Wot u do with .net : mashed08

Mashed 08: The pictures....

paulfo — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:54:18 GMT

During a long weekend of fun and excitement it helps to have pictures to remind you exactly what you got up to. Mmm - maybe not...

This is my 'Aces High - Eddie' impression in the social flight sim. Search on Iron Maiden if you're still clueless.

Judging the entries was fun.

The delightfully deep techie Sarah Blow helped me assemble and fly the 'Wotudo.net' blimp with wireless camera!

Thank you to all the people who helped to keep the blimp under control and ultimately retrieve it from the roof.

Lots more pics on Flickr search for mashed08

Mashed 08: Day 2

paulfo — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:18:22 GMT

A lot of survivors this morning :-).

Projects are developing, only a few more hours to go.

I have the 0900 leg to fly in the social flight sim -apparently we have to go from Anchorage to San Francisco. My nav tells me she wants to go via the Grand Canyon - which seems a little off route. When I point this out she says 'don't worry this thing can do mach 25 - we'll do a bit of a zoom!'

I'm a little concerned about the flight controls - they seem quite course. Acceleration is in steps of 100 knots!

Mashed 08: Wotudo blimp flies again

paulfo — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:41:08 GMT

Taking inspiration from numerous Disney cartoons the Wotudo.net blimp flies again!

Mashed 08: Wotudo Blimp

paulfo — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:31:11 GMT

It start out as a simple bit of fun but with the help of old and new friends at Mashed 08 it turned into a real 'mashed activity!

It first flew with simple Wotudo.net branding (my other blog) - I wasn't sure if the vinyl lettering (from Signprint.co.uk would be to heavy,but it worked perfectly thanks Steve and Melissa!

Then with the addition of a wireless camera and my spare blimp balloon - to balance buoyancy - it flew again transmitting to the main screen as if journeyed around the venue. Flight controls were a little heavy and the important MSDN pen had to be taped closer to the gondola to reduce swing - but it flew and got plenty of attention :-)

So specific details: The balloon is the RC 4 channel, bomb dropping Blimp Bomber by airtech and sold in the UK by Urban Junkie. I lugged their disposable helium cylinder up to the venue to inflate with (it weighs only about 3kg so not hard).

The wireless camera is the standard small 2.4gb wireless spy camera. Powered by a PP3 9v battery (yes with both blimp balloons we still had to add ballast to achieve neutral buoyancy). The standard receiver was plumbed into the AV rig by the BBC technicians.

I'll leave you with picture of the moment: Sarah Blow, myself and Andrew Fryer.

Mashed 08 Star log Day 1 14:00

paulfo — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:31:25 GMT

Now recorded on a pod cast for the Imperial College London.

Just seen the zero carbon plane being built. It is going to virtually fly round the world tonight, there'll be a public KLM for people to hang things from. Looking at plotting their progress on the Earth globe in MRDS.

Get prep'ed for Mashed08

paulfo — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:52:49 GMT

I will be showing the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio at Mashed08 this weekend.

If you are also going to be there and fancy playing with robot programming and simulation building there are some bits you can set up on your machine in advanced.

First, get Visual C# Express 2008 (or Std, Pro etc etc)

Then get the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 CTP. You'll note that there is also the latest release you can download (v1.5 - free for non-commercial use ). These two versions do co-exist. There is a lot more free stuff around for V1.5 at the moment so having both may give you some extra options - such as the Volts-IQ Vision SDK 1.6 (which provides the infamous Face detector service).

Now you're ready to rumble. There will be some other goodies to download later - but I'm still working on them :-)