Various Cool XCSSA Meeting Photos

(the "cooler bot" ucontroller and motor controller guts above)


These are some fun and cool photos from random XCSSA meetings spanning 2007 through 2009. It shows a good mix of what our group is about and the kind of stuff that we're in to: Hardware hacking, software writing/hacking, exploring technology to its fullest and pushing systems to the max.


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John Baker giving one of his famous BSD presentations.
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The audience is riveted. :)
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Some old and new faces.
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This was his 2007-06-18 XCSSA talk on installing NetBSD from source and setting up RAID-Frame
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Completely over the network using bootp (on a Sparc platform of course). :)
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Here's the step by step process that Tweeks jotted down as John went along.
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Charles Strang and his "Chrismas Light Controller" project from our Jan 2009 presentation (details here).
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The up close from his light controller board side of the system.
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Fredrik showing one of his first balance-bots.
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This is a shot from the Solar Fest that XCSSA folks attended in downtown SA.
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The ironic thing is the sheer amount of AC cabling the booths were using. heh..
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Fredrik's way cool C64 datasette/SD-RAM interface project (from 2009-03-16 meeting).
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It basically takes "tape files" and stores them to SD card.
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VERY cool propeller ucontroller+LCD project... but we calculate would take 73 years to fill a 1GiB card. ;)
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The SD-RAM slot he hacked in.
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Fredrik's from Europe.. where the datasette was more common than the over priced C=1541 floppy drive.
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Charles Strang debuting the T-Mobile/G1/HTC-Dream running the Google Android (Linux) OS. (also from the 2009-03-16 meeting).
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VIDEO: This the way cool debut of Fredrik's vex-radio controlled cooler from our 2009-08-17 meeting).
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The project is built into an old DVD case and particle board.
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Very nice motor-wheel assemblies! ($220 a pair)
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Yes.. that's solid aluminum bases, rims and pneumatic rubber tires!
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VIDEO: Fredrik's RC-robot cooler utilizes some pretty sweet components! Around $300 total.
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Fredrik showing off the undercarriage. :)
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The guts are basic and clean. Yes the motor controllers are fan cooled. :)
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And of course, Fredrik's favorite uC, the propeller. :)
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John Baker admiring the engineering work.
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XCSSA also loves to void warranties! This is a laptop who's CPU heatsink Tweeks hand lapped to a mirror finish for more efficient cooling.