Hitchin Hackspace

@hackhitchin

An innovative space for makers to create using state of the art tools, in a transformed former public toilet. Come join us to do something out of the ordinary!

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Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· 26d

It has taken a while to be assembled by the team but the #HitchinHackspace #GameBoy #Monumemtal has been assembled, raised in to position and is up and running at #EMFCamp. As it isn't waterproof it is currently cosseted beneath a purple gazebo. Do come along and have a game 🙂

The Hitchin Hackspace Gameboy Monumental is on site at #EMFCamp at last. We didn't quite get it ready in time for the previous event. The picture shows a massive Gameboy which appears to be partially buried, at a tilt to the right, in to the ground. One of the two round buttons on the front of the console is "buried". In front of the console is a music stand, the top of which has been replaced by a pair of 3d printed cupped hands which act as a receptacle or holder for the remote controller for the console. The console is 2.5-3m tall on the screen a game of Tetris is in progress. To the left in the foreground Hitchin Hackspace member Rich stands with his back to the camera. Unseen his hands hold the controller as he plays the game.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Jul 8

Tuesday, 14th July, is our next #HitchinHackspace Social Night, at The Vic just down the road from the Hackspace, from 19:30/20:00. Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Jun 1

Tuesday, 9th June, is our next #HitchinHackspace Social Night, at The Vic just down the road from the Hackspace, from 19:30/20:00. Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Aug 30

You can make fun things with them...

Hitchin hackspace's Gameboy Monumental is a huge up scale gameboy made using multiple recycled LED panels. It appears to be partially buried in the ground and stands nearly 3m tall. In the photo it almost fills the width of a corridor in an industrial building. There are people stood to the left and right of the Gameboy. The Gameboy joypad is at floor level and the lower button appears to be partially buried in the floor.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Jun 6

Tuesday, 10th June, is our monthly #HitchinHackspace Social Night, at The Vic just down the road from the Hackspace, from 19:30/20:00. Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· May 2

Like this? Plus turn the brightness down? 😎🔅 Let the nocturnal tractor perusal commence ....

A screen shot of the eBay app settings screen to select the app theme. Available options are:
Light: Always use Light theme
Dark: Always use Dark theme.
Battery saver: Use Dark theme. only when your device has Battery saver enabled.
System default: Use the theme set in your device display settings.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Mar 17

We have had something of a hiatus with our #RepairCafe events run by #PlasticFreeHitchin and hosted at the #Hackspace. This was because of insurance issues... All sorted now. As there was a bit of a repair backlog our first event was invite only and held last Saturday with no pre publicity.

The open front door of the Hitchin Hackspace is in the centre of the image. The Hackspace is a single storey brick built building, a former public convenience. Just to the right of the door is a small square topped folding table with some handouts and flyers on it. To the right of the table is a "pop-up" banner about 2m tall with photos and information about the repair cafe events.

A mechanical typewriter in need of some tlc is stood on a workbench. It's outer casing has been removed and the person holding the machine is working on the carriage of the typewriter. Their fingers show signs that the typewriter may have had a nibble / resisted the efforts to fix it.

Another repair candidate, this time a sewing machine is being worked on. The lower bobbin compartment is open. The foot pedal is on the bench to the right in the foreground.

A general view of the inside of the Hackspace. On the left are pairs of tables next to the wall with repairers sat at the tables working on items. At a second pair of tables some visitors are watching a repair underway. Just behind them, on the right of the central gangway are the Hackspace 3d printers sat on their storage cupboards. In the background are the doors through in to the wood/metal workshop area of the Hackspace.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Dec 3

We have a really cool new addition to our 3D printing facilities. A shiny new Bambu Carbon X1 with the additional AMS multi material feed system. If you would like to find out more come along to our next Monday open evening at #HitchinHackspace. #3Dprinting #Hackspace

A picture of the new Bambu Carbon X1 3D printer. The machine is is a silver coloured box about 600mm tall, 500mm wide and 500mm deep. It has a snakes black door panel on the front and on the front top edge is a small black control panel with a touch screen LCD display. On top of the unit is the AMS system which contains four different spoils of printer filament. Mounted vertically there is an intricate mechanism that allows the printer to swap between different colours or types of filament mid print. The spools are covered by a curved clear plastic lid which allows the spools to be viewed. The printer is on top of a white cupboard about 1m tall which is against a wall. Behind the top of the printer is a strip of trunking with mains power outlets and network port sockets. On top of the trunking are a selection of multicoloured 3D printed parts from earlier projects and examples of what can be achieved with 3D printing.

A picture of the Hackspace 3D printer bench which is made of two white cupboards with double doors metal handles. It is about 1 m high, 2.5m long and 1m deep. It is against a wall which has a strip of mains trunking with power and network sockets mounted in it. On the bench, from left to right, are our new Bambu Carbon X1 3D printer and two Creality Ender 5 Pro printers. The X1 is fully enclosed and the two Enders are more traditional open frame printers.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Oct 5

Next Tuesday, 8th October, is this month's #HitchinHackspace Social Night at The Victoria from 19:30/20:00 Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

Next Tuesday, 10th September, is this month's #HitchinHackspace Social Night at The Victoria from 19:30/20:00 Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

Last pics for now.... The hand control in a special stand ready for use at Airbus on Saturday and a graphics function demo of a single panel showing Sonic the Hedgehog just to show what the screen panels are capable of.

A picture of the wired hand controller unit on a special sculptured stand. The stand looks like a pair of roughly sculpted hands gripping the controller, in the background is the GameBoy Monumental itself.

A single display panel segment (0.5m high by 1m wide) with sonic the hedgehog stood on the ground in his game environment. Behind sonic is a sunflower and the ground rises up towards the right. This is in colour as you might expect to see Sonic on a Megadrive.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

Here is the back of the screen, the power supplies and associated cabling on a temporary frame and a picture of the screen running.

This picture is in the office side of the hackspace. There are office desks with chairs to the left and right. Against the wall is a steel frame constructed out of angled steel strip. Mounted on to the metal frame are six 500mm high by 1.5m wide plywood panels. each panel hs a fan cooled power supply with power cables going to each LED paner section. There are 8 PCBs per plywood panel wich connect to each LED panel and these are connected by wide grey ribbon cables in a daisy chain. The last link of the chain is a longer length of ribbon cable hanging down waiting to be connected to a commn point with the other 5 panels.

A close up of a piece of stripboard connected to the wide ribbon cable. This is the panel driver board.It has a raspberry Pi Pico on it, a smaller ribbon cable and a DC power connection. There are 6 of these boards. The smaller ribbon cable goes on to the master Pico which drives the whole display.

A closer view of the back of the display panel. A steel frame constructed out of angled steel strip. Mounted on to the metal frame are six 500mm high by 1.5m wide plywood panels. each panel hs a fan cooled power supply with power cables going to each LED paner section. There are 8 PCBs per plywood panel wich connect to each LED panel and these are connected by wide grey ribbon cables in a daisy chain. The last link of the chain is a longer length of ribbon cable which connects to a board with a pico on it. That has a smaller ribbon cable whhich connects to the master Pi Pico which can just be seen in the middle of the picture.

The front side of the screen powered up and running in the hackspace. It in part emulates the front of the GameBoy case by displaying it as a graphic. For example the GemBoy's power/battery LED and legend is shown as part of the display. As are the red and blue lines at the top of the GAmeBoy front panel and the words "Dot Matrix with Stereo Sounds" The GameBoy's LCD screen itself is emulated in the middle of the LED Panel showing the Tertris Game.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

Construction work started on making the outer shell and buttons.

The assembly takes shape. This image is in the hackspace workshop area. There are lot of benches and tools in the background. In the foreground is the Bosch strut aluminium spar frame. The bottom hafl, up to where the screen will be installed is cald in white panels. There is a cutout for the joypad and the large black joupad is patrialliy installed. on the blue tiled floor, to the bottom right of the fram and panels the two round buttons sit on the floor ready to be installed.

The joypad button, which is about 500mm square, and the two round buttons sit on an old cardboard box in a garage and are painted in grey primer. A paintbrush loaded with grey paint sits to one side. In the background is an assortment of bicycles, trugs and other domestic garage contents.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

There were some rough calculations for the size of the screen. In order for people to be able to play the GameBoy Monumental there would need to be a controller. One was designed by slicing the top off a cad model and then installing buttons / controls and a control wire.

A photograph of one of the hackspace whiteboards with preliminary sketches of the panels, how they might be arranged and a prototype of the sketch of the support frame.

$A cad model of the hand controller unit shell. It looks like the bottom half of a GameBoy which has been roughly cut at an angle of about 45 degrees just above the "+" joypad button up towards the top left. The cut "face" has a computer generated surface that looks a bit like a stone has fractured in to a rough faceted surface.$

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

The unit was modelled in CAD and a frame was built out of some Bosch Strut we were donated. The outer casing parts were broken down in to segments that could be machined out of foam on our CNC router.

A CAD Model of the empty shell / casing of the GameBoy Monumental cut off at the bottom at an angle so that when finished it will appear to be partially burried in the ground.

Another CAD Model of the GameBoy Casing. This time, where the screen would go is a model of the 48 500mm by 125mm LED Panels to fill the 2m by 1.5m screen area

The CAD model has been sliced in to may smaller sections and compnents which are laid out flat. The sammler sections will fit on to the bde of the hackspace CNC router so that they could be machined from foam blocks.

This is a picture of a CAD model of the bosch strut frame, or skeleton chassis for the GameBoy Monumental. Bosch strut is an extruded square cross section aluminium beam material used to build indistiral machines and frames. on each flat face of the beam is a slot with a slightly narrower lip either side of the slot on the face. T shaped "nuts" can be drommed in to the slot and when they have a scew inserted in to them and tighted they rotate so that they cant be pulled out because the lips of the slot are now in the way.
The frame is flat and rectangular and tilted sideways at an angle to the ground. The top of the frame is a rectangle about 2m wide and 1.5m tall. between the top and bottom rails is a central stiffening bar. The frame is tilled to the right. from the bottom of the top rectangle is a leg to the ground which is about 750mm tall. on the left the leg is closer to 1.5m . At the ground there are triangular braces to a frame on the floor and some legs stick out backwards

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 8

This was the concept... A monumental GameBoy, half buried in the ground.

The first concept art image. Not quite sure where this came from. Two figures, with their backs towards the viewer, sort of dressed in outdoor/pseudo combat gear, are stood in a very sandy place either side of a massive Gameboy patially burried in the sand. Sand is ramped up around the base of the console. Slightly out of focus, in the background are the skeletons of large building or metal framed structures

This image is inside a very large tent or marquee. Looking to the end wall of the tent. The walls are white plastic sheet. The roof is maybe 6 or 7m high. There are bright lights in the peak of the roof. Against the end wall is a huge GameBoy slightly off vertical with the bottom quarter or so burried in the ground. Half of one of two round buttons is half burried. The "+" joypad is just above the ground.. In the foregroud are three people looking at the Gameboy which is about a meter taller than they are. A man and woman on the left and a man on the right.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Sep 7

We had a "thing" we had hoped to have ready for EMFCamp but sadly we weren't able to get it ready in time. Well today the thing made it's first appearance at the Airbus #Stevenage Fun day. We present to you for your delictation and entertainment the GameBoy Monumental.

The GameBoy Monumental is a very large upscaled GameBoy hand held console. It has been set up in a large wide corridor. The corridor is about 4m wide and the ceiling is about 5m high. The floor is a shiny dark grey and there are white walls left and right. In the foreground in the floor is a 2m square access hatch painted with yellow warning stripes. Just to the left are some sections of the GameBoy body panels waiting to be assembled on to the Gameboy. The Gameboy is 2m wide and 3m high but is positioned at an angle off vertical and appears to be partially buried in to the floor to a level that passes through the lower button on the front panel. The front panel has the black "+" joypad on the left and the button, and a half, on the right. There are 3 hackspace members stood by the GameBoy. One on the left, two on the right. Their heads are about halfway up the screen. The screen is showing Tetris on it.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Aug 18

A little late but last Saturday, 10th August, was the 5th Anniversary of Hitchin Hackspace being formally opened by the Leader of North Herts District Council and Hitchin BID Town Centre Manager. We opened the, mostly finished, space in August 2019. #HitchinHackspace #Anniversary

The Leader of North Herts District Council, wearing his gold chain of office, and Hitchin BID Town Centre Manager Tom Hardy are stood inside the doorway of the hacksace. They wield a large ceremonial pair of scissors as they cut the wide blue ribbon across the doorway .Hitchin Hackspace founder Alex Palfreman-Brown is stood to the left of the main door applauding.

Hitchin Hackspace @hackhitchin· Aug 13

First post here Tonight is this month's #HitchinHackspace Social Night at The Victoria from 19:30/20:00 Look out for our sign, say hello and find out about your local #Hackspace over a refreshing beverage or two #Hitchin #Letchworth #Stevenage #Baldock