Thursday, April 4, 2013

Space Hacker Workshop - May 4-5

SVSC/Citizens in Space Workshop
San-Sun, May 4-5, 2013
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View


A Space Hacker Workshop for Suborbital Experiments will take place at the Hacker Dojo, directly across from NASA Ames Research Center, May 4-5.  Participants will learn how to build and fly experiments in space aboard the XCOR Lynx in a 10-flight program managed by Citizens in Space.  The program will accomodate up to 100 CubeLab experiments.

The program announcement was picked up by Scientific American, and appears in their Citizen Science section.  The announcement appears in full on sites like SpaceRef.com, and appears below. Registration is $100 before April 18, and will be $150 at the door.

Press release at SpaceRef.com and other sources below...

Are you a hardware hacker? Do you have the Right Stuff to become a citizen scientist or citizen astronaut? Here's your chance to find out.

Citizen scientists and hardware hackers will learn how to do "space on the cheap" at the first Space Hacker Workshop for Suborbital Experiments. Participants at the two-day workshop will learn how they can build and fly experiments in space, and even fly in space as citizen astronauts, through the Citizens in Space program.

The Space Hacker Workshop takes place May 4-5 at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California, across the street (literally) from NASA Ames Research Center. The workshop is sponsored by Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, and the Silicon Valley Space Center.

Citizens in Space has purchased 10 flights on the XCOR Lynx spacecraft, now under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port, which will be made available to the citizen-science community.

"We're looking for 100 citizen-science experiments and 10 citizen astronauts to fly as payload operators," Citizens in Space project manager Edward Wright said. "This is a chance for citizen scientists to develop and test new technologies, like bioreactors and 3D printing, in zero gravity; to collect microorganisms from the extreme upper atmosphere; to experiment with new processes for creating new materials; and do many more cool things. The Space Hacker Workshop will provide participants with information and skills needed to take advantage of our free flight opportunities."

"Space is no longer the exclusive domain of NASA and university scientists," said Dr. Sean Casey, co-founder of the Silicon Valley Space Center. "Citizen scientists can build and fly fully functioning experiments for a few hundred dollars or less, thanks to technology developed here in Silicon Valley. With components available at Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics, citizen scientists can build instruments and experiments with more power than a NASA satellite from a few years back."

"Commercial spaceflight is the next high-tech revolution, making space a participatory frontier," said Dr. Alexander Saltman, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "This event will tap into the creative spirit that has made Silicon Valley a center of innovation for decades."

The Space Hacker Workshop will provide hands-on exposure to a variety of microcontrollers, sensors, imaging systems, and other components. With these components, participants will learn how to design and build microgravity, fluid-physics, life-science, and engineering experiments.

Infinity Aerospace, which is developing the open-source ArduLab for low-cost space experiments, will be on hand to discuss the use of ArduLab hardware as a development platform. Also on hand will be representatives of XCOR Aerospace, which is building the fully reusable Lynx suborbital spacecraft, and NASA Ames Research Center.

Khaki Rodway of XCOR Aerospace will discuss the capabilities and requirements of the Lynx spacecraft. A panel of experts from NASA and industry will discuss research professional scientists have done in the past, prospects for new research on low-cost vehicles such as the Lynx, and opportunities for citizen scientists to build on the shoulders of NASA giants.

Project manager Edward Wright will be on hand to discuss Citizens in Space flight opportunities for experiments and citizen astronauts, including an exclusive glimpse at citizen-astronaut training activities planned for this summer.

Admission for the event is $150 at the door, but early-bird tickets are available now for $100. Tickets are limited and the event may sell out. Online registration is available at http://spacehacker.eventbrite.com.

3 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Is this for AIAA members only?

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is for anyone who is interested and wants to work on a payload that would fly on the Lynx.

    One note I got from the organizers: Bring your laptop. They will go into building code for Arduinos, which are used in the ArduLab. And then we get to hook up a bunch of sensors. :-)

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  3. I asked if there was a list of ideas for experiments. It turns out that Citizens in Space has a lot of videos and descriptions of experiments in microgravity.
    http://www.citizensinspace.org/category/citizen-science-blog/microgravity/

    Also, people are welcome to bring their own computing hardware (e.g., BeagleBone, RaspberryPi) and utilize the sensors available, but the hands-on workshop material is focused primarily on Arduino.

    Speaking of Arduino, if you think it doesn't have enough compute power and need to step up to 32-bits, then you might consider the chipKIT (based on PIC32), which is designed for compatibility with many existing "Arduino shields".
    http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,892&Cat=18

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