The Open Source Hardware Group Podcast

Have you noticed lately that there are a ton of development boards out there? It seems like everyday new ones are being made - each of which have very cool hardware features. Many of the new development boards are compatible with Arduino code, but they may require you to use their own Integrated Development Environment (IDE).  Which is fine, but can be a hassle at times. What if you didn't want to jump around to new IDEs to test out other dev boards?  What if you could use the same IDE to program multiple development boards and what if that IDE had more advanced features then the Arduino IDE? Well you can. For Mac users this can accomplished with embedXcode - a "plugin" that works with Xcode, which allows you to do just this. This weeks show is an interview with Rei Vilo - the creator of embedXcode.  We talk in depth about the features of embedXcode and what it brings to the table for you. P.S. For those that don't use Mac - the show is still very informative as there is an similar software that runs on PC (links below). Show Links: embedXcode website Installation Video for embedXcode (mac users) Similar software for PC users with Visual Studio: Visual micro

The show this week is with Marc and James of S&T Geotronics - together they have created an Enigma replica that is fully Open Source Hardware and Software.  Listen to the show and learn about the design, about encryption and about a bunch of other interesting stuff that Marc and James are up too! Show Notes: Kickstarter Page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/438986934/the-open-enigma-project Project Website: http://www.stgeotronics.com/main.sc

If Tony Stark was getting into 3D printers, he would probably start with the Lathon 3D printer. Created by Aerospace Engineering  graduate student Nohtal Partansky, the printer has a 12" x 9" x 8" print volume and dual nozzles. According to its creator, the development was accelerated by the Open source Hardware community and the design will remain as such. In this weeks show we learn all about the printer (and 3D printers in general) and its inspired designer. SHOW NOTES: Kickstarter Site:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nohtal/lathon-3d-printer

  If you are going to be away from a wall socket and still need to charge your phone - than why not choose a solar charger optimized specifically for smart phones?  Better yet, why not choose the Open Source Hardware option - SolarPad. This weeks interview with Isaac Porras - who has spent years developing and optimizing the perfect solar panel solution for when you need a charge away from a wall socket. Listen to the show and let me know what you think in the comments. Show Notes: SolarPad Kickstarter Campaign Page SolarCycle website

I love meeting people who build things - they always have an interesting story to tell.  And the story this week is no exception. Dan and Cyril (two of three founders of MyOwnDuino) discuss how they came about meeting up, creating the Lil'Duino (a miniaturized version of the popular Arduino Leonardo board) and successfully completing a Kickstarter campaign. Show Links: The MyOwnDuino website: http://myownduino.com

This weeks show is with artist James Kirkpatrick - a man of many talents. He talks about how he discovered circuit bending and how he uses it in his work. We also discuss some interesting connections between the Art Industry and Open Source Hardware - this really made me reflect on what "open" looks like outside my shell. Show Links: Find out what James is up to at his website: http://jameskirkpatrick.org/artist/

Do you want to start using a milling machine in your house or garage? I know I do. This weeks show is a conversation with Edward Ford, the creator of Shapeoko, a desktop CNC milling machine that you can get the plans for and build yourself. Edward talks about the design of the machine, his success with Kickstarter and the growing community of Shapeoko users. Show Links: Shapeoko website Shapeoko on the Inventables website

Have you ever scratched your head when it came to Open Hardware licenses?  I know I have. Well it should be no surprise that we are not the only ones wondering what the real deal is. What I really want is for someone to sum up all the licenses out there and tell me which one is most appropriate for my project (you know, the one that I haven't built yet...come on, give me a break here!) This weeks guest, Eli Greenbaum, is a lawyer who has done a great job outlining the currently available Open Hardware licenses and also developed the Three-Dimensional Printing Open License in a paper that published in the Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law (JIPEL). In this weeks show, Eli talks about how hardware is "born" open to begin with, how copyright covers written things and not objects, what licenses apply to and how NOT everything in Open Hardware is black and white. Listen to the show and get answers to the questions that have been burning in your brain.   Here are link to current Open Hardware Licenses: CERN 1.2 (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) TAPR Open Hardware License (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio) Here is the paper that Eli wrote - a great read: Three-Dimensional Printing and Open Source Hardware   P.S. Recently at the Open Hardware Summit, in Boston, Michael Weinberg, a lawyer with Public Knowledge (a digital advocacy group in Washington, DC) dedicated an entire talk to Open Hardware licensing - he pointed out (and our guest this week echos), the fact that licenses for Open Hardware actually add restrictions to end users.  

Ever need an extra liver? What about a new face for a face transplant? Would you like to understand how cells migrate across a gradient of chemical signals? Well - why wait for some fancy-shmancy university to develop these awesome technologies when you can start to explore a world so full of possibilities that even the most forward thinking minds can only begin to graze the surface. What the heck am I talking about? Well it is bioprinting - its like 3D (or 2D) printing - but instead of using plastics, you use cells or some type of organic living material. I know - sounds a bit sci-fi, eh? Welcome to the future Marty! Now don’t get me wrong - you won’t be printing a replacement pinky finger tomorrow - but there is surely some good science you can do in the comfort of your local bio-maker space - a place like BioCurious - a biology focused makerspace in California that hosts the Bioprinter Community Project. I spoke with Patrik D'haeseleer, one of the project developers, who confirmed to my dismay that printing a replacement heart is still a ways off for the DIY bioprinter (or anyone organization for that matter) - but the amazing truth is simply this… The field is wide open - come play bio-ball. You could easily be the first person to apply bioprinting technologies too any number of scientific endeavors. Listen to the show to hear all about the Bioprinter Community Project - I am sure it will get you hopped up on ideas. SHOW NOTES:   Bio-Makerspaces: BioCurious - http://biocurious.org/ Hackateria - http://hackteria.org/   Build your own Biopinter: Bioprinter Community Project - http://biocurious.org/projects/bioprinter/ Bioprinter Instructable - http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-BioPrinter/   P.S. Would it not be the most awesome thing if the first people to start printing organs were the Open Source Hardware crowd?

I wonder if this has happened to you. You see an awesome project online and you think "I am going to make that rad thing-a-ma-jig".  It looks easy after all, and if that 5th grader and his dad did it, then darn it - so can I. So you pull out your trusty microcontroller and think - what do I really need to make this happen?  You start sketching out your thoughts (because the 5th grader is horrible at documentation) and you quickly realize that you will need to have other circuits do some work.  Analog circuits. So you pull out your trusty reference - the internet - and start searching around for solutions - you find something you think will work and bread board it up.  Nothing happens.  You remind yourself that failure is the key to learning, but the circuit still isn't working.  You try another reference from a string of posts the first of which was written in 1998  - do some rewiring - nothing happens - maybe a little smoke if you are lucky.  Finally you get something working - hooray!  It wasn't cosmic rays after all. There is a simpler way. Or at least Roy and Shawn of SimpleCircuits would have you believe so.  They are developing an Open Source Hardware tool kit of simple circuit boards that embody common analog solutions.  It is an analog arsenal. If you want to switch higher voltages, hook up a microphone or trigger at high speeds they have all types of SimpleCircuits that reduce a schematic like this: To a schematic like this: Its not just about making things easier, but making things faster.  Roy found that he was consistently reusing common analog designs for his customers, so he put together some boards for his own use.  Quickly he found they were handy and some friends thought they might like some too. After listening to Roy and Shawn, you will be sure they are two sincere and cool guys trying to make your electrical life simpler also. Listen to the show to learn more about this project and make sure to check out the SimpleCircuits KickStarter campaign.   P.S.  SimpleCircuits circuit boards ship with Velcro, instructions are printed on the board, and in many cases the shape of the board makes intuitive sense.  Simple to use.

If you didn’t already know, making Open Source Hardware comes with some challenges. Issues ranging from...   What is actually required for something to be considered Open Source Hardware? To things more matter of fact like... Where am I supposed to host all the source files? Well, instead of ignoring these and many other challenges the OSH Community wanted to face them head on and stir things up a bit - so they called a meeting of the minds. A Documentation Jam to be more exact.  The objective? World domination!  And of course starting a more formal conversation of the standards and best practices to help develop an environment in the Open Hardware space that continues to draw crowds. Listen to the show with Simone Cicero [one of the Doc Jam Organizers] and learn more about what took place at the Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam.   Some Side Notes: An Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam concurrently took place in Berlin and Amsterdam. This Documentation Jam appears to be the beginning of many.   Some Links from the Show: General info on the outcome of the Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam http://www.oshwa.org/2013/05/16/oshw-doc-jam-followups-releasing-the-format-to-the-community/ Here is the link to Google Docs that holds all the files from the Documentation Jam (AKA Epic Fail Link)  https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BwJSOhVDu4bQSU1hZkhUc0cyMms Potential software solutions to Taxonomy/Documention Open Design Engine (This is from Mach 30 - I spoke with them here) Alchematter P.S.  I don’t think the OSH community wants any part of their industry referred to as nebulous.  There should be enough guidance for someone to declare a project [or parts of it] as Open Hardware and not be left wondering if they are “legit” or not.  These Documentation Jams sound like great ways to get down to some detailed issues in OSH community.  I am curious what your take on the Jam is...

Let's say you had 40 acres of land in the mountains just outside of Denver, Colorado - what would you use it for? If your answer is to build a factory to develop well documented Open Source Hardware projects, conduct research and development, teach the public new skills, develop open agriculture practices and eventually change the world economy by spreading open business models, then you might be just as revolutionary a thinker as the folks over at Open Tech Forever - a group of four guys working to do just that. Three of the four gentleman  [Aaron Makaruk, Yoonseo Kang, Johnathan Yelenick and Tristan Copley Smith] are former directors at Open Source Ecology - a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters building the Global Village Construction Set. So what is Open Tech Forever all about? I mean - what are they really trying to accomplish? It starts with building a factory (they are currently running a crowd funding campaign to generate the revenue to build).  The factory will be the seat of production of yet decided Open Source Hardware projects.  It will also be a place where they teach skills to the interested public and develop products for commercial sale. All of which makes me think it is one really big hackerspace with founders that have a vision for something beyond...well, hacking. Some of the details still need  fleshing out for how Open Tech Forever is intended to grow - though I can sense it is a bold move - which is refreshing to me.  Listen to the show and make your own call. P.S. Did I mention they are building the factory themselves?      

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a 3D model worth? 3D Scanning is taking 3d printing to another level - it is allowing people to visualize the natural world in new ways. This weeks show is an interview with Bernhard of Virtumake, a company based in Vienna, Austria that offers 3D Scanning services to its customers.  One of the many interesting projects that Bernhard is working on, is the VirtuZoom Microscope 3D-Sanner, which enables you to create large 3D models of smaller objects like coffee beans or coins. Could you tell us about the DIY 3D scanners you are working on? My last project was the VirtuZoom Microscope 3D-Scanner. It is a device that automatically scans tiny objects like little coins or insects. You can magnify the 3D data to any size you want and finally create a much bigger physical model of the object with your 3D printer. Another project I am currently working on is based of the idea from the user MagWeb. His idea was to put reading glasses in front of a standard Kinect sensor. You can get high details scans with this method. I will use this process to build an automatic 3D scanner. How does a 3d scanner work? There are several techniques to get 3D-data from a real world object. Most DIY scanners are based on a beamer that projects a regular pattern on an object. The pattern then gets deformed by the shape of the object. For example if you project a straight line on a sphere, the line deforms to a curve. Next, a camera records the deformed pattern and finally the 3D-scanning software calculates the 3D-Model from this data. Most DIY projects can be distinguished by the light source. So, you have Laser scanners, Structured Light scanners and Infrared scanners, like the Kinect and the Asus Xtion. Another Option to scan objects is to take pictures from several views of the object and a software calculates the object from these pictures. What type of software are you running? Is it Open Source? Are there many 3D scanning software options out there? For Laser- and Strucutred Light scanners, I user the software David-Laserscanner. It is commercial and the developer team is pushing their software further and further. For Infrared Scanners (Kinect ...) I use mostly Artec Studio and Skanect. Both are commercial. Artec is a very robust, professional software that can be used with professional equipment too. Skanect is relatively new to the market. It is intended for hobbyists and you get good results. You can get an overview on software choices at our new forum www.diy3dscan.com Every software has its strengths and it depends on the object which one is the best. The forum is intended to help people to make the best choice and to support discussion between them. Do you have plans to sell kits or produce finished scanners for sale? I would like to help people getting started with 3D scanning, because I think its going to be a really big thing within the next years. Unfortunately, currently I do not have the resources to provide kits that make people happy. However, all projects are Open Source Hardware. If someone would like to market them, I will support them. How did you get into 3D scanners?  If you look out of the window, you see two parallel worlds. One is the man-made, planned, technical world. It looks the way it is because of the production processes and tools we learned to use over the last centuries. The technical world uses energy to shift resources and builds structures at any place of the world. The other world is the natural, self organizing, replicating world. It looks the way it is because of billions of try and error experiments. Nature is the optimum way of making use of the resources and energy that is available on a certain place. I interpret tools as kind of thinking machines. We think and build our world with the thinking machines of the past centuries: mills, lathes, cars, power plants.

Ever want to produce your own action/sci-fi/ unexplainable paradox movie?  I know I have - and while the 8 mega pixel camera on my smart phone is down right awesome - it's not quite theater quality. For the big screen you will need something like Axiom by apertus.  While still in the prototyping phase, Axiom will be the first ever Digital Cinema Camera designed with openness in mind.  It will also roll in well below 10 grand - a highly competitive price for cameras of its type. So who is making Axiom again? Apertus is the company currently building Axiom.  They started as a group of videographer enthusiasts using Elphel cameras, collaborating online, hacking rigs and generally helping each other out as a web community.  As the group grew in size and expertise they saw a need for their own organization - so they created Apertus. They also felt a need for a camera that could be modularized - being able to use different hardware and software to complement or repurpose the use of the original design.  And while the Apertus crowd loved the Elphel camera, that company was refocusing on other projects (they make the cameras used for Google Street View).  So the idea for Axiom was born - an open digital cinema camera to rock the world. But you know - building high speed digital cameras isn't easy - listen to this show and find out how exactly they plan to pull it off.  I ensure you, they mean business.   P.S.  There is a very interesting portion of this show where Sebastian speaks about the implication of Open Source Hardware and how they are still feeling out the space - I think you will like it.  

If you could easily see how others are designing their hardware, the parts they are using, and even the process they take to go about creating it - would that not open a plethora of useful knowledge to your finger tips? Upverter achieves this by creating a collaborative electronic hardware design environment - built to be used and shared with a community of electrical engineers. So lets say you are thinking about working on an Arduino spin-off that adds teleportation capabilities - why start from scratch?  You could upload the eagle files from the Arduino website to the Upverter cloud and start from there. Or better yet, you could fork a project from someone who is already working on an Arduino spin-off in the Upverter cloud.  Yes, I mean fork as in GitHub like forking.  Someone has a design and you basically copy it for yourself and can allow any others to collaborate with you - like every one in the known universe for example.  Or you could limit it to a small team - what ever you want. As long as you keep the file open for sharing then the cost to you is free.  That is, all the open source hardware on Upverter is freely hosted. The collaboration is great, but only a quarter or the benefit.  Upverter also offer simulation, product life cycle management and manufacturing options that run the gambit of supporting one-off prototypes to 100,000+ boards. Listen to this interesting interview with Zak Homuth, one of the founders and the CEO of Upverter to hear about the company and most importantly learn how you can start designing something awesome.   P.S.  Upverter is simple to use - far less learning curve than getting started with git.  Upverter is also completely web-based - no need to download any software.  I also forgot to mention all the files created can be exported to several supported formats.