Building a Hackerspace

A lot of good things are going on lately. Last weekend I was in Nuremberg for the openSUSE Board f2f meeting which when more than fine. I am preparing for oSC15 and on the openSUSE Camp things are better than usual.

We spent a few months talking about making a Hackerspace in Thessaloniki and almost a couple of months some people decided to stop talking and start acting. So we made Tech Ministry , a 180 square meters place in the center of Thessaloniki where everybody can find a home for their projects. Of course we are still building it, literally a hackerspace is never over, but we still need a few things to make it functional. We plan to have it fully functional but the end of next week, but I know really well that everybody has a plan until they get hit, LoL.
If you have some money left in your paypal and you want to help you can do it by donating to our Hackerspace here. We could also use any kind of equipment that you don't need so all you have to do is contact me here by sending a comment or by sending me an email. If you are an FOSS Project Tech Ministry is always happy to support you by promoting your project in our members, so just send us all the information you think we will need for that. 

3d Printer continuum

...It's been a while since I last blog, well it is summer and I am on the run with my work so time is never enough.
I am still playing with my Prusa i3 3D printer and hopefully I am a few steps closer to the end. The last few days I ordered some more materials that I did not had and some that I ordered but turned out to be the wrong parts(yeap that happens too when you are a rookie :P ). The good thing is that nowdays the printer actually looks like a printer, the other good thing is that there are not actually wrong parts, it is just the parts for the next one that I will build :) . I also had some time to read a bit more about the wiring and while waiting for the parts to come I will actually work on assembling my heat bed and the power supply. Maybe I will find the courage to program the arduino, although I am avoiding this like hell since I am not confident enough,yet.
Here are some pictures and you cannot see some of the missing parts :D

My Prusa i3 -The Beggining

It's been a while, actually almost a year since I last bloged, and what a year...
So after oSC13 I've decided among many other things that I did to finally start building my own 3d Printer. I was determined to build a Prusa Mendel V2 when I sudently changed my mind and decided to build a Prusa i3. Just to be honest I just think that Prusa i3 is more beautiful than Prusa Mendel.
 I was reading on how to build a 3d printer since I first saw one in oSC11 but I though it was to complicated and I asked the help of a friend who knew electronics. For many reasons the friend jumped out of the idea so I 'paused' the idea since I did not had the knowlege to do it on my own and the fact that organizing oSC13 was a very time and consitration consuming thing. Finally this January I decided that I will try to make one of my own and see what happens, so I wrote down the BOM of PRusa i3 and started looking to buy the parts. Nowdays I am at the point that I have almost all parts gathered, except the Hotend that I think deserves some more searching before purchasing one. Today it was the first day that I started putting together the frame. A rookie mistake holds me down from completing the frame today but I am pretty sure that I will have the frame assembled by the end of next week. It is Summer and being a Forest firefighter make time a luxury so the end of next week is not that far. 

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Παρασκευή
17:30 - 17:45  Καλωσόρισμα
17:45 - 18:30  Μεταφράζοντας την διανομή openSUSE - Χρήση του Lokalize και του Gtranslator (Eυστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης - Κώστας Κουδάρας)
18:45 - 19:30  Μεταφράζοντας το weekly news και το wiki - Πως, τι και γιατί
19:30 - 20:30  Βραδινό
20:45 - 22:15 Wiki Hackfest - Διαγωνισμός με δώρο ένα :
22:15 - … Συζήτηση: openSUSE people - From us to us - Διομήδης Αναδιώτης "Καινούργιος στην κοινότητα"

Σάββατο
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:15 - 11:00 Χρήση του Yast - Διαχείριση συστήματος εύκολα, γρήγορα και με πολλές δυνατότητες(Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης-Κώστας Κουδάρας)
11:00 - 12:00 def python_django(tutorial): (Θοδωρής Χατζημίχος)
12:15 - 13:15 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 1ο (the-hackerspace)
13:30 - 14:30 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 2ο (the-hackerspace)
14:30 - 17:30 Μπάνιο/ρακετες/Beach Volle/φαϊ/μπύρες
17:30 - 18:15 Qt Signals And Slots (Αντώνης Τσαπαλιώκας)
18:30 - 19:30 "Security and arduino:Wireless devices remote control (client - server control center)"(the-hackerspace)
19:30 - 20:30 Βραδυνό
20:30 - 21:30 Vim introduction (Γιάννης Χατζημίχος)
21:30 - … Συζήτηση: Δουλεύοντας μέσα σε μια κοινότητα Ε.Λ/Λ.Α.Κ

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:00 - 10:45 Επιβίωση με Gnome 3 στον κόσμο του KDE (Ευστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης)
10:45 - 11:00 OBSάρω, OBSάρεις; (Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης)
11:45 - 12:30 KDE Frameworks (Γιώργος Τσαπαλιώκας)
12:30 - 13:15 openSUSE Medical project - openEMR (Αθανάσιος-Ηλίας Ρουσινόπουλος)
13:30 ΤΕΛΟΣ ΕΚΔΗΛΩΣΗΣ

TheHackerspace opening: When Great things happen

 I rarely envy people, one of the times I did it was when some guys from Athens announced the creation of a Hackerspace there. I also envied them wen i saw that they started making good work and organizing well. After that I heard about the creation of P-space at Patras and I thought that it was only a mater of time for some people to make something similar to my City.

 A few weeks ago I heard that Efstathios Hatzikyriakidis along with Stavros Kalapothas and Stergios Kalamopoulos where starting a local Hackerspace. I knew Efstathios and he had helped me on the past when I once sent him an e-mail because I wanted some help for Arduino. He was very helpful back then and in a way he had earned my trust.

  So yesterday it was The-Hackerspace opening, and it was an open invitation for everyone to attend and have a talk about our City's Hackerspace. Almost 30 people where there, all curious and all genuine interesting (at least from what I can tell) for it. We had very interesting talks while waiting for the organizers to present us their ideas about the-Hackerspace and you could find all kind of people among us, from hackers to Window users.

At a certain point the people that gathered us all there got our attention and started presenting us their way of thinking of how they would like  the-Hackerspace to work. I was amazed. Their ideas were (are) progressive but at the same time doable. I admit that it was far from what I expected to see in a good way. From what I saw and from the talk we had after their short presentation, other people had the same opinion with me. After that we had a cake and a few hours later we left with the best impressions.

If you are from Thesssaloniki or from a city near there is no excuse for not at least make a visit there. You can find more information about the location of the-Hackespace at http://the-hackerspace.org/location/.

In a city that Great things rarely happen, the-Hackerspace is something at least innovating and it surely deserves our attention and support.

Hardware Hacking: Το μεγάλο κάψιμο

Πολλά πράγματα μου έκαναν εντύπωση κατά την επίσκεψη μου στην SCaLE. Ένα από τα πράγματα αυτά ήταν το hardware hacking και η ενασχόληση του κόσμου με το λεγόμενο Free Hardware.
Στην Ελλάδα το ποιο γνωστό από όλα αυτά είναι φυσικά το arduino για το οποίο πρόσφατα έλαβα πολλές χρήσιμες πληροφορίες από τον Ευστάθιο Χατζηκυριακίδη ο οποίος είναι και από τους Έλληνες που 'το έχουν' σε αυτόν τον τομέα και τον οποίο επί της ευκαιρίας ευχαριστώ πολύ για την βοήθεια.
Γνώρισα τα παιδιά του Crashspace και έπαθα την πλάκα μου, Κολλητήρια  μοβ μονόκεροι, τρισδιάστατους εκτυπωτές και arduino για να τους ράψεις στα ρούχα σου η για να φτιάξεις καπέλα που δείχνουν τον μαγνητικό βορρά  Κάψιμο μεν ως ενός σημείου, απίστευτες κατασκευές από την άλλη και πάνω από όλα απίστευτο γέλιο και εποικοδομητική σκέψη. ότι μπορούσες να σκεφτείς, αυτοί μπορούσαν να το κάνουν κατασκευή...

 

Helen South and Leigh Honeywell