stellenbosch

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#hackstb. June 2012

Yesterday, we had our 3rd #hackstb event. We had some great demos.

First up was Tim and Hendrik, demoing a coffee measurement tool. Their problem: The coffee machine was 50m away and they couldn’t see if there was any coffee in the pot. So at first, they hooked up a webcam to the coffee pot, so they could check from a website. The problem with this was, was that you couldn’t measure the age of the coffee. So they hooked into the current of the coffee machine to determine when was the last time it was turned on/used. Using that, with some javascript, it could now display on the website how long ago coffee was made. Clever and awesome hack!

Next up was, Niel (aka Sparkyboy), demoing how to make make music on Gameboys and Toys (chiptunes). It was an interesting demo, showing an unknown sub-culture of people hacking away at old hardware to make sounds and music.

Last up was Rudolf and Nolan (from ikubu) demoing the tech they made to help with self-service checkin in airports. By using kinects, they managed to create 3D models of bags as people load it up on conveyors. This makes it easier for self-service check-in desks to determine if the luggage is adequate and cause as less hassle as possible.

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All in all, seeing some awesome stuff coming out from Stellenbosch. If you want join or demo, join the meetup group, or follow @hackstb on Twitter. The next event is tentatively on 11 July.

#hackstb (Round 1 and 2)

Stellenbosch is growing as a tech hub of South Africa (and Africa). We have great engineering and computer science talent from Stellenbosch University, a social-networking giant and free wifi for the whole town (almost done) amongst others.

To further promote Stellenbosch as a tech area and to get the hackers and makers to demo their stuff, #hackstb was launched. The idea: 

#hackstb is a social event and a monthly demo day for geeks, hackers and inventors in Stellenbosch. It’s a platform to showcase cool tech built in our town.

The first one was a month ago and as a start had 3 demos. Joe (from TrustFabric/Mxit/GustPay) demoed an augemented reality for AfrikaBurn. See a demo of it in action here:

He also demoed GustPay. The final demo was Carel showing how to do Van Eck Phreaking (which was awesome to see).

This week we had 4 demos.

- Arcade cabinet

- 3D Multi-touch input

- Laptop stiffy stand

- Using a normal picture frame as a video playback device

The arcade cabinet that was built by Leon and Francois.

Photo via @hedleyroos.

The AR app is going to be used in conjunction with Stellenbosch 360 to create a map of destinations in Stellenbosch so tourists can easily find their way to interesting waypoints!

So that’s that. The next meetup will be somewhere in June and already have demos lined up! Join if you are in the area. Find us on Meetup.com (our homebase) or Twitter.