Posts tagged ‘homecamp’
Announcing Home Camp 4 “Hack the House”
It’s time for another event!
Home Camp brings together members of the technical community interested in using open systems and low-cost, often repurposed hardware to bring about a positive change in the way we use energy and appliances around the home.
With ever-increasing energy prices, the race is on to develop ways to utilise smart technology to help offset domestic energy consumption and lower carbon footprints.
Home Camp 4 invites those working with technology (software, hardware or web-based applications) to meet at an informal “unconference” in central London to offer presentations, workshops, mash-ups and hack sessions with the aim of sharing information and furthering the development of the open energy community.
Presentations this year will include the following provisional topics:
- An Open Energy Monitor – Trystan Lea and Glyn Hudson
- A Low Voltage DC Power System – Simon Daniel or Chris Wright, Moixa Technology
- Nanode – an Open Hardware Success Story – Ken Boak, Arbour Wood Ltd.
- Pachube – Open Data for Energy Monitoring – Usman Haque, Pachube
The event will again take place at the Centre for Creative Collaboration, at 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (nearest tube is 500m away at Kings Cross)
This bright, modern venue offers ideal facilities both for presentations and working in small groups.
Lunch will be provided in the form of a buffet. Refreshments, including tea, coffee, soft drinks and beer will also be available.
Provisional Schedule
Saturday 29th October
09:30 Open for refreshments and meet and greet
10:00 Keynote presentation
10:30 Presentation Slot 1 – To be decided on the day
11:00 Presentation Slot 2
11:30 Presentation Slot 3
12:00 Morning workshop session 1
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Regroup and arrange Unconference – session 1
15:30 Refreshments
16:00 Unconference session 2
18:00 Day 1 de-brief
For those staying in London there will be an evening pub visit 
Sunday 30th October
09:30 Open for refreshments and meet and greet
10:00 Hacksession
10:30 Presentation Slot 1 – To be decided on the day
11:00 Presentation Slot 2
11:30 Presentation Slot 3
12:00 Morning workshop session 1
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Regroup and arrange Unconference – session 1
15:30 Refreshments
16:00 Unconference session 2
18:00 Day 2 de-brief
The cost is £10 per day, or £17.50 for the full weekend (plus booking fees) – to include lunch and refreshments.
Due to the capacity/safety limits at C4CC the event is restricted to a total of 95 attendees.
Want to get involved? Get your tickets on Eventbrite!
Once you’ve signed up we also invite you to contribute to the crowdsourced Lanyrd event page.
HomeCamp 3 – it’s coming – sign up now!
An exciting couple of weeks in the HomeCamp community as the rumours began to circulate on Twitter that MikeTheBee had pushed things forward and found a venue for HomeCamp 3. Mike is the man behind the HomeCamp podcast, so if you weren’t already subscribed to that, you should check it out!
So here’s the big reveal: HomeCamp 3 will be on December 13th 2010, 4-8pm at the Centre for Creative Collaboration (C4CC) in London. There are suggestions of an evening social gathering as well…
Mike posted a short note about the event in a comment here on the blog. The full announcement is posted in the Google Group. If you’ve never been to the venue before, Mike says:
… it is an a place with a real buzz, not for the building itself, which is intended to be ‘a blank canvas’ but for all the creative work going on in the corners. Electroluminescent clothing and Arduino controller being sewn in one corner, people bouncing on paving slabs to generate power in another, more Arduino’s controlling bits of a re-constructed piano awaiting it’s next performance, and there are always new surprises.
Sounds pretty cool! So, it’s all go. You can go ahead and sign up right now at the EventBrite page, and also track the event on the uber-cool new social conferences site, Lanyrd (you can also find HomeCamp 1 and HomeCamp 2 on Lanyrd as well, and add your coverage if you attended them).
While we’re in the mood, we’ve tidied up some of the web presences around the HomeCamp community, fixed the About page, the links in the blog sidebar have been updated to point at the current location of the wiki, Flickr group etc, and we’ll probably switch across to a funky new Facebook page (instead of a group) in the near future.
So – check out the discussions, follow the tweets, and most importantly, get your free ticket NOW. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Useful links and news stories
The HomeCamp community is continuing to keep up with the most recent developments of interest in sustainability and home hacking.
One good place to start is the “Links of Interest” page on the Google Group. Another good way of keeping up-to-date with what others are spotting is the #homecamp hashtag on Twitter (personally I keep a search column open in TweetDeck to keep an eye on this, too).
Here’s a selection of things I’ve spotted in the past couple of months:
- Dennis Howlett made a great series of videos with James, Chris and Mark Charmer about energy saving strategies, tweeting houses and the HomeCamp concept.
- Benjamin Ellis investigated how to save on standby power on his blog and via YouTube.
- keynote speaker at the first HomeCamp, Andy Stanford-Clark, has been in the press a lot lately, with more about the Twitter capabilities of his house (and the infamous mousetraps) – it has now earned its own page of press links on his site.
- ReadWriteWeb posted about home automation using iobridge and Twitter.
If you have something to share, get in touch with us via Twitter or our Google Group.
The Attick – HomeCamp Media Partners
I’m delighted to announce that theattick.tv are the official Media Partners for HomeCamp and will be streaming the event over on the HomeCamp ustream.tv channel and also streaming into the HomeCamp sim on ReactionGrid.
They will also be interviewing people thoughout the day and putting together video footage from the day for HomeCamp TV. SO if you are coming to the event, be sure to get yourself on film!
A word from our sponsors
I’d like to say a big thank you to our HomeCamp sponsors: CurrentCost, Greenmonk, Pachube , ReactionGrid and Onzo as without them this event would not be happening.
HomeCamp Media partners
I’m delighted to announce that theattick.tv are the official Media Partners for HomeCamp and will be streaming the event over on the HomeCamp ustream.tv channel and also streaming into the HomeCamp sim on ReactionGrid.
They will also be interviewing people thoughout the day and putting together video footage from the day for HomeCamp TV. SO if you are coming to the event, be sure to get yourself on film!
HomeCamp 2 is this Saturday
Following hot on the heels of the first HomeCamp, so HomeCamp 2 happens. For the uninitiated, HomeCamp is the home hacking, automation and green technology community. Think smart meters, monitoring and graphing energy usage.
HomeCamp 2 is on Saturday 25th April 2009, 10am until 6pm at Bash Creations, 65-71 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4PJ. A map of the venue is here.
HomeCamp 2 aims to build on the success of the first event, with an OpenSim event running alongside for virtual participation and to demo the RealWorld and VirtualWorld modelling and automation that the community has been doing.
I’d like to say a big thank you to our sponsors, CurrentCost, Greenmonk, Pachube, ReactionGrid and Onzo, as without them this event would not be happening.
theattick.tv are the official Media Partners for HomeCamp and will be streaming the event over on the HomeCamp ustream.tv channel and also streaming into the HomeCamp sim on ReactionGrid. They will also be interviewing people thoughout the day and putting together video footage from the day for HomeCamp TV. So if you are coming to the event, be sure to get yourself on film!
So far have around 75 people signed up. If you can’t make it, then you can tune in either on the live video ustream, or sign up on ReactionGrid and join us virtually on OpenSim.
More details and videos on the blog http://homecamp.org.uk
For the wiki, which includes signup and is the main portal to all the online activity: http://homecamp.pbwiki.com/
Live video stream on the day of the event and recordings from the first HomeCamp: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/homecamp
Virtual HomeCamp Meeting
OK, we’re trying to setup a meeting on the HomeCamp sim. Since we burst on the ReactionGrid scene with OpenSim, we have been throwing up real estate and trying scripts. After playing and eating more memory and CPU than we probably should, we need a meeting to discuss quite a few issues.
1. We currently have script limitations that everyone needs to respect
2. We have ideas to overcome the script limitations. Fingers crossed on Plan A!
3. A freemium idea – office and house rental is free, script usage is a small monthly subscription.
4. Sponsorship opportunities
5. Land building ideas and general build styles
6. Regular events and training + publicity
We have had great community action going on at the HomeCamp sim and I am looking forward to the future with this one. We have rented a full row of offices now.
Welcoming new tennants Craig Cmehil and Tish Shute.
I’m thinking we have a meeting on Thursday 26th March. Seems a week away, but we all seem to be busy Please let me know your thoughts and ideas regarding this on the google group discussion and whether you will be coming along.
The land grab begins 
Grab Yourself an Office on Virtual HomeCamp
We now have four Home Camp sims on ReactionGrid on OpenSim:
HomeCamp
HomeCamp Labs
HomeCamp Sandbox
HomeCamp Sandbox2
From the meeting we had last Thursday night, we are aiming to have a virtual space to allow us to grow the Home Camp community, to integrate Virtual Worlds with Real World and a great place to run events and sessions. I’m not entirely sure how we’ll set these up and I am sure we will rename some of the sims.
Stay tuned for the Virtual HomeCamp events calendar, as we are planning on having a regular weekly meeting, certainly initially, and some training sessions to help people get up and running quickly on OpenSim.
A photo taken at the first Virtual HomeCamp meeting on the HomeCamp sim.
We currently have 13 offices on the HomeCamp sim. One of those is the HomeCamp main office and another has already been rented out to Mike TheBee. So feel free to come and grab yourself an office. There is no charge. Any office with a “Vacant. Enquire within” sign, just stake your claim on the office space. You might also want to ping either me or Tish Shute so we know it is your office.
Grab any office with a “Vacant. Enquire within” sign on the front. You’re also welcome to have a house and Dave Pentecost has already got a house rigged up with a live feed from Pachube, which is available to copy and use.
I’m on a building extravaganza at the moment, putting together the buildings and the real estate on the sims. As soon as the first batch of offices are taken up, I’ll create some more and we’ll keep filling up.
HomeCamp Labs is potentially the sim that we should use to run any experimental scripts. So we might want to think about limiting live data feeds and pachube feeds to the Labs sim. We are planning to have an auditorium for presentations and conference events and there will also be an expo area where green tech companies can have a booth. So get in touch if you want to have a booth in the Virtual HomeCamp expo.
The HomeCamp Sandbox sim is the place to go and do whatever you want. Try stuff and build. Just be kind to the environment and bear in mind that anything in the Sandbox area is likely to be deleted at any point. So do not leave important stuff in there, or let us know about it.
Overall, really excited by the strong turnout of people at the first Virtual HomeCamp meeting. Keep an eye on the wiki for the next one. There are also instructions on the wiki to get you up and running on OpenSim and ReactionGrid.
Announcing Home Camp 2
Home Camp 2 will be taking place on Saturday 25th April 2009 at Bash Creations:
65-71 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4PJ.
We are planning to have two tracks at this Home Camp. One track will be hands on hacking and the other track will be more presentation based. We feel both tracks have valid appeal, but would like to hear your comments on this.
We are also hoping to have Home Camp running on OpenSim so you can attend the event virtually if you are unable to make it.
Stay tuned as we release more details and if you haven’t signed up for Home Camp 2, head over to the wiki and signup.
Mission statement ideas
I got to thinking that it would be useful to have a pithy description of what Home Camp is all about.
Here’s a starting thought:
The home hacking, automation and green technology community
Let’s crowdsource this, though – I think that’s a nice short statement which describes what Home Camp covers without being either too exclusive, or specifically inclusive – but maybe other people have additions, changes, etc.?
Home Camp TV – what’s next? you decide!
So our initial series of Home Camp TV videos has now been published. What did you think? We’d love to hear your feedback, either on this post, the blog entries for the individual videos themselves, or over on YouTube.
Although we started this as part of the Friday Morning Report video marathon, it has been fun to put together. I’d be happy to produce some more episodes if there’s enough interest.
So… let us know what you think, what ideas you have for future episodes, what you want to hear about… it’s all about the community! Also, remember to visit the Home Camp wiki to add ideas for discussion at future meetups.
Home Camp TV – Andy Piper Interview
Here is an interview with Andy Piper, looking back at the first Home Camp and looking forward to the next one in April. General rambling about software and hardware hacks.
We cover a lot of subjects in this conversation, including home automation, Current Cost, Google Power Meter, Pachube, Nokia Home Control Center, arduino, Home Easy to name a few.
Take a look at the wiki for details of the next Home Camp in April.
The first Home Camp: looking back, and looking forward
Huge thanks to everyone who attended the first ever Home Camp event, which took place last Saturday at Imperial College London. Very special thanks have to go to our sponsors, Greenmonk and Current Cost, and to the Electrical Engineering Society at Imperial College who provided the venue for the event, which was just superb.
One aspect about the event that was particularly great was the diversity of interests and talents amongst the attendees. It was really a coming together of minds on energy efficiency, green computing, environmental awareness and home automation. It’s exciting to imagine where these thoughts can take us.
In case you missed it, or if you want to revisit the events of the day, we have a number of videos now online, and several folks have blogged and posted photos. If you have got content to share, we encourage you to tag it “homecamp08″ so that people can aggregate images on Flickr, or blog posts etc. (incidentally, if you also tag Flickr images with “upcoming:event=1304370″ then they will be linked with the Upcoming event).
Videos
Andy Stanford-Clark’s opening talk about his automated house is up on Viddler (about 30 minutes long):
Feedback from attendees can be found at Greenmonk and on Vimeo, along with a bonus video of James Governor helping to shape the agenda for the day’s talks. Archived videos from the live stream are on Ustream. (unfortunately it is not possible to embed these here, so follow the links for full details)
Write-ups
As of the time of writing a number of people have produced blog posts about their experiences – thanks for the feedback!
- Nick O’Leary
- Phoebe Bright
- Andy Piper
- Tom Taylor
- Andrew Whitehouse
- Dale Lane
- Jamie Ingilby
- Adrian McEwen
- Daniel Would
In other news:
- We have a new domain – http://homecamp.org.uk will direct you here to the blog. We still have the wiki where we can gather ideas for future events, and the discussion group on Google.
- The current plan is for a second event in March 2009!
- We have a FriendFeed room for gathering links and useful information.
Home Camp is a community-run event so we’re keen to look at new ideas and share code and information – look out for more over the coming months and feel free to get involved.
Home Camp is Live and Monitoring
After a few hectic weeks in the planning, I’m pleased to say that Home Camp happens today. I’m looking forward to this event. Ever since I started to think about Home Camp, it has been fun watching the event progress.
If you can’t come along in person, we’re hoping to stream as much as we can over at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/homecamp.
Home Camp Supporters
I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone for supporting Home Camp. There has been much behind the scenes work done by a huge amount of people, many of which will not be attending. It truly has been a joy working with you all while putting together Home Camp.
Home Camp is supported by Current Cost, who is sponsoring lunch, tea and coffee and furnishing each attendee with a new model CC128 Current Cost meter when they become available in December. Unfortunately, we will not be walking away with these new meters in our hand on the day, but we will all receive the new Current Cost meter when they become available in December.
Home Camp is supported by Green Monk, who is sponsoring drinks for Home Camp
A special thanks to the following people for their continued help and support in organising Home Camp:
Andy Stanford-Clark
Mark Charmer
James Governor
Janice McGinn
Alexis Biller
Finally a huge thanks for everyone at IBM and twitter followers for the retweeting, blogging and generally pimping links about Home Camp.
Home Camp Update
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up about Home Camp which is shaping up to be a great event. There are only a couple of places left now, so if you haven’t put your name down on the wiki, then head over and sign up.
The event is limited to 50 places with 49 people having signed up. If we go over the 50, then continue to put your name down in case we have any last minute drop outs etc.
Current Cost are giving each attendee to Home Camp a shiny new Current Cost monitor. We’ll be one of the first to get our hands on these.
Do remember to suggest your session topic over on the google discussion. We are also using this area to share code. Ruby code was added this week. Depending how many session topics are suggested, will depend how we run the day. So feel free to suggest ideas.
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/homecamp?hl=en
Look forward to seeing you all there next week and if you can’t make it, we’ll have some live streams.
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