The Cowtown Computer Congress

CCCKC university is a project where we hold structured multi-session classes as a public service to the community.   Please contact us if you have questions and if you would like to enroll into one of the courses.

Over the course of the year we have 7 classes tentatively planned:

• Introduction to Computers (Joel) (January 8,15,22,29 8:30pm)
• Computer Applications – Office Applications (Open Office) – Joel(TBA)
• Computer Applications – Internet – Joel(TBA)
• Computer Security I – best practices – Joel(TBA)
• Basic Electronics – (TBA)
• Electronics – Servo Motors – Craig(TBA)
• Amateur Radio – Technician License test prep – CCCKC – ARC (Joel,Paul …)(TBA)

The cave in which CCCKC resides will be under maintenance beginning at 5 pm CST and ending at 10 pm CST. We ask that nobody attempts to go to the space tonight, in fear of falling down an elevator shaft or running into rock walls.

Mike Overstreet created an Ionic flyer at CCCKC.   It uses electricity to generate ions which create lift.

Here’s a video with some of the setup. A flyback transformer from an old CRT monitor is providing the HV source. Warning: do not mess with high voltage sources such as CRTs without proper training and safety equipment.

You can read more about these ionocraft lifters and electrohydrodynamic thrust on Wikipedia.

Zack shows us how he successfully created resonance induction after only 20 minutes of hacking. Nice job!

Here is the October 2009 Turbo talks video. (video is 50min long so you need their lame video viewer)

Follow this link to watch the Turbo Talk video, here

Come to CCCKC tonight for an informal meeting, or in other words to hang out and meet everyone involved with CCCKC.

Every one had a great time at the CCCKC November 2009 turbo talks!

Every 2nd Thursday of the month CCCKC has presenters who tell us about anything and everything that they find interesting or cool in 15 minutes or less.

This month our topics included:

• Personal Radio Services – Joel
• Maker Bot update, and thingaverse – Craig
• Robots! – Mike
• Rack mounts – Rixon
• Revision Control with Subversion – Elliot
• Introduction to Calculus – Jim

And don’t forget your beige box!

This Telephone Interface box was offered from a couple who no longer needed its service anymore in routing their calls to the PSTN, they use VoIP now. The only function that this box actually served was to connect all the phone lines in the house together. A call would come in and all the phones would ring.

The feed through the bottom middle of the box goes directly to a port on the Sipura device (Extension 1405). Since we now use Asterisk at CCCKC, the Sipura device connects over our LAN to Asterisk registering itself.

If you feel like reminiscing about your old phreaking days or want to feel the adrenaline of beige boxing, step right up and make a phone call!

Our cave themed Makerbot is finally up and printing out warm, plastic goodies!  Check out some pics of the build and a quick clip of the bot during it’s first build.

I’d like to thank everybody that helped us get this truly awesome little machine up and going.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing some awesome stuff coming out of this baby in the coming weeks!