Talks, workshops, live music in the evenings, geocaching, fresh food and most of all very interesting people make this an event that is not to be missed.

Whether you’re hacking on your project, looking for new and exciting ideas or just craving to share 3 midsummer nights outdoors, socialising with other hackers, artists and geeks, HaxoGreen is the place to be. No need to be a 1337 H4X0r, we welcome all inquisitive people from around the globe.

The camp is organized by syn2cat a.s.b.l.,  the association that brought you the Luxembourgian hackerspace. We appreciate your participation, be it by holding a lecture, tutoring a workshop or presenting your projects and ideas during a 10 min lightning talk.

Location

The camp is located at the scouts’ grounds near the city of Dudelange in the southern region of Luxembourg. The camping ground features adequate restrooms and shower facilities. Indoor rooms for lectures and workshops are also available. The nearby town of Dudelange, near the borders to France and Germany, offers access to shops and markets for all of your grocery needs.

Suggested presentation and workshop topics

Participate with your lectures, panel discussions, workshops, or lightning talks. (Though you can give a lightning talk without submitting its topic.) Your lectures and workshops don’t have to be centered on or limited to technology. Lectures with a background in
society, community, science and art are welcome as well. Here are some examples of the inter-disciplinary fields that our audience would be interested in, but feel free to suggest your own:

• Green IT and Green Hacks
• Virtualized Environments
• Mobile applications and malware
• Radio and Mobile Communications (GNURadio, etc.)
• QrCodes and other means of XSRF
• Cloud Computing
• Darknets and Hackerspaces
• Computer Security Incident Response and Mitigation
• Do-it-yourself Science
• Molecular Gastronomy
• Amateur Robotics
• Electronic Art (vj, dj, interactive installations etc.)
• Net politics, Net neutrality, Intellectual Property and Privacy Aspects (SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, you name it!)
• Active/Liquid Democracy and Political Activism
• Sustainable Housing and eco-friendly Living …and anything that is not on the list.

Submitting

We invite you to make use of our pentabarf submission system in order to submit your talk, workshop or other event. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions via mail if everything is not clear.

Deadlines

Deadline Abstracts: May 15th, 2012
Acceptance Notification: May 22nd, 2012
Papers are welcomed, but not mandatory. Submitted papers can be
published on the camp website/schedule.
Please don’t forget to mention any hardware or software requirements
that your talk or workshop includes.
We would be happy for every distributed version of the CfP.

Inquiries

For any questions about this camp, send an email to camp@hackerspace.lu
or check out our website.

Disclaimer

HaxoGreen 2012 SummerCamp is a low-budget operation entirely run by volunteers.
We therefore cannot help anyone but those who present or tutor workshops with their food, travel and accommodation expenses. Contact us for more information.

This Saturday was the first talk (get the slides from there too) with a focus on the convoluted history, the specifications of the machine and showing off a whole lot of applications, programming languages, games and demos.

That show was a bit long and also some disks just did not work or crashed mid way. Still it gave a good impression how, with time, the technological perfection was all the time increased. Concern was raised with all those bad floppy disks if everything has backups. As answer Gunstick presented his latest acquisition from Kryoflux: a nice little gimmick which makes it possible to use an old floppy drive via USB and directly sample the magnetic information from the disk.

The audience got a glimpse of the somewhat insurmountable task of creating a decent animation with the ST hardware and at the same time was amazed that the impossible was really not impossible. That’s the true hacker spirit: in the end, the word “impossible” does not exist.

Here is a video of one of the demos we watched (will be replaced by HQ version when video repository is again available).

The next workshop is already announced. Stay tuned!

prototype of a half adder done with LEGO

Being a bit late with our submission we came up with the nice idea to explain binary logic. Research on the Internet showed several ideas but none was really going into depth of the true logic inside computers. The initial aim to do Lego models was changed into doing a copper construction which should be more stable. The Lego models would be used as course support material.

the main design was done using the chalkboard

We applied an iterative creation process and building modular components. This allowed us to create a fully functional 4 bit binary adder using real logic models. We also put emphasis on the general steam-punk style of the machine. The whole construction is only composed of copper, solder and glass marbles. No other material was used except for the wooden base.

Building a half adder component

Half adders were build which can then be connected together to form more complex logic. Each half adder has several fixed places where marbles can pass from one to the next. That is some sort of API between the different half adder modules.

To connect half adders a temporary construction is used

Being a first-time participant in the science festival, we were somewhat worried whether we could run the show, since most of our educationally trained staff was busy with the “Foire de l’Etudiant”. The science festival group was composed of engineers in computer science and students of various levels which don’t necessarily have the skills to teach children. Maybe the hardest part was thus not building and assembling all those logic gates, but devising a clever and appealing way to explain binary logic to pupils and their teachers. In the end, the no-fuss approach of simply jumping into the cold water finally resulted in some really great presentations.

Closeup of the machine

After the fist couple of classes the show was rolling smoothly, just the voice got worse and worse with the high noise level. Our booth was probably one of the few which had quite a heavy load of theory. Despite this potential turn-off, the pupils were all very interested. Also we varied the presentation spontaneously to feature less theory and more marble run depending on the audience.

the marble adder at our booth

The initially planned 11 classes were spontaneously extended to 14 as during the pause times, some teachers with their complete class showed up to ask if we could give them a talk. It seems the word spread that there was something cool to learn and see. Unfortunately very few higher level classes showed up.

closeup

During the weekend, the general public was really amazed just by the look of the copper construction. This probably also triggered our appearance on national TV as well as in newspapers. The most asked question was how long it took to build. We didn’t really know so the answer was a wild guess of “4 people during 3 months”.

explaining mechanical logic with the LEGO models during public weekend

The presentation done during the first 2 days was of no great use for the weekend and we settled into several people doing short individual talks. There was almost constantly a crowd in front of our booth but not too many people were asking questions unless we went forward and invited on-watchers to get some explanations who always took up this offer.

Photographers were fascinated

In general we had 2 kinds of visitors. There were the technically interested (teachers in computer science, parents with a technical background) who were amazed at how we were able to show the precise logic inside a microchip. There were the artistically inspired people and of course the children, who saw a highly complex marble run with fancy levers doing multiple actions simultaneously. Some photographers spent a long time on our booth and we invited them backstage to get some nicer close-up shots of the copper construction.

Sometimes we were surprised by the various people. There was the 5 year old who could tell his mum “look I can do 1+1 with marbles and it says 2” as well as the grandmother who knew binary from her teaching days and was staring, eyes wide open, at the machine. And of course, it is still a marble run. Everybody loves marble runs!

showing the single copper half adder to the kids

Most people did not immediately realize we were an a.s.b.l. and thought this was coming from a high school or university. That was quite flattering. Of course we profited from the occasion to hand out flyers of our club. Also several parents were interested in our monthly “hackids” effort, tutoring young people from 10 to 18 years old. We were able to make connections with several like-minded people and other institutions present at the festival which is quite a valuable asset that we got from our presence. The success of our attendance shows up in our getting invited to present our adder at science discovery days or weeks at several secondary schools.

We’re already plotting about what to do in 2 years time, maybe reusing the existing machine in some way or another. Meanwhile we need to come up with a storage solution for the device. It’s quite huge and taking up a massive amount of space in our already crammed club rooms.

More infos: http://wiki.hackerspace.lu/wiki/ScienceFestival2011

The building team

So if 2011 was a year of revolutions, let 2012 be a year of build-up. Let’s build a better future for all of us with projects that go farther…real green energy, transparency of governments and politics, open minded to encounter new frontiers. Let us inspire our members and friends to new horizons yet to be explored. Let us discover new talents, push the limits of knowledge and get the best out of everyone. Let 2012 be the most awesome year yet.

In this sense, syn₂cat wishes all of its members and supporters a truly
Happy and Awesome New Year!

Have a look at the following list with some more information.

MSP430 LaunchPad

2x MSP430 Value Line LaunchPad Development Tool from TI.

This is a low cost (around €5) development board for TI low cost and low energy MSP430 microcontrollers.

There is an interesting web site 430h specialized in MSP430 hacking.

But be cautious! This is not an Arduino! It is more like an ATtiny. Still somewhat very useful.

Do you always wanted to have a chicken coop but you always have been held back by a small fact that you’ll have to wake up every morning to open the coop door so nice chickens could get outside do begin with their everyday business?

Your dream may become true! Well, at least after you build a LaunchPad controlled chicken coop door controller. You could also make your chickens more happy by providing a simple TV broadcasting service for them.

So better start hacking because spring is not far away!

eZ430-Chronos

1x eZ430-Chronos Development Tool from TI.

Old days of boring old only time telling wrist watches are over!

They are so over! This is a wireless (did I say wireless?) clock with an accelerometer and a pressure sensor!

Now you can know what is your altitude and if your hand is moving or not – just have a look at the watch!

Well, it actually does not sound very useful… Yes, I forgot, or maybe you figured it out by yourselves – you could reprogramm it into a flying mouse.

MSP-EXP430FR5739

1x MSP-EXP430FR5739 FRAM Experimenter’s Board from TI.

FRAM is non-volatile memory with high write endurance (100 000 000 000 000 cycles).

Have you thought that 100 000 erase write cycles is a way too limiting for your project? Maybe you want to save the value and the day say in every second?

Little calculation shows that you would ruin that lovely EEPROM of your microcontroller in less than few days or months when you consider to sacrifice more precious memory addresses for your small selfish value.

These days of paranoia and fear are finally over – now you can even save your value after every millisecond and you still could do that for mere 3 next millenias. Is’nt it amazing?

IM-ME

2x IM-ME from Girltech … yes, from outside its really looks like that usage of this toy pager is really limited to young female members of our society.

Well, read the packaging again but carefully. It says “Outstanding Value!”. And it is true!

The truth is that it’s actually a CC1110F32 development platform from TI.

Well, at least after some tiny soldering job.  Here‘s a good list by the lovely London Hackspace about available resources to give you an idea of all the possibilities.

Yes, this is like a wireless platform like the ez430 chronos, but around a different chip and there are many wonders you could do with this hidden gem. How about spectrum analyzer?

STM8S-DISCOVERY

1x STM8S-DISCOVERY from ST. This is a low cost (around €10), low energy microcontroller development board from ST.

This is a Black Peter of this list. It is actually a good boy. When you look at the specification sheet then it looks very much like an Arduino, a 8-bit CPU, 32 KB Flash, 2 KB RAM, 1 KB EEPROM.

Unfortunatelly it has not catched that much traction. Go figure!

STM32 Value line discovery

1x STM32 Value line discovery from ST.

This is another brain child, I mean a development board from ST but with this one they got more lucky.

It maybe that it always helps when you use nice ladies to promote your product or it might be that it is a 32 bit ARM board for €10 actually.

It is from the same microcontroller family about what Kenn was so excited when he opened his PS3 Move.  Of course this chip is even less powerful with its 24MHz CPU, 8 kB RAM and 128 kB of flash memory but it is still a step towards right direction.

You could build robots out of it. Or flying robots. Did I mention robots? Well, I hope you are starting to get the picture.

You can get more information from here and here.

Have fun!

28C3 Logo

Some of you have not yet heard about it. Some of you already started counting days in October. And some of you will already be prepared from the years before.

Behind Enemy Lines

The Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin is reaching its 28^th happening; this years topic:

Behind Enemy Lines

As every year, hackers from all over the planet – and beyond ? – are joining the movement in Berlin for 5 days of non-stop hacking on all subjects. However, as not everyone is able to join folks in the digital stronghold, solutions needed to come up…

Peace Missions

The Peace Missions are this solution which include many other solutions within it: Live streaming from the congress, access through a VPN directly in the remote network in Berlin, IRC of different subjects regarding the big hacker event, Hacker Jeopardy and others. All these opportunities give those who need to stay behind a pretty nice and dynamic possibility to join the fellows in the digital stronghold.

This year’s Peace Mission in Luxembourg will take place in syn2cat Hackerspace in cooperation with C3L. No one should be left behind and everyone should get the possibility to watch, hack and live the same way as the fellow companions do in the capital of Germany.

syn₂cat will be open for 24/7 from the 27^th to the 30^th of December. As there are multiple lectures, talks and workshops taking place at the congress, we need to decide what we’d like to watch together on the big screen. So a democratic vote among the attendees will decide what will be streamed live from the 28C3 to Strassen. All other events can of course be watched live as well or at a later point in time on the displays in the Lab, notebooks, etc.

Acquired a taste for it? Well so! Check out the wiki page for detailed information on schedules and events.

So long,
remember:
no nerd is left behind!

27C3 - Day0 by anders_hh

Abbey Neumünster

Geek-historians will certainly come to recognize November 10th through 13th 2011 as one of the great moments in syn₂cat history. On those cold, damp and foggy November days, we not only participated in the Student’s Fair but also presented a somewhat unique device to the broader Luxembourgian public.

At the 2011 edition of the Science Festival – held at the National Museum for Natural History (MNHN) and the adjacent Neumünster Abbey – syn₂cat displayed its mechanical marble adder to almost 11.000 visitors and elucidated the mysteries of binary calculation (at least XOR and AND binary logic) to a varied public of parents and their toddlers, teachers and their pupils, as well as professors and their assistants.

Closeup of the binary marble calculator

Though the Science Festival did only enter its 8th edition this year, in putting our binary adder on display at a fair, we sort of travelled back in history to stand on the shoulders of giants such as Charles Babbage and Konrad Zuse. Not only had we initially planned on having our calculator powered by a steam engine just as Babbage had in mind for his Analytical Steam Engine, we were displaying a mightily marvelous machine at a popular fair, in reminiscence of many mechanical analog – and later binary – calculators that were put on display through the 19th and 20th century.

Indeed, “in 1876, only five years after Babbage’s death, an obscure inventor called George Barnard Grant exhibited a full-sized difference engine of his own devising at the Philadelphia Centennial Fair.” Although Grant’s machine contained, with over 15.000 moving parts, “a couple” more than ours, it cannot, in all sincerity, have been much more spectacular.

Also, Babbage’s and Grant’s calculators had been analog devices whereas our first and foremost goal was to build this machine as an illustration of how binary calculation works. The most well-known precursor to binary calculators must have been Konrad Zuse‘s Z1:

“In 1936 he set up his small workshop in his parents’ living room and with assistance from a few close friends who lent him a helping hand and a bit of money, Zuse started development of his calculating machine. He decided that his machine should not be based on a decimal pinwheel, like the mechanical calculators and tabulators of that time, but rather on a yes-no type system controlled by small pins slotting in and out of metal plates. He didn’t realize that he was developing the first electro-mechanical binary calculator.” (hivemind.net, emphasis added)

Tutoring the young on binary logic

If we would have to put the success of our ventures at both the student’s fair and the science festival into (decimal) numbers, we could say that more than 1.000 people got hold of our flyer, that we gained more than 15 new facebook likes in a little less than a week, and got invited to give another newspaper interview as well as to participate in a games conference abroad.

Hack on!

The syn₂cat stand, which had our new and shining flyers on display, consisted of

• our makerbot,
• a few soldering stations,
• a large TV showcasing some of our projects,
• a large game of life led matrix
• a parrot ardrone,
• the very popular GRL throwies,
• and above all a great team of motivated syn₂cat devotees.

We’re always positively amazed at the number of girls who take a liking in our booth (or maybe it’s just the attractive nerds they’re after ). We give our best explaining to them, as to everyone else, what hacking is to us, what a hackerspace is, what amazing opportunities it offers, in what ways they may profit from our varied skilled members and specifically what projects they could realize at the space.

We introduced a novelty to our booth this year which consisted of a Club-Mate challenge. Solving either of three different (and not too difficult) challenges won you a 0.33l bottle of Club Mate. Just enough to get you addicted to that stuff …

If you’re new to the world of hackerspaces, take a moment or two to browse our About-us page. You may also choose to continue browsing our latest blog posts below this one or head straight on to our Wiki where we document all of our projects and list our events on a Calendar. Enjoy your stay!

Catch a first glimpse of this ball-machine con calculator in the following youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDm7Nk6CEgk

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this device and special kudos go out to Gunstick and Nick17 for their tireless planning and coordination efforts.