I'm proud to say that Santa Barbara Hackerspace is coming along GREAT! We now have 30 Google Group members and regularly have 5-10 people chatting on IRC. Last time I posted here, two months ago, we had a grand total of two members -- the co-founders... Here's what we're up to.

Projects

Underwater ROV: We've begun constructing an underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) capable of surviving depths of 150 feet. It will house a camera, plankton catching net, and connector for future scientific payloads. Its primary purpose is to collect plankton samples for later analysis of species, population, and other factors.

We're writing a Python script to take the joystick data and feed it to the laptop/netbook which will then send it to an Arduino on-board the ROV. The Arduino will be programmed to read the joystick data and control the motors accordingly, adjusting the orientation of the craft. More ROV info -- http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=ROV

For other Project info, check out http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=Projects.

Software-wise, we've got 2 Linux servers up and running. SSH access is granted to all General Meeting attendees, which occur on Saturdays. For more meeting info, check out our calendar at http://calendar.sbhackerspace.com.

Classes

Our two weekly classes are...

1. Intro to Hardware Hacking (meets on Thursdays @ 6:30pm)

2. Ethical Hacking with Linux (meets on Fridays @ 6:30pm)

For more information about each class, see http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=Classes and the calendar at http://cal.sbhackerspace.com.

Contact Info

0. Blog: http://sbhackerspace.com

1. Email: sbhackerspace@gmail.com

2. Twitter: http://twitter.com/sbhackerspace

3. Facebook Page: http://fb.sbhackerspace.com

4. Google Group: http://gg.sbhackerspace.com

5. IRC Channel: http://irc.sbhackerspace.com (#sbhackerspace on FreeNode)

We hope to hear from you soon! At least a couple of us are always in IRC so feel free to drop in and say 'hi'.