Posts: 7,392
    edited 2014-01-22 20:03
    erco wrote: »
    Oy, Ken would have owned the joint in his CCFL shirt. Now where's that pic?

    I would've enjoyed this event for certain, always having fun at tech parties.

    Ken Gracey

    CCFL shirt for geek party.jpg
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  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,185
    edited 2014-01-23 18:54


    Hello!
    I'll say. I just saw one of our regular contributors in the photostream. Jon your busy explaining what a Prop board is to a group of people.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-23 20:23
    They caught Jon on film preachin' the Parallax gospel, and me sitting on my duff waiting to go inside.

    http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/01-21-2014_180011.jpg
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-23 23:57
    Jon your busy explaining what a Prop board is to a group of people.

    In my hand is PAB with an encoder being read by 74x165 shift-register (project from my March column -- reads four quadrature encoders with three io pins). The rest of the code used my WAV object to create a random audio player (classic rock only: Stones, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, etc.). I had other boards with me, but didn't have sense enough to take a battery! I had a wall-wart, but no place to plug in....
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2014-01-24 13:30
    erco wrote: »
    They caught Jon on film preachin' the Parallax gospel, and me sitting on my duff waiting to go inside.

    http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/01-21-2014_180011.jpg

    Evangelism takes many forms.........
  • bsnutbsnut Posts: 521
    edited 2014-01-24 22:24
    Looks like from the picture that Jon is having fun preachin' the Parallax gospel. I just wonder if any of the Parallax powered EFX-TEK goodies being shown off as well?
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-25 07:18
    I just wonder if any of the Parallax powered EFX-TEK goodies being shown off as well?

    Had the HC-8+ and AP-16+ with me as well -- this combo was recently adopted by Legoland for parks and displays around the world.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2014-01-25 13:07
    JonnyMac wrote: »
    Had the HC-8+ and AP-16+ with me as well -- this combo was recently adopted by Legoland for parks and displays around the world.
    Congratulations Jon!
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,107
    edited 2014-01-25 14:42
    Congratulations Jon!

    Thanks, Steve. Lucky, I had the chance to meet with their folks in SoCal before one of their other teams (Europe) had developed a custom solution using the Arduino and yet-to-be-developed show control software. I was able to show them how they could develop animatronic shows with Vixen (freeware) which allows the HC-8+ to control servos, LEDs, and DMX devices. There is a half-duplex serial port on both that allows the HC-8+ to command the AP-16+ to play a specific audio file (usually the same audio used when creating the movement and lighting cues).
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-01-28 09:28
    This pic is from HackaDay. I couldn’t place this guy’s face until today. He was on TV a lot when the Mars Curiosity rover landed, as his shirt says. I was apparently much too focused on drinking beer to notice any techno-celebrities. :P http://hackaday.com/2014/01/23/the-gathering-huge-success/#jp-carousel-113215

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