# Within the Space The highlights within the Space have been the acquisition of the new CNC mill (thanks to a TMSA grant) and the upgrading of the internal and external networks (NBN fibre! Yay!!) See below for more details. # 2025 Public Activities It has been another productive year of community engagement events for the Hobart Hackerspace, participating in and contributing to several science and technology themed festivals. In early april this year we took part in 'Lift Off!' a science themed festival for children and young people held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. We set up a stall and provided several guided interactive activities for the children including assembling a flashing LED kit and drawing their own pictures onto acrylic sheets with a scriber. Over a busy weekend in August we provided a stall for the Festival of Bright Ideas (FOBI), a science, tech, engineering and maths (STEM) festival that runs sessions for both the public and directly to school institutions. Our stall included several objects and activities made by our creative members, including: 3D printed glowing planets, an infinity mirror, a 3D printed zoetrope, an interactive LED racing game and the ever popular smoke cannon. Also in August, we provided over 200 personalised light up LED badges for the speakers of the Beaker Street Festival, Australia's premier National Science Week event. In October we provided an interactive activity station for the Bruny Island Science Day, an event aimed at increasing science engagement among young people which was held at the Bruny Island Quarantine Station. Our stall included our 3D printed glowing planets, infinity mirror, smoke cannon, 3D printed zoetropes, interactive LED racing game, smoke cannon, a recycled electromechanical highway sign programmed to display word association data and last but not least our friendly cardboard robot Hacky! ## KIDS ROBOTICS CLUB SUMMARY: - The young people at hackerspace dabbled in a lot of different things this year: - Learning Python with CodeCombat - Neopixels and Micro:bits - Neopixels, Python, and Raspberry Pi Pico - Esp32 microcontrollers using C - Arduino and serial over Bluetooth - Making games using Makecode Arcade and Roblox - Mixing music samples with Incredibox and My Singing Monsters - 3d printing and making shapes such as chess pieces with TinkerCad - Making music with bar code scanners - Making a puzzle box - Working towards a fluidised bed - Machine Learning, such as putting stable diffusion on a Jetson Nano - Installing steam on a Rasberry Pi - “The farmer was replaced” game - Kerbal Space Program - Making tanks and fighter jets with Blender. - Blowing up speakers - Minecraft coding - Red stone engineering - Learning how to install Minecraft mods - Beginning steps on learning to make Minecraft mods - Learning Rust programming - Installing RetroPi on the Raspberry Pi 400 - A mature age student is learning C coding, object-oriented coding, and structs, using the goal of making a neopixel-based snake game with joysticks for the Festival of Bright Ideas next year. ## REMINDERS: - 3D Printing: - Don't use the flexible filament, because it adheres to the bed - New how to tutorial, for the flash forge - Michael has arranged thesupply of build plate stickers for the flashforge - Honesty shop (in the kitchen) - waterbottles are now $0.50 - small milks are now $1. Please don't put them in the fridge once opened - they are sure to go off and smell. - Please pay your honesty shop account before it goes over $50. If you pay more then your debt then mark it as a negative number on the board. - Around the Space - The laser cutter has been realigned so the bed is actually flat now (it was tilted front to back) - Network: We now have NBN fibre at 250MBps and upgraded WIFi to match - If you have an older device or IoT device that won't connect, try connecting to "hackerspace-iot" instead of just "hackerspace". - We have our new CNC installed and running, thanks to a grant from the government trhough the Tasmanian Mens Shed Association - Note that you have to be suitably inducted before using this. See Mark Pearson for details. - The Bertrand Russell room is currently being converted to a low-sensory space, we would love members to contribute artworks for the gallery wall! ## Quotes collected from members about making: - Completion is better then perfection - Perfection of design is only acheived not when no more can be added but when no more can be taken away - Make it exist first, you can make it perfect later - Document, document, document! ## Members current hyperfixations - the mathematics of sunflowers - polynesian wayfinding and memorisation - the etymology of words that contain the word 'chor", such as petrichor & velichor - electronic, farm equipment & engine repair videos - the RBMK 1000 graphite moderated nuclear reactor - nebulabrot rendering of fractals - converting a 2011 IMAC to a 2k monitor - creative essay writing about carabiners - posting old school memes with slow scan tv - neatening up my house - self hosting AI models, I was having a conversation with my graphics card about what ingredients to add to my noodles today... - a desktop app called audio focus that plays lofi music and rain sound simultaneously to help you focus while you program