The Arduino Club Cape Town takes off!

About 15 people came together on February 11 on the UCT campus for a Saturday afternoon of chatting

Invitation to Educators to visit the newly open Cape Town Science Centre

CAPE TOWN SCIENCE CENTRE EDUCATOR OPEN DAYS   Dates: 17 February (15:00 to 17:00) and Saturday

Upcoming global hack events

Cross-posted from here. International Space Apps Challenge The idea is to use open data and open tec

 

The Arduino Club Cape Town takes off!

February 24, 2012 in Community, Science, Technology

The first Make&Create day

About 15 people came together on February 11 on the UCT campus for a Saturday afternoon of chatting and playing around with Arduino boards. Only 5 had knew each other from the Science Hack Day. There are probably many more potential tech geeks in the area who could join the movement.

The group is extremely diverse: from electronic engineers to programmers and artists, as well as astronomers. Everyone can help others in one capacity or another, everyone has something to bring.

The Facebook group of the club already counts 77 members (as of 24 Feb) and is the main place where people stay in touch. Join the group here!

Actively hacking with the Arduino boards

The next meetup of the Arduino Club Cape Town, conned “Make and Create II” takes place on Saturday March 10 at 12:00. The venue is still to be decided but it will take place somewhere around Cape Town. You can sign up for the event on facebook, or just turn up!

Thanks Robyn Farah for leading the club and for the pictures!

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    Invitation to Educators to visit the newly open Cape Town Science Centre

    February 10, 2012 in Community, Education, Science

    EDUCATOR OPEN DAYS

     

    Dates: 17 February (15:00 to 17:00) and Saturday 18 February (9:00 onwards).
    RSVP: Please RSVP to Carmen on 083 276 9508 or carmen@ctsc.org.za by 16 February
    Map: Location of the Cape Town Science Centre on Google Maps

    The Cape Town Science Centre are delighted to extend an invitation to all educators to visit the Cape Town Science Centre (CTSC) in its new home in Observatory. They are set to become a hub of educational opportunities and look forward to introducing you to their new partners:

    images: © Cape Town Science Centre

    Should you not be able to visit on Saturday 18 February, please stop by for an informal visit and discussion with our partners on Friday 17 February between 15:00 and 17:00.

    PROGRAMME SATURDAY 18 FEBRUARY
    09:00 Arrival
    10:00 Introduction to the Cape Town Science Centre – Julie Cleverdon, Director
    10:15 Introduction to the CTSC partners each partner will briefly introduce their programmes and educators will have time to visit the partners in their venues after the formal proceedings
    10:50 Address by Ms Penny Vinjevold, Head of the Western Cape Education Department
    11:15 Tea & Coffee

    Please note:
    Educators are invited to spend as much time as they wish at the CTSC on Saturday 18 February. Each educator is welcome to bring along a maximum of two children to enjoy the day with them, at no charge. RSVP for accompanying children is essential.

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      Upcoming global hack events

      February 9, 2012 in Community, Hacks, Open Knowledge, Science, Technology

      Cross-posted from here.

      Can we have a South African leg of the International Space Apps Challenge?

      International Space Apps Challenge

      The idea is to use open data and open technology to try to tackle global challenges. The event happens on April 21st and is a partnership with Open NASA and the Open Government Partnership (of which South Africa is a member).
      I would love to organise the event myself, but by April 21st, the bump the hackers met at the Hack Day will have been born and I’ll be a bit busy… :) So if anyone is interested in taking the lead on organising a Space Apps Hack Event in the country, email us at sciencehackday@science.mu or contact them directly through the website!

      Click here for more info on the International Space Apps Challenge.

      Hacking for Humanity

      Random Hacks of Kindness

      In the same thinking, the global RHoK community gets together twice a year (June and December) to create hacks ‘to make the world a better place’. Again, I’ll probably be out of action in June this year but I’m definitely up for organising a Cape Town leg in December. If you wish to take the lead on a June event, go ahead! Also, feel free to spread the word.

      More info on RHoK here: http://www.rhok.org/

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        Hacks at the Cape Town Science Hack Day

        February 8, 2012 in Hacks, Science, Technology

        (Cross posted from here)

        (click on the thumbnails to see the posters)

        Volunteer Organisation Android App

        Android app to locate volunteer organisations in Cape Town
        winner: Hacking for development (Judges’ choice)
        Casey Callaghan, Tyrel Flugel, Graham Hunter, Robyn Farah, Steven Cohen

        Based on a list of volunteer organisations in Cape Town, the group put together an Android app placing those organisations on a map. When each of the markers is clicked, more information about the organisation is shown. This is to help potential volunteers find organisation to work with but also to help neighbouring organisations with similar purposes work together more easily.
        Read the rest of this entry →

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          Science Hack Day Cape Town becomes Science Hack Day South Africa

          January 31, 2012 in Community

          The twitter feed formerly known as @scihackct is now @SciHackSA

          After a very successful Science Hack Day at AIMS on January 28-29 (photos and report to come), interest has grown and three more evenst are definitely on the table:
          - Science Hack Day Jozi
          - Science Hack Day Hardware (Arduino fest and open hardware galore)
          - Science Hack Day Youth (building robots and programming games)

          Anyone interested in organising these events, send us an email to sciencehackday@science.mu, the new email address of SciHackSA.

          The website has migrated to this new site for the South African Science Hack Day community with hopefully lots of contributors and participants!

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            Science news for kids

            January 29, 2012 in Hacks, Science, Social Media, Technology

            The Kid5cience twitter feed

            There are not many sources of science news for kids out there. In fact, I have only found three: Eurekalert, Science news for kids and UNAWE’s Space Scoop.

            So to help things, I’ve aggregated them using RSS feeds piped to twitter into this twitter feed. Now the question is: what cool things can be built using the twitter API?

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              Science.µ says hello world!

              January 29, 2012 in General

              Hackers at the Cape Town Science Hack Day in January 2012

              Science.mu is a site about tiny science projects that are really useful – in other words, science hacks.

              Started at the Cape Town Science Hack Day in January 2012, the idea is that open technologies (open source software, open hardware, open data, APIs, etc.) and open minds form a powerful combination to use science for people’s benefits.

              Welcome!

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