Hi all! It’s been slow here for a little while since the start of the school year, because my first period is always chock full of first year courses. Nevertheless I have had the coffee breaks and sundry moments to finally bring the 8mm scanner to a version I will Read more…
Hi again, after the summer! It’s been a busy start for the new academic year, but now I thought I’d show you a little problem I had playing with the Arduino Remember the 8mm scanner I built? It worked fine when I got it running in the spring, but just before Read more…
I have finished the 8mm telecine robot, the construction of which I have described in Part 1 and Part 2. There will be a couple of more parts at least so I can provide a complete picture of how it works and how it was built here are part 3 and part 4. Part Read more…
I’ve been rather busy of late, so I haven’t had time to deliver the second part on the 3D scanner – sorry about that. But here’s a little teaser to keep your interest up: In this video you can see how the Arduino drives the servo, which runs the film Read more…
This blog entry comes from Copenhagen. Our university, Haaga-Helia, has for ten years been involved in an international IT seminar for students, and this year’s seminar is #9 in the series (2013 was such a messy year for all participating universities that we decided to skip it that year). The other schools are Cphbusiness in Copenhagen, Universidad Europea de Madrid from Spain, and a new entry this year, HES-SO from Switzerland.
The structure of the seminar is always the same, as is the theme, “How to be an IT professional”. The seminar runs for a week, with every school hosting a day. Usually there is a lecture in the morning, and then a workshop before lunch to be continued into the afternoon. Many times we have had social events and a business visit, for example last year in Helsinki we took the Spårakoff beer tram and went to Remedy Entertainment to see how games are made. (more…)
I don’t know about you, but I am one to get irritated with stuff that hangs out in the wrong places. A good example is the chest strap of the computer backpack: I never use it, but I don’t want to cut it off either and harm company property. Instead, I made a quick mesh in Blender and printed it out on the Minifactory, with the net result of straps no longer hanging around causing me to lose hair even further.
Here’s the starting situation:
Messy straps
And this is the finished, improved situation:
Better situation
Let’s have a look at the fixing clip. (more…)
Last week, we had our 8th International IT Week for Students here at HAAGA-HELIA where I work. We had teams from Spain, Denmark, and Finland, and we looked into issues like mobile games development, robot building on the Arduino set, and on the Danish day, fractals. My good friend and colleague from Coopenhagen North, Anders Kalhauge, presented a lecture, and the students then led a workshop into fractals.
Fractals are odd creatures. Wikipedia says that
“A fractal is a mathematical set that typically displays self-similar patterns, which means it is “the same from near as from far”. Fractals may be exactly the same at every scale, or, […] they may be nearly the same at different scales. The concept of fractal extends beyond self-similarity and includes the idea of a detailed pattern repeating itself.” (more…)
Yesterday, Feb 11th, was the day of the 2nd Annual Happy Hacking Day at HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences.
The word ‘hacking’ has a notorious sound to it. That is due to the early days, when so-called black hat hackers broke into computer systems with malice and forethought, and caused widespread havoc (today we also have white hat hackers, who are good guys, and grey hat hackers of whom we are not so sure).
But you need to remember, that Wikipedia states this:
A hacker is someone who loves to program or who enjoys playful cleverness, or a combination of the two. The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed hacking. However the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e.g. programming), but the manner in which it is done: Hacking entails some form of excellence, for example exploring the limits of what is possible, thereby doing something exciting and meaningful. Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have “hack value” and are termed hacks (examples include pranks at MIT intended to demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness). (more…)