insert something about time has passed yadda yadda
I am doing so many things at the moment but still I feel like I don’t have anything to tell on this blog. Yes, the house is coming along fine, yes, at work I do work that sometimes works, yes, I eat all of the things.
Finally I can put this category „hacking“, that I started when setting up this blog, to a good use.
This weekend, from the 23rd to the 25th of October, the Science Hack Day took place in the fab lab in Berlin. I was so lucky to hear about this one ahead of time, not like usual only 4 weeks later. So Doro registered me while I was in a car in Saxony (work, yay!) and some 2 weeks later I sat down on a red plastic chair in the fablab.berlin in Prenzlauer Berg.
#SHDB15 start fo lightning talks + crowd pic.twitter.com/02RC5G2tn3
— qubodup (@qubodup) October 23, 2015
After a few lightning talks that covered private space hacking, light installations and the hacks behind bee keeping it was time for some project pitches. In some weird turn of events I came first on stage and presented my idea: Building a physical interface to display digital data from public transport data sets. Not very sciency, but hey, data and visualization were ticked off the science hack bingo sheet.
The following pitches were more or less sophisticated, weird and interesting. Then we formed groups and much to my surprise a group of 5 or so people were interested to follow my idea and build an interface. We talked and joked and shared ideas before we went home to get some rest to prepare for the upcoming hackathon.
Saturday morning we brainstormed and planned our little project. The goal was to create an object that is once set up and customized to provide exactly one kind of information, much like a watch on the wall. There is no interaction needed to get the information you’re looking for. Of course all information is available on other channels, but always hidden behind several taps or clicks. Much like a clock on the wall, that could be replaced by a smartphone, which can even show time in different places on the world. The physical appearance of a piece of technology like a clock though provides a different feel for the interaction and provides a quicker but specific feedback.
To keep things simple and straightforward we wanted to create an installation, that illustrates the distance of the next train to our station. To start our daily commute to work we could just look at our product to see, how far the next train is from our station and whether we have to run, can casually walk or still have plenty of time. Or even missed the connection. We chose the station on Prenzlauer Allee at fablab as an example. To avoid electronic parts we wanted to build a physical interface based on a moving train cart that physically approaches our station. A circular indicator provides information if we should go or stay and wait.
Our little team, comprised of Canadian Matt, US American Michaela, German Tom, Gil and me started to work on the different parts of the project. The computer geeks started coding, grabbing live train data from the internet. Berlin unfortunately locked its data behind and authentication process, but we could find useful data in London. Matt took care of talking to the Arduino driving the stepper motor while Michaela took care of the mechanical problems involved in the project. I was designated designer and mostly played with the laser cutter. The wheel on the stepper motor to hold the piece of string to pull the train was one of my best designs. I measured, put a vector file together and had it cut to fit so perfectly on the axle that we didn’t even have to glue it. I love laser cutters.
Our first prototype just consisted of a stepper motor hooked to the Arduino and a piece of string with tape to measure movement speed and precision of the stepper motor.
The thing below is from another group. It is science.
The stylized map of the neighborhood was cut into a piece of MDF. I was amazed how well the laser cutter translates the vector files into super sharp marking on the wood.
The train was designed and printed by Michaela. It even featured a hole for a LED, but we dropped that due to time restrictions.
The whole thing is powered by an Arduino Uno and a motor shield, both of which are fed by some clever python code from a PC.
I focused on the physical aspects of the build but it should not be forgotten how important the coding was. Gil, Tom and Matt managed to put some code together that worked really well not only for the demonstration purposes but is also easily adaptable to real application with live data from the public transport providers.
And this is the working train in action.
After the hacking comes the presentation on Sunday. Every team had 4 minutes to show their work. It was impressive what was pulled off in the short time. There was a PCR machine hack, a tunneling electron microscope, a visualization of CO2 production by websites and several health hacks, including a device to detect teeth grinding when sleeping. After these impressive presentations we were quite surprised to hear that we did not only win the best design price but also the audience favorite (shared with the teeth grinding detector). Now we can all look forward to 6 months of free 3D printing at fablab! Wooooooo! \o/
https://twitter.com/drewSaysGoVeg/status/658313741654732800
Best design hack from @clastronautin @HPI_DE goes to public transport tangible interface
— Science Hack Day BLN (@SHD_Berlin) October 25, 2015
Here they are! Best design hack pic.twitter.com/cNDJMd2R50
— Science Hack Day BLN (@SHD_Berlin) October 25, 2015
Und den Publikumspreis – WOOHOOOOO! o/ #SHDB15 pic.twitter.com/cTA21DvpSA
— Marco (@AlphonsPho) October 25, 2015
We quickly assembled for a group picture in the absence of Tom, who couldn’t make it on Sunday. And we will use our prize as an excuse to come back together and print things together, in 3D.
Winter is coming.
That’s the best occasion to review one of the best days I had this summer.
Our days on the isle of Mull were over. We said goodbye to the tiny coastal town, hopped on a bus to hop on a boat and moved to the port town of Oban.
The first small tour was nice but we craved for something more exciting. We lacked some shore lines and sea water. Tobermory’s harbour is a rather quiet place as it lies sheltered between Mull and the main land.
So the next day, we headed to Dervaig. There we headed to Quinish point. Along with us several other tourists had the same idea, most of them carrying the same booklet like us with walking tours of Mull. We nodded at each other and the race begun. We won. Obviously.
But first things first. We crossed some woods and pastures and saw many sheep. We made a long detour, because the description in the guide were ambiguous.
Home Farm looked like a great place for the zombie apocalypse. Remotely located, with pastures and fields around, easy to defend for its large U shape. It also looked a bit run down already, we were unsure whether or not it is still in operation.
Everyone knows that the sheep are evil.
We took a huge detour before this picture was taken. The walking guide mentioned a standing stone just a short walk away and we tried to find it. After we gave up, returned to the original path and headed on we found a rather non spectacular stone literally next to the path. The guide failed to mention the previous fork of the path, resulting in not only confusing us, but also a few other wanderers we met on this detour. Stupid guide.
Quinish point itself is a protruding peninsula at the North edge of Mull. It is a windy place with beautiful views of the ocean, but yet again the ocean couldn’t excite me a lot as it was very gentle and quiet. I want the roaring noise of waves breaking on the shore lines, wind that blows in my face, screaming insults from faraway lands in a windy language and coarse coastlines.
It was still quite enjoyable though. The place was remote enough to only meet other humans every hour or so and so we could really relax. And slowly but surely burn our noses in the sun.
We headed home and just before heading back to base, we booked our trip for the next day: A boat tour to Staffa and an island filled with sea birds. Quite expensive, but we were positive that it was worth it.
The next morning we waited at the pier (sorry, Mercedes, I meant pear) to be loaded onto a small but fast boat and quickly boost of towards the bird island.
These islands were inhabited by vikings many hundred years ago. They built homes atop these steep cliffs that were impossible to take by force. So they headed out, raided the surrounding lands and came back in case of trouble to their safe havens on the islands. Today there is still a number of stone buildings located on top of the cliffs.
Soon we reached the bird island. The tour group followed the big white arrow.
And there they were: Puffins. Little sea birds that constantly have this slightly concerned look on their faces that makes them so extremely cute. They are not shy and so you can approach up to a meter or so before they waddle away. In the cutest way possible.
This was the first and only time I missed a good tele lens on my fuji x100s or the Canon 5D. The 35 mm is perfectly fine for 99 % of the cases, but here I would have liked to get better close ups of the cute puffins. Other members of our tour group came prepared, with camouflaged 400 mm lenses and other fancy equipment. All the shots below are digital crops. Luckily the 5D offers over 20 MP to crop out what you need.
When we circled around a corner of the island a massive storm of noise blasted towards us. It came from a rock filled with hundreds and thousands of birds. They were all constantly screaming at a deafening volume. When we turned around the next corner of the island, everything was dead quiet again.
After our tête à tête with the puffins we hopped back on the boat and continued our journey to Staffa. Staffa doesn’t feature lots of concerned birds but a rather spectacular geology. Basalt pillars seem to rise from the sea, forming a cave and a large plateau. The pillars of Staffa are the counterpart to the hexagonal pillars of Giant’s Causeway. The story though is told differently in Scotland. Where the Irish told a story of the glorious and smart victory of Finn MacCool over the Scottish giant the Scottish just tell the story of a rock throwing battle during which Staffa and the Causeway were created.
Scientist recently discovered though that the pillars originate from cooled lava, turning into basalt which have then been elevated through geology. Science – ruining everything since … uh … in former times.
The cave in Staffa sounds more promising than it looks then in real life. You can only enter it for a few meters. It is impressive to those huge basalt pillars though.
After a short while everyone hopped back on board and we returned to Tobermory. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any whales or dolphins along the way but how could they compete with puffins anyway?
I can only recommend the boat tour, it is pricey, but opens up to places that are otherwise inaccessible. Staffa Tours did a great job, but there are other services around that go from other places and at different times.
Tune in for next time when we climb Mount Doom Ben Lomond.
Finally summer. Sitting in the warm sunshine, having cold drinks, swimming in the lukewarm sea while the sun sets over the horizon. What better thing to do than to go to the sunny shores of Scotland. Last year we didn’t do any long trips so I see this trip to Scotland as the continuation of our tour of Northern Ireland in 2013.
When choosing the destination to enter Scotland, easyjet helped with the decision by making Glasgow a lot cheaper than Edinburgh. Upon our arrival we understood why. Glasgow is an ugly assortment of seemingly random convulsion of concrete and more concrete. In the spirit of the middle of last century the city was designed for automotive traffic and not pedestrians and so you end up crossing big and bigger roads constantly while being crammed to a tiny footpath.
We didn’t do Glasgow justice by spending only a short time there. Towards the end of our journey we met a lovely lady in Oban who gave us a list of things to do in Glasgow.
We did none of the above. Partly due to lack of time, partly due to everything being closed by the time we arrived.
What we did instead was this. We arrived at a lovely air bnb (hello Lou!), dropped our stuff and explored the neighbourhood. Not that Glasgow is beautiful, we mainly followed a large road. It led us to the pub 78, a vegan café restaurant pub student hangout place. „Burger and a pint“ it said on the menu. „Burger and a pint“ I said seconds later to the waitress.
Burger and a pint is what I got.
And what can I say: although vegan, the burger was delicious. The „meat“ was some bean and stuff thing, but no tofu, and it felt absolutely right. When in Glasgow, head for the 78!
After this filling dinner we still strolled around Glasgow for a bit to find the train station and sutff. Did I mention how ugly Glasgow is?
We found what we wanted, returned and had a good night of sleep, eager to jump on the train to head on North.
I spare you the four hundred blurry photos out of the train window. Just know that the ride is very pleasant, shows lovely landscapes and is highly recommended as an alternative to the shaky bus on windy roads. Next to us a group of women in their forties continuously poured pink alcohol in their painted faces. They were fun.
Last stop on the line: Oban!
Crab sandwiches were had. They were okay, a bit heavy on the mayonnaise. Compared to Berlin standards still a blast.
We didn’t stay long in Oban as the next step lied already in front of us: the ferry to Mull.
And from the ferry we hopped onto a bus to Tobermory, our final destination for the day. A bumpy ride on single lane roads later we arrived in the small harbour town of Tobermory.
The hostel in Tobermory offered very basic comfort. A very charming staff could not fully make up for the tiny tiny bathrooms, the low pressure showers and the courtyard that had to be crossed before reaching the showers. Still, it served us well as a base to discover the Northern parts of Mull.
So far we spent our days mostly seated, in planes, boats, trains and busses. Time to get into hiking mode.
On the North edge of Tobermory a walkway leads past a number of waterfalls through a small forest. Perfect for beginners, to soften the shoes and harden the calves.
That’s it for today. The next time I will tell the story of how we both got sunburn in Scotland and how we climbed an island full of puffins.
Before I enlighten everyone with a more detailed and more personal blog post about our adventures in Scotland I present you here my favourite photos.
Three intensive days are over. From Tuesday till today I saw about 20 talks live, talked to different people and generally had my mind around things completely different from my regular plant stuff.
There is a correlation between my holidays and the days of the Bahn strike in Germany. This time I already anticipated it, changed my train booking, hopped on the 80 minute late train with the significant (α > 0.01) other and got more or less relaxed to Karlsruhe, where nothing is ever going on.
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