OHC2016

Registration is now closed. Open Hardware Miniconf 2016 REGISTRATION FORM

The Open Hardware Miniconf 2016 will take place as part of LCA 2016 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

The concept of Free / Open Source Software, already well understood by LCA attendees, is complemented by a rapidly growing community focused around Open Hardware and "maker culture". One of the drivers of the popularity of the Open Hardware community is easy access to cheap devices such as Arduino, which is a microcontroller development board originally intended for classroom use but now a popular building block in all sorts of weird and wonderful hobbyist and professional projects.

Interest in Open Hardware is high among FOSS enthusiasts but there is also a barrier to entry with the perceived difficulty and dangers of dealing with hot soldering irons, unknown components and unfamiliar naming schemes. The miniconf will use an Open Hardware assembly project as a stepping stone to help ease software developers into dealing with Open Hardware. Topics will cover both software and hardware issues, starting with simpler sessions suitable for Open Hardware beginners and progressing through to more advanced topics.

The day will run in two distinct halves. The first part of the day will be a hands-on assembly session where participants will have the chance to assemble a special hardware project developed for the miniconf. Instructors will be on hand to assist with soldering and the other mysteries of hardware assembly. The second part of the day will be presentations about Open Hardware topics, including information on software to run on the hardware project built earlier in the day.

Unlike previous years, due to venue restrictions, the assembly will not require any soldering. However, we aim to bring soldering back in 2017.

Venue

D2.211 (flat floor classroom)

Final schedule

If you are attending the assembly workshop, please be on-time ... we need to get underway promptly.

• 10:40 - 12:20 Assembly workshop (registration required to participate, spectators also welcome)
• 12:20 - 1:20 Lunch
• 1:20 - 2:10 Assembly workshop continued
• 2:10 - 2:20 Break
• 2:20 - 2:40 Talk 1: Jon Oxer: Pick and Place machine (live demonstration)
• 2:40 - 3:00 Talk 2: ESP8266 ESPlant (Wi-Fi garden sensors) design and operation
• 3:00 - 3:40 Afternoon Tea
• 3:40 - 4:00 Talk 3: Josh Stewart: Open source car engine management
• 4:00 - 4:20 Talk 4: Alistair D'Silva: LinuxCNC for fun and profit (now with deadly lasers)
• 4:20 - 4:30 Break
• 4:30 - 4:50 Talk 5: Sebastian Holzapfel: Hardware projects using eChronos & lwIP: toward high-assurance IoT
• 4:50 - 5:10 Talk 6: Peter Hardy: Kerbal Space Program simulator hardware controller and display
• 5:10 - 5:40 Lightning talks, project showcase, general discussion

Lightning Talks

• If you'd like to present a 5 minute lightning talk, please email andyg@geekscape.org

Call For Papers

Call For Papers is now closed. Please see OHC2016-CFP for more information

Accepted Papers

Jon Oxer: Pick and Place machine (live demonstration)

Need we say any more ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=282qku2C4xo ?

Josh Stewart: Open source car engine management

Open source car engine management project (hardware and software). Covering hardware design experiences and a project update.

Alistair D'Silva: LinuxCNC for fun and profit (now with deadly lasers)

This talk will cover the basics of converting a Cartesian robot to LinuxCNC, and some of the pitfalls (and fire traps !) encountered.

Sebastian Holzapfel: Hardware projects using eChronos & lwIP: toward high-assurance IoT

What eChronos & lwIP (both open-source) are; why they should be considered for embedded projects (including a brief tutorial-like demonstration of the RTOS & TCP/IP stack), porting lwIP to this RTOS and porting the RTOS to this hardware platform (TI Connected Launchpad). The second half will be a few hardware demos on the platform:

• An IoT light controller that makes everyone in the office annoyed if builds fail.
• A telnet-controlled echo server that makes it easy to test wierd hardware devices before they can connect to the internet.
• An HTTP server that responds to sensor inputs by displaying them on a webpage.

Peter Hardy: Kerbal Space Program simulator hardware controller and display

The talk I'd like to give is a presentation of a fairly large project I've been working on. I've built a custom hardware controller and display interface for a proprietary spaceflight simulator, Kerbal Space Program. It's a pretty big project involving two arduino microcontrollers, and all sorts of input and output devices. There's a full picture gallery of my build at http://imgur.com/a/o2yh0.

Discussion Group

There is a Google Group email list for discussion of topics related to the miniconf, including the SimpleBot assembly session:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/open-hardware-conf

Assembly Project

Each year we build a project developed for the Miniconf, and this year we'll be assembling ESPlant garden sensor designed by Angus Gratton and John Spencer.

• ESPlant workshop GitHub repository
• ESPlant hardware and firmware GitHub repository

The 2016 Open Hardware MiniConf build project is ESPlant, a solar-powered, WiFi-connected environmental sensing platform based around the ESP8266 microcontroller. Designed originally for gardening or weather tracking sensors, as an open design the ESPlant can be adapted to many other uses!

This year's Open Hardware MiniConf does not include soldering. The boards have been pre-soldered. In the workshop we will be assembling them, provisioning them, and learning to use the Arduino IDE to program and customise them, and connect them to the internet.

Board Features

• Powered via battery, USB, or from an included solar panel.
• Programming and communications via integrated USB serial port.
• Removable Lithium-Ion battery, automatic charging circuit.
• Onboard sensors: BME280 digital temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure sensor. ADXL345 digital accelerometer.
• Offboard sensors are also provided - external temperature, PIR motion, ultraviolet light level, and dual soil moisture probes. There is also provision to connect a string of WS2812B RGB LEDs (a ring of which are included).
• There are also breakout pin connections for other I/O pins, to add your own hardware functionality.

The cost is $88AUD including $8 GST. This covers the price of the ESPlant board and all of the included external parts (including solar panel, battery, and the sensors mentioned above)