Last year LVL1 scrapped together a Powerwheel racecar which we fondly named Steve. This year several of us are trying to get another car built that is just as awesome as Steve but also competive in the races. Building these cars takes money. For something that should be built under $500 there is a lot of extra stuff needed to make us successful like battery chargers, safety equipment, and spare batteries.  The Power Racing Series shares that same problem. Tents, tables, power for 20 teams costs a lot, track building materials and safety equipment add to that.

Reward tiers for the indiegogo campaign include collector-card style stickers of some of the most popular vehicles and racers, two special edition t-shirts, a 2012 PPPRS yearbook and even a Power Wheel from the 2011 season as well as several levels of race and series sponsorship tiers.

The leader of this popular racing series, Pumping Station: One member Jim Burke, is a full time artist and part time balloon baron who enjoys combining the arts with technology. Jim is currently working with Electromagnate Studios on a documentary titled Remade: The Rebirth of the Maker Movement. For more information about the Power Racing Series visit the website: http://www.powerracingseries.org. or donate to our indiegogo http://igg.me/p/109393?a=622812

 

 

 

Eventbrite: http://lvl1hackathon2012.eventbrite.com/ (one ticket per team)

For 24 hours this June, it’s an all-out hacker brawl to see who can build the coolest thing from a big pile of junk.  Think of it as the home version of Junk Yard Wars.  There are no rules, buy a ticket for your team, show up with your friends, and compete over tools and junk for 24 hours to build something incredible.

Announcing the first annual LVL1 Boneyard Hackathon. This will be a 24 hour, adrenaline-and-caffeine fueled race to create something awesome. Form a team, and you’ll be given an Arduino and a breadboard. You’ll have to do the rest using your brain, and all the resources of LVL1, including tools, boneyard parts, and hookup wire.

What is the Boneyard? The Boneyard is LVL1’s Island of Misfit electronics. A place where the broken and downtrodden collects, and awaits a reawakening. Each and every one of you will be having a hand in the zombificiation of some electronic device. Everything from oil-filled capacitors, to surplus mil-spec electronics lies in the Boneyard, waiting for your tender soldering iron.

The boneyard receives regular infusions of fresh bones, so familiarize yourself with the layout. If you haven’t been by the space before, we always have open meetings on Tuesdays at 8pm.

The event will take place on June 2nd, starting at Noon. 24 hours later, the teams will judge each other, and a winner will be crowned! Cost will be $30 for teams, and all teams must be enrolled by May 26th. Bring extra cash for food and drink.

The vending machine will be fully stocked, and we’ll be making regular food runs, so you can focus 24 hours of effort and attention on building something awesome.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on the list, or directly, at BradLuyster@gmail.com.

The prize?  Top 3 teams will win a trophy, and a years worth of bragging rights.  Do you have what it takes?  Sign up at the Eventbrite link below.  Remember: Each team needs only one ticket.

Eventbrite: http://lvl1hackathon2012.eventbrite.com/

Da Rules:

Teams may not bring in their own parts.

All work must cease at Noon on June 3rd, 2012

We have been fairly quiet publicly, but many subsystems are coming to completion rapidly, including the  helium gas overflow vent valve.  Completion of anything flying on a ballon means it’s time to do some science!  Tests must be done, data must be noted, hypotheses checked.  Gary Flispart and I put together a detailed technical video explanation of the vacuum leak test system we’ve made.

Stay tuned for more updates at http://whitestarballoon.org , we are on track to launch in the next month or two!

Dan Bowen
@SteamFire
White Star Team Lead

How do you make sure the trash goes outside on trash night?

Simple..   You just create your standard Artificial Intelligence system, which you then connect to an Arduino, a home security system, your google calendar, give it the ability to send email to your google group forum, and finally some quick  scripting to link members latitude gps locations and google talk communication.  Thats all there is to it!

They don’t call me “Johnny Overkill” for nothing.  Actually… they don’t call me that at all,  but I’m hoping it catches on.   Anyways, back to the trash.  Yes it may sound like overkill, but it has been quite effective the past two weeks.  Here’s a break down of the events that occur:

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MOTHER is LVL1's attempt to create the ultimate hackerspace A.I. and automation system. The MOTHER project is still in it's early stages yet MOTHER has already gained the ability to monitor and control a MASSIVE numbers of sensors as well as become a central integration point for various systems around the space. Read the full post for a complete overview of the MOTHER project.

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Introducing a useful SOPA- The Stop Online Productivity Avoidance box.

After having an extremely productive day on January 18th, I had a thought: What if every day were January 18th? Well, at the push of a button, now it can!

The button, switch, and display are wired to an Arduino.  The Arduino communicates with a python script running on the router, which controls a Squid3 proxy blacklist.  In SOPA mode, the whole of the internet is my oyster.  In NOPA mode, however, distracting websites like reddit, hacker news, and hackaday are blocked.  This isn’t very useful without a great deal of self control, however.  In weaker instances, nuclear mode must be employed.  Turn the key switch and press the button and all distracting sites are blocked for one hour.  The only recourse is to restart the router, but the router requires 15 minutes to restart, blocking the entirety of the web for the duration.  Overriding nuclear mode is not appealing.

All code is posted online at https://github.com/Zuph/SOPA-Box

A video demonstration and more pictures of construction lie below the break.

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Signup at EventBrite http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2562787366

 

Hi All, the flight of the SuperPressure Initiated Termination Balloon Flight 1 was successful as far as we can tell so far.  We don’t know for sure because we haven’t gotten the SD cards that hold the video and science data on them.  Technical results as they come in over the next week will be posted on our wiki site, here.

With just skeleton assembly, launch and mission control crews preparations for this flight had to be less organized than we’ve done in the past for SpeedBall flight attempts.  We allowed for that by targeting an early launch time, with plenty of daylight left for schedule slip.

The massive zero pressure balloon was launched from SpacePort Indiana around 3:30 PM EST, by having the payload support crew run with the wind as soon as they released the balloon, allowing the balloon to rise straight up as it lifted each payload.

The balloon landed about 1.5 hours later on a family’s home in Miamisburg OH and was recovered shortly after.  The family made a youtube video of the balloon on the house!

Thanks to all who helped!   Some science observations follow.  The three pics above were emailed to us by the recovery crew in Ohio.   More pics available on Flickr here.

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Links and resources for the KIPCUG PC Tune Up Presentation

 

Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dchf63vz_2922r4vqhq

Files

BootTimer.exe = http://www.planetsoft.org/utils/BootTimer.exe

AutoRuns = http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902

Alternative Applications: Ninite