Learning to program microcontrollers seems like an impossible task but with the help and support of a Hackerspace you’ll find that it’s actually simple to get started. The members of Harford Hackerspace set out to learn by starting at the basics and gradually taking on more difficult applications. The key to our quick success was group participation. Most of us had at least attempted PIC programming, but it took a group effort to get the whole picture.

In this tutorial we will teach you what we learned. You can then take this new knowledge to your local hackerspace and put it to good use. Let’s get started!

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Harford Hackerspace is pleased to announce that we have received our official letter of approval from the Internal Revenue Service giving us 501(c)(3) non-profit, charitable status.

We started our adventure of becoming a charitable organization in July 2009 with the help of Nick Farr from HacDC. Nick took time out of his busy schedule to visit our Hackerspace and go through the rough draft of our IRS Form 1023. Without him we would have made a few mistakes on our form. A very special thanks goes out to you Nick.

In October 2009 we put the stamp on our envelope and sent our application to the IRS hoping for the best. A lot of hard work went into preparing the application. It’s a 26 page application and several of the questions require written responses. To keep the application reviewer from guessing at what we do we included several project examples and  took photos of us working as a group.

On January 11th 2010 we got a request for more information. Apparently this is standard procedure for all applicants. The questions were fairly straight forward and we were able to call the IRS agent directly and ask her questions. After faxing her our answers the lady quickly reviewed them and told us over the phone that she was recommending us for our 501(c)(3) status.

Today, we finally received our approval letter complete with our 501(c)(3) exemption number. It has been a long time coming but I am sure all the hard work will pay off in the near future.

We will be at the first Techno Swap Fest. Come buy our junk!

Feb 13, 2010  -  9am to 2pm

National Electronics Museum
1745 West Nursery Road
Linthicum Hts, MD 21090-2906

More Info…
http://groups.google.com/group/techno-swap-fest

 Born: 1982
 Occupation: Sr. Electronic Engineer
 Interest: Programming, Electronics, and Mechanical Engineering
 Skills: Soldering, Basic Electronics and Microcontrollers, SolidWorks 3D Design, OOP 

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I know we have been pretty bad with updating our blog. However, I can assure you we are a very active hackerspace and have been building like of fun things in our Baltimore space. Over the last few weeks we received a Schlage Link Z-Wave keyless entry kit and installed it with no problems. Miles has been leading the construction of a hovercraft made from laser cut wood parts, some bolts, and a motorcycle inner tube. It works very well! Jason has brought in several little gadgets for show and tell and the CNC Machine is just about complete. It just needs a few finishing touches.

Check out the photos for a little motivation. You could be here having fun with us.  info@harfordhackerspace.org

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Tonight our CNC showed signs of life. We attached a pen and drew images of circuits, skulls, and Road Runner. The CNC Router was the first project we started working on and it has taken many nights of team work to get to this point. There is still a lot more to do. We started working on the Z-Axis tonight and once that is finished we will have to take most of the machine apart and make fine adjustments to make it as precise as possible. After that there is the long process of mastering the 3D Software.

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The awesome guys from the Two Hands Projects unexpectedly dropped into Harford Hackerspace last night. The organizer, Bilal, was full of energy and really pumped everyone up. You’ll have to wait for the video to see what happened. Hopefully we will make the cut. In a nutshell they interviewed us and we showed off our space and our projects. Here are a few photos of them getting ready to record.

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I know I’m bad with these photo updates. Mostly because I am having too much fun at the Hackerspace that I just forget to take photos. I took a lot more photos than these but it turns out that my flash card was bad and my camera never let me know. I’ll try to recover those images later.

So, last week we finished building the Y axis for our CNC project and we talked about launching a payload into near space. Before that we built a Corstarch Monster for Electronica Fest and we were messing with some PIC kits (microncontrollers) using speakers and LCDs as outputs. Now that I have a new phone which actually takes decent photos (the above were taken with my Palm Pre) I will probably be able to share more of our hackerspace with those of you who don’t like to leave your computer chair.

Before we get to this topic I want to remind our guest that we meet every Wednesday at 7pm. Contact us if you are interested in coming.

We were never using our forum yet we were getting lots of spammers signing up for it. So I have disabled the forum and removed the link to it. We do have a mailing list but it’s kept private and is only for people who want to participate. E-mail and tell us all about you then you can get on the list.

Our Wiki and this blog will remain the two main methods of communication. The blog is more for a snap shot at what we have done and what we will be doing. The wiki is more for the business side of things such as how we raise funds and event planing.

Harford Hackerspace will have a table at Electronica Fest 2009. Check the official website for details. http://www.nem-electronicafest.com/