Maker Fair NY Live!

Watch Mitch Altman and Bilal Ghalib talk "live now" about
hackerspaces and the gems initiative for a Cairo Egypt space at the Maker Fair here :

 http://fora.tv/live/maker_faire/2011_world_maker_faire_ny

Tiko-Bot 0.8 Bluetooth

Tiko-Bot 0.8 Manual control through Bluetooth

The Global Entrepreneurship and Maker Space Initiative (GEMSI)

The Global Entrepreneurship and Maker Space Initiative (GEMSI) is a project which focuses on encouraging the development of democratic maker communities to stimulate and support entrepreneurial endeavors. GEMSI’s first project is proposed to take place in Cairo Egypt starting October 2011. The political revolutions of the Arab Spring has initiated change to the Egyptian political landscape and laid bare the troubled economy that was underneath. The many years of authoritarian regimes has taken it’s toll on the entrepreneurial climate of the region.

GEMSI believes in the power of the Maker movement and in particular the empowering concept of Hacker Spaces. These spaces are community workshops that are democratizing innovation throughout the world. By providing their members the tools, collaborators, and access to a global pool of knowledge they are prototyping spaces of the future.

Hacker Spaces / Maker Spaces have recently experienced a dramatic growth throughout the world, going from a set of 50 which identified themselves on hackerspaces.org to over 1000 today. Sadly the developing world has not seen the same growth. It is this problem that GEMSI attempts to address.

Project OSHAS video teasers!

Project OSHAS (Pronounced Ochase): Open Source Home Automation System

Our first major project that let the user be really in control of his house and to simply and easily configure rules (automation) that the house can follow instantly, It's Web-based and Wireless so anywhere you are, your in control

Here are some teaser videos:

Our very first attempt to control arduino with OSHAS website



Here we got a little geekier and decided to use a watch the we bought made by Texas Instruments, which is actually a micro-controller in the shape of a watch, and control what we can with it
Chronos Watch
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos?DCMP=Chronos&HQS=Other+OT+chronoswiki



Controlling everything in the home like lights and air conditioner



Security alarm



OSHAS can be accessed through any smartphone , any screen size and everywhere in the world



Stay tuned for the full open source hardware and software

Controlling a robotic arm using Aruino and H-bridge.

We shoot this video while testing the arduino code and motors on the arm.
This project is built by Cairo Hackerspace member Ahmed Tohmay.



The Arduino source code and wiring diagram will be released soon.

Please come attend our session at the Software Freedom Day 2011 at Bibliotheca Alexandrina .

Our session will be on Thursday 25 August from 10:00 to 11:00 am and it will be about "Hacerspaces/makerspaces and how to start one"

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=262021767142642

Project OSHAS

In our last post we explained the problems you may face when using the wifly from sparkfun, now we show you Where we used it..

Project OSHAS (Pronounced Ochase): Open Source Home Automation System

Our first major project that let the user be really in control of his house and to simply and easily configure rules (automation) that the house can follow instantly, It's Web-based and Wireless so anywhere you are, your in control

Here's a small teaser of someone walking in the house, opening the door and walking in ( motion detection) and the lights and air conditioner turn on automatically

Here we got a little geekier and decided to use a watch the we bought made by Texas Instruments, which is actually a micro-controller in the shape of a watch, Chronos Watch http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos?DCMP=Chronos&HQS=Other+OT+chronoswiki

and control what we can with it

Stay tuned for much more developments