Kilobots are small, low-cost, open source vibrobots designed by the Self-organizing Systems Research Group at Harvard to study swarming behaviors. A group of these bristlebot-inspired robots were demonstrated at the Open Hardware Summit.
Photo by Michael Rubenstein.
This Friday, September 6, we’ll be at the 2013 Open Hardware Summit at MIT. The schedule looks great, and the event is now sold out. Those of you lucky enough to get tickets will love this years e-badge by WyoLum, featuring a programmable e-paper display.
Good news if you’re still working on— or haven’t yet started —your proposal for this year’s Open Hardware Summit: The call for papers has been extended, so you’ve got another week to fine tune your talk, poster, or demo proposal.
Submissions are now due by JUNE 28, 2013.
The Open Hardware Summit is the world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware; a venue to discuss and draw attention to the rapidly growing Open Source Hardware movement. This year’s summit takes place on September 6 at MIT.
Previously: The 2013 Open Hardware Summit: Call for Papers,
The 2013 Open Hardware Summit: Tickets Now Available
Photo credit: Open Hardware Summit on Flickr.
Tickets to attend the 2013 Open Hardware Summit are now available for purchase.
The Summit takes place on September 6 at MIT. The call for papers and the call for sponsors are both still open as well.
Photo credit: Open Hardware Summit on Flickr.
As the review chair for this year’s Open Hardware Summit, I’m very pleased to announce that the call for papers is now open:
The Open Source Hardware Association invites submissions for the fourth annual Open Hardware Summit, to be held September 6, 2013 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Open Hardware Summit is the world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware; a venue to discuss and draw attention to the rapidly growing Open Source Hardware movement. The Open Hardware Summit is a venue to present, discuss, and learn about open hardware of all kinds. The summit examines open hardware and its relation to other issues, such as software, design, business, law, and education.
We are seeking proposals for talks, posters, and demos from individuals and groups working with open hardware and related areas.
Submissions are due by JUNE 21, 2013. Please see the complete call for papers for additional details.
The 2013 Open Hardware Summit has also opened its call for sponsors; please click here if you are interested in helping to sponsor the summit.
Photo credit: Open Hardware Summit on Flickr.
The 2012 Open Hardware Summit is happening today in New York City and we had the pleasure of designing and building the badges for this year’s conference.
As you can see, the badges are built out of Lego bricks, and are a bit on the whimsical side. The hardware community’s connections to Lego run deep, as so many of us developed our mechanical understanding with it, and many of us continue to use it both for prototyping and play. (This is really only part of the badge; there is also a paper underlay below the Lego, with the attendee name and affiliation.)
We used LEGO Digital Designer, free software for Mac and Windows, to create the preliminary designs for the badges. As we started shopping on bricklink (“the unofficial Lego marketplace”) to figure out exactly how many parts were actually available in the world in the particular shapes and colors that we needed, we gradually modified our designs to make them work with more commonly available parts.
We ended up running with four slightly different designs: one with plates, one with tiles, one with bricks, and one “dot matrix” with single round tiles.
Here is the most important part: The “modified 2×3 plate with hole” on the top, where your lanyard clips, has to be held very securely. To be able to work with different sizes of backing plates available, we used a couple of slight variations on this theme.
We ordered nearly fifteen thousand Lego bricks, sourced from twelve different suppliers, to make sure we could get all of the parts we needed.
When all the parts finally arrived, our shop staff was happy to drop everything else they were doing to spend several days building Lego badges in time for the summit.
And for a final touch, we added a tool in a holder to each badge. There are a few different tool types— our own little easter egg.
As we did with last year’s badges, we are releasing the design files (such as they are) in the preferred format for modification (lxf files). The four representative models are available for download here (37 KB zip file).
We’re very excited to be heading to New York for the sold-out Open Hardware Summit next week. There is another fantastic lineup of speakers this year, and it will be good to have the opportunity to catch up with the community after an eventful year for open source hardware.
After that, we’ll be going to Maker Faire New York, where you can find us demoing our kits in the Maker Shed.
We’ll be on the Make Demo Stage with the Egg-Bot on Saturday at 2:30 and Sunday at 3:00.
We hope to see you there!
We are helping to sponsor the 2010 Open Hardware Summit, which is happening next month, Thursday September 23, at the New York Hall of Science. That’s two days before, and at the same location as, Maker Faire NY.
The summit agenda has just been posted: it’s a full day of talks and discussions about open source hardware, its meaning and its implications. I’ll be part of the panel discussing open hardware licenses and norms which will also be taking questions online– so you can participate even if you can’t make it to the event.
Tickets for the event are on sale now and include a 1-day pass to Maker Faire. We’ll hope to see you there!
