Archive for the ‘UC Davis’ Tag
University of California, Davis engineering students Sam Dawson (left) and Andrew Chung (right) demonstrate their engineering project at the Bay Area Maker Faire. The microprocessors in each box are equipped with infrared sensors and emitters that “talk” to each other and glow different colors to indicate their relationships to another box.
The project provided hands-on experience in both hardware and software to supplement lectures and textbook learning.
Watch the video on YouTube Channel KH6WZ.
For more information on the UC Davis Engineering programs, visit
The Davis Adaptive RF Technology (DART) Lab
UC Davis College of Engineering – Electrical and Computer Engineering
2014 UC Davis Picnic Day
Not Your Grandpa’s Ham Radio
Maker Faire Bay Area 2014
The laser harp drew a lot of attention from little kids. The string less musical instrument features laser beams, laser sensors and an electronic harp that can actually teach how to play a tune.
Click here for more information on the UC Davis Laser Harp Project.
Watch the video on KH6WZ.
More Bay Area Maker Faire pictures and stories coming soon!
University of California, Davis Engineering Project at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014
This radar system operates at 2GHz (S-band). The Arduino stack consists of a radio front end, controlled by an Ardunio Uno and signal processing is performed using an Arduino Due. A Bluetooth link moves the data from the radar system to the notebook computer, where the radar information can be seen using a “waterfall” visual display.
The DART lab is located in Kemper Hall on the UC Davis campus and is led by Dr. Xiaoguang “Leo” Liu, pictured at left. Daniel (center) and David on the right demonstrated the 2GHz radar system to the Maker Faire visitors. For more information on the UC Davis Engineering programs, visit
The Davis Adaptive RF Technology (DART) Lab
UC Davis College of Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering
2014 UC Davis Picnic Day
Not Your Grandpa’s Ham Radio
Maker Faire Bay Area 2014
The big show is coming soon. Last year, over 120,000 people attended this science-art-food-engineering-fun-educational event.
This year, my team (Dennis Kidder W6DQ, Brian Yee W6BY and Marty Woll N6VI) will bring their newest ham radio projects to show. We will continue with my original theme called “Not Your Grandpa’s Ham Radio.”
A group of University of California, Davis (UCD) engineering students will join us to demonstrate their experiments and projects. These new engineers are getting a great head-start by doing hands-on, practical experiments and projects that go beyond their lecture and textbook learning.
Read my LinkedIn post to understand my personal passion about amateur radio, Makers, the Maker Faire and education.
Maker Walt discussing something fascinating with Jeri Ellsworth, aka “Circuit Girl.” Photo by Tony KC6QHP
Here is a report on the 2013 Maker Faire by Tony Long (KC6QHP):
Another great Maker Faire is in the books, amateur microwave radio was well represented!
Thanks to the coordination efforts of Wayne KH6WZ, Brian W6BY, the 50 MHz and Up Group, the SBMS, and UC Davis, the “Not Your Grandpa’s Ham Radio 2” booth at the Maker Faire was a great success.
This year we shared a booth with UC Davis whose impressive student projects ranged from a radar demonstration, to video processing, audio sequencing, and mechatronics. Along with that, we had a 10/24 GHz SDR setup courtesy of Dennis W6DQ (on a big screen courtesy of Brian), some of Brian’s homebrew gear, Walt’s EM field demos and transceivers, and some of my stuff including a 10 GHz radio and beacon.
LA Times says that about 165,000 people were expected to attend this year, so at a minimum 10,000 people passed by our booth. Our raspy voices are an indicator that a great deal of talking was done! I personally interacted with a number of people who are really interested in amateur microwave radio and if even a fraction of them get involved or raise general awareness, I think it is a success.
Walt’s demos, owing in part to their elegant simplicity and visual nature attracted a lot of attention and interest. On Sunday night he took them to a post-fair get-together with the who’s who of the hardware hacking scene (Jeri Ellsworth, Ben Heckendorn, Diana Eng, Alan Yates and many many others). All were impressed!
Something I see very encouraging in the “maker” scene is a real interest in RF. This crowd includes a good deal of embedded systems engineers, talented software people, etc. There’s a real opportunity to make connections with this crowd and get more activity on the microwave bands.
As Software Defined Radios decrease in cost and become more open source, I predict massive interest in RF and likely in the microwave bands because of their large bandwidths. While they may not be interested in SSB mountaintop to mountaintop contesting (there will be those who are certainly), an increase in use of our bands will only help to further the cause of maintaining our spectrum to help further the state of the art.
I posted a gallery of pictures on Flickr: http://goo.gl/cAy3p
Tony KC6QHP”
Thanks for the report, Tony!
