tag: Fizzpop

Those of you who have been following my blog since around 2009 will remember that myself and Nikki Pugh once ran a hackerspace in Birmingham called fizzPOP. Actually, calling it a hacker_space_ was a bit of a stretch as we never had our own permanent, access-any-hour space and always relied on organisations such as VIVID, Birmingham Friends of the Earth and Friction Arts for space to hold our fortnightly meetings (thanks!).

Fast-forward to 2012/2013 and a new group of brave people have taken over the running of fizzPOP and, in July 2013, acquired an actual space!

Somewhere in late December 2008 I was frustrated with the apparent lack of a local hacking scene. Luckily a few other people felt the same and in January 2009 fizzPOP was formed.

I once had all the time and energy in the world to pump into helping to organise events such as the fizzPOP Howduino, a visit from Mitch Altman and, and Theremin Day, but unfortunately now I have very little time to dedicate to fizzPOP.

If being part of the awesomeness that was Theremin Day wasn’t enough since 1st May, and running until 16th May fizzPOP have been in residency at The Lombard Method. The event kicked off with the building of The Improbable Machine, very much inspired by Rube Goldberg and his crazy machines. This is a good indicator of our progress so far

I’ve also been taking the lead on building a modified Harmonograph. Ever since seeing Mr Underwood’s Pendulum Music for Optical Theremin and Torch I’ve been inspired to make something using swinging motions. I was pointed to a Harmonograph out of our most recent hack session and the discussion that followed saw me going through several designs before settling on the method of keeping the pen stationary and moving the surface.

For the last month or so the fizzPOP team and Mr Underwood have been planning the awesomely awesome Theremin Day that took place at fizzPOP on Saturday 24th April.

The day kicked off with an optical theremin building workshop, which produced some very interesting sounds. One person described the noises produced as “lil creatures… being tortured by having light shone on them”. Decide for yourself: [audio mp3=“http://www.hellocatfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/theremin_noises.mp3”][/audio]

The circuitry for all of the theremin were the same, but the housing for the device made them all that more interesting. I think Julia’s Apple Theremin wins some kind of award for most healthy looking theremin! More photos from the day:

Recently fizzPOP celebrated the two of its first birthday’s. On January 26th the mailing list was set up and on February 28th we had our first meeting. We count each one as our birthday, which, in theory, means more cake!

I’m really quite proud of what myself and Nikki have achieved so far with fizzPOP. As I’ve stated in my many presentations about hackerspaces and fizzPOP it was first set up to scratch an itch: I wanted to have a space outside of education to learn more about electronics and technology. Luckily Nikki had the same itch and we soon found ourselves working on the creating and running of fizzPOP.

From February 2th6 to 27th I was in London for dev8d. It describes itself as:

Dev8D is 4 days of 100% pure software developer heaven. It will be intense. It will be exhilarating. It will make you a better programmer.

• Learn to use unfamiliar languages (such as Python, Ruby and Clojure) • Team up with other developers and build rapid development projects for tech prizes • Take part in lightning session discussions with industry experts • Swap skills and ideas with other developers

Ever since I went down to an Openlab workshop last year I’ve been fascinated by live coding. From Wikipedia:

Live coding (sometimes known as ‘interactive programming’, ‘on-the-fly programming’, ‘just in time programming’) is the name given to the process of writing software in realtime as part of a performance.

I thought about doing live coding for myself ever since, so at fizzPOP’s latest hack session I thought I’d make use of massive screen and try a bit out for myself using a purpose-built program called Fluxus, which uses the Scheme programming language.

Recently Helen Flanagan, who was mentioned on CiB last week, contacted fizzPOP about doing portraits of hackers. I happily volunteered myself and this is how one of the pics came out:

Notice the roflcopter t-shirt hiding underneath the clown shirt. Major WIN!

There’s two more pics on her blog and you should check out her website, she’s really quite a good photographer!

Brumcon 9 is coming up this Saturday and I’ve been asked to give a short talk about fizzPOP and hackerspaces.

BrumCon is a regular event organised by Brum2600 regulars, featuring a wide variety of talks, discussion, demos and most importantly, alcohol. Incorrectly but neatly dubbed a ‘blackhat thinktank’ by NTK, The Register - ‘We have your water supply, and printers’, BBC Midlands Today - ‘Spooky’, By you lot as the UK’s biggest underground Hacker con, By hotel staff as ‘scary’ but nice people and I’m scared I’d get my ass so electronically kicked. We welcome all kinds of phreaks, geeks and other technologically interested people from all sides of the fence (as long as hats, badges and warrants are left at the door). The entrance fee this year is 8 UK Pounds per delegate. Corporate packs are available that includes entrance, T-shirt and receipt contact us at brumcon9@brum2600.net to book.

Last Thursday I gave a short presentation at Eastside Projects about fizzPOP. There were a few presentations on the night, all of which focussed on what artists have been up to since their studies. Although I’ve been out of university since July 2007 fizzPOP has really been my main activity since then.

What’s interesting about fizzPOP is that in many ways it relates to one of the aims of artists/art groups, which is to be part of/build a community and acquire their own space or studio where they can explore their practice.

The fizzPOP crew, in particular Nikki, GBulmer and Charlie Pinder, have been hard to bring you the fizzPOP Howduino hack day at VIVID, which is supported by Hello Digital as part of Fringe Events programme.

fizzPOP joins forces with Howduino to host a room full of people sticking together electronics, computer programs, cardboard and discarded junk items to make cool stuff do cool things in ways you never imagined. Join us and be part of the growing hacker and maker scene emerging around the UK.

I mentioned in a previous post how I wanted to get more people doing social things that related to hacking, like going to the Micromouse event last Saturday. I thought it’d be a great opportunity for people to see what else is available to the community and to link different micro communities that would eventually encourage more discussion and collaboration between the groups. Well, it looks like I’m not the only one with that idea. Several members of the group have been rather vocal on making the meetings more than fortnightly. My only concern with a move like that is that there’s a risk of exhaustion and people may feel under too much pressure to come. This is why I liked the suggestion of one member to have social meets in between the hacking sessions. In this way discussion can still continue and it may be a great way for new members to get better acquainted to other members.

Since February I have been running a hackerspace network called fizzPOP. The aim of this is to eventually acquire a permanent space for people to come and share ideas and collaborate on their projects. THe benefits of having a space include actually getting out of the house and, having a space with materials that you may not have .e.g. a lazer-cutter and just generally being in a friendly environment to bounce around ideas with other people.

Whilst Nikki and Pete have been hacking their toys and gadgets to make all manner of noises I’ve gone the soldering-free option by making sweet noise on my laptop in Pure:Data. This originally started in the hack session at the Linux Emporium as an attempt to make a sort of theme tune for the hack space. By the end of the day I’d accomplished making fart-like noises that mess up your head a bit. At the next hack session I’d progressed a little bit further and made my farty noises a little bit more controllable with the use of sliders and buttons.

Saturday was the second meeting for the Birmingham Hack Space which made an impromptu relocation to Scruffy Murphy’s.

The meet was graced by the presence of Jonty and Russ, founders of the London Hack Space who were more than happy to share their experiences so far in setting up their own hackspace.

I think it can be said for any project that aims to bring people together that in order to progress you need to gather a community together. Once you have a strong community, even if it consists of a few dozen people, you can make real progress and begin to grow and achieve more.

Courtesy of Ms McQuillan

On Saturday 14th March I was at Kitchen Garden Cafe to take part in WXWM as a panel host. My 5-minute talk was a short introduction to hacking. I wanted to dispell some myths about hackers and hacking, show how fun it can be and also promote the Birmingham Hack Space at the same time. You can download the slides from my presentation for free (available under GNU FDL) and you can listen again to all of the presentations over at Rhubarb Radio

Prompted by the number of Brummies migrating over to Texas soon for SXSW, the lovely Shona McQuillain has organised something similar. In her words:

It may have come to some peeps attention that a number of Brummie bods will be whooshing over to Texas all transatlantic style for SXSW (South by South West) later next week, to mingle and schmooze with web wizards, net honchos and to do some other shizz, like having fun. Not wishing to be outdone by this, a furious flurry of Twitter activity this evening has registered interest in a counter-event to these southern States shennanigans: WXWM. That’ll be West by West Midlands, then.

Last Saturday we had our very first Hackspace meeting. As we don’t yet have a building of our own it was more to sort out how to get funding, what we want to do and lots of smaller things.

What I really like about the technological community is how kind and useful everyone is. To illustrate, I made an audio recording of the meeting (which unfortunately came out crap) and so many people offered their usb sticks to save it on. Also, when discussing kitting out the building with computers and other hardware everyone had at least one spare computer! Where else in the world would that happen?!

Remember my idea for a hacklab/hack space from last year? It’s still a go-ahead project and we’re looking for interested people to come to an informal meetup sometime in the near future. Join the temporary Google Group for the hack space for more discussion and details.

I’m looking for a social centre where people can meet and learn more about computers, such as a Hacklab. There is/was a hacklab collective down in London who usually occupy the rampART social centre. A new centre opened in Birmingham recently, but I wonder if there’s a hacklab there?