Recent hacktivity

This time of year seems to be hacking season and over the last few days I’ve been along to two hackdays!

Friday was IBM’s internal Social Business Hackday. There was some MQTT hacking, a z/OS hack, hacks with Lotus Connections, hacks that could be the future of Lotus Connections, and I was attempting to hack a work around for a Jazz work item. And that was just at the Hursley local event! We were able to link up with a few other labs, but over two days there were IBMers hacking around the globe. There are going to be a lot of amazing projects to choose from when it comes to voting.

(There are a few more photos from HackDay X, and previous hackdays, on the IBM hackday group on flickr.)

For round two, today was the soutHACKton hack day. By the time I arrived the soldering and drilling had already begun!! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay long so I’m hoping there’ll me more of these in the future. I did just about have time to try out an idea I had to hack an old doorbell to sense people using the door knocker. A while ago I had accidentally created a touch sensor with a 555 timer while attempting to build another circuit. So my cunning plan was to deliberately create a 555 touch switch and connect it to the bolt on the inside of the front door. Unfortunately the best I could manage today was a two wire touch sensor, which isn’t going to work. At least not without leaving a wire hanging out of the letter box with some instructions attached! Unless someone who knows more about electronics can suggest a plan B, I may just resort to a boring doorbell button instead!!


Recent hacktivity

This time of year seems to be hacking season and over the last few days I’ve been along to two hackdays!

Friday was IBM’s internal Social Business Hackday. There was some MQTT hacking, a z/OS hack, hacks with Lotus Connections, hacks that could be the future of Lotus Connections, and I was attempting to hack a work around for a Jazz work item. And that was just at the Hursley local event! We were able to link up with a few other labs, but over two days there were IBMers hacking around the globe. There are going to be a lot of amazing projects to choose from when it comes to voting.

(There are a few more photos from HackDay X, and previous hackdays, on the IBM hackday group on flickr.)

For round two, today was the soutHACKton hack day. By the time I arrived the soldering and drilling had already begun!! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay long so I’m hoping there’ll me more of these in the future. I did just about have time to try out an idea I had to hack an old doorbell to sense people using the door knocker. A while ago I had accidentally created a touch sensor with a 555 timer while attempting to build another circuit. So my cunning plan was to deliberately create a 555 touch switch and connect it to the bolt on the inside of the front door. Unfortunately the best I could manage today was a two wire touch sensor, which isn’t going to work. At least not without leaving a wire hanging out of the letter box with some instructions attached! Unless someone who knows more about electronics can suggest a plan B, I may just resort to a boring doorbell button instead!!