HacDC

Rolando Quintanilla on how hackerspaces can help NASA:

In order for space exploration to prosper and become cost-effective robotic technology will need to be created and adapted to develop infrastructure that is necessary for human space exploration and industrial exploration. Concepts like those behind the RepRap, will be required to be further developed so that it is possible to automatically manufacture goods as needed in space. The RepRap technology in part has driven the conception of a previous future technology I proposed in “Future Tech: Spider-bots dial Home”. I imagine developing Spider-bots that can manufacture themselves, manufacture other things and can also be used for surveillance and exploration. Now if the technology required to do space exploration is developed in open-source/Creative Commons type methodologies, then groups of people will be able to work together in Hackerspaces, Universities and Industry to propel innovations forward that are created at NASA making space exploration cheaper.

We are again pleased to work with DorkbotDC to offer an excellent night of lecture and discussion at the HacDC space. On Thursday August 13, we will host Max Kazemzadeh, an artist and new professor at Gallaudet University, and Jack Whitsitt & Justin Cameron, two local security professionals and Quartz Composer enthusiasts. Full bios of the three are available at DorkbotDC.

Max will talk about his interest and work in the area of interactive art using hardware, software, sensors, computer vision over the last 10 years up to his present course of PhD research at the Planetary Collegium in the UK dealing with machine consciousness.

Jack and Justin will offer an introduction to Apple’s visual development environment combining some of the capabilities of Cocoa, Quartz 2D, Core Image, OpenGL, and QuickTime. Demos will include an audio visualizer, webcam input, MIDI control, and the integration of compositions into stand alone Cocoa applications.

What: HacDC + DorkbotDC
When: 13 August 2009. 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM (ET)
Where: Sanctuary Space, St. Stephen’s Church, 1525 Newton St NW, Washington DC 20010

Join us for another HacDC movie night!

When: 8 p.m. on Friday, 21 August 2009
Where: 1525 Newton St. NW, Washington, DC 20010
As always, this event is free and open to the public.

Arthur Ganson presents a few Machines

This DVD documents 36 machines, an animation machine sequences (3 short funny movies presented on my animation machine), a sequence showing how my wire gears are bent and soldered….and a few general scrolling text thoughts about the machines and the process. It is a straightforward documentation of the work which gives overall views of the pieces as well as many close-ups. The audio is strictly the sound of the machines themselves, except for Machine with Chair which is accompanied by a classical guitar piece which I wrote and perform.

This second challenge, based upon simple concepts such as encoding and decoding information, will also test how you deal with the psychological horror of the unknown (and possibly, the unknowable) 😉 You are allowed to use any language, unless the challenge specifies a specific language that you are to use. Post your source code, compiler version, and OS as a comment.

 

Some definitions:

a) The root node of a tree is the node with no parents. There is at most one root node in a rooted tree.

b) A leaf node has no children.

c) The height of a tree is the length of the path from the root to the deepest node in the tree. A (rooted) tree with only a node (the root) has a height of zero.

d) A binary tree is a tree data structure in which each node has at most two children.

 

Requirements:

1) A function named f1 , which will take a rooted binary tree structure and encodes the binary tree structure and its values into a single dimension array, which is then returned.

 

2) A function named f2, which will take single dimension array (encoded by f1) and converts the array into a binary tree structure, which is then returned.

 

3) A function named f3, that will return a randomly generated rooted binary tree structure, such that the binary tree structure has:

3a) One root node

3b) Every node, other than a leaf node, will have randomly, one or two children

3c) Each node, including the root and leaf nodes, will randomly contain one of the following values: 1,2,3,5,7

3d) The height of the tree is greater than zero and less than six.

 

Challenge:

Write a program that uses the output of f3 as input into f1, which is then used as input into f2.

Your program must show that the output of f2, its structure and the values of each node, matches the output of f3.

 

Language: Any

Difficulty: In the Mouth of Madness